By conventional statistics, youth unemployment seems to be quite moderate in Korea: ‘only’ 9.6 percent of the ‘active’ youth labour force was unemployed compared to 21.4 percent in EU - 27 in 2011. Germany, with a youth unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, is one of the very few European...

This essay starts, after a short introduction on the importance and dimensions of "inclusive growth", with a brief empirical sketch on to what extent Europe has already succeeded with respect to this ambitious goal. The result is quite sobering and gives rise to the question: why is it so? The...

Industry 4.0 and robots are said to speed up productivity thereby inducing a 'quantum leap' towards the 'end of work' and calling for a complete change of social security institutions that have so far been closely linked to employment. Unconditional basic income is the cry of the day, curiously...

This essay first sketches some descriptive material, setting the stage and demonstrating the highly differentiated statistical landscape of various measures for youth unemployment in Europe compared to India and in particular to Germany. Second, it provides a simple but powerful model for the...