Using several unique data sets on wage agreements at both industry and firm levels inFrance, we document stylized facts on wage stickiness and the impact of wage-settinginstitutions on wage rigidity. First, the average duration of wages is a little less than one yearand around 10 percent of...

There is a well-established positive correlation between life-satisfaction measures andincome in individual level cross-sectional data. This paper attempts to provide some evidenceon whether this correlation reflects causality running from money to happiness. I use industrywage differentials as...

In the last decades, international trade has increased between industrialised countries andbetween high- and low-wage countries. This important change has raised questions on howinternational trade affects the labour market. In this spirit, this paper aims to investigate theimpact of...

We combine two empirical observations in a general equilibrium occupational choice model.The first is that entrepreneurs have more control than employees over the employment ofand accruals from assets, such as human capital. The second observation is thatentrepreneurs enjoy higher returns to...

This paper focuses on the links between informal care provision and labour market activity atthe sub-national level. Within-country analysis of this issue has been very limited to datedespite the wide regional variations in informal care provision that often exist. This issue isimportant in the...

Despite numerous studies on labor supply, the size of elasticities is rarely comparable acrosscountries. In this paper, we suggest the first large-scale international comparison ofelasticities, while netting out possible differences due to methods, data selection and theperiod of investigation....

The optimal design of low income support is examined using a structural labour supplymodel. The approach incorporates unobserved heterogeneity, fixed costs of work, childcarecosts and the detailed non-convexities of the tax and transfer system. The analysis considerspurely Pareto improving...

We investigate spillovers in spousal labour supply exploiting independent variation in hoursworked generated by the introduction of the shorter workweek in France in the late 1990s.We find that female and male employees treated by the shorter legal workweek reduce theirweekly labour supply by...

Whether observed differences in redistributive policies across countries are the result ofdifferences in social preferences or efficiency constraints is an important question that pavesthe debate about the optimality of welfare regimes. To shed new light on this question, weestimate labor supply...

By inverting Saez (2002)’s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize theredistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal)social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time andshow great stability despite...