In this paper, we explore the role of labor markets for monetary policy in the euro area in a New Keynesian model in which labor markets are characterized by search and matching frictions. We first investigate to which extent a more flexible labor market would alter the business cycle behaviour...

Will EMU accelerate or retard structural reform in labour and product markets? The theoretical literature is ambiguous. New descriptive evidence provided in this paper suggests that euro-area countries have made relatively good progress in structural reform. However, it is much less clear...

We present a quarterly narrative database of important labour market reforms in selected euro area economies in between 1995 and 2018 covering 60 events. We provide legal adoption and implementation dates of major reforms to employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits. Estimates...

Macroeconomic studies suggest that employment-output elasticities in the euro area increased during the recovery from the crisis, especially in those countries that implemented reforms. In this paper, we use micro (individual-level) data from the Eurostat Labour Force Survey to investigate...

This paper reviews recent approaches to modeling the labour market and assesses their implications for inflation dynamics through both their effect on marginal cost and on price-setting behaviour. In a search and matching environment, we consider the following modeling setups: right-to-manage...

More than five years after the start of the Sovereign debt crisis in Europe, its impact on labour market outcomes is not clear. This paper aims to fill this gap. We use qualitative firm-level data for 24 European countries, collected within the Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) of the ESCB. We first...

Euro area labour market variables are published with a considerable lag, longer than in the case of real GDP. We develop a suite of models to provide a more timely estimate (nowcast) of euro area quarterly employment growth based on a broad range of monthly indicators. The suite includes a batch...

This paper explores the role that inflation forecasts play in the uncertainty surrounding the estimated effects of alternative monetary rules on unemployment dynamics in the euro area and the US. We use the inflation forecasts of 8 competing models in a standard Bayesian VAR to analyse the size...

This paper studies the design of optimal monetary policy (in terms of unconstrained Ramsey allocation) in a framework with sticky prices and matching frictions. Furthermore I consider the role of real wage rigidities. Optimal policy features significant deviations from price stability in...

This paper analyses how labour market heterogeneity affects unemployment, productivity and business cycle dynamics that are relevant for monetary policy. The model matches remarkably well the short and long run dynamics of skilled and unskilled workers. Skill mismatch and skill-specific labour...