Economic growth and unemployment exhibit an ambiguous relationship – according to empirical studies. This ambiguity can be investigated by observing the role of the underground economy in shaping the productivity of firms. Indeed, unemployment may be absorbed by underground firms, which adopt...

This paper develops a labour market matching model in order to address the problem of the persistence of the hidden sector and of its regional concentration, as in Italy and in the enlarged Europe. The main novel features of the model are that entrepreneurial ability affects job productivity,...

A matching model will explain both unemployment and economic growth by considering the underground sector. Three problems can thus be simultaneously accounted for: (i) the persistence of underground economy, (ii) the ambiguous relationships between underground employment and unemployment, and...

The proposed theoretical work introduces the basic insights of the ‘slippery slope’ framework into the benchmark macroeconomic model of the labour market in order to study the relation between tax compliance (both voluntary and enforced), tax evasion and unemployment. This paper shows that...

This paper examines whether the Mortensen-Pissarides matching model can account for the housing market facts, most of all the empirical anomaly known as ‘price dispersion’. Our main finding is that the model can account for the three basic facts of housing market (namely, the existence of...

There are two types of home seekers in this housing market matching model: the homeless who search for a dwelling both in the rental market and in the homeownership market simultaneously; and the home seekers in the renter (tenant) state who want to buy a home and only search in the...

The key issue in the hedonic price theory is that although the literature emphasises the intrinsic nonlinearity in the relationship between house prices and housing characteristics, very little theoretical guidance is provided regarding the more appropriate mathematical specification for the...

This paper develops a matching model à la Pissarides (2000) in order to explain the basic facts of housing markets, most of all the variance in house prices. Price dispersion is basically due to both the ex-ante heterogeneity of the parties and the search costs of buyers and sellers. In fact,...

This paper develops a theoretical model in which the matching framework à la Pissarides (2000) extended to the housing market is integrated with the hedonic price theory. Market tightness and selling price collectively determine the long-run equilibrium of the economic system in which a seller...

Matching models are the primary and most popular theoretical tools used by economists to evaluate various labour market policies and to study the problem of unemployment. These notes mean to provide an exhaustive introduction to the study of the benchmark macroeconomic models of the labour market.