Understanding Long-Term Unemployment in the Czech Republic

One potential negative impact of the EU accession of Central European economies could be unemployment hysteresis working through long-term unemployment (LTU). In this paper we explore the mechanisms of LTU by providing a detailed description of the recent rise in Czech LTU following a domestic recession in 1997. We place the Czech data in an international context using VAR-based simulations and examine the role of welfare benefits in driving LTU.