Word.ws English Dictionary

Okun's law

Okun's law proper noun: an empirically observed relationship between unemployment and losses in a country's production. The "gap version" states that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP will be roughly an additional 2% lower than its potential GDP. The "difference version" describes the relationship between quarterly changes in unemployment and quarterly changes in real GDP.

Proper noun

Okun's law

  1. An empirically observed relationship between unemployment and losses in a country's production. The "gap version" states that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP will be roughly an additional 2% lower than its potential GDP. The "difference version" describes the relationship between quarterly changes in unemployment and quarterly changes in real GDP.

Origin of Okun's law

Named after Arthur Melvin Okun, who proposed the relationship in 1962.

Questions about Okun's law

What does Okun's law mean?
Okun's law means an empirically observed relationship between unemployment and losses in a country's production. The "gap version" states that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP will be roughly an additional 2% lower than its potential GDP. The "difference version" describes the relationship between quarterly changes in unemployment and quarterly changes in real GDP.
What part of speech is Okun's law?
Okun's law is a proper noun.

Words near Okun's law in the dictionary

  1. Okuma
  2. Okumas
  3. Okumura
  4. Okumuras
  5. Okun
  6. Okun's law
  7. Okunian
  8. Okunjan
  9. Okuns
  10. okupukupu
  11. okuriashi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Okun's law (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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