This paper quantifies the impact of the Hartz reforms on matching efficiency, using monthly SOEP gross worker flows (1983-2009). We show that, until the early 2000s, close to 60% of changes in the unemployment rate are due to changes in the inflow rate (job separation). On the contrary, since...

In this paper, we argue that the reason why the United States prefer a lower level of employment protection than the European countries lies in the differences in gains and costs from geographical mobility.We present a model where labor migration and employment protection are both determined...

In the case of collective redundancies, employers are forced to regard certain characteristics when deciding who is going to be dismissed. This paper develops a procedure to derive an empirical based weighting scheme between the characteristics relevant for this selection (age, disability,...

We look for evidence of habituation in twenty waves of German panel data: do individuals, after life and labour market events, tend to return to some baseline level of well-being? Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, we find significant lag and lead...

This paper analyzes the political economy of the reform process theoretically and empirically.Building on the framework developed by Rodrik [1995], a two-sector model of a transition economy is constructed.This model is then used to study the dynamics of political support for the reforms.The key...

The distribution of unemployment duration in our equilibrium matching model with spell-dependent unemployment benefits displays a time-varying exit rate. Building on Semi-Markov processes, we translate these exit rates into an expression for the aggregate unemployment rate. Structural estimation...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model where workers can engage in search while on the job.We show that on-the-job search is a key component in explaining labor market dynamics in models of equilibrium unemployment.The model predicts fluctuations of unemployment, vacancies, and labor...

We explore the role of real wage dynamics in a New Keynesian business cycle model with search and matching frictions in the labor market.Both job creation and destruction are endogenous.We show that the model generates counterfactual inflation and labor market dynamics.In particular, it fails to...

High rates of unemployment entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular, job security, in workers' well-being by exploiting sector-specific institutional differences...