Spatial differences in labor market performance are large and highly persistent. Using data from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, we document striking similarities in spatial differences in unemployment, vacancies, job finding, and job filling within each country. This robust...

We use a novel approach to studying the heterogeneity in the job finding rates of the nonemployed by classifying the nonemployed by labor force status (LFS) histories, instead of using only one-month LFS. Job finding rates differ substantially across LFS histories: they are 25-30% among those...

In employment relationships, a wage is an installment payment on an implicit long-term agreement between a worker and a firm. The price of labor that impacts firm's hiring decisions, instead, reflects the hiring wage as well as the impact of economic conditions at the time of hiring on future...

This paper examines whether unemployment of non-western immigrant workers in the Netherlands was disproportionally affected by the Great Recession. We analyze unemployment data covering the period November 2007 to February 2013 finding that the Great Recession affected unemployment rates of...

Our paper revisits Okun's relationship between observed unemployment rates and output gaps. We include in the relationship the effect of labour market institutions as well as age and gender effects. Our empirical analysis is based on 20 OECD countries over the period 1985-2013. We find that the...

Unemployment recoveries in the US have been inexorable. Between 1948 and 2019, the annual reduction in the unemployment rate during cyclical recoveries was fairly tightly distributed around 0.1 log points per year. The economy seems to have an irresistible force toward restoring full employment....

Potential workers are classified as unemployed if they seek work but are not working. The unemployed population contains two groups - those with jobs and those without jobs. Those with jobs are on furlough or temporary layoff. This group expanded tremendously in April 2020, at the trough of the...

We propose that the natural rate of unemployment has an active role in the business cycle, in contrast to the prevailing view that the rate is essentially constant. We demonstrate that this tendency to treat the natural rate as near-constant would explain the surprisingly low slope of the...

We compile a novel high-frequency, detailed geographic dataset on mass layoffs from U.S. state labor departments. Using recent advances in difference-in-difference estimation with staggered treatment, we find that locally-mandated stay-at-home orders issued March 16–22, 2020 triggered mass...

The development of the unemployment rate differs substantially between OECD countries. In recent years some countries experienced a mild increase, other countries had a stable unemployment rate, while there are also 'successful' countries in which the unemployment rate decreased a lot. A common...