This Selected Issues paper analyzes labor market policies and unemployment dynamics in Spain. It provides a brief overview of economic developments and the institutional evolution of the Spanish labor market. The paper presents a basic model of the labor market, which is estimated for 1971–93....

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the sources of the persistence of geographical unemployment imbalances and low speed of adjustment to regional labor demand shocks in Spain. The paper argues that, under present labor market arrangements, these imbalances are unlikely to be corrected in the...

Spain has the most serious and persistent unemployment problem in Europe, with an unemployment rate that reached 24.6 percent in early 1994. This paper explores the characteristics of this unemployment problem, its causes, and provides a brief discussion of recent labor market reform measures...