How well do alternative labor market theories explain variations in net job creation? According to search-matching theory, job creation in a firm should depend on the availability of workers (unemployment) and on the number of job openings in other firms (congestion). According to efficiency...

This paper studies the probability of filling a vacancy, how it varies with the number of unemployed and number of vacancies in the local labor market, and what impact it has on employment. A greater availability of unemployed workers should make it easier for a firm to fill a vacancy but more...

Women account for the majority of parental leave take-up, which is likely one of the major reasons for the gender gap in income and wages. Consequently, many countries exert effort to promote a more gender equal division of parental leave. Indeed, the last decades have seen an increase in...

We utilise repeated cross sections of micro data from several countries, available from the Luxembourg Income Study, LIS, to estimate labour supply elasticities, both at the intensive and extensive margin. The benefit of the data is that it spans over four decades and includes a large number of...

This paper explores the rationale for unemployment benefits as a complement to optimal non-linear income taxation. High-skilled workers and low-skilled workers face different exogenous risks of being unemployed. As long as the low-skilled workers face a higher unemployment risk, we find that...

The paper extends the basic Stiglitz (1982) model of optimal income taxation into general search equilibrium. When we extend the basic taxation model to include a more realistic treatment of the labor market, a number of new interesting mechanisms arise. When wages are fixed we find that a "work...

Conventional models of equilibrium unemployment typically imply that proportional taxes on labor earnings are neutral with respect to unemployment as long as the tax does not affect the replacement rate provided by unemployment insurance, i.e., unemployment benefits relative to after-tax...

The paper extends the basic Stiglitz (1982) model of optimal nonlinear income taxation into a model featuring endogenous unemployment and wages. This means that the government needs to consider the effects on wages and unemployment when designing the optimal tax function. The tax systems’...

The paper develops a two-sector general equilibrium search model where "goods" are produced exclusively in the market and "services" are produced both in the market and within the households. We use the model to examine how unemployment and welfare are affected by labor taxes in general and...

The paper develops a two-sector general equilibrium search model where "goods" are produced exclusively in the market and "services" are produced both in the market and within the households. We use the model to examine how unemployment and welfare are affected by labor taxes in general and...