The move to a pay-as-you-earn income tax system in Iceland in 1987-1988 made income earned in 1987 tax-free. Using a sample of 9,274 individuals for the years 1986, 1987 and 1988, we calculate the labour-supply response of this change and find that total labour supply rose by 6.7% in 1987 over...

This paper diagnoses the symptoms of the Dutch disease in a two-sector stochastic endogenous growth model. A productive, low skill-intensive primary sector causes the currency to appreciate in real terms, thus hampering the development of a high skill-intensive secondary sector and thereby...

This paper presents a dynamic model that gives an account of some of the forms that the Dutch Disease can take through both product and labour markets. These involve an effect of primary sector output - through real wages and the level and volatility of real-exchange rates - on secondary sector...

This paper uses a threshold autoregressive (TAR) framework to assess the relative importance of structural breaks and asymmetric persistence in accounting for the post-war unemployment experience. In comparing unemployment patterns across time periods and countries, we take the US as a...

We develop a model demonstrating conditions under which firms will invest in the general training of their workers, and show that firms’ incentives to invest in general training are increasing in task complexity. Workers’ heterogeneous observable innate ability affects the variety of tasks...

This paper introduces state-owned enterprises into an endogenous-growth model with an expanding variety of inputs. It shows that, if state firms are less efficient than private firms in organizing labour and also in adopting new technology, the rate of innovation and, hence, also the rate of...

This paper looks at the effect of quitting on the number of workers trained under conditions of uncertainty about future productivity when workers have both firm-specific and industry-specific skills. A new effect is found which works in the opposite direction to the undertraining result of...

This paper introduces asymmetric information about workers' abilities into the turnover-training model of Phelps (1994) and Salop (1979). This makes hiring an investment under uncertainty. We show that an increase in the level of uncertainty reduces the rate of hiring, increases the optimal...

This paper derives a model in which workers have firm-specific and industry-specific skills, and in each period there is a non-zero probability that a worker quits. This makes the private discount factor, used by firms in making decisions about hiring and training new workers and firing existing...

This paper is an empirical investigation of unemployment rate series in 17 countries. The timing and size of shifts in the mean rate of unemployment are estimated. The size of the shifts and the remaining persistence in the unemployment rate series are then related to institutional differences...