Workshops, Seminars and Conferences
The Unemployment Crisis: Costs, Causes and Cures
October 22, 2010
About the Seminar
This workshop is part of the IMF’s attempts, in partnership with the ILO and other institutions “to tackle the difficult—but critical—policy questions posed by the steep rise in joblessness and the setback to growth and poverty reduction”
The workshop will tackle issues being debated in policy circles:
- How much of the increase in U.S. unemployment is cyclical vs. structural? Paul Krugman and Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota have opposing views on this. New work by IMF staff on this topic will be featured at the workshop, along with work by scholars at the Brookings Institution and the Roosevelt Institute.
- Did the sharp rise in inequality and stagnation in median wages lead to excessive borrowing and ultimately to the financial crisis? Raghu Rajan and Robert Reich have made this argument and it has quickly become part of folklore. New work by IMF staff investigates these links, followed by comments from George Akerlof.
- Looking down the road, do we need to make our macroeconomic frameworks more employment friendly? Some preliminary thinking by the ILO on this topic will be featured.
- Till von Wachter of Columbia University will give a keynote luncheon address on the long-term adverse effects on people and their families from temporary spells of unemployment and job loss.
Disclaimer
The website contains papers and web links to papers that were presented at The Unemployment Crisis: Costs, Causes and Cures. The views expressed in these papers are those of the authors only, and the presence of them, or of links to them, on the IMF website does not imply that the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management endorses or shares the views expressed in the papers.
