Understanding Unemployment

This collection of work by Lawrence Summers and colleagues Kim Clark, James Poterba, Gregory Mankiw, Julio Rotemberg, and Olivier Blanchard explores new theories of joblessness that could eventually explain why unemployment remains high despite relatively healthy economic growth. It is based on the notion that joblessness is an important, measurable, and definable concept of pervasive importance in modern economies. Understanding Unemployment contains a number of articles that have changed the way economists think about unemployment. These examine the burden of unemployment, the extent to which normal measures understate its consequences, its relationship to supply and demand factors, and the role of unions. Substantial introductory and concluding chapters present new and original material on the crucial facts that any theory of unemployment must grapple with, and the types of theories needed to accommodate the empirical facts of today's unemployment. Lawrence H. Summers is Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is editor of the series Tax Policy and the Economy.

This book argues that unemployment is symptomatic of an inherently inefficient labour market founded on structured inequalities of locality, sex, race and age. It provides a multidisciplinary explanation of why unemployment has been a continuing crisis, suitable for students in many disciplines.

An indispensable investigation into the American unemployment system and the ways gender and class affect the lives of those looking for work Through the intimate stories of those seeking work, The Tolls of Uncertainty offers a startling look at the nation’s unemployment system—who it helps, who it hurts, and what, if anything, we can do to make it fair. Drawing on interviews with one hundred men and women who have lost jobs across Pennsylvania, Sarah Damaske examines the ways unemployment shapes families, finances, health, and the job hunt. Damaske demonstrates that commonly held views of unemployment are either incomplete or just plain wrong. Shaped by a person’s gender and class, unemployment generates new inequalities that cast uncertainties on the search for work and on life chances beyond the world of work, threatening opportunity in America. Following in depth the lives of four individuals over the course of their unemployment experiences, Damaske offers insights into how the unemployed perceive their relationship to work. She reveals the high levels of blame that women who have lost jobs place on themselves, leading them to put their families’ needs above their own, sacrifice their health, and take on more tasks inside the home. This “guilt gap” illustrates how unemployment all too often exacerbates existing differences between men and women. Class privilege, too, gives some an advantage, while leaving others at the mercy of an underfunded unemployment system. Middle-class men are generally able to create the time and space to search for good work, but many others are bogged down by the challenges of poverty-level unemployment benefits and family pressures and fall further behind. Timely and engaging, The Tolls of Uncertainty posits that a new path must be taken if the nation’s unemployed are to find real relief.

This book argues that unemployment is symptomatic of an inherently inefficient labour market founded on structured inequalities of locality, sex, race and age. It provides a multidisciplinary explanation of why unemployment has been a continuing crisis, suitable for students in many disciplines.

This book is concerned with the psychological effects of unemployment. In writing it I had two main aims: (1) to describe theoretical approaches that are relevant to understanding unemployment effects; and (2) to present the re sults of studies from a program of research with which I have been closely involved over recent years. In order to meet these aims I have organized the book into two main parts. I discuss background research and theoretical approaches in the first half of the book, beginning with research concerned with the psychological effects of unemployment during the Great Depression and continuing through to a dis cussion of more recent contributions. I have not attempted to review the liter ature in fine detail. Instead, I refer to some of the landmark studies and to the main theoretical ideas that have been developed. This discussion takes us through theoretical approaches that have emerged from the study of work, employment, and unemployment to a consideration of wider frameworks that can also be applied to further our understanding of unemployment effects.

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: The diploma thesis Systems Thinking View on the Situation of Unemployment in the United States was performed at the University of California San Diego at the Department of Sociology with advise of Prof. John Evans PhD in cooperation with the Institute of Industrial Engineering, Ergonomics and Business Economics with advise of O.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Franz Wojda and Ass.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Walter Hackl-Gruber by Roland Schuster. It is in accordance to a specialization in leadership and organization. The diploma thesis has its roots in the general system theory and emphasizes on a holistic view on the situation of unemployment in the United States. The chosen approach is a combination of state of the art scientific knowledge from the fields of sociology, psychology and economy. In the previous work performed for the thesis it was detected that the diversity of the basic approach is necessary in meeting the complexity of the issue. The many different factors influencing the chosen topic of unemployment are widespread. Contributing to the theory of systems thinking the goal of the thesis was to find and describe an existing pattern that makes it possible to see the dynamic of the system. The systemic view takes in account that everything is interconnected and hence interacting. Systems thinking states that there are effects and influences on- and by unemployment that are only visible in applying a holistic view. The reason why the present paper is groundbreaking is not so much because of the used scientific knowledge, which is state of the art, but because of the combination of this knowledge. This combination is meant to regard to one of the tasks given by cybernetics in increasing differentiation instead of increasing growth. The basic standpoint is that the quantity of existing knowledge is already enough to create possible approaches for ways to optimize the current situation. Only lacking is the understanding of how all the fragments are connected. Systems thinking, an application of system theory, in this context, is seen as a tool that makes it possible to develop a model to generate this understanding. The thesis provides a brief overview of the United States Unemployment Insurance System and a systems thinking approach used for an interpretation of the current situation in the United States. The diploma thesis is seen as basic work for further research on the situation of unemployment in the [...]