The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was a loan modification program introduced in 2009, in the U.S., to assist highly indebted homeowners with avoiding foreclosure. This program also encouraged private lenders to offer more sustainable modifications. This paper studies the role of...

Shared-appreciation mortgage (SAM) contracts, which display payments indexed to a local house price, have been proposed as an alternative to alleviate the costs of recessions. Using a heterogeneous agent model with two types of agents (Borrowers and Savers), uninsurable idiosyncratic income...

We construct a theoretical model of labor markets with human capital accumulation to understand and quantify the earnings losses for young workers generated by unemployment: unemployment represents time forgone in terms of human capital accumulation, which adversely affects long-term income...

We study the entry into legitimate employment and earnings of a large sample of convicts released from Hungarian prisons in 2002-08. The employment rate of the prisoners falls short of 20% one year before incarceration, and they earn 25% below the national average. We identify the effect of...

Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, the Dutch economy lost 6% of gdp relative to Germany, even though the Netherlands (unlike the GIPSI countries) did not face serious problems to finance its sovereign debt. This bad performance is explained by the interaction of fiscal policy...

We sketch a visionary strategy for Europe in which full employment is quickly regained by 2020, income inequality is reduced and the economies are more sustainable. We call this scenario "vibrant". It is contrasted with what would happen if present policies continue within the European Union...

This paper assesses the impact the Great Recession had on individuals' transitions to and from unemployment in Ireland. The rate of transition from unemployment to employment declined between 2006 and 2011, while the rate from employment to unemployment increased. The results indicate that young...

A historically high level of youth unemployment presents Greece with a huge social and economic challenge. This paper analyses various dimensions of this challenge. We argue that though the conventional definition of "youth" is the 16-24 age group, there is a strong case for considering 25 to...

Using the United Kingdom household longitudinal study (UKHLS), this paper shows the effect of experiencing a father being out of work on a range of labour market outcomes as young adults. Children of non-working fathers work less and are less satisfied while working despite similar wages and...

This paper quantitatively evaluates the hypothesis that the housing bust in 2007 decreased geographical reallocation and increased the dispersion and level of unemployment during the Great Recession. We construct an equilibrium model of multiple locations with frictional housing and labor...