The baby-boom and subsequent baby-bust have shaped much of the history of the second half of the 20th century; yet it is still largely unclear what caused them. This paper presents a new unified explanation of the fertility Boom-Bust that links the latter to the Great Depression and the...

Macro-level changes can have substantial effects on the distribution of resources at the household level. While it is possible to speculate about which groups are likely to be hardest-hit, detailed distributional studies are still largely backward-looking. This paper suggests a straightforward...

Flexicurity labour markets are characterised by flexible hiring/firing rules, generous social safety net, and active labour market policies. How can such labour markets cope with the consequences of the Great Recession? Larger labour shedding is to be expected and this strains the social safety...

This article reviews the effects of the Great Recession on youth labour markets. We argue that young people aged 16-24 have suffered disproportionately during the recession. Using the USA and UK as case studies, we analyse youth unemployment using microdata. We argue that there is convincing...

This paper provides novel evidence on the long-term effect of the Great Recession on the quality of jobs, in particular whether the Great Recession results in the replacement of "good jobs" (characterized by high wage/benefit, job security, and opportunity for training and development) with "bad...

There is considerable debate about the role of wage rigidity in explaining unemployment. Despite a large body of empirical work, no consensus has emerged on the extent of wage rigidity. Previous attempts to empirically examine wage rigidity have been hampered by small samples and measurement...

This paper examines whether unemployment of non-western immigrant workers in the Netherlands was disproportionally affected by the Great Recession. We analyze unemployment data covering the period November 2007 to February 2013 finding that the Great Recession affected unemployment rates of...

With periodic recessions and the rising costs of health care, it is important to know how labor market participation and insecurity affects health outcomes. Yet, this line of research faces a number of methodological challenges which this paper aims to address. We turn to Ukraine's experience...