Labour Market Policy And Unemployment

This book presents the proceedings of a conference on labour markets. It advances thinking on new policy measures, such as active labour market policies and measures to "make work pay".

There is substantial disagreement among policy-makers about how governments should respond to the problem of high unemployment. Thus far there has been little, if any, systematic attempt to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the main unemployment policies available to governments in market economies. Individual policy recommendations are usually made in isolation from one another. This book attempts to provide a balanced assessment of the various policy options, including the following: demand management versus supply-side policy, subsidizing employment and training, restructuring labour market regulations, and reforming the welfare state. The book also examines the political economy of unemployment policy and the effect of this policy on productivity growth.

This book argues that unemployment is symptomatic of an inherently inefficient labour market founded on structured inequalities of locality, sex, race and age. It provides a multidisciplinary explanation of why unemployment has been a continuing crisis, suitable for students in many disciplines.

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This second volume from the Swedish Trade Union Research Institute looks at recent research on labor market policies. The question of the extent of government intervention is examined between the two extremes of the effects of unrestricted and unhampered markets on the one hand, and the old Keynesian view of benevolent governments on the other. Job creation policies and labor market programs both in Europe and the United States are reviewed and cost-benefit rules for job-training programs are proposed. Also discussed are general issues concerning unemployment insurance and incentives.

Unemployment in Theory and Practice examines the effectiveness of current policies in the battle against unemployment. It uses a variety of country case studies to analyse the range of potential causes of and cures for unemployment and analyses the complex nature of labour markets.

Using a sample of 97 countries spanning the period 1980?2008, we estimate that financial crises have a large negative impact on unemployment in the short term, but that this effect rapidly disappears in the medium term in countries with flexible labor market institutions, whereas the impact of financial crises is less pronounced but more persistent in countries with more rigid labor market institutions. These effects are even larger for youth unemployment in the short term and long-term unemployment in the medium term. Conversely, large upfront, or gradual but significant, comprehensive labor market policies have a positive impact on unemployment, albeit only in the medium term.

This book presents the proceedings of a conference on Labour Market Policies and the Public Employment Service.