We document the presence of a trade-off between unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the provision of insurance against labor market risk. Different countries' locations along this trade-off represent stable, hard to modify, politico-economic equilibria. We...

In many European countries, wages are determined by collective bargaining agreements intended to improve wages and reduce inequality. We study the local and aggregate effects of collective bargaining in Italy and Germany. The two countries have similar geographical differences in firm...