Labour Market Policies: Unemployment and Work Activation

This paper aims at presenting the current situation of labour market policies, in general, and active labour market policies, in particular, in Spain. To do this, I analyze the following issues. First, a comparison with other European countries is carried out, examining not only the effort and the intensity of such policies but also their structure. Second, the late evolution of labour market policies and the changes they may exhibit in near future are studied. And third, reference is made to the literature of evaluation studies on the results of those policies on distinct economic variables, as they try to ascertain whether labour market policies are effective or not and to improve policy design in order to achieve better results.