The U.S. economy is recovering from the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession, but the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. Some have argued that the persistent elevation of unemployment relative to historical norms reflects the fact that the shocks that hit the economy were...

UK population growth over the last thirty-five years has been remarkably low in comparison with other countries; the population grew by just 7% between 1971 and 2004, less than all the other EU15 countries except Germany. The UK population has grown at a faster pace since the turn of the...

We reconsider the central role of the natural rate of unemployment (NRU) in forming policy decisions. We show that the unemployment rate does not gravitate towards the NRU due to frictional growth, a phenomenon that encapsulates the interplay between lagged adjustment processes and growth in...

Previous estimates of unfair inequality of opportunity (IOp) are only lower bounds because of the unobservability of the full set of endowed circumstances beyond the sphere of individual responsibility. In this paper, we suggest a new estimator based on a fixed effects panel model which...

Three fundamental forces have shaped labor markets over the last 50 years: the secular increase in the returns to education, educational upgrading, and the integration of large numbers of women into the workforce. We modify the Katz and Murphy (1992) framework to predict the structure of the...

Between 1990 and 2008, emissions of the most common air pollutants from U.S. manufacturing fell by 60 percent, even as real U.S. manufacturing output grew substantially. This paper develops a quantitative model to explain how changes in trade, environmental regulation, productivity, and consumer...

This study investigates the causal effects of education on individuals' transitions between employment and unemployment, with particular focus on the extent to which education improves re-employment outcomes among unemployed workers. Given that positive correlations between education and labour...