This paper aims at explaining the dynamics of labor markets in Spain, especially the high persistence of unemployment and the Beveridge curve. We build a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium matching model, which assumes failures in the matching between vacancies and unemployed. We calibrate...

Since July 2004 the job search effort of long-term unemployed benefit claimants is monitored in Belgium. We exploit the discontinuity in the treatment assignment at the age of 30 to evaluate the effect of a notification sent at least 8 months before job search is verified. The threat of...

This paper studies equilibrium unemployment in a two-region economy where homogeneous workers and jobs are free to move and the housing market clears. Because of the Internet, searching for a job in another region without first migrating there is nowadays much simpler than in the past....

This paper evaluates counselling programmes in an equilibrium matching model where workers are heterogeneous in skill levels. Job search effort, labour demand and wages are endogenous. When wages are bargained over, raising the effectiveness of or the access to counselling programmes pushes...

In july 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counseled shortly...

This paper tries to bridge the gap between the theoretical and empirical analyses of the aggregate impacts of labor market policies (LMPs). Contrary to previous empirical studies, we conduct an econometric analysis based on sound theoretical foundations. The specification is based on an...

We explain the positive correlation between union power and tax progressivity from a normative point of view by integrating labour market frictions and union power in an optimal taxation framework. We find that unions and redistributive taxation are complementary in the sense that they both...

The objective of this paper is to model explicitly the possibility to form temporary matching in a model of two-sided search. The agents (workers and employers) differ by their human quality endowment. In a search equilibrium agents form subintervals and are only matched to agents within their...

In this paper we estimate, for the 1989-93 period in Belgium, the effect of vocational classroom training on the rate of transition out of unemployment. We show that rationing of the demand for training increases the unemployment duration of non-participants, an effect neglected in programme...

This papers revisits the normative properties of search-matching economies when workers have concave utility functions. A general equilibrium framework is developed where agents are homogeneous and wages are bargained over. Assuming lump-sum taxation of profits, the optimal allocation of...