This book presents what was learned from the author's vast experience of observing, diagnosing and analysing unemployment statistics.

In this collection of essays. Edmond Malinvaud aims at explaining what he learned as a government statistician, particularly with respect to the unemployment problems of the last two decades. The government expert must forecast for diagnosing spontaneous trends or assessing the likely impact of public decisions. Such forecasts rely on a more or less intensive analysis. To understand the main distinction between frictional and disequilibrium unemployment requires a more rigorous conceptual apparatus than is often acknowledged; this leads to a properly defined Beveridge curve playing the major role. The most vexing issue concerns the effect of real wages on the medium term trend of labour demand; it cannot be well grasped without a good understanding of investment, for which the author presents his reference model.

Preface
Prologue to the Federico Caffe Lectures 1990
Introduction
1. Expert diagnosis
2. Analysis and forecasting: their respective roles in mastering our destinies
3. From statistics to projections
4. Diagnosing unemployment trends
5. The Beveridge curve
6. Real wages and unemployment - a decade of analysis
7. Profitability and factor demand under uncertainty.