Recent discussions about rising inequality in industrialized countries have triggered calls for more government intervention and redistribution. Due to obvious behavioral effects caused by redistribution, it is however not clear whether redistributional policies are indeed able to combat...

This paper investigates the relationship between political instability and labor market institutions. We develop a theoretical model in which some features of the political process, by reducing the future yields of policy interventions, induce an incumbent government to choose labor market...

This paper surveys the trends in gender gaps in education, their causes and potential policy implications. I show that female educational attainment has surpassed, or is about to surpass, male educational attainment in most industrialized countries. These gaps reflect male overrepresentation...

This paper analyses the impact of the global economic crisis on unemployment and long term unemployment in the OECD. It uses simple econometric models using panel data (quarterly) and time series data. In general, we find that long term unemployment increases with the unemployment rate, there is...

In this paper, we simulate the labor market effects of net immigration and emigration during the 1990's in all OECD countries. To accomplish this, we are the first to employ a comprehensive database of migrant stocks, grouped by education level and country of origin/destination, for the years...

We use a range of data sources to assess if, and to what extent, government redistribution policies have slowed or accelerated the trend towards greater income disparities in the past 20-25 years. In most countries, inequality among non-elderly households has widened during most phases of the...

In this paper the main focus lies on the shadow economy and on work in the shadow in OECD, developing and transition countries. Besides informal employment in the rural and non-rural sector also other measures of informal employment like the share of employees not covered by social security, own...

Exploiting a unique dataset including cross-country comparable hiring and separation rates by type of transition for 24 OECD countries, 23 business-sector industries and 13 years, we study the effect of dismissal regulations on different types of gross worker flows, defined as one-year...

We take an agnostic view of the Phillips curve debate, and carry out an empirical investigation of the relative and absolute efficacy of Calvo sticky price (SP), sticky information (SI), and sticky price with indexation models (SPI), with emphasis on their ability to mimic inflationary dynamics....

Die Veröffentlichung des 3. Armuts- und Reichtumsberichts der Bundesregierung hat in der Öffentlichkeit Betroffenheit ausgelöst. Wie wird Armut gemessen und wie sollte sie bekämpft werden?