We investigate whether the costs of job displacement differ between blue collar and white collar workers. In the short run earnings and employment losses are substantial for both groups but stronger for white collar workers. In the long run, there are only weak effects for blue collar workers...

Despite substantial increases in longevity, the age of retirement in the industrialized countries has steadily fallen throughout most of the 20th century. In France, for instance, the employment-population ratio of 55-64 year-old males fell from 74% in 1970 to 38.5% in 2000. In most other OECD...

This paper develops a multi-period model, in which workers are matched with jobs according to imperfect educational signals and in which their subsequent productivities depend on both their inherent ability and on the quality of the job match. It outlines a sequential process, in which underpaid...

When wage contracts are relatively short-lived, rent sharing may reduce the incentives for investment since some of the returns to sunk capital are captured by workers. In this paper we use a matched worker-firm data set from the Veneto region of Italy that combines Social Security earnings...

In this study we examine the contribution of severance pay to employment and unemployment development using data on industrialized OECD countries. Our starting point is Lazear?s (1990) empirical dictum that severance payment requirements adversely impact the labor market. We extend his sample...

In this paper we investigate the importance of labor market institutions such as unemployment insurance, unions, firing regulation and minimum wages for the evolution of wage inequality across countries. We derive a simple log-linear equation of the wage differential as a function of the...

We show that a stronger earnings relationship of unemployment compensation reduces wages and increases employment in an economy in which wages are determined by a trade union that maximises the rent from unionisation. The opposite result applies for a utilitarian union. Using manufacturing and...