France posted remarkable gains in employment in the second half of the 1990s, suggesting that, beyond cyclical factors, structural unemployment may have changed in the period. We provide a novel methodology to separate structural from cyclical labor market changes and apply it to French...

"Workweek reduction laws may be beneficial if market interactions do not fully take into account the preferences reflected in declining secular trends in working hours. The most recent law in France shortened the workweek from 39 to 35 hours in 2000 for large firms, and in 2002 for small firms....

Traditionally, shocks to total factor productivity (TFP) are considered exogenous and the response of employment is determined by their effect on aggregate demand. We approach the relationship between TFP and labour input differently, raising the possibility that in response to labour supply...

Using panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have a positive effect on employment rates, after controlling for institutional variables and country-specific effects. Among such policies, direct subsidies for job creation were the most effective....

Legally mandated reductions in the workweek can be either a constraint on individuals’ choice or a tool to coordinate individuals’ preferences for lower work hours. We confront these two hypotheses by studying the consequences of the workweek reduction in France from 39 to 35 hours, which...

This paper investigates how changes in industries funding costs affect total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Based on panel regressions using data for U.S. and Canadian industries and industries dependence on external funding as an identification mechanism, we show that increases in the cost...

Euro-area real wages have decelerated sharply in the last 20 years, but this has not yet translated into visibly lower unemployment or faster growth. Weak output growth after such a cost shock is somewhat puzzling and has led some to question the benefits of wage moderation. By isolating...