Different models of protection against labor market risks are associated with diverging models of economic performance. Historically established institutional complementarities between labor market regulation, unemployment protection, and vocational training tend to mirror specific national...

We characterize how public insurance schemes are constrained by hidden financial transactions. When non-exclusive private insurance entails increasing unit transaction costs, public transfers are only partly offset by hidden private transactions, and can influence consumption allocation. We show...

We present a model in which two of the most important features of the long-run growth process are reconciled: the massive changes in the structure of production and employment; and the Kaldor facts of economic growth. We assume that households expand their consumption along a hierarchy of needs...

We study a multi-sector model of growth with differences in TFP growth rates across sectors and derive sufficient conditions for the coexistence of structural change, characterized by sectoral labor reallocation, and balanced aggregate growth. The conditions are weak restrictions on the utility...

We document the nature of structural changes in employment to understand jobless growth in Irish Manufacturing in the aftermath of EEC/EU membership, 1972-2003. By 1972, forty years of protectionism and fifteen years of export promotion induced the coexistence of large exporting plants with...

In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. The data for the U.S. and for a cross section of countries make it clear that urbanization and industrialization are strongly associated with the rise of social insurance. We describe a model economy in which...

The process of economic development is characterized by substantial rural-urban migrations and a decreasing share of agriculture in output and employment. The literature highlights two main engines behind this process of structural change: (i) improvements in agricultural technology combined...

The transition to market-based economic systems in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union involves fundamental shifts in the allocation of resources and deep changes in the structure of production and employment. This paper uses a simple model of economic...

We study long-run trends in market hours of work and employment shifts across economic sectors driven by uneven TFP growth in market and home production. We focus on the substitutions between market and home production and on the structural transformation between agriculture, manufacturing and...