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Labor Market Policy in a Global Economy

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Globalization and Unemployment

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Abstract

This paper deals with the much discussed question how to design labor market policy in a global economy. Mass unemployment is clearly the principal economic policy problem in most continental European countries nowadays and rising unemployment is often associated with more open goods and factor markets which are labeled with the catchword “globalization”. Patience of the public diminishes in expecting governments to offer and successfully execute remedies to this grossly inefficient and unjust state of affairs on labor markets. The liberalization of trade and of capital flows is in acute danger of being reverted if the perception becomes even more widespread that growing unemployment is the inevitable consequence of globalization. Governments which fail or are too slow in reducing unemployment are relentlessly voted out of office these days. The German case is only one example in kind. However, lasting success in the fight against unemployment can only be expected if a correct diagnosis precedes the design and implementation of policy measures. Quixotic policies such as a move towards protectionism, which governments are all too tempted to undertake, are in general at best successful in the very short run while often exacerbating the unemployment problem in the longer run.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Würzburg, Sanderring 2, 97070, Würzburg, Germany

    Norbert Berthold & Rainer Fehn

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  1. Norbert Berthold
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  2. Rainer Fehn
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hagen, Feithstrasse 140, 58084, Hagen, Germany

    Helmut Wagner (Chair of Macroeconomics) (Chair of Macroeconomics)

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© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Berthold, N., Fehn, R. (2000). Labor Market Policy in a Global Economy. In: Wagner, H. (eds) Globalization and Unemployment. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04082-9_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04082-9_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-08606-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-04082-9

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