Trends in skill bias and greater turbulence in modern labor markets put wages and employment prospects of unskilled workers under pressure. Weak incentives to utilize and maintain skills over the life-cycle become manifest with the ageing of the population. Reinvention of human capital policies...

Theoretical arguments and previous country-level evidence indicate that immigrants are more fluid than natives in responding to changing labor shortages across countries, skill-groups or industries. The diversity across EU member states enables us to test this hypothesis across various...

This paper proceeds from two key assumptions. The first is that European countries are likely to face increased immigration of individuals. The second is that the emigration of jobs from Europe to other regions of the world through offshoring is also likely to increase. It has been widely argued...

Germany and France are both Continental European welfare states with severe labor market problems such as low employment and high and persistent unemployment which can be explained by labor market institutions that inhibit labor market adaptability. This paper analyzes recent reforms in core...

The paper challenges the widespread view that Bismarckian countries with a strong role of social insurance and labor market regulation are less successful than other employment regimes and hard to reforms. This has been true about a decade ago. But both the institutional set-up and the...

We conduct a comparative analysis of Labor Market Policies and outcomes for the EU member states, for the period 2000-2005. We document the main differences in Labor Market Policies across EU members, including new member states after 2004. We focus on indicators of policy generosity...

Policy advice can help political actors design and implement institutional reforms through the generation of political and substantial legitimacy. This article clarifies the institutional pre-conditions of effective supply and transfer of policy advice with particular respect to the field of...

This paper examines the role of lifelong learning in counteracting skill depreciation and obsolescence. We build on findings showing that different skill types have structurally different depreciation rates. We differentiate between occupations with more hard skills versus more soft skills. To...

This paper presents results on the effect of formal life-long learning on the decision to retire early. Specifically, I estimate an Option Value model based on individual employer-employee longitudinal data including comprehensive government co-sponsored training records dating back more than 30...

Lifelong learning is often promoted in ageing societies, but little is known about its returns or governments' ability to advance it. This paper evaluates the effects of a large-scale randomized field experiment issuing vouchers for adult education in Switzerland. We find no significant average...