The paper examines the relative effectiveness of two policy proposals in reducing unemployment and working poverty: unemployment vouchers and low-wage subsidies. The unemployment vouchers are targeted exclusively at the unemployed (especially the long-term unemployed) and are provided only for a...

Worker-level panel data are used to analyse the separate employment effects of increases in the social security taxes paid by employers and increases in the minimum wage in Turkey between 2002 and 2005. Variation over time and among low-wage workers in the ratio of total labour costs to the...

Many countries have legislation which make it costly for firms to dismiss or retrench workers. In the case of India, the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, requires firms that employ 50 or more workers to pay a compensation to any worker who is to be retrenched. This paper builds a theoretical model...

This article is an idiosyncratic survey of the insider-outsider theory, describing the vision underlying the theory, and evaluating salient contributions to the literature in the light of this vision. We also indicate what appear to have been dead-ends and red herrings in past research. The...

This paper examines the movements in EU unemployment from two perspectives: (a) the NRU/NAIRU perspective, in which unemployment movements are attributed largely to changes in the long-run equilibrium unemployment rate and (b) the chain-reaction perspective, in which unemployment movements are...

This paper presents a reappraisal of unemployment movements in the European Union. Our analysis is based on the chain reaction theory of unemployment, which focuses on (a) the interaction among labor market adjustment processes, (b) the interplay between these adjustment processes and the...

This study tests to what degree the incidence of payroll taxes in Germany is on employment and whether in consequence payroll taxes, in particular social insurance contributions, are the culprit behind the growing unemployment problem. Using industry level data for 18 years (1977-1994) we...

We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UA) system. Under the UA system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during...

In order to alleviate unemployment it is often recommended to reduce social security contributions (SSC) and to compensate for the ensuing loss in revenues by a rise in the value-added tax (VAT). Assuming unemployment to be caused by efficiency wages, it is shown that a balanced-budget shift...

The Swedish labour market and social policy is aimed at facilitating flexibility in the labour market. The active labour market policy and the design of the social security pension system are two frequently mentioned examples of that policy. This does not necessarily mean that all policy...