During the last two decades the so called IT revolution has led to a diverse pattern of growth and employment in OECD countries. In particular, anglo-saxon economies like the U.S. or the U.K. exhibited high rates of economic performance and low unemployment rates, whereas continental European...

Due to increased technological change which lead to an increased demand for skilled workers, it becomes more and more difficult for low skilled workers to find a job. How should a society or political decision makers react? Recently, German politicians are engaged in a discussion about the...

When reviewing the literature concerning the development of the Eastern German economy, a too rigid labor market and its respective institutions are considered as the main source of the persistent high unemployment rates and the slow economic performance. However, when important macroeconomic...

When reviewing the literature concerning the development of the Eastern German economy, a too rigid labor market and its respective institutions are considered as the main source of the persistent high unemployment rates and the slow economic performance. However, when important macroeconomic...

This paper presents new evidence on the evolution of job polarisation over time and across skill groups in the UK between 1979 and 2012. The UK has experienced job polarisation in each of the last three decades, with growth in top jobs always exceeding that in bottom ones. Overall, top...

This paper presents new evidence on the evolution of job polarisation over time and across skill groups in the UK between 1979 and 2012. The UK has experienced job polarisation in each of the last three decades, with growth in top jobs always exceeding that in bottom ones. Overall, top...

Whereas the standard modern theories of unemployment were developed in the context of a single sector labour market, this paper presents a survey of how these theories can be integrated into a dual labour market setting. This approach dichotomises the labour market into two sectors, a primary...

This paper empirically tests the hypothesis that landed elites may block technological change and economic development if they fear that they will lose future political power (Acemoglu and Robinson (2002, 2006, and 2012). It exploits a plausible exogenous change in the distribution of political...

Over the past decade, the share of jobs not controlled by the state has increased considerably, whilst employment in agriculture has declined, against the backdrop of ongoing urbanisation. Over 200 million people have been drawn into urban areas through official or unofficial migration, despite...

We analyze investment decisions when information is costly, with and without delegation to an agent. We use a rational-inattention model and compare it with a canonical signal-extraction model. We identify three "investment conditions". In "sour" conditions, no information is acquired and no...