Professor Dennis J. Snower, President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy since 2004, addresses the riddle of persistent unemployment in free market economies, outlining first a set of popular explanations for this phenomenon (and quickly showing why they are inadequate), then the main...

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on unemployment, and the political difficulties in implementing more extensive reform programs. We argue that the heart of...