In this paper we analyze the relationship between unemployment and consumption. We study this relationship with panel data on households in five countries: Spain and Italy (the South), and Germany, Britain, and the US (the North). Our empirical results indicate that an increase in the duration...

Many recent studies that were based on "exogenous" sources of variation in education outcomes' IV estimates of returns to schooling were substantially higher than the corresponding OLS estimates. Card (1995a) suggests that these results are explained by the existence of heterogeneity in...

In this paper we analyze the relationship between unemployment and consumption. We study this relationship with panel data on households in five countries: Spain, Italy, Germany, Britain, and the US. Our empirical results indicate that an increase in the duration of unemployment spells of male...

Italy and Germany have similar geographical differences in productivity – North more productive than South in Italy; West more productive than East in Germany – but have adopted different models of wage bargaining. Italy sets wages based on nationwide contracts that allow for limited local...