In recent years, there has been an intense debate among economists about the causes of unemployment in Europe. Broadly speaking, the views can be grouped into two familiar camps: those with a more (neo-)classical outlook - stressing the importance of factor price movements, institutional...

This paper presents a synoptic interpretation of structural unemployment in Europe. The paper consists of three parts. Part 1 summarises some major stilysed facts of the record and the state of unemployment in Europe. In part 2, these facts are taken as the basis for a theoretical interpretation...

The main point of this paper will be that West German unemployment in the late 1980's has a curious double character: while its genesis is largely determined by the macroeconomic events of the last two decades - two stabilization crises and one wage revolution -, its current state reveals...