The consequences of business cycle contingencies in unemployment insurance systems are considered in a search-matching model allowing for shifts between "good" and "bad" states of nature. We show that not only is there an insurance argument for such contingencies, but there may also be an...

The consequences of cylical contingencies in unemployment insurance systems are considered in a search-matching model allowing for shifts between goodʺ and badʺ states of nature. An argument for state contingencies is that insurance arguments are stronger and incentive effects weaker in "bad"...

Most dimension reduction methods based on nonparametric smoothing are highly sensitive to outliers and to data coming from heavy tailed distributions. We show that the recently proposed MAVE and OPG methods by Xia et al. (2002) allow us to make them robust in a relatively straightforward way...

This paper takes a first step in analysing how a monetary union performs in the presence of labour market asymmetries. Differences in wage flexibility, market power and country sizes are allowed for in a setting with both country-specific and aggregate shocks. The implications of asymmetries for...

In a two-country model with trade driven by comparative advantages, it is considered how imperfectly competitive labour markets are affected by lower frictions in international goods trade. Easier goods trading is equivalent to increased mobility of employment across countries and thus a change...

How will international integration affect welfare policies? This paper considers the possibilities of financing public sector activities (public consumption and social security expenses) by general (wage) taxation in an economy which becomes more integrated in international product markets. Even...