Francesco Pastore [Ph.D. (Sussex); Dottorato
("Federico II"); M.Sc. (Coripe-Piemonte); Laurea ("Federico
II")] qualified as full professor of Economic Policy and as Associate
Professor of Economics and Economic Statistics in 2013. Currently, he is
Associate Professor of Economics at Seconda Università di Napoli, research
fellow of the IZA of Bonn, Secretary of the Italian Association of Labor
Economists, and member of the executive board of the Italian Association of
Comparative Economic Studies.

He is a member of the editorial board of a number of
journals, such as, among others, Sage open, Scuola democratica - Learning for
Democracy, Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, Romanian Journal of
Economic Forecasting. His research activities have embraced such issues as the
school-to-work transition, regional unemployment and industrial restructuring,
economic inequality, gender discrimination, the determinants of trade and
capital flow, the transition from plan to market, the analysis of non-profit
organizations.

He has acted as a consultant for, among others, the
EU Commission, ILO, UNDP and World Bank.

In addition to this monograph, he has published two
edited books for Springer and three special issues of the International Journal
of Manpower and a number of scientific articles in such journals as, among others:
Journal of Economic Surveys, Stata Journal, Economics of Education Review,
European Journal of Development Research, Economics of Transition, Comparative
Economic Studies.

He regularly contributes columns to such online
popular magazines as Social Europe, Lavoce.info, Linkiesta, NelMerito,
Learning4. His evidence based, policy oriented and thought-provoking columns
are the object of much debate not only in the academic world, but also in all
social networks.

See  interview with the author: http://www.europeandme.eu/27legs/1592-economics-of-education-in-europe                           

                    

"The education to work transition of young people is key to a successful work-life and to fight youth unemployment. The book provides an impressive outline of the facts and convincing insights of the potential causes. This offers a large and broader audience help to adjust properly to achieve a better life."
Klaus F. Zimmermann, IZA, Bonn, Germany

This work points to the youth experience gap as a key concept to explain the meager employment opportunities and earnings many young people face.The transition from education to work remains a long dark tunnel around the world. However, this book shows that there are striking differences between countries: in Germany, the young people of today are no worse off than their adult counterparts, while in Southern European and Eastern European countries they fare 3 through 4 times worse.

The current economic and financial crisis has further exacerbated the situation for young people in many advanced economies. Observers are divided as to the optimal design of youth employment policy. Liberalists believe that the market itself should address youth disadvantages. More flexible labor markets should also guarantee greater labor turnover, including temporary work, so as to allow young people to move from one job to the next until they accumulate the work experience they need to become more employable and find the right career. In contrast, other economists oppose approaches focusing on entry flexibility and temporary work, claiming that the former type helps only the most skilled and motivated target groups, while the latter only allows young people to gather generic, not job-specific work experience.