This paper presents cross-section estimates of gross hourly wage premia on tertiary education. They are based on a unified framework for 21 OECD countries from the 1990s to the early 2000s and use international household surveys to maximise international comparability. The results of the...

The global recession is likely to results in higher structural unemployment for some time in many OECD countries. This paper assesses how the shock to aggregate unemployment as a result of the economic crisis may be transmitted to structural unemployment through hysteresis effects that occur...

Economists often seek to estimate unobserved variables, representing “equilibrium” or “expected” values of economic variables, as benchmarks against which observed, realised values of these variables may be evaluated. Such comparisons are often used as economic policy indicators, for...

This paper analyses the determinants of structural unemployment rates in a two-stage approach. First, time-varying NAIRUs are estimated for a panel of OECD economies on the basis of Phillips curve equations using Kalman filter techniques. In a second stage, the estimated NAIRUs are regressed on...

The structural rate of unemployment and associated non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (the NAIRU) are of major importance to the analysis of macro and structural economic developments, although in practice these concepts are not well defined and there is considerable uncertainty and...

The unemployment rate among young people has reached painfully high levels, in particular among those young people with low levels of education. There are two crucial policy priorities to improve employment prospects for youth in Spain. First, in the very short term, there is need for quick...

OECD’s PISA publications highlight the impact of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) on students’ results within countries. The focus here is to investigate whether ESCS measures could contribute to differences in aggregate educational outcomes between countries. There is some...

Despite significant increases in spending on child care and education during the last decade, PISA scores suggest that educational performance remains static, uneven and strongly related to parents’ income and background. Better educational performance could improve labour market outcomes,...

The labour market in Estonia is volatile, increasing the risk that groups with some obstacles to enter the labour market (youth, non-Estonian speakers and workers with no upper secondary graduation certificate) may become long-term unemployed, due to the aggravating skills mismatch in the wake...

Australia’s productivity growth has decelerated markedly around the turn of the century. Part of the decline is probably temporary, but raising multifactor productivity is key to ensure that living standards continue to grow strongly, especially if the currently strong terms of trade weaken...