This paper explores the macroeconomic impacts of labor and product market deregulation using a small open-economy model with formal and informal markets. We examine both the long-run effects and the transition towards the post-reform equilibrium, while our main focus are reform packages and...

This paper summarizes statistics on the key aspects of the distribution of earnings levels and earnings changes using administrative (social security) data from Italy between 1985 and 2016. During the time covered by our data, earnings inequality and earnings volatility increased, while earnings...

Spain's structural reforms, implemented around 2012, have arguably contributed to a faster and stronger economic recovery. In particular, there is strong evidence that the 2012 labor market reforms increased wage flexibility, which helped the Spanish economy to regain competitiveness and create...

Spain's export performance strengthened after the global financial crisis, and exports now represent more than a third of GDP. This paper argues that several factors contributed to that achievement: external demand, supported by greater diversification of destination markets; enhanced export...

The Danish flexicurity model has attracted attention among policymakers in Europe, because it suggests that a flexible labor market can coexist with a generous welfare system to achieve low unemployment. Using a panel of 19 countries over 1960-2002, the paper identifies the elements of the...

Using a sample of 97 countries spanning the period 1980?2008, we estimate that financial crises have a large negative impact on unemployment in the short term, but that this effect rapidly disappears in the medium term in countries with flexible labor market institutions, whereas the impact of...

This paper argues that an important group of labor market policies are complementary in the sense that the effect of each policy is greater when implemented in conjunction with the other policies than in isolation. This may explain why the diverse, piecemeal labor market reforms in many European...