This paper provides a general equilibrium evaluation of the Employment Service, also known as the Public Labor Exchange (PLX), a national program which facilitates meetings between job seekers and vacancies. The paper departs from the partial equilibrium framework of previous evaluations by...

Self-employment is often seen as an attractive alternative to wage employment, despite lower welfare protection, higher risks, and more required effort than in the latter. It is then important to investigate why individuals choose self-employment. In addition to potential earnings, other factors...

We estimate the costs of occupational mobility using a novel approach that relies on aggregate flows of workers across occupations rather than on wage data. The theoretical underpinnings for this approach are derived from a model of occupation choice that delivers a gravity equation linking...

The Recent German research has suggested that extending the number of caseworkers may have a very positive effect on PES performance. The present paper accepts this key insight but argues that there are other factors that may independently drive outcomes and in particular local agents’...

Using international data, we investigate whether the quality of industrial relations matters for the macro economy. We measure industrial relations inversely by strikes Ð which proxy we cross-check with an industrial relations reputation indicator Ð and our macro performance indicator is the...

This paper considers the determinants of regional disparities in unemployment rates for the UK regions at NUTS-II level. We use a mixture panel data model to describe unemployment differentials between heterogeneous groups of regions. The results indicate the existence of two clusters of regions...