Two key facts about European unemployment must be explained: the rise in unemployment since the 1960s, and the … heterogeneity of individual country experiences. While adverse shocks can potentially explain much of the rise in unemployment … institutions pre-date the rise in unemployment. Based on a panel of institutions and shocks for 20 OECD nations since 1960, we find …

interpretation for the dynamic inflation--unemployment relation found in the data …

, leading in turn to higher, not lower, unemployment. And, even if unemployment comes down, workers may actually be worse off …, going through many spells of unemployment and fixed duration jobs, before obtaining a regular job. Looking at French data … substantial reduction in unemployment duration. If anything, their effect on welfare of young workers appears to have been …

of unemployment. It is this body of work we assess in this paper. We reach two main conclusions. First, there has been … think for example about the relation between technological progrss and unemployment. Second, empirical knowledge lags behind … countries. We look at two issues, the relation of wages to unemployment, and the risk of European unemployment …