This paper analyses the potential impacts of introducing unemployment insurance (UI) in middle income countries using the case of Malaysia, which today does not have such a system. The analysis is based on a job search model with unemployment and three employment sectors: formal and informal...

The paper aims at comparing the formal and informal labour markets in the Central and Eastern European new EU Member States and candidate countries of the European Union. First, the current situation of the labour market is described, focusing on the recent developments since the breaking up of...

We document how differences in labour demand by gender explain the contrasting evolutions of labour force participation between men and women during the Great Recession in Europe. We first highlight that Europe is characterized by high levels of occupational segregation by gender. As a result,...

Labor markets in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe underwent a dramatic transformation. Notably, this transformation took place within just a few years. Until the mid-2000s job opportunities were scarce and unemployment was high. But since then labor demand has picked up and...

Since the last recession, it is usually argued that older workers are less affected by the economic downturn because their unemployment rate rose less than the one of prime-age workers. This view is a myth: older workers are more sensitive to the business cycle. We document volatilities of...

Firms often use social networks to find workers, limiting the pool of potential applicants. We conduct a field experiment subsidizing firms' formal vacancy posting. The subsidies increase non-network employee search and shift vacancies towards high-skilled positions. Post-treatment, firms...

In-work benefits are becoming an increasingly relevant labour market policy, gradually expanding in scope and geographical coverage. This paper investigates the equilibrium impact of in-work benefits and contrasts it with the traditional partial equilibrium analysis. We find under which...

We use a repeated large-scale survey of households in the Nielsen Homescan panel to characterize how labor markets are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We document several facts. First, job loss has been significantly larger than implied by new unemployment claims: we estimate 20 million...

A search-theoretic model of the labor market with idiosyncratic fluctuations in hours worked, search both off- and on-the-job, and multiple jobholding is developed. Taking on a second job entails a commitment to hold onto the primary employer, enabling the worker to use the primary job as her...

Labor markets in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe underwent adramatic transformation. Notably, this transformation took place within just a few years. Untilthe mid-2000s job opportunities were scarce and unemployment was high. But since thenlabor demand has picked up and...