We study how unemployment benefit eligibility affects the layoff exit rate by exploiting quasi-experimental variation in eligibility rules in Italy. By using a difference-indifferences estimator, we find an instantaneous increase of about 12% in the layoff probability when unemployment benefit...

The Austrian Beveridge curve shifted in 2014, leading to ongoing academic discussions about the reasons behind this shift. While some have argued that the shift was caused by a supply shock due to labour market liberalization, others have stated that matching efficiency decreased. Using a new...

We study how firms respond to predictable, but uncertain, worker absences arising from maternity and non-work-related sickness leave. Using administrative data on over 1.5 million spells of leave in Brazil, we identify the short-run effects of a leave spell starting on firms' employment, hiring,...

The costs to a firm of employee absence depend on how easy it is to find a replacement. We study how firms respond to predictable, but uncertain, worker absences that arise from maternity and non-work-related sickness leave. Using administrative data on over two million spells of leave in...

Fixed-term contracts (FTCs) may be an important tool to promote employment, particularly in recessions or when permanent contracts are costly. Therefore, it may be useful to vary some of the legal parameters of FTCs over the business cycle, namely increasing their flexibility during downturns....

Following massive take-up rates during the COVID-19 period, short-time work (STW) policies have attracted renewed interest. In this paper, we take stock of this policy instrument and provide a critical review of STW systems in Europe. We focus on the objectives of STW programs and their primary...

We reassess the role of vacancies in a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides style search and matching model. In the absence of free entry long lived vacancies and endogenous separations give rise to a vacancy depletion channel which we identify via joint unemployment and vacancy dynamics. We show...

In the standard macroeconomic search and matching model of the labor market, there is a tight link between the quantitative effects of (i) aggregate productivity shocks on unemployment and (ii) unemployment benefits on unemployment. This tight link is at odds with the empirical literature. We...

Will low-skilled workers be replaced by automation? To answer this question, we set up a search and matching model that features two skill types of workers and includes automation capital as an additional production factor. Automation capital is a perfect substitute for low-skilled workers and...

This article introduces the metaphor of the iceberg in the labour market. While policy in most OECD countries has historically focussed on reducing unemployment (the tip of the iceberg), the group of inactive people (below the waterline) is much larger. Therefore, we point to the clear...