Unions, Dutch Disease and Unemployment

Models are needed that can explain both the recent structural chang e in the U.K. economy and the possibility that this might have long-r un effects on unemployment. The major results are that arise in material prices is likely to increase long-run unemployment for countries that are net importers of materials, but might lower it for net exporters; that the discovery of a resource like North Sea oil lowers equilibrium unemployment; and that a model with exogenous "union" wages cannot predict the observed pattern of deindustrialization after an oil discovery, but one with an endogenous union wage may.