The Bologna process inspired the Italian 3+2 reform of the university system whichconstitutes a big increase in the supply of college graduates. This paper is a preliminaryattempt to identify the effects of the reform on (i) the relative probability (relative to nongraduates)of employment of...

We use individual data for Great Britain over the period 1992-2009 to compare the probabilitythat employed and unemployed job seekers find a job and the quality of the job they find. Thejob finding rate of unemployed job seekers is 50 percent higher than that of employed jobseekers, and this...

We explore whether finance influences the impact of labour market institutions onunemployment. Using a data set of 18 OECD countries over 1980-2004, we estimate a panelVectorAutoRegressive model. We check whether causalities from labour market variables tounemployment are affected by financial...

This paper studies the impact of product and labor market regulations on informality andunemployment in a general framework where formal and informal firms are subject to thesame externalities, differing only with respect to some parameter values. Both formal andinformal firms have monopoly...

Payroll taxes represent a major distortionary influence of governments on labor markets. Thispaper examines the role of payroll taxation and the social safety net for cyclical fluctuations ina nonmonetary economy with labor market frictions and unemployment insurance, when thelatter is only...

This paper analyzes the effects of different labor market institutions on inflation and outputvolatility. The eurozone offers an unprecedented experiment for this exercise: since 1999, nonational monetary policies have been implemented that could account for volatilitydifferences across member...

This article puts the relationship between wage dispersion and firm productivity to an updatedtest, taking advantage of access to detailed Belgian linked employer-employee panel data.Controlling for simultaneity issues, time-invariant workplace characteristics and dynamics inthe adjustment...

We study how workers’ wages respond to TFP-driven innovations in firms’ labor productivity.Using unique data with highly reliable firm-level output prices and quantities in themanufacturing sector in Sweden, we are able to derive measures of physical (as opposed torevenue) TFP to instrument...

Using a longitudinal matched employer-employee data set for Portugal over the 1986-2005period, this study analyzes the heterogeneity in wages responses to aggregate labor marketconditions for newly hired workers and existing workers. Accounting for both worker and firmheterogeneity, the data...

The European Social Survey data are used to analyze informal employment at the main jobin 30 countries. Overall, informality decreases from South to West to East to North. However,dependent work without contract is more prevalent in Eastern Europe than in the West,except for Ireland, the UK and...