Payroll taxes represent a major distortionary influence of governments on labor markets. Thispaper examines the role of payroll taxation and the social safety net for cyclical fluctuations ina nonmonetary economy with labor market frictions and unemployment insurance, when thelatter is only...

This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-basedreform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently amuch higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity inmarginal payroll tax rates by...

This paper reviews changes in pension policies in EU countries between 1995 and2005 and describes how they might affect risk of poverty for future pensionerpopulations. The pension landscape in Europe has changed considerably in the pastdecade and the paper highlights commonalities as well as...

About one in four workers challenges her dismissal in front of a labor court in France. Using adata set of individual labor disputes brought to French courts over the years 1996 to 2003,we examine the impact of labor court activity on labor market flows. First, we present asimple theoretical...

Using several unique data sets on wage agreements at both industry and firm levels inFrance, we document stylized facts on wage stickiness and the impact of wage-settinginstitutions on wage rigidity. First, the average duration of wages is a little less than one yearand around 10 percent of...

We measure labor market frictions using a strategy that bridges design-based and structuralapproaches: estimating an equilibrium search model using reduced-form minimum wageelasticities identified from border discontinuities and fitted with Bayesian and LIML methods.We begin by providing the...

This paper examines the interaction between minimum wage legislation and tax evasion byemployed labor. I develop a model in which firms and workers may agree to report less thanthe true amount of earnings to the fiscal authorities. I show that introducing a minimum wagecreates a spike in the...

This paper examines an economic union where oligopolistic firms produce by skilled andunskilled labor and do in-house R&D by skilled labor. The planner of the union accepts newmembers to the union, regulates the labor market through a minimum wage for unskilledlabor and supports firms by...

The European Social Survey data are used to analyze informal employment at the main jobin 30 countries. Overall, informality decreases from South to West to East to North. However,dependent work without contract is more prevalent in Eastern Europe than in the West,except for Ireland, the UK and...

This paper aims at identifying the labour share (wage-productivity gap) as a major factor inthe evolution of inequality and employment. To this end, we use annual data for the US, UKand Sweden over the past forty years and estimate country-specific systems of labourdemand and Gini coefficient...