Firms select not only how many, but also which workers to hire. Yet, in standard searchmodels of the labor market, all workers have the same probability of being hired. We arguethat selective hiring crucially affects welfare analysis. Our model is isomorphic to a searchmodel under random hiring...

The Great Recession did not only affect European countries to a varying extent, its impact onnational labour markets and on specific socio-economic groups in those markets also variedgreatly. Institutional arrangements such as employment protection, unemployment insurancebenefits and minimum...

In 2001-02, Argentina experienced a wrenching economic crisis. Plan Jefes, implemented in May 2002, was Argentina´s institutional response to the increase in unemployment and poverty triggered by the crisis. The program provided a social safety net and appears to have successfully protected...

According to recent and largely untested theories, unemployment benefits (UBs) could improve the extent and quality of job reallocation even at the cost of increasing unemployment. Using yearly panel data from a large number of countries, we evaluate empirically the relationship between...

In Portugal duration of benefits is exclusively age determined while replacement rates are toall intents and purposes uniform. We exploit differences in potential maximum duration ofbenefits for nearly matched pairs of individuals who differ in age by one year and in potentialmaximum duration of...

The Swedish labour market and social policy is aimed at facilitating flexibility in the labourmarket. The active labour market policy and the design of the social security pension systemare two frequently mentioned examples of that policy...

A duration model based on the time on Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits instead of amodel based on the time till re-employment is more relevant from a cost-benefit perspective.The contribution of this paper is to extend the standard (mixed) Proportional Hazard model toaccount for an upper...

In this paper, we review the literature on the “spike” in unemployment exit rates aroundbenefit exhaustion, and present new evidence based on administrative data for a largesample of job losers in Austria. We find that the way unemployment spells are measured hasa large effect on the magnitude...

In the early 2000s, nearly two million men – and less than one million women – were eligible for disability benefits in Britain. Initiated at the beginning of the 1980s, the Incapacity Benefit (IB) social welfare system perceived and treated these recipients as « disabled adults ». This...

Despite the increased frequency of job loss for older workers in Europe, little is known on itseffect on the work-retirement decision. Employing individual data from the EuropeanCommunity Household Panel for Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., a multivariatecompeting-risks hazard model is...