In this study we examine the contribution of severance pay to employment and unemployment development using data on industrialized OECD countries. Our starting point is Lazear?s (1990) empirical dictum that severance payment requirements adversely impact the labor market. We extend his sample...

This paper uses a unique Portuguese data set to examine the effect of unemployment benefit receipt and maximum duration of benefits on escape rates from unemployment. The focus is on the time profile of transitions out of unemployment. The novel aspect of the study resides in its identification...

This paper examines the effects of unemployment insurance on escape rates from unemployment using data from the 1998 Displaced Worker Survey. Transitions from unemployment to employment are modeled using a flexible representation of the baseline hazard function and allowing for discrete changes...

Using Portuguese data, this paper investigates the effects of job search methods on escape rates from unemployment and of job-finding methods on earnings. The effectiveness of the job search process is also evaluated in terms of the periodicity of the resulting job match. Emphasis is accorded...

This paper examines the determinants of unemployment duration in a competing risks framework with two destination states, namely, inactivity and employment. The major innovation is our recognition of defective risks. We first use a polynomial hazard function to test for the presence of...

This paper analyzes the effects of language practice on earnings among adult male immigrants in Canada using the 1991 Census. Earnings are shown to increase with schooling, pre-immigration experience and duration in Canada, as well as with proficiency in the official languages (English and...

This paper uses data from the 1996 Australian Survey of Aspects of Literacy to examine the effects on labour market outcomes of literacy, numeracy and educational attainment. The survey includes a range of literacy and numeracy variables that are highly inter-correlated. A ?general to specific?...

This paper examines the way immigrant earnings are determined in Australia. It uses the overeducation/required education/undereducation (ORU) framework (Hartog, 2000) and a decomposition of the native-born/foreign-born differential in the payoff to schooling developed by Chiswick and Miller...

This paper examines whether the results of the earnings equation developed in the overeducation/required eduation/under-education (ORU) literature are sensitive to whether the usual or reference levels of education are measured using the Realized Matches or Worker Self-Assessment methods. The...