The COVID-19 crisis poses new policy challenges and has spurred new research agendas in public economics. In this article, we selectively reflect on how the field of public economics has been shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss several areas where more research is necessary. We highlight...

This paper studies the provision of occupational safety when the labor market is subject to search frictions. While safety measures are costly for firms, they reduce workers’ mortality. We show that the presence of search frictions decreases the socially optimal level of occupational safety...

This paper examines a labor law reform implemented in Portugal in 2009 which restricted the use of fixed-term contracts to reduce labor market segmentation. The reform targeted establishments created by large firms above a specific size threshold, covering about 15% of total employment. Drawing...

We propose a model to evaluate the U.K.’s zero-hours contract (ZHC) – a contract that exempts employers from the requirement to provide any minimum working hours, and allows workers to decline any workload. We find quantitatively mixed welfare effects of ZHCs. On one hand they unlock job...

What are the long-run consequences of business cycle fluctuations for the skill distribution in the labor force? How is the sorting between firms and workers altered by aggregate fluctuations at different stages of the working life? And finally, what are the aggregate effects of changes in...

The facility layout problem (FLP) is the problem of determining non-overlapping positions of departments on the shop floor to minimize material handling costs. Traditional methods for solving FLPs consider pairwise (from-to) flows to optimize layouts. This paper shows that these traditional...

study whether workers selectively separate from their job matches in a recession. Using data from the Current Population Survey, I show that workers with short tenure and high wages are more likely to lose their jobs and become unemployed in recession periods. Moreover, the weekly history of...

We propose a model to evaluate the U.K.’s zero-hours contract (ZHC) – a contract that exemptsemployers from the requirement to provide any minimum working hours, and allows workersto decline any workload. We find quantitatively mixed welfare effects of ZHCs. On one handthey unlock job...

We provide a partial equilibrium model wherein AI provides abilities combined with human skills to provide an aggregate intermediate service good. We use the model to find that the extent of automation through AI will be greater if (a) the economy is relatively abundant in sophisticated programs...