In several OECD countries age-targeted wage subsidies have been introduced to increase the employment of older workers, but evidence on their effectiveness is scarce. This paper examines the effects of a permanent wage cost subsidy in Belgium on the employment rate, working time and hourly wage....

Ce numéro de Regards économiques présente les résultats d’une étude visant à déterminer si les employeurs flamands traitent de manière égale les candidatures à l’emploi des jeunes diplômés aux noms à consonance turque et à consonance flamande. La méthodologie de l’étude...

En Belgique, le chômage des jeunes est structurellement plus élevé que dans de nombreux autres pays européens et touche particulièrement les jeunes peu qualifiés. Les causes principales de ce chômage structurel sont un coût du travail trop élevé en bas de l’échelle des salaires, un...

This paper develops a partial equilibrium job search model to study the behavioral and welfare implications of an Unemployment Insurance (UI) scheme in which job search requirements are imposed on UI recipients with hyperbolic preferences. We show that, if the search requirements are well...

This article decomposes the observed gaps in educational attainment and school-to-work transitions between grandchildren of natives and immigrants in Belgium into (i) differences in observed family endowments and (ii) a residual “pure ethnic gap”. It innovates by explicitly taking delays in...

This study exploits a natural experiment in Belgium to estimate the effect of co-payment increases on the demand for physician services. It shows how a differences-in-differences estimator of the price effects can be decomposed into effects induced by the common average proportional price...

This paper assesses whether short-lived jobs (lasting one quarter or less and involuntarily ending in unemployment) are stepping stones to long-lastinc jobs (enduring one year or more) for Belgian long-term unemployed school-leavers. We proceed in two steps. First, we estimate labour market...

The current unemployment insurance and employment protection legislation were set up in an economic environment in which relationships between workers and firms were typically lon-lastingand stable. The increasing globalisation of the economy and the rapid technological and organisational...

We develop and estimate a non-stationary job search model to evaluate as scheme that monitors job search effort and sanctions insured unemployed whose effort is deemed insufficient. The model reveals that such schemes provide incentives to the unemployed to front-load search effort prior to...

This study investigates whether young unemployed graduates who accept a job below their level of education accelerate or delay the transition into a job that matches their level of education. We adopt the Timing of Events approach to identify this dynamic treatment effect using monthly calendar...