This book examines whether or not the youth employment strategies practiced in the high efficiency and expanding economies of the United States and Germany can be adopted successfully in the Mediterranean countries of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and (southern) France, countries where youth face significant obstacles to employment. A distinguishing feature in the approach taken here is the importance placed on national culture, i.e., shared values and preferences with intergenerational sustainability that can have economic consequences. Like many other books on this subject the importance of ... More

This book examines whether or not the youth employment strategies practiced in the high efficiency and expanding economies of the United States and Germany can be adopted successfully in the Mediterranean countries of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and (southern) France, countries where youth face significant obstacles to employment. A distinguishing feature in the approach taken here is the importance placed on national culture, i.e., shared values and preferences with intergenerational sustainability that can have economic consequences. Like many other books on this subject the importance of the institutions and policies that underpin “free market capitalism” are discussed but an effort has been made to place these institutions and policies within a broader cultural and historical context. In the spirit of the pioneering work of Max Weber and the more recent contributions in the rapidly expanding sub-field of cultural economics, this book attempts to identify the elements of national value orientation that can facilitate or impede the adoption of new technologies, policies or institutional forms. It is the book’s contention, its overall thesis if you will, that a failure to correctly identify these value orientations will likely result in incomplete adoption and low levels of diffusion.