Hysteresis in unemployment

This book explores the importance, sources, and consequences of the presence of hysteresis in unemployment. The term hysteresis refers to a situation where an effect remains whereas its cause has disappeared. The concept was introduced in economics in the mid-ninety-eighties for trying to understand, and to cope with, the dramatic rise of unemployment in the aftermath of the implementation of economic policies based on frameworks including a natural rate of unemployment or a Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). How does hysteresis provide us with a suitable alternative to these frameworks? Are economic systems really path-independent; or does time matter ? Is time simply a subscript under the variables, something reversible, or can history have a long-lasting effect on the dynamics of the system? What is really hysteresis, and which definition can be operational in which context? How can the multiple concepts of hysteresis really help us understand the problem of unemployment? Can hysteresis be measured, and how? What are the intakes and the limits of hysteresis for understanding unemployment? This book provides enlightenments on these issues.

Autorentext

Dr. Dany Lang is associate Professor (maître de conferences) at the Université of Paris 13. He is the coordinator of the task group "Post-Keynesian analyses and modelling" of the Center of Economics of Paris North (National Center for Scientific Research).