Abstract
The unemployed are individuals who are without work but who are actively seeking employment. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labour force – the total number of people either working or seeking work – that is unemployed. The evidence suggests that the ‘natural rate’ of unemployment (or non-employment) is not a constant towards which the labour market converges; rather, it varies with labour market fundamentals.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Alchian, A. 1969. Information costs, pricing, and resource utilization. Western Economic Journal 7: 109–128.
Autor, D.H., and Mark G. Duggan. 2003. The rise in the disability rolls and the decline in unemployment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118: 157–205.
Autor, H., and Mark G. Duggan. 2006. The growth in the Social Security disability rolls: A fiscal crisis unfolding. Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (3): 71–96.
Friedman, M. 1968. The role of monetary policy. American Economic Review 58: 1–17.
Gronau, R. 1971. Information and frictional unemployment. American Economic Review 61: 290–301.
Juhn, C., K.M. Murphy, and R.H. Topel. 1991. Why has the natural rate of unemployment increased over time? Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1991 (1): 75–126.
Juhn, C., K.M. Murphy, and R.H. Topel. 2002. Current unemployment, historically contemplated. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2002 (1): 79–136.
Layard, R., S. Nickell, and R. Jackman. 1991. Unemployment: Macroeconomic performance and the labour market. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ljungqvist, L., and T.J. Sargent. 1998. The European unemployment dilemma. Journal of Political Economy 106: 514–550.
Lucas, R., and E. Prescott. 1974. Equilibrium search and unemployment. Journal of Economic Theory 4: 103–124.
McCall, J. 1970. Economics of information and job search. Quarterly Journal of Economics 84: 113–126.
Mortensen, D. 1970. A theory of wage and employment dynamics. In Microeconomic foundations of employment and inflation theory, ed. E.S. Phelps et al. New York: W.W. Norton.
Murphy, K.M., and R.H. Topel. 1987. The evolution of unemployment in the United States. In NBER macroeconomics annual 1987, ed. S. Fischer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Murphy, K.M., and R.H. Topel. 1997. Unemployment and nonemployment. American Economic Review 187: 295–300.
Phelps, E.S. 1974. Economic policy and unemployment in the 1960s. The Public Interest 34(Winter), 30–46.
Rogerson, R., R. Shimer, and R. Wright. 2005. Search-theoretic models of the labor market: A survey. Journal of Economic Literature 43: 959–988.
Topel, R.H. 1993. What have we learned from empirical studies of unemployment and turnover? American Economic Review 83: 110–115.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Topel, R. (2018). Unemployment. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1772
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1772
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences