Labour Market Institutions: Sensitivity to the Cycle and Impact of the Crisis in European Regions

The current economic crisis has had spatially differentiated impacts in both the US and Europe. A growing collection of literature investigates the determinants of the magnitude of this recession across regions. This paper aims to contribute to this literature by analysing variations in unemployment rate across European regions over the period 2004–11. In particular, we focus on two apparently neglected issues, namely labour market rigidity and the sensitivity of the local economy to the national or European business cycle. The rigidity of the labour market is increasingly viewed as a possible... Mehr ...