The Canadian labour market is currently emerging from a holding pattern with unusually high numbers in temporary (or "recall") unemployment, those "employed but absent from work" for unspecified reasons, or not in the labour force while waiting to be recalled. Two encouraging signs are evident....

We analyze changes in unemployment, marginal labor force attachment and participation in Canada and the U.S. Using two complementary decompositions, we show the importance for the comparative evolution of aggregate unemployment of changes in the fraction of the non-employed who are unemployed...

We investigate cyclical changes in workers' task portfolios, highlighting their direction, magnitude, and distribution. Task changes are not only very common but provide information about the skills required across jobs. During recessions, a larger share of employer switches do not involve task...

To rationalize a substantial income share of labor despite progressive task automation over the centuries, we present a simple model in which demand moves along a vertically differentiated production structure toward goods of increasing sophistication. Automation of more sophisticated goods...

Minimum wages decrease employment in competitive markets, but can increase it in monopsonistic markets so long as they do not exceed the marginal product of labour. We find evidence of non-monotonicity both by market structure and minimum wage level. Minimum wage hikes initially increase hours...

The goal of our paper is to better understand the economic implications of Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) programs as well as comprehend the underlying reasons for the rapid expansion of the number of TFWs hired by employers under the Canadian program brought to light in 2014. We present an...

We examine the optimal labor market-policy mix over the business cycle. In a search and matching model with risk-averse workers, endogenous hiring and separation, and unobservable search effort we first show how to decentralize the constrained-efficient allocation. This can be achieved by a...

Unemployment insurance (UI) acts both as a disincentive for labor supply and as a demand stimulus, which may explain why empirical studies often find limited effects of UI on employment. This paper provides independent estimates of the disincentive effects arising from the largest expansion of...

This paper investigates parental time investment in children prior to formal schooling as a source of intergenerational income persistence in the U.S. I develop a dynamic general equilibrium model where lifetime income endogenously persists across generations through multiple channels. My model...