Unemployment and common smooth transition trends in Central and Eastern European Countries

In this paper we analyse whether the apparent comovement of unemployment rates for some of the Central and Eastern EU new members can be explained by a common force, possibly linked to the process of economic integration. For this purpose we test for nonlinear unit roots as a first step to testing for common nonlinearities. Our results show that for five countries, out of eight, unemployment dynamics appear to be well described as a stationary process around highly persistent structural changes. Furthermore, we find evidence of a common nonlinear component driving the unemployment rates.