The recent financial crisis, alongside a dramatic rise in unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic, suggests that financial shocks do translate into the labour markets. In this paper we first present and review the basic facts on unemployment dynamics, financial shocks and Okun's elasticity...

A large body of empirical literature indicates that, contrary to predictions from economic theory, wages in the informal sector increase after a minimum wage hike. This phenomenon was so far explained as a byproduct of a signal (a lighthouse) conveyed by statutory minima to wage setting in the...

Labor market reforms increasing flexibility at the margin have been recently paying out in terms of employment growth. This paper argues that two-tier labor market reforms have a transitional honeymoon, job creating effect. In a dynamic model of labor demand under uncertainty, the paper predicts...

This paper investigates the border between formal employment, shadow employment, and unemployment in an equilibrium model of the labor market with market frictions. From the labor demand side, firms optimally create legal or shadow employment through a mechanism that is akin to tax evasion. From...

Negative perceptions about migrants in Europe, the Continent with the largest social policy programmes, are driven by concerns that foreigners are a net fiscal burden. Increasing concerns are pressing Governments, in the midst of the recession, to reduce welfare access by migrants or further...