This paper studies mandatory job-search periods for welfare applicants. During this period the benefits application is put on hold and the applicant is obliged to make job applications. We combine a randomized experiment with detailed administrative data to investigate the effects of imposing a...

This paper delves into the recent events that led to the formation of the housing bubble in Spain and the resulting structural change that is arguably needed to put the economy back into the right track. For this purpose we calibrate a model with different equilibria descriptive of the labor...

In this paper we focus on the role of caseworkers in the assignment and take-up of welfare-to-work programs. We conduct a field experiment that generates exogenous variation in the assignment to different policy regimes to caseworkers. The experiment allows us to provide evidence on the...

The Japanese lost decade has become an intriguing puzzle for both economists and policy-makers alike, as the unemployment rate climbed to unprecedented levels and the growth rate of productivity decreased considerably. More recent times seem to present with a more optimistic outlook, but this is...

This paper analyses the labour markets of Spain and Ireland, which have experienced a severe downturn in the recent global crisis as reflected by the largest increases in their unemployment rates among other developed economies. Spain and Ireland might seem at first to feature very different...