The Un-Intended Convergence: How the Finnish Unemployment Reached the European Level

Erkki Koskela and Roope Uusitalo

No 878, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: The Finnish unemployment rose in the early 1990’s from three to eighteen percent in four years. Unemployment has then decreased to the average European level, being 8.5 percent in October 2002. In this paper, we describe the shocks leading to this unforeseen increase in unemployment. We then discuss the role of labour market institutions in the adjustment process that has brought unemployment back to ‘normal’ levels. We argue that these institutions cannot be blamed for the increase in unemployment, but that more flexible institutions could have lead to a more rapid decline in unemployment.

Keywords: unemployment; labour market institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Working Paper: Unintended convergence: how Finnish unemployment reached the European level (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_878

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