Abstract
FROM THE MID-1970s to the mid-1980s, most of the industrial economies
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
suffered a sharp slide in economic activity, as measured both by employment
in relation to the labor force and by male labor force participation
in relation to the working-age population. This decline sparked new structuralist
modeling of the determinants of employment and supplied an
empirical record for testing the models. Some consensus has now emerged
on the main mechanisms and causal forces behind the deep slump.
Discussants
