This volume challenges the view that unemployment is exclusively determined by structural characteristics of the labour market and the social benefit system. Macroeconomic policies and investment in capital stock are included in the analysis and are shown to have a major role to play.

It is by now widely accepted that the structural characteristics of the countries to become the euro area did not adhere to the conditions of an optimum currency area (OCA) when the euro was introduced in 1999. However, the satisfaction of OCA criteria may not be required for a workable currency...

This paper challenges the institutional sclerosis view of the German crisis according to which rigid labour markets and generous welfare state institutions have driven Germany into its position as "Europe's sick man". In general, the view is not convincing, because the underlying hypotheses...