Hiring is a costly activity reflecting firms' investment in their workers. Micro-data shows that hiring costs involve production disruption. Thus, cyclical fluctuations in the value of output, induced by price frictions, have consequences for the optimal allocation of hiring activities. We...

This study investigates real wage cyclicality in Portugal for the years of 1986-98, addressing the heterogeneity in wages responses to aggregate labor market conditions for workers' hirings and separations. The results exhibit a moderate procyclical behavior of real wages for continuously...

We revisit the hypothesis that labor market fluctuations are driven by shocks to the discount rate. Using a model in which the UE and the EU rates are endogenous, we show that an increase in the discount rate leads to a decline in both the UE and the EU rates. In the data, though, the UE and EU...

Dual apprenticeship training is a market-driven form of education at the upper secondary level, taking place in firms as well as in vocational schools. So far, little is known about the impact of the business cycle on the number of apprenticeship programs offered by firms. Using panel-data of...

Flexicurity labour markets are characterised by flexible hiring/firing rules, generous social safety net, and active labour market policies. How can such labour markets cope with the consequences of the Great Recession? Larger labour shedding is to be expected and this strains the social safety...

This study investigates the extent and speed of dynamic adjustment of labour supply to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends. We estimate error-correction models (ECMs) for male and female participation rates in the Netherlands between 1969 and 2004. The results...

This paper assesses the impact that the 2009 Great Recession had on individual's transitions to and from unemployment in Ireland. The rate of transition from unemployment to employment declined between 2006 and 2011, while the rate from employment to unemployment increased. The impact of some of...