Youth and the total unemployment rate: the impact of policies and institutions

This paper estimates the impact of several institutions and policies on youth and total unemployment rates for a large set of developed countries during the last three decades. The estimation technique used is a fixed effect panel analysis. Our empirical analysis shows that, in addition to economic growth, economic freedom, labour market reforms, a high share of part time employment, and active labour market policies reduce unemployment and improve labour market performance. Considering the poor condition of young people relative to older people, our results permit us to select, among the policies and reforms that reduce overall unemployment, the policies that have a comparatively high effect on youth unemployment.