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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the time series behavior of Greek labor market series by providing an empirical perspective on trend breaks and unit roots. Trend breaks represent aggregate behavior responses to “infrequent” changes in economic fundamentals, including changes in fiscal or labor market conditions, as have been perceived in Greece during the last years. Unit roots reveal whether “regular” shocks have significant effects on the level of the series over a specified finite horizon. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ recent procedures that deal with the “circular testing problem” between tests on the parameters of the trend function and unit root tests that often arises in empirical applications. These techniques assess trend function stability and are robust regardless of whether the noise component is stationary or having a unit root. Then, conditional on the presence of breaks, the authors test whether the series can be characterized by a stochastic trend. Findings – The analysis provides evidence of “infrequent” trend breaks that appear to coincide with the recent global economic crisis and the implementation of the counteraction (fiscal) measures to the Greek debt crisis. Allowing for trend breaks does not lead to a rejection of the unit root hypothesis, which might reflect the low flexibility of the country’s labor market operation. Practical implications – The procedures employed can be viewed as new tools that might help empirical researchers to explore more accurately the characteristics of individual time series and to find reasonable approximations to the true processes of the time series examined. Originality/value – The paper provides new information on the presence of structural changes in the Greek labor market, and on whether the “aggressive” and “occasional” nature of fiscal measures can be approximated by infrequent changes in the slope of the trend function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of financial crises on the youth unemployment rate (YUR). The authors consider different types of financial crises (systemic banking crises, non-systemic banking crises, currency crises and debt crises) and different groups of countries, according to their income level. Design/methodology/approach – After a review of the existing (theoretical and empirical) literature on the determinants of the YUR in general and at the occurrence of economic crises, the authors present empirical estimations on the impact of past financial crises on young workers. The relationship between financial crises and YUR is investigated by employing fixed effects panel estimation on a large panel of countries (about 70) around the world for the period 1980-2005. The "persistence" over time of the impact is also investigated. Finally the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel is estimated, confirming the significance of the results. Findings – According to the authors' empirical estimates, two key results are relevant: financial crises have an impact on the YUR that goes beyond the impact resulting from GDP changes; and the effect on the YUR is greater than the effect on overall unemployment. The inclusion of many control variables – including in particular GDP growth – does not change the sign and significance of the key explanatory variable. The results suggest that financial crises affect the YUR for five years after the onset of the crises; however, the most adverse effects are found in the second and third year after the financial crisis. Research limitations/implications – Although fully aware of the peculiarities of the last crisis, the authors believe that the econometric results facilitate a better understanding of the impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis on the youth labour market. Practical implications – The main policy implication is that effective active labour market policies and better school-to-work transition institutions are particularly needed to reduce the risk of persistence and structural (long-term) unemployment, since young people have been worst affected by the last crisis. Originality/value – There are many studies on the characteristics and causes of youth unemployment; considerable research has also been carried out into the labour market impact of financial crises. This paper brings the two strands of literature together, by econometrically investigating the impact of financial crises on YUR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze how financial system turmoil affected unemployment in industrial countries during the period 1982 to 2003. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses annual data on 17 industrial countries. It employs the International Monetary Fund's financial stress index and a large number of controls. Findings – The paper finds that, during the sample period, financial market turmoil had only moderate adverse effects on unemployment. Stress in the banking sector and stress in foreign exchange markets were particularly likely to increase unemployment, although the relevant effects were modest too. Turmoil in securities markets affected unemployment only slightly. The results are robust to variations in specification. Originality/value – While previous papers only look at a small number of banking crises, this paper's sample includes crises in all major areas of the financial sector. Furthermore, whereas previous papers cover only major crises, it additionally takes both minor crises and periods of relative calm into account. Finally, this paper is the first to statistically control for the impact of all major determinants of labor market performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current neo-liberal trend in the United States insists that citizens must be self-supporting and are free to choose how they will involve themselves in the labor market. However; with the hardening of poverty in the inner cities, it is difficult to maintain the idea that everyone can choose to work The collision between neo-liberal ideologies and economic crisis is evidenced by contemporary prison labor The incarceration boom and use of prison labor suggests that work and unemployment is a matter of character; thus helping to maintain the idealization of labor as a marker of rationality, disciplined free will, and hence citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]