Recent theoretical work shows that changes in the volatility of inflation and/or unem-ployment affect equilibrium in°ation outcomes when the central banker's loss functionis asymmetric. We show that previous evidence offered in support of the propositionthat the volatility of unemployment helps...

Many countries around the world have large public pension programs. Traditionally, these programshave been used to induce retirement by the elderly in order to free up jobs for the young andto redistribute income across generations. This paper provides an efficiency rationale for the...

In recent years, many countries have experienced a significant shift in demographic patterns towards the elderly. This phenomenon poses numerous challenges for the design of public pension programs and labor market policies. To better understand how public policy should be designed in response...

A popular view about social security, dating back to its early days of inception, is that it is a means for young, unemployed workers to "purchase" jobs from older, employed workers. The question we ask is: Can social security, by encouraging retirement and hence creating job vacancies for the...

In this paper we use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to analyze the employment,fiscal and welfare effects induced by unemployment insurance. The model features a detailedspecification of the tax and transfer system, including unemployment insurance benefitswhich depend on an individual's...

In this paper we develop a dynamic structural life-cycle model of labor supplybehavior which fully accounts for the eects of income tax and transfers on la-bor supply incentives. Additionally, the model recognizes the demand side drivenrationing risk that might prevent individuals from realizing...

We construct an equilibrium random matching model of the labour market, withendogenous market participation and a general matching technology that allows formarket size effects: the job-finding rate for workers and the incentives for participationchange with the level of unemployment. In...

This paper considers the problem of determining the extent of any state dependen-cies in women's labor supply behavior. Employment outcomes are modeled using adynamic multinomial choice framework including persistent unobserved heterogeneitywith a relatively general distribution. In order to...

Almost half the women in work in the UK work part-time, but views conflict: does this support awoman’s career or is it a dead-end trap?Cohort data on labour market involvement to age 42 show highly varied pathways throughfull/part-time/non-employment. Econometric estimation confirms that...

By assuming Cobb-Douglas production technology, many well-known imperfectlycompetitive macroeconomic models of the labour market (e.g. Layard, Nickell andJackman, 1991) imply that equilibrium unemployment is independent of the capitalstock. This paper introduces a new notion of capacity into the...