Regional Labour Markets Analytical Contributions and Cross-national Comparisons

Although there is a substantial literature on labour market research, most of it ignores the spatial dimension of the labour market. A deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of spatial labour markets is a prerequisite for public policy aiming to promote more efficient spatial labour market coordinations and allocation. The current state of spatial labour market research is presented in this book, by addressing analytical issues, by identifying and evaluating current trends on urban and regional labour markets and by comparing the operations of spatial labour markets in various industrialised countries. The central focus of the volume is on a cross-national comparison of regional labour markets in 15 countries, based on a joint research effort of teams from these countries. It provides a wealth of information on developments, mechanisms, bottlenecks, policy issues and analytical research efforts in regional labour markets. In addition, various state-of-the-art reviews and new analytical advances (in the areas of e.g. search behaviour, competition, information modelling, etc.) in the field of spatial labour market analysis are presented.