Investigating Variations in Unemployment Between North and South Spain and Associated Implications

Winner of the Libraries' Award for Undergraduate Research Excellence: (2022). 37 pages.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