This paper assesses the effectiveness of a social public procurement policy in Switzerland that gives firms that train apprentices’ a preferential treatment. We estimate the effectiveness of this social procurement policy on a firm’s training participation, training intensity, and training...

Using a new data set on Swiss state and local governments from 1890 to today, we analyze how the adoption of proportional representation affects fiscal policy. We show that proportional systems shift spending toward broad goods (e.g. education and welfare benefits) but decrease spending on...

We construct and calibrate a general equilibrium business cycle model with unemployment and precautionary saving. We compute the cost of business cycles and locate the optimum in a set of simple cyclical fiscal policies. Our economy exhibits productivity shocks, giving firms an incentive to hire...

A welfare analysis of unemployment insurance (UI) is performed in a general equilibrium job search model. Finitely-lived, risk-averse workers smooth consumption over time by accumulating assets, choose search effort when unemployed, and suffer disutility from work. Firms hire workers, purchase...

Four general equilibrium search models are compared quantitatively. The baseline framework is a calibrated macroeconomic model of the US economy designed for a welfare analysis of unemployment insurance policy. The other models make three simple and natural specification changes, regarding tax...

This paper extends Mortensen and Pissarides (1994) by introducing workers' risk aversion. In doing so, it provides a framework within which to study jointly the optimal supply of job security and the allocational and welfare consequences of government intervention in excess of private...

This paper examines the effect of taxes on the individuals’ choices of educational direction, and thus on the economy’s skill composition. A proportional labour income tax induces too many workers with high innate ability to choose an educational type with high consumption value and low...

A matching model with labor/leisure choice and staggered bargaining is used to explain (i)differences in GDP per hour and GDP per capita, (ii) differences in employment, (iii) differences in the proportion of part-time work across countries. The model predicts that the higher the level of...