Labour market flexibility continues to be one of the key issues in the reform of labour markets in welfare states. The way in which various countries adapt to this need differs according to their institutions and prevailing strategies. Despite the vast numbers of studies addressing this issue,...

There are numerous debates on the need to increase flexibility through deregulation of employment protection. Many believe it is essential in generating employment but it is also believed to generate �socially unacceptable� flexible jobs. However, recent studies point to strict regulations...

Working time flexibility comprises a wide variety of arrangements, from part-time, overtime, to long-term leaves. Theoretical approaches to grouping these arrangements have been developed, but empirical underpinnings are rare. This paper investigates the bundles that can be found for various...

This paper explores the reasons behind the differences in the use and provision of different types of working time flexibility options of companies across European labour markets with a special focus on the country differences. Competing theories on the cross-country variances of labour market...

Examining the occupational variation within non-standard employment, this book combines case studies and comparative writing to illustrate how and why alternative occupational employment patterns are formed. Through expert contributions, a framework is developed integrating explanations based on...

Several recent papers argue that contracts provide reference points that affect ex post behavior. We test this hypothesis in a canonical buyer-seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and...

We present an international trade model with multiproduct firms. Firms are heterogeneously endowed with two types of capabilities that jointly determine the trade-off within firms between managing a large portfolio of products and producing at low marginal cost. The model can explain many of the...

This paper reports data from a laboratory experiment on two-period moral hazard problems. The findings corroborate the contract-theoretic insight that even though the periods are technologically unrelated, due to incentive considerations principals can benefit from offering long-term contracts...

We study a continuous-time game of strategic experimentation in which the players try to assess the failure rate of some new equipment or technology. Breakdowns occur at the jump times of a Poisson process whose unknown intensity is either high or low. In marked contrast to existing models, we...