While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/19, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for more than one year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the...

The labor share in Europe has been on a downward trend. This paper finds that the decline is concentrated in manufacture and among low- to mid-skilled workers. The shifting nature of employment away from full-time jobs and a rollback of employment protection, unemployment benefits and...

Since the global financial crisis, US wage growth has been sluggish. Drawing on individual earnings data from the 2000-15 Current Population Survey, I find that the drawn-out cyclical labor market repair-likely owing to low entry wages of new workers-slowed down real wage growth. There are,...

Using a search and matching labor market equilibrium model, this paper quantifies lost labor productivity and consumption per worker that emerges from the restrictions on dismissals. Dismissal restrictions hamper the efficient reallocation of workers, with workers remaining longer in jobs. But...

This paper analyzes the effects of the labor market reforms launched in the early 1980s by the Conservative government led by Mrs. Thatcher. It is argued that the increase in the growth of labor productivity in manufacturing after 1980 as well as the improvement in the responsiveness of...

The characteristics of the Belgian labor market are examined using international comparisons in order to assess the government’s recent labor market initiatives. The labor market in Belgium is found to suffer from a number of structural problems compared to other industrial countries: the...

In designing policy measures, including possible social safety nets, targeted to the poor, it is important to fully understand the efficiency implications of these measures. There is abundant macroeconomic literature on their negative effects on the poor’s work effort. The literature, however,...

Changes in economic systems provide a rare opportunity to redesign basic institutional structures in labor markets. This paper attempts to provide guidance for such institutional choice by drawing on the findings of recent labor market research in market economies on the links between...

This paper examines recent developments in the Canadian labor market. Using disaggregated labor market data, various hypotheses concerning the slow employment growth and rise in unemployment since 1990 are evaluated. The analysis indicates that a large part of the recent rise in the unemployment...

This paper examines the determinants of Italian unemployment by estimating and utilizing a structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Both long-run and short-run macroeconomic determinants of unemployment are examined; the latter are analyzed in much greater detail than is customary in the...