Fitting Okun's law for the Swazi Kingdom: Will a nonlinear specification do?

Despite Okun's law being hailed one of the most fundamental pieces within macroeconomic policy paradigm, empirical evidence existing for the Kingdom of Swaziland remains virtually non-existent. Our study fills this void/hiatus in the literature by examining Okun's law for the Swazi Kingdom by using the nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag (N-ARDL) model applied to data collected over 1991 to 2017. To ensure robustness of our empirical analysis, we further apply the Corbae-Oularis (C-O) filter to extract the gap variables required for empirical estimates. Remarkably, we find strong evidence for nonlinear Okun's trade-off between unemployment and output growth in Swaziland with this trade-off being stronger during recessionary periods compared to expansionary periods. Much-needed policy enlightenment is drawn for Swazi authorities from our findings.