The Japanese labor market has been experiencing considerable transformations over the recent decades. We analyze the implications of some of these actual and potential transformations, whose impact may not be homogeneous across workers of different ages. We first develop a life-cycle search and...

Unemployment in Japan nearly tripled during the 1990s. Underlying this upsurge lie an increase in the probability of workers to lose their jobs and a decrease in the probability that the unemployed find jobs. This paper analyzes the sources responsible for these labor market changes in Japan in...