Okuns

Okuns is a plural form that may refer to people who bear the surname Okun, or to variations of the economic relationship known as Okun's law. The most common usage in social science is the latter, though the plural form occasionally appears when discussing multiple versions of the law across countries and time periods.

Okun's law is an empirical relationship observed by economist Arthur Okun in 1962. It posits an inverse association between changes in the unemployment rate and the growth rate of a country's real GDP. In its simplest form, faster GDP growth tends to reduce unemployment, while sluggish growth can raise it. The strength of the relationship, often summarized as Okun's coefficient, varies by country, historical period, and methodology. It is widely used as a rule of thumb for macroeconomic analysis, policy evaluation, and forecasting, but it is not a precise law: the relationship can be affected by factors such as productivity changes, labor force participation, and unemployment definition, and there are considerable lags between growth and employment effects.

Notable people with the surname Okun include economist Arthur Okun, who is associated with the law that bears his name. The surname appears in various biographical and historical contexts, but the term Okuns is most often encountered in discussions of the law and its applications.