Over the last decade house prices increased remarkably in many countries. However, whilein several countries there was an employment boom in the construction sector, in others theshare of employment in this sector did not significantly change...

Spain has the highest unemployment rate (22.2%) of any European Union country, Portugal one of the lowest (7.3%). Superficially, these countries share many labor market features: the toughest job security rules in the OECD, an apparently similar architecture of wage bargaining, and comparable...