It was the first period in American history when we had ever run structural deficits of any size.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing with President Obama and President Clinton

Much of what economists know about structural unemployment has been gleaned from the sorry history of continental Europe, where fat benefits and rigid firing rules dulled labour-market efficiency.

ECONOMIST: Joblessness in America

He must persuade ordinary Greeks, battered by austerity, to accept cuts to the minimum wage, pensions and spending, as well as a programme of structural reform that has no parallel in modern Greek history.

ECONOMIST: The euro