Throughout the world, strong dispersions of both regional and national unemployment rates can be observed. The economic theory has developed various explanations on how this differences occur. Corresponding models mainly aim at institutional and political framework, insider effects, efficiency...

This volume was prepared by Benedikt Heid while he was working at the ifo Institute and the University of Bayreuth. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. It includes six self-contained...