The present research provides evidence on the determinants driving the differences in the unemployment-output relationship in Spanish regions. We followed a two-step approach. First, we estimated a set of time-varying Okun’s coefficients (rolling-window) for the autonomous communities in Spain...

Persistent unemployment across OECD countries has led to increasing investments in activation programmes and, as a consequence, rigorous evaluations of the effectiveness of these programmes. The results of these evaluations have been mixed at best. To improve the effectiveness of the activation...

China's new Labor Contract Law, which intended to strengthen the labor protection for workers, went into effect on January 1, 2008. The law stipulated that the maximum cumulative duration of successive fixed-term (temporary) labor contracts is 10 years, and employees working for the same...

Despite conventional macroeconomic theory is based on the idea that demand shocks can only have temporary effects on unemployment, several European economies display highly persistent unemployment dynamics. The theory of hysteresis challenges this view and points out that, under certain...

Central banks need to be concerned about wages since they are a major driver of inflation. Rising wages are needed to signal directions for market adjustments to ensure growth. Wage growth is driven by relative scarcity, labor productivity and expectations about inflation and future growth....

This paper studies the effect of the business cycle on the marriage rate, using a panel data of 30 European countries covering 1991 to 2013. We find a negative effect of the business cycle on the marriage rate, pointing to the pro-cyclical behaviour of marriage decisions, which holds after...

This paper explores the relationship between a job loss and marital breakdown using Spanish panel data. The Great Recession in Spain has had severe consequences, representing an interesting framework to analyse the relationship between job loss and marital breakdown. Not only do we study whether...

We are the first to examine how parental unemployment experienced during early-, mid- and late-childhood affects adult life satisfaction. Using German household panel data, we find that parental unemployment induced by plant closures and experienced during early (0-5 years) and late (11-15...

Full employment in the European Union member states is a challenge but feasible, also in downswings of the business cycle and during stages of increased robotization. It requires a labor legislation that ensures flexibility and retraining, responsive labor sharing during the business cycle and...

Recent evidence from large-scale field experiments has shown that employers use job candidates’ unemployment duration as a sorting criterion. In the present study, we investigate the mechanisms underlying this pattern. To this end, we conduct a lab experiment in which participants make hiring...