We develop a model to analyze the implications of firing costs on incentives for R amp; D and international specialization. The key idea is that, to avoid paying firing costs, the country with a rigid labor market will tend to produce relatively secure goods, at a late stage of their product...

This book brings together the views and predictions of leading economists published on VoxEU.org months before the developments of late 2008 in a volume that holds its own against the events that followed.

The global financial crisis has changed finance and the global economy forever. The debate over its causes and consequences has only just begun. This book brings together VoxEU.org columns written during the height of the storm from June to December 2008, offering a glimpse of history in the...

This article provides theoretical and empirical analyses of a firing costs model with adverse selection. Our theory suggests that, as firing costs increase, firms increasingly prefer hiring employed workers, who are less likely to be lemons. Estimates of re-employment probabilities from the...

In this paper, we present a matching model with adverse selection that explains why flows into and out of unemployment are much lower in Europe compared to North America, while employment-to-employment flows are similar in the two continents. In the model, firms use discretion in terms of whom...

In this paper, we present a matching model with adverse selection that explains why flows into and out of unemployment are much lower in Europe compared to North America, while employment-to-employment flows are similar in the two continents. In the model, firms use discretion in terms of whom...

We use a panel of manufacturing plants from Colombia to analyze how the rise in payroll tax rates over the 1980s and 1990s affected the labor market. Our estimates indicate that formal wages fall by between 1.4% and 2.3% as a result of a 10% rise in payroll taxes. This...