We develop a two-sector endogenous growth model with a dual labour market resulting from the presence of an effort extraction function in one sector. Effort of workers can be influenced by pay and monitoring. This results in an endogenous non-competitive wage differential between sectors and a...

Some economic observers argue “structural unemployment” has increased in the wake of the Great Recession, but in this paper we find little support for either of two arguments that suggest that structural unemployment has been on the rise. The first argument focuses on the large increase in...

Following the most recent recession, an attempt has been made to explain current levels of unemployment as resulting from structural unemployment, or a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed and the types of jobs available. The evidence, however, indicates that the issue is actually a...

This discussion paper has resulted in an article in 'Economica', 2002, 69(273), 21-40.

We investigate experimentally the economic effects of wage taxation to finance unemployment benefits for a closed economy and an international economy. The main findings are the following. (i) There is clear evidence of a vicious circle in the dynamic interaction between the wage tax and...

From the early 1990s through the peak of the last business cycle, relatively low U.S. unemployment rates seemed to make the United States a model for the rest of the world’s economies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and...

This paper looks at the problem of state budget shortfalls during the recession and calculates the number of jobs that would be lost (nationally and by state) if states utilize pro-cyclical spending cuts in an attempt to balance their budgets. This is an update to an earlier paper from December...

In the current recession, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Unemployment has increased nationwide to levels not witnessed since the 1980s. This issue brief tallies more than 110,000 jobs that have been shed from state and local governments in the last two years and breaks them down by...

In 1982, the United States experienced the highest annual unemployment rate since the Great Depression – 9.7 percent. In principle, that rate is directly comparable to the 8.1 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 2009, and suggests that current unemployment is still not...

This report shows that the $787 billion included in the 2009 ARRA will not have as much of an immediate effect on the economy as initially anticipated. After subtracting the annual AMT patch and acounting for state level spending and tax cuts, the full effect of federal stimulus will equal a...