Written by leading experts in the field, this book provides a broad survey of unemployment. Explaining what has happened to employment levels in the industrialized countries in the 1970s and 1980s, the authors discuss why unemployment is so high and why it has fluctuated so wildly, how unemployment affects inflation, and whether full employment can ever be combined with price stability. For each issue it develops a relevant theory, followed by extensive empirical analysis, drawing on material from both Europe and America.

Examining the characteristics and behavior of unemployed people in Great Britain as they search for work, this study uses specialized data to overcome many problems associated with measuring the effects of economic, demographic, and policy variables on unemployment.

Why has unemployment fallen in some countries and not in others? This classic book is now re-issued with an updated introduction, which shows how well the analysis explains recent developments. The book is both a textbook and an original monograph in which the authors set out their analytic framework which has now become standard in some countries. The book both explains unemployment and shows how it can be reduced. It contains a long overview chapter which is accessible to any non-specialist with an elementary knowledge of economics.