Réduction du chômage : les réussites en Europe

Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Olivier Passet's report analyzes the period between 1983 and 1999. They have established two groups of countries whose unemployment rate has now been reduced to a low level. The first group comprises countries such as Austria, Japan, Norway and Switzerland, representing 'models of resistance' as they have 'resisted' by maintaining a low level of unemployment. The second group comprises countries that are better defined as 'dynamic models', namely Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom, as unemployment in these countries has fallen from a high level. The United States, where the unemployment rate indeed reached a high level during a brief period in the early eighties, can be included in both of these categories. The above analysis shows that institutional variables or a composite flexibility indicator (as defined by the OECD) representing several institutional characteristics, do not provide for any distinction between the experiences of the 'model' countries and those of other countries. Furthermore, neither the persistence nor the response of unemployment to macroeconomic shocks seem to be dependent to any great extent on the structure of the labor market or on changes undergone by the institutions in this market. The specific interaction between shocks and institutions seems to provide a more satisfactory explanation for the discrepancies in terms of results.