The unemployment crisis

Book

The authors have fully revised and updated part of their 1991 book - "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market" - to create a shorter, accessible undergraduate textbook on unemployment. The authors question the inevitability of present levels of unemployment in the Western world, and the view that a trade-off exists between price stability and unemployment levels. Students are presented with an explanation of the reasons for unemployment, the existence of an average level, and the reasons that unemployment levels often fluctuate. The authors have created a general framework of analysis which fully integrates macroeconomic theory with a detailed look at the microeconomic workings of the labour market. This is illuminated by up-to-the-minute empirical evidence relating to all OECD countries. This book also incorporates the latest theoretical thinking on topics such as insider-outsider theories, and hysteresis in labour markets, as well as revealing the role of factors such as union bargaining, efficiency wages and labour mobility. The final section weighs up various governmental practices to combat unemployment, and reveals the different institutions and recent experiences of OECD countries.

Authors: Layard, R; Nickell, S; Jackman, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Place of publication: Oxford and New York
• Publication date: 1994-01-01
• Language: English