Using data from 19 industrial countries for the period 1985-2002, this paper analyses whether the quality of industrial relations affects unemployment and employment rates. To measure the quality of industrial relations, we use the results of surveys in which senior business executives...

Using data on 68 developing countries from 1979 to 2008 and controlling for a wide array of factors, this paper finds that a rise in the real interest rate increases the unemployment rate and decreases the employment rate. The magnitude of these effects is small. The results are robust to...

During the course of European integration social policy has become an increasingly important policy area of the European Union. The paper analyses whether the EU’s social‐policy measures improve the living conditions of the socially weaker groups. All three areas of European social policy...