Understanding unemployment flows

This article reviews the current state of research on unemployment dynamics in macroeconomic models. In particular, it discusses the increasingly widespread use of the labour-market flow approach as implemented via a search and matching process and presents main policy considerations that arise from this approach related to unemployment benefit systems and employment protection. It reviews the implications of the labour-flow approach for dynamic properties of macroeconomic models and discusses policy implications for macroeconomic and labour-market policies. Finally, it presents new evidence on the effectiveness of policies to influence unemployment in- and outflows.