This paper studies the role of job search assistance programs in optimal welfare-to-work programs. The analysis is based on a framework, that allows for endogenous choice of benefit types and levels, wage taxes or subsidies, and activation measures such as monitoring and job search assistance...

Hiring subsidies are widely used to create (stable) employment for the long-term unemployed. This paper exploits the abolition of a hiring subsidy targeted at long-term unemployed jobseekers over 45 years of age in Belgium to evaluate its effectiveness in the short and medium run. Based on a...

We review the labor market implications of recent real-business-cycle models that successfully replicate the empirical equity premium. We document the fact that all models considered in this survey with the exception of Boldrin, Christiano, and Fisher (2001) imply a negative correlation of...