This paper contributes to the analysis of central vs. decentral (firm-level) labour market negotiations. We argue that during negotiations on a central scale employers and employees plausibly take output market effects into account, while they behave competitively during firm-level negotiations....

This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive tax schedule in a matching unemployment framework where (voluntary) nonparticipation and (involuntary) unemployment are endogenous. The optimal employment tax rate is given by an inverse employment elasticity rule. This rule depends on the...

This paper studies equilibrium unemployment in a two-region economy with matching frictions, where workers and jobs are free to move and wages are bargained over. Job-seekers choose between searching locally or searching in both regions. Search-matching externalities are amplified by the latter...

We investigate the implications of product market imperfections on profit sharing, wage negotiation and equilibrium unemployment. The optimal profit share, which the firms use as a wage-moderating commitment device, is below the bargaining power of the trade union. Intensified product market...

This paper is based on the ideas of political philosopher John Rawls who suggested that a just society is one which would be created behind a "veil of ignorance", that is to say, without knowing where one would end up in the society's distribution of talent and other attributes valued in the...

This paper points out an empirical failing of real business cycle models in which unemployment is endogenized through a matching function. One can easily choose a calibration to make the cyclical fluctuation in unemployment as large in the model as it is in the data, or to make the response of...

We study the role of labour and credit market imperfections for the determination of equilibrium unemployment. In the credit market loan contracts are negotiated between financiers and firms, both possessing bargaining power, while the firms and organized labour bargain over the base wage. The...

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...

In most European countries, money wages are given in collective agreements or individual employment contracts, and the employer cannot unilaterally cut wages, even after the expiration of a collective agreement. Ceteris paribus, workers have a stronger bargaining position when they try to...

In this paper, we show how time-varying unemployment benefits can generate equilibrium wage dispersion in an economy in which identical firms post wages and homogeneous workers search for acceptable offers. We allow for matching frictions and for free entry and exit of vacancies, and we model...