According to the econometric literature, unemployed jobseekers who use a Public Employment Agency (PEA) have longer unemployment spells than those choosing alternative search methods. This contrasts sharply with the findings from well-designed US experiments where treatments subject to increased...

Econometric evidence strongly suggests that unemployed job-seekers who use the services of a Public Employment Agency (PEA) have longer unemployment spells than those choosing alternative search methods. Yet, in some well-designed U.S. experiments, increased use of PEA services has been...

Econometric evidence strongly suggests that unemployed job-seekers who use the services of a Public Employment Agency (PEA) have longer unemployment spells than those choosing alternative search methods. Yet, in some well-designed U.S. experiments, increased use of PEA services has been...

We investigate the finite sample performance of a Lagrange Multiplier specification test for competing-risks duration models developed by Pudney and Thomas (1995). In their empirical work they employ a simple form of the test based on the Outer Product of the Gradient approximation (OPG) to the...

This paper investigates the evolution of skill imbalances in the UK labour market over the past two decades. Movements in the relative ease with which firms can recruit skilled workers can affect unemployment, inflation, and productivity. Any assessment of changes in the skill balance is...

In this paper a matching model with variable search intensity that incorporates the inactive is developed and calibrated. The model is used to look at possible explanations for the recent sharp decline in the UK working-age unemployment rate, which has been accompanied by only a moderate...

The paper examines the main issues involved in translating domestic bankruptcy procedures to the sovereign context. It considers some of the principles by which domestic bankruptcy procedures operate, and the extent to which they apply to international lending. Two recent proposals are...

We present an overview of models of long-term self-enforcing labour contracts in which risk sharing is the dominant motive for contractual solutions. A base model is developed which is sufficiently general to encompass the two-agent problem central to most of the literature, including variable...