We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UA) system. Under the UA system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during...

This paper explores the influence of on-the-job training on the employment effect of firing costs. It shows that on-the-job training (generating firm specific skills) causes firing costs to have a contractionary influence on average employment (over the booms and recessions of the business cycle).

Suppose insiders use their market power to push up their wages, while entrants receive their reservation wages. How will employment be affected? In addressing this question, we focus on the role of on-the-job training. We show that an insider wage hike reduces recession-time employment but, in...

This paper examines the interactions between employment and training policies. Their effectiveness in stimulating income may be interdependent for various important reasons. For example, the more employment policies stimulate the employment rate, the greater the length of time over which workers...

We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UA) system. Under the UA system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during...

Using a standard dynamic general equilibrium model, we show that the interaction of staggered nominal contracts with hyperbolic discounting leads to inflation having significant long-run effects on real variables.

We explore the far-reaching implications of low-wage subsidies on aggregate employment. Low-wage subsidies have three important effects. First, they promote employment of unskilled workers (who tend to be the ones who earn low wages). Second, by raising the payoff of unskilled work relative to...

A growing body of empirical evidence shows that there exists a long-run positive tradeoff between inflation and real macroeconomic activity. Within a New Keynesian framewok, we examine how increasing returns generate a positive long-run relation between inflation and output.

A major criticism against staggered nominal contracts is that they give rise to the so called persistency puzzle - although they generate price inertia, they cannot account for the stylised fact of inflation persistence. It is thus commonly asserted that, in the context of the new Phillips curve...