This paper assesses empirically two competing accounts of high unemployment, the structuralist and persistence theories. It identifies one structural break in UK and German unemployment around 1980 which is more severe in both absolute and relative terms than that for the US in 1973. This offers...

We provide evidence that ex ante misvaluation matters for merger activities in the UK 1986-2002 using a sample of 302 bidders and targets. Sector or long-run misvaluation causes merger firms to be more overvalued than nonmerger firms. Acquirers are overvalued absolutely and relative to targets...