Modelling the behaviour of unemployment rates in the US over time and across space

•Panel test allowing for cross-sectional dependency shows that rates are stationary.•Employment of generalised impulse response function based on a multi-dimensional VAR.•Half-life of a shock to equilibrium between each state pair is measured.•Distance has positive HL impact; vacancies and homeownership have negative HL impact.•Quantile regressions show that homeownership has positive HL impact at higher quantiles.

This paper provides evidence that unemployment rates across US states are stationary and therefore behave according to the natural rate hypothesis. We provide new insights by considering the effect of key variables on the speed of adjustment associated with unemployment shocks. A highly-dimensional VAR analysis of the half-lives associated with shocks to unemployment rates in pairs of states suggests that the distance between states and vacancy rates respectively exert a positive and negative influence. We find that higher homeownership rates do not lead to higher half-lives. When the symmetry assumption is relaxed through quantile regression, support for the Oswald hypothesis through a positive relationship between homeownership rates and half-lives is found at the higher quantiles.