Unemployment, innovation and R&D: introduction

This paper aims to introduce the contributions in this special issue on “Unemployment, innovation and R&D”, and provide a brief outline of the international conference organised by the Applied Econometrics Association on “Policies against Unemployment”.

The paper is descriptive in nature.

The papers presented in this special issue shed some light on the key determinants of unemployment levels, and help to identify policies that can tackle unemployment successfully.

Some radically different approaches to the issue of tackling unemployment are presented. The special issue, of which this paper is a part, provides further new evidence on the impact of innovation and R&D on employment/unemployment and unemployment persistence.