The 2010 European debt crisis has revived the discussion concerning the optimum adjustment strategy in the face of asymmetric shocks. Whereas Mundell's (1961) seminal theory on optimum currency areas suggests depreciation in the face of crisis, the most recent emergence of competitive...

Perhaps it does. We propose a model in which workers with little education or in the tails of the age distribution the inexperienced and the old have more chance of job failure (mismatch). Recruits' average education should then increase and the standard deviation of starting age decrease when...