Contrary to standard search model predictions, prior studies failed to estimate a positive effect of unemployment insurance (UI) on reemployment wages. This paper estimates a positive UI wage effect exploiting an age-based regression discontinuity in Austrian administrative data. A search model...

Two stylized representations are often found in the academic and policy literature on informality and formality in developing countries. The first is that the informal (or unregulated) sector is more competitive than the formal (or regulated) sector. The second is that contract enforcement is...

Germany experienced an even deeper fall in GDP in the Great Recession than the United States, with little employment loss. Employers’ reticence to hire in the preceding expansion, associated in part with a lack of confidence it would last, contributed to an employment shortfall equivalent to...

Using a unique eight-year data set, merging population census and national insurance data, the paper examines and compares patterns of wage mobility in Israel. First, the public and the private sectors are compared. Second, within each of these sectors, a distinction is made between sub-sector...

Using data from the German socio-economic panel this paper analyses the labour market entrance of former apprentices, as well as of university and full-time school graduates. There are three main findings. First, the retention rate of apprentices in their training firms is fairly low. Second,...

In this paper we argue that employment protection legislation is more likely to arise when the rents earned by the employed over their alternative wage is greater. The model explains why economies with greater real wage rigidity also have greater employment protection. The model also predicts...

The paper computes lifetime welfare functions for French and American workers. For the vast majority of workers, we find that the lifetime discrepancy between the welfare of an employed and that of an unemplyed worker appear to quite similar in the two countries, corresponding to nine monthly...

Previous estimates of the effect of unemployment on crime commonly omit determinants of criminal behavior that vary with the business cycle, creating correlation between unemployment rates and the residuals in aggregate crime regressions. In this paper, we employ several strategies that attempt...

It is shown that the net fiscal externality created by an additional member of a pay-as-you-go-pension system that is endowed with individual accounts equals the gross contributions of this member. In Germany, this equals about 175,000 Deutsche marks. The paper uses this information to design a...

An increase in youth unemployment and a bi-modal wage distribution in the United States have generated interest in the structure and performance of alternative labour markets. In particular, comparatively satisfactory outcomes in the German labour market are said to have been determined by the...