Europe's notoriously high level of unemployment is one of the big puzzles of empirical macroeconomics. In recent years, the unemployment rate has fallen in The Netherlands, but the overall level in OECD Europe remains high. An investigation into why Dutch economic policy has been relatively effective could be useful for the unemployment debate in Europe. This book contributes to this investigation with its empirical analysis covering three important topics. The first part of the book investigates whether (macro) economic policies could be effective in reducing unemployment in the short run....