The distribution of unemployment duration in our equilibrium matching model with spell-dependent unemployment benefits displays a time-varying exit rate. Building on Semi-Markov processes, we translate these exit rates into an expression for the aggregate unemployment rate. Structural estimation...

We develop and estimate a non-stationary job search model to evaluate a scheme that monitors job search effort and sanctions insured unemployed whose effort is deemed insufficient. The model reveals that such schemes provide incentives to the unemployed to front-load search effort prior to...

We use a rich new body of data on the experiences of unemployed job-seekers to determine the sources of wage dispersion and to create a search model consistent with the acceptance decisions the job-seekers made. From the data and the model, we identify the distributions of four key variables:...

We introduce different skill groups and production functions into the Burdett-Mortensen equilibrium search model. Supermodularity in the production process leads to a positive intrafirm wage correlation between skill groups. Theory implies that increasing returns to scale can lead to a unimodal...

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...

In this paper we investigate the recent fall in unemployment, and the rise in part-time work, labour market participation, inequality and welfare in Germany. Unemployment fell because the Hartz IV reform induced a large fraction of the long-term unemployed to deregister as jobseekers and appear...

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...

Some workers bargain with prospective employers before accepting a job. Others could bargain, but find it undesirable, because their right to bargain has induced a sufficiently favorable offer, which they accept. Yet others perceive that they cannot bargain over pay; they regard the posted wage...

To which extent does an increase in operating effectiveness of public employment agencies on the one hand and a reduction of unemployment benefits on the other reduce unemployment? Using the recent labour market reform in Germany as background we find that the role of unemployment benefit...