Unemployment is notoriously difficult to predict. In previous studies, once country and year fixed effects are added to panel estimates, few variables predict changes in unemployment rates. Using panel data for 29 European countries collected by the European Commission over 444 months between...

The starkly different histories and institutions in the eastern and western member states of the European Union (EU) suggest different roles of being non-native in these two regions. In this paper we study the roles of foreign origin and citizenship in the comparative East-West perspective. Our...

France and Germany are two polar cases in the European debate about rising youth unemployment. Similar to what can be observed in Southern European countries, a "lost generation" may arise in France. In stark contrast, youth unemployment has been on continuous decline in Germany for many years,...

Germany and France are both Continental European welfare states with severe labor market problems such as low employment and high and persistent unemployment which can be explained by labor market institutions that inhibit labor market adaptability. This paper analyzes recent reforms in core...

This paper uses Indian EUS-NSSO data on 32 states/union territories and 570 districts for a bi-annual panel with 5 waves to estimate how regional population reacts to asymmetric shocks. These shocks are measured by non-employment rates, unemployment rates, and wages in fixed-effects regressions...

Drawing upon data from the largest cross-country study of labor market concentration to date, this paper analyzes the level of concentration of labor input markets in Europe and North America and provides a comparative perspective on employers' monopsony power. It explores the characteristics of...

This paper suggests that in the US context, workers tend to invest in general human capital especially since they face little employment protection and low unemployment benefits, while the European model (generous benefits and higher duration of jobs) favors specific human capital investments....

We investigate the importance of employer preferences in explaining Sticky Floors, the pattern that women are, compared to men, less likely to start to climb the job ladder. To this end we perform a randomised field experiment in the Belgian labour market and test whether hiring discrimination...

This paper studies optimal taxation schemes for education in a search-matching model where the labor market is divided between a high-skill and a low-skill sector. Two public policy targets - maximizing the global employment level and optimizing the social surplus - are studied according to...

How does the asymmetry of labor market institutions affect the adjustment of a currency union to shocks? To answer this question, this paper sets up a dynamic currency union model with monopolistic competition and sticky prices, hiring frictions and real wage rigidities. In our analysis, we...