This paper provides a theoretical and empirical appraisal of the shocks-institutions controversy as an explanation of unemployment heterogeneity in OECD countries. Since the influential work of Blanchard and Wolfers (2000), many studies have tried to explain the differences in the OECD...

This paper adds to the already vast economic literature on the respective role of shocks and institutions in unemployment dynamics. Conclusions of existing studies widely diverge. Such divergences are mainly due to a weak theoretical framework underlying the models which have been estimated. We...