Abstract:
Unemployment rates in Southern Spain have long been significantly higher than in
Northern Spain, negatively affecting Spain’s national unemployment rate. This has led Spain to
have one of the highest unemployment rates in the EU, making it a target for corrective policies.
The European Central Bank has enacted conservative fiscal policy across members and
implemented further austerity policies on Spain due to its perceived high risk to the Euro and
large amount of unpaid loans. The ECB has continued to increase interest rates for the currency
which negatively effects economies trying to stimulate investment such as Spain. The regional
difference has previously been explored through purely quantitative methods and is widely
attributed to a deficit in industrial output or a cultural aversion to work. The purpose of this
research is to use a combination of quantitative decomposition through regression and various
historical, policy, and geo-sensing sources to gain a deeper understanding of factors which may
contribute to unemployment, to explore possible avenues for development which could improve
employment in the South.