In Europe, high and persistent unemployment is usually attributed entirely to "labor market rigidity". The only remedy seriously discussed is deregulation of the labor market. This essay argues that there are two further sources of high unemployment in Europe: over-regulation and weakness of...

The aim of this paper is to analyze and estimate salient characteristics of unemployment dynamics. Movements in unemployment are viewed as "chain reactions" of responses to labor market shocks, working their way through systems of interacting lagged adjustment processes. In the context of...

In contrast to much recent work regarding the causes of European unemployment, in this paper, we emphasise the importance of capital accumulation. But unlike the few previous studies which have examined the relationship between capital accumulation and unemployment, we argue that what matters...