This paper studies the duration pattern of fixed-term contracts and the determinants of the transformation of these into permanent ones. To address this issue we estimate a duration model for temporary employment, with competing risks of flowing into permanent employment versus non-employment,...

In this paper we use data from industrial plants to investigate if seniority-based pay is used as a motivational device for production workers. Alternatively, seniority-based pay could simply be a wage setting rule not necessarily related to the provision of incentives. Unlike previous papers,...

We propose a new methodology for measuring intergenerational mobility in economic well-being. Our method is based on the joint distribution of surnames and economic outcomes. It circumvents the need for intergenerational panel data, a long-standing stumbling block for understanding mobility. It...

In the mid-1980s, many European countries introduced fixed-term contracts. This paper studies the possible implications of such reforms for the duration distribution of unemployment. I estimate a parametric duration model using cross-sectional data drawn from the Spanish Labor Force Survey from...

We propose a new econometric estimation method for analyzing the probability of leaving unemployment using uncompleted spells from repeated cross-section data, which can be especially useful when panel data are not available. The proposed method-of-moments based estimator has two important...

I analyze the effects of introducing fixed-term contracts, leaving existing labor market regulations unchanged, on unemployment and labor market segmentation. I use an efficiency wage model in which the firm's choice of contracts and the renewal rate of fixed-term contracts into permanent ones...

In the mid-1980s,most accessions to permanent employment in several European countries have been through fixed-term contracts. This paper studies the duration pattern of fixed-term contracts and the determinants of their conversion into permanent ones in Spain, where the share of fixed-term...

There is an enormous literature on gender gaps in pay and labour market participation but virtually no literature on gender gaps in unemployment rates. Although there are some countries in which there is essentially no gender gap in unemployment, there are others in which the female unemployment...

This paper was presented at the launch of SIRE, November 2007 and has also been published as CEPR Discussion Paper Number 810