The paper examines the relative effectiveness of two policy proposals in reducing unemployment and working poverty: unemployment vouchers and low-wage subsidies. The unemployment vouchers are targeted exclusively at the unemployed (especially the longterm unemployed) and are provided only for a...

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on unemployment, and the political difficulties in implementing more extensive reform programs. We argue that the heart of...

This paper addresses the question of why high unemployment rates tend to persist even after their proximate causes have been reversed (e.g., after wages relative to productivity have fallen). We suggest that the longer people are unemployed, the greater is their cumulative likelihood of falling...

In this paper we use a dataset that follows a representative sample of native Europeans, resident of 11 countries, over the period 1995-2001, in order to identify the effect of inflows of immigrants on their career, employment, location and wage. We use the 1991 distribution of immigrants by...

We analyze whether second-generation immigrants have different political preferences relative to children of citizens. Using data on individual voting behavior in 22 European countries between 2001 and 2017, we characterize each vote on a left-right scale based on the ideological and policy...

In this paper we use a dataset that follows a representative sample of native Europeans, resident of 11 countries, over the period 1995-2001, in order to identify the effect of inflows of immigrants on their career, employment, location and wage. We use the 1991 distribution of immigrants by...

The aim of this paper is to analyze and estimate salient characteristics of unemployment dynamics. Movements in unemployment are viewed as "chain reactions" of responses to labor market shocks, working their way through systems of interacting lagged adjustment processes. In the context of...

We distinguish and assess three fundamental views of the labor market regarding the movements in unemployment: (i) the frictionless equilibrium view; (ii) the chain reaction theory, or prolonged adjustment view; and (iii) the hysteresis view. While the frictionless view implies a clear...