The increasing proportion of immigrants in the population of many countries has raised concerns about the 'absorption capacity' of the labour market, and fuelled extensive empirical research in countries that attract migrants. In previous papers we synthesized the conclusions of this empirical...

The deterioration of the income and employment position of unskilled workers in the OECD area since the 1980s is a well-documented fact. The debate about the causes of this development is dominated by two competing hypotheses, "North-South Trade" or "globalisation" and technological progress....

A matching model in the line of Mortensen and Pissarides (1994) is augmented with a lowskill labor market and firing costs. It is shown that even with flexible wages unemployment is higher among the low-skilled and increases with skill-biased technological change. The two main reasons are that...

This study examines how minimum wage laws affect the employment and earnings of low-skilled immigrants and natives in the U.S. Minimum wage increases might have larger effects among low-skilled immigrants than among natives because, on average, immigrants earn less than natives due to lower...

We use a calibrated general equilibrium model with heterogeneous labor and search to evaluate the quantitative effects of various labor tax cut scenarios. The focus is on skill heterogeneity combined with downward wage rigidities at the low end of the skill ladder. Workers can take jobs for...

In January 2001 the Hungarian government increased the minimum wage from Ft 25,500 to Ft 40,000. One year later the wage floor rose further to Ft 50,000. The paper looks at the short-run impact of the first hike on small-firm employment and flows between employment and unemployment. It finds...

The search-matching model is well suited for an equilibrium evaluation of labor market policies. When those policies are targeted on some groups, the usual juxtaposition of labor markets is however a shortcoming. There is a need for a setting where workers' productivity depends on employment...

The effectiveness of public funds in increasing public employment has long been a question on public and labor economists' minds. In most federal countries local governments employ large fractions of the working population, meaning that a tool for stimulating local public employment can...

The Swedish adult education program known as the Knowledge Lift (1997-2002) was unprecedented in its size and scope, aiming to raise the skill level of large numbers of low-skill workers. This paper evaluates the potential effects of this program on aggregate labor market outcomes. This is done...

This paper analyses the effect of foreign acquisition on survival probability and employment growth of target plant using data on Swedish manufacturing plants during the period 1993-2002. An improvement over previous studies is that we take into account firm level heterogeneity by separating the...