This paper proposes a methodology for benchmarking unemployment benefits systems, with a view to assess reform needs and priorities. The methodology permits to assess different dimensions of unemployment benefit systems and to consider alternative relevant benchmarks. Looking at all relevant...

The objective of this paper is to provide a political economy explanation of the empirically observed negative correlation between employment protection and insurance. We study an economy composed of four groups of agents (capitalists, unemployed people, low- and high-skilled workers), each one...

Recent empirical evidence has found that employment services and small-business assistance programmes are often successful at getting the unemployed back to work. One important concern of policy makers is to decide which of these two programmes is more effective and for whom. Using unusually...

Persistent unemployment after recessions and the policies required to bring it down are the subject of an ongoing debate. One view suggests there are fundamental changes in the labor market that imply a long-term higher rate of unemployment, requiring the implementation of structural policy...

This paper evaluates Spain's 2012 labour market reform concerning the reduction in severance pay from 45 to 33days of wages per year of seniority and the introduction of a new subsidised permanent contract. We also compare this policy with the introduction of a single open-ended labour contract...

There has been a strong interest in short-time work (STW) schemes during the global financial crisis. Using data for 23 OECD countries for the period 2004 Q1 to 2010 Q4, this paper analyses the quantitative effects of STW programmes on labour market outcomes. Special attention is given to the...

There has been a strong interest in short-time work (STW) schemes during the global financial crisis. Using data for 23 OECD countries for the period 2004 Q1 to 2010 Q4, this paper analyses the quantitative effects of STW programmes on labour market outcomes by exploiting the country and time...

This paper uses the job creation and destruction model of the search and matching type proposed by García-Pérez and Osuna (2014) to study the effectiveness of subsidizing permanent job creation as a strategy to reduce labour market segmentation between permanent and temporary contracts. The...