Some reflections on theories of unemployment in the North American context

This paper is an attempt to present a summary and perspective on some recent developments in the macroeconomic theories of unemployment. Sections II and III deal respectively with the existing explanations of long term unemployment and the fluctuations in the short term unemployment. Section IV examines how these theories help us in unraveling the United States-Canada unemployment rate divergence puzzle. Some directions for future research are suggested in Section V.