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Unemployment and job search

Persistent unemployment imposes economic and social hardships on jobseekers and their families, and is also costly for employers and governments.

CEP's seminal contributions to the modelling of search frictions in labour markets, for which Christopher Pissarides was awarded the Nobel Prize, set the scene for much of the macro-labour literature on understanding how different labour market policies can shape the equilibrium level of unemployment and was followed by empirical studies of matching functions.

Richard Layard, Steve Nickell and Richard Jackman's foundational work on the role of labour market institutions in shaping the level of unemployment has also been instrumental in shifting the way the UK's labour markets and subsequently those of most European countries operate. Their work on the effective supply of labour as the main underlying determinant of employment has influenced the adoption of New Deal type policies in the UK and Europe.

More recent work on unemployment has examined the role of local labour markets in shaping job search and why unemployment persists in particular local labour markets in the UK and the US. The CEP has also studied unemployment in the Great Recession and whether modern technology plays a role in jobless recoveries.



Unemployment and job search publications

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