This paper analyzes the strikingly different response of unemployment to the Great Recession in France and Spain. Their … labor market institutions are similar and their unemployment rates just before the crisis were both around 8%. Yet, in … France, unemployment rate has increased by 2 percentage points, whereas in Spain it has shot up to 19% by the end of 2009. We …

optimal level of unemployment benefits, the funding of unemployment insurance and the impact of employment protection … models have deeply renewed the understanding of job search, job flows, job creations and destructions, unemployment and wage …