"Natural rate theory" - the application of the efficient market hypothesis to labour markets has guided economic policy since the 1970s and laid the foundations for the design of major European institutions in the 1990s. Unfettered markets were declared to be stable, and consequently public...

Natural rate theory has dominated interpretations of economic trends and policy prescriptions over many decades, as economists contrasted high unemployment and lower inequality in Europe with the great American job machine. This paper discusses the relationship between skill structure and wage...

Germany’s austerity-oriented economic policy is the wrong approach. Markets need demand stimulation to achieve full use of resources, argues Krugman, a Keynesian economist. Neoclassical economists have been warning that expansionary macroeconomic policies are not only useless but can even be...

In view of high and rising jobless rates in the industrialized countries the solution of the unemployment problem becomes a cardinal question for politicians and economists. What factors have determined the unemployment trend since the 1960s and what conclusions can be drawn for employment policy?