In general, empirical studies having evaluated with firm individual data the effects of structural labour market reforms in European countries do not reach unambiguous conclusions. In particular, they find that reforms increasing incentives to lower the number of temporary labour contracts do...

In this paper, I propose a new Keynesian DSGE model with labor market search and matching frictions which replicates the low volatility and the moderate procyclicality of the labor force participation rate, that are observed in the United States at business cycle frequency. That being so,it can...

The African continent has grown by more than 4 per cent yearly on average during the past decade. However, the link between this remarkable growth rate and poverty reduction is neither obvious nor simple. This paper focuses on the elasticity of poverty with respect to GDP growth at the sectoral...

This paper estimates the effect of income taxation and transfers on labour supply at the extensive margin, i.e., the labour force participation. We extend existing structural form methodologies by considering the effect of both taxes and transfers. Non-labour income contains the (hypothetical)...

In this paper I shed light on the issues of the (low) volatilities of labor market variables implied by the search and matching model and the (high) values of the correlations between these variables and labor productivity. On the one hand, Shimer (2005) claims that “Not only there is little...

Estimating returns to hours worked and the employment rate provides us with an original interpretation of changes in US productivity and other industrialized countries' catch-up with US productivity levels over recent decades.

This study investigates the impact of minimum wage (SMIC) increases on the average wage in France. We use two series of average wage: the average hourly blue-collar wage rate (SHBO) and the average wage per capita (SMPT). We combine these series with aggregate data for the overall economy over...

Estimates of the Nairu generally suffer from a large uncertainty, which can be reduced by adopting a bivariate framework and assuming that shifts of the Phillips curve share a common trend with the unemployment rate. We consider in this paper if this common trend assumption is empirically...

We study the effect of financial shocks in labor market dynamics. We build a model with two types of labor, two types of capital and both search and financial frictions. We find that financial shocks, modeled as exogenous disturbances to the borrowing constraint of firms, can generate realistic...

We investigate the wage-setting behavior of French companies using an ad-hoc survey conducted specifically for this study. Our main results are the following. i) Wages are changed infrequently. The mean duration of wage contracts is one year. Wage changes occur at regular intervals during the...