In order to improve our understanding of the channels through which monetary policy has distributional consequences, we build a New Keynesian model with incomplete asset markets, asymmetric search and matching (SAM) frictions across skilled and unskilled workers and, foremost, capital-skill...

This paper presents a case study on reforming a very dysfunctional labor market with a deep insider-outsider divide, namely the Spanish case. We show how a dual market, with permanent and temporary employees makes real reform much harder, and leads to purely marginal changes that do not alter...

This paper analyzes the strikingly different response of unemployment to the Great Recession in France and Spain. Their labor market institutions are similar and their unemployment rates just before the crisis were both around 8%. Yet, in France, unemployment rate has increased by 2 percentage...

This paper reviews the experience so far of the Spanish labour market during the Covid-19 crisis in the light of current institutions, past performance during recessions, and the policy measures adopted during the pandemic. Emphasis is placed on the role of worldwide trends in labour markets...

This paper studies short-time work arrangements (ERTEs) when aggregate risk is partially sector-specific. In Spain, the Great Recession and the pandemic recession (aka the Great Contagion) can both be understood as being driven partially by large sector-specific shocks. However, the latter shows...

This paper examines the empirical evidence regarding the poor performance of the youth labor market in Spain over the last two decades, which entails very high unemployment for both higher and lower educated workers, symptoms of over-education, and low intensity of on-the-job training. It also...

We propose a model to evaluate the U.K.'s zero-hours contract (ZHC) - a contract that exempts employers from the requirement to provide any minimum working hours, and allows employees to decline any workload. We find quantitatively that ZHCs improve welfare by enabling firms with more volatile...