This article consists in three parts. The first part deals with theory. We evaluate the pros and cons of government involvement in urban housing and of renting versus ownership. In the second part, we summarize the different housing policies that have been implemented in the United States,...

Social programs are often designed under the assumption that individuals make rational decisions that improve their welfare. Yet, informational and behavioral constraints limit the extreme and chronic poor’s access and participation in social programs. This paper reviews the implementation and...

The world is changing rapidly. This paper describes key shifts and it discusses their likely impacts on employment-related aspects. Labor market pressures are felt around the globe, and robots and automation increasingly become reality. However, there will be no "end of work". Rather, it is that...

This paper assesses how new immigrants to Spain fare in the country's labor market, evaluating the conditions under which they are able to find employment, and their progress out of unskilled work into middle-skilled jobs. Using Spanish Labor Force Survey data from 2000 through 2011, we find...

This essay first sketches some descriptive material, setting the stage and demonstrating the highly differentiated statistical landscape of various measures for youth unemployment in Europe compared to India and in particular to Germany. Second, it provides a simple but powerful model for the...

This contribution draws some conclusions from the experience of attempts by the German government at integrating the most vulnerable groups into the labor market, in particular the long-term unemployed and the low skilled. There has been a sort of paradigm shift that goes beyond active labor...

This paper contributes to the debate on the design of a centralised fiscal tool absorbing country-specific negative shocks in the euro area. Based on theoretical insights, it identifies the broad characteristics that a shock absorber based on unemployment should have in order to be...

Italy is not immune from the long term trend towards greater bargaining decentralization under way in Western Europe. The article surveys the main actions undertaken in recent years, either by social partners or by government intervention, in order to reduce the obstacles to this process,...

Inequality has increased considerably in many Western countries over the past decades. When dealing with economic inequality as a research subject the question "inequality of what among whom" arises. Analyses of inequality are typically concerned with the distribution of wages, earnings or...

Activation policies aimed at getting working-age people off benefits and into work have become a buzzword in labour market policies. Yet they are defined and implemented differently across OECD countries and their success rates vary too. The Great Recession has posed a severe stress test for...