This paper reviews current issues in youth labour markets in developed countries. It argues that young people aged 16-25 have been particularly hard hit during the current recession. Using the USA and UK as cast studies, it analyses both causes and effects of youth unemployment using micro-data....

This paper considers the issue of unemployment one of the most pressing issues facing the UK and other governments, as the current recessions deepens. It begins by trying to accurately date the beginning of the current downturn in the British economy, arguing that it is clear that the recession...

There is a growing belief that the recession has run its course and that the goods market has started a period of slow, but sustainable, recovery. Improvement in the labor market may take some time, but many believe that unemployment will return to its 2007 level in the medium term. In this...

On almost all measures of physical health, Scots fare worse than residents of any other region of the UK and often worse than the rest of Europe. Deaths from chronic liver disease and lung cancer are particularly prevalent in Scotland. The self-assessed wellbeing of Scots is lower than that of...

In this paper we build on our earlier work on underemployment using data from the UK. In particular, we explore their well-being based on hours preferences rather than on involuntary part-time work used in the prior literature. We make use of five main measures of well-being: happiness; life...

In the UK we construct the Bell/Blanchflower underemployment index based on reports of whether workers, including full-timers and those who want to be part-time, who say they want to increase or decrease their hours at the going wage rate. If they want to change their hours they report by how...

This paper considers the issue of unemployment one of the most pressing issues facing the UK and other governments, as the current recessions deepens. It begins by trying to accurately date the beginning of the current downturn in the British economy, arguing that it is clear that the recession...

There remains a puzzle around the world over why wage growth is so benign given the unemployment rate has returned to pre-recession levels. It is our contention that a considerable part of the explanation is the rise in underemployment which rose in the Great Recession but has not returned to...

In this paper we build on our earlier work on underemployment using data from the UK. In particular, we explore their well-being based on hours preferences rather than on involuntary part-time work used in the prior literature. We make use of five main measures of well-being: happiness; life...

This paper examines the amount of slack in the UK labor market. It examines the downward adjustments made by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to both unemployment and underemployment, which in our view are invalid. Without any evidence the MPC in its assessment of the output gap reduces the...