We examine theoretically and empirically the properties of the equilibrium wage function and its implications for policy. Our emphasis is on how the researcher approaches economic and policy questions when there is labor market heterogeneity leading to a set of wages. We focus on the application...

In this paper, we aim to shed light on the relative contribution of the separation and job finding rates to French unemployment at business cycle frequencies by using administrative data on registered unemployment and labor force surveys. We first investigate the fluctuations in steady state...

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to analyze the impacts of credit and technology shocks on business cycle dynamics, where firms rely on banks and households for capital financing. Firms are identical ex ante but differ ex post due to different realizations of firm specific technology...

Although there is evidence that apprenticeship training can ease the transition of youth into the labour market and thereby reduce youth unemployment, many policy makers fear that firms will cut their apprenticeship expenditures during economic crises, thus exacerbating the problem of youth...

Temporary and circular migration programs have been devised by many destination countries and supported by the European Commission as a policy to reduce welfare and social costs of immigration in destination countries. In this paper we present an additional reason for proposing temporary...

This paper analyzes the strikingly different response of unemployment to the Great Recession in France and Spain. Their labor market institutions are similar and their unemployment rates just before the crisis were both around 8%. Yet, in France, unemployment rate has increased by 2 percentage...

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...