The Japanese lost decade has become an intriguing puzzle for both economists and policy-makers alike, as the unemployment rate climbed to unprecedented levels and the growth rate of productivity decreased considerably. More recent times seem to present with a more optimistic outlook, but this is...

The subject of offshoring and productivity has not yet received the attention it deserves. Here I propose a simple framework for estimating the contribution of these strategies to the growth rate of labor productivity from a time-series perspective. This framework is then used to assess the...

First moves towards a real understanding of offshoring date back to very recent times. In particular for Japan, the studies conducted so far focus alone on the productivity effects of offshoring at the firm level. Here I carry out the analysis of both the employment and productivity effects at...

The subject of offshoring and productivity has not yet received the attention it deserves. Here I propose a simple framework for estimating the contribution of these strategies to the growth rate of labor productivity from a time-series perspective. This framework is then used to assess the...

The Japanese lost decade has become an intriguing puzzle for both economists and policy-makers alike, as the unemployment rate climbed to unprecedented levels and the growth rate of productivity decreased considerably. More recent times seem to present with a more optimistic outlook, but this is...

This paper analyses the labour markets of Spain and Ireland, which have experienced a severe downturn in the recent global crisis as reflected by the largest increases in their unemployment rates among other developed economies. Spain and Ireland might seem at first to feature very different...

First moves towards a real understanding of offshoring date back to very recent times. In particular for Japan, the studies conducted so far focus alone on the productivity effects of offshoring at the firm level. Here I carry out the analysis of both the employment and productivity effects at...

The ‘lost decade’ in Japan was a period of steep surge in unemployment. It started in 1991 with the unemployment rate at 2.1%, and ended in 2002 when it reached a historical maximum of 5.5%. To assess the main causes of this rise we take a macroeconomic perspective and estimate a...

This paper sheds new light on the causes of the unemployment upsurge in Japan during the “fading 1990s”, an unprecedented period of structural crisis. We estimate a labor market model and identify the main macroeconomic determinants of labor demand and labor supply decisions in last decades....

Offshoring has lately received wide attention. Its potential effects, mainly to be materialized in employment and productivity dislocations, are yet to be fully assessed. However, some consensus has been attained as to how to proxy its theoretical definition at an aggregate level. Here we review...