Conference to explore effects of long-term unemployment

A conference at the University of Wisconsin–Madison will explore the challenges posed by high levels of unemployment across industrialized nations over an extended period of time.

Economists have noted that even as the causes of long-term unemployment are debated, it’s clear that the persistence of such high levels of joblessness threatens to become a structural problem, darkening the prospect for economic recovery. Policymakers around the world haven’t yet begun to address this new phenomenon and are still searching for strategies to meet these new challenges.

The half-day outreach conference, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for 8:30-11 a.m. Thursday, April 28, at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. It is aimed at business executives, state agency leaders, bankers, workforce development experts, economic planners and others dealing with long-term unemployment.

Several UW–Madison faculty members will be involved, including Carolyn Heinrich, professor and chair of the La Follette School of Public Affairs; Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics; Tim Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty; Mark Copelovitch, assistant professor of political science and public affairs; Tom Deleire, associate professor of public affairs and population health; and Rasmus Lentz, associate professor of economics. Chinn and Copelovitch are organizing the conference.

Other experts scheduled to discuss the problem include Prakash Loungani, adviser in the research department of the International Monetary Foundation; Kenneth Scheve, a political science professor from Yale University; Rob Valletta of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco; and Daniel Aaronson of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, among others.

Primary sponsors for the conference are UW–Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy. Other sponsors are the Center for European Studies, the European Union Center of Excellence, Institute for Research on Poverty and UW–Madison’s departments of Economics and Political Science.

A full agenda is available at http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mchinn/LTUE.html.