Nowcasting has been a challenge in the recent economic crisis. We introduce the Toll Index, a new monthly indicator for business cycle forecasting and demonstrate its relevance using German data. The index measures the monthly transportation activity performed by heavy transport vehicles across...

So far the literature has found that the effect of macroeconomic fluctuations on training decisions is ambiguous. On the one hand, the opportunity cost to train is lower during downturns, and thus training should be counter-cyclical. On the other hand, a positive shock may be related to the...

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...

In this paper, we develop an aggregation procedure using time-varying weights for constructing the common component of international economic fluctuations. The methodology for deriving time-varying weights is based on some stylized features of the data documented in the paper. The model allows...

This study demonstrates that nonlinearities, coupled with worker heterogeneity, make it possible to reconcile the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model with the labor market dynamics observed in the United States. Nonlinearities, induced by firings and downward real wage rigidities, magnify...

The COVID-19 pandemic raised the share of inactive individuals in 2020 in Italy, mostly at the expense of permanent and fix-term employment. We document sizable asymmetric effects across categories of individuals, defined on the basis of gender, age and geographical area. In particular, the...

We analyse the distribution and the flows between different types of employment (self-employment, temporary, and permanent), unemployment, education, and other types of inactivity, with particular focus on the duration of the school-to-work transition (STWT). The aim is to assess the impact of...

We propose a general methodology to measure labour market dynamics, inspired by the search and matching framework, based on the estimate of the transition rates between labour market states. We show how to estimate instantaneous transition rates starting from discrete time observations provided...

In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a reform introduced in Italy in 2018 (Decreto Dignità), which increased the rigidity of employment protection legislation (EPL) of temporary contracts, rolling back previous policies, to reduce job instability. We use longitudinal labour force data from...

Basmann (Basmann, R.L., 1957, A generalized classical method of linear estimation of coefficients in a structural equation. Econometrica 25, 77-83; Basmann, R.L., 1959, The computation of generalized classical estimates of coefficients in a structural equation. Econometrica 27, 72-81) introduced...