Unemployment rates in developed countries recently reached levels not seen in a generation, and workers of all ages are facing increasing probabilities of losing their jobs and considerable losses in accumulated assets. These events have increased the reliance that most (older) workers have on...

The discussion about the need for Social Security reforms has recently resurfaced, and is expected to continue to be part of the political agenda in the near future. Our paper is a step in the direction of providing a framework for policy analysis that accounts for employment uncertainty,...

Self-reported home values are widely used as a measure of housing wealth by researchers employing a variety of data sets and studying a number of different individual and household level decisions. The accuracy of this measure is an open empirical question, and requires some type of market...

In this paper, we explore the links between pension reform, early retirement, and the use of unemployment as an alternative pathway to retirement. We use a dynamic rational expectations model to analyze the search and retirement behaviour of employed and unemployed workers aged 50 or over. The...

An important policy issue in recent years concerns the number of people claiming disability benefits for reasons of incapacity for work. We distinguish between ‘work disability’, which may have its roots in economic and social circumstances, and ‘health disability’ which arises from...

Unemployment insurance is usually found to show negative effects in the transition from unemployment to a new job. However, the extent to which workers’ careers might improve or deteriorate as a result of the unemployment insurance system is not immediately clear. This paper addresses the...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of short-time work (STW) schemes for preserving jobs and reducing the segmentation between stable and unstable jobs observed in dual labour markets. For this purpose, we develop and simulate an equilibrium search and matching model considering the situation...

Fixed-term contracts have low firing costs and can thus help low skilled youth find a first job faster. But do these workers get a more rewarding career? Using Spanish social security data, we compare the careers of native male high-school dropouts who entered the labor market just before and...

En este artículo se plantea un modelo de riesgos en competencia para investigar el papel de las ETT en la dinámica del mercado de trabajo español, con una especial referencia a las diferentes implicaciones que esta institución tiene para hombres y para mujeres. Se estudia el impacto de las...