This paper provides a new perspective by classifying active labor market programs (ALMPs) depending on their main objectives and their relevance and cost-effectiveness during normal times, during a crisis, and during recovery. We distinguish ALMPs that provide: (i) incentives for retaining...

This study argues that aggregate demand management policies alone (which have traditionally been used to stabilize economies) may not be effective in the current crisis and argues that they should instead be implemented alongside labor market policies such as work sharing programs.The use of...

Government schemes that compensate workers for the loss of income while they are on short hours (known as short-time work compensation schemes) make it easier for employers to temporarily reduce hours worked so that labor is better matched to output requirements. Because the employers do not lay...

The level of compliance with minimum wage laws often depends on factors specific to each labor market. In most developing countries, a substantial share of workers still earns less than the legal minimum. Enforcement has not kept up with growth in regulations to protect workers from low wages...

Do investment programs create more jobs in tight or in slack labor markets? We study this question using data from a large, long-term photovoltaic invest scheme in Germany. Comparing counties with high and low unemployment both over time and across space, we find that photovoltaic installations...

Over the past decade, the share of jobs not controlled by the state has increased considerably, whilst employment in agriculture has declined, against the backdrop of ongoing urbanisation. Over 200 million people have been drawn into urban areas through official or unofficial migration, despite...

In 2012, in the midst of a recession, a labour law reform in Portugal allowed firms to reduce the overtime premium paid to their workers by 50% or more. Until then, overtime premiums were set by law at a relatively high level and could not be cut unilaterally. We analyse matched...

Over the last 30 years, researchers have disputed the mixed evidence of the effect of the minimum wage on teenage employment in the United States. Whenever the minimum wage has positive or no effects on employment, they appeal to monopsony models to explain their results. However, very few of...

In this paper, I argue that there is an inefficiently high number of job creators in a model with labour market imperfections and an endogenous decision to become a job creator. I therefore augment the standard labour matching model developed by Mortensen and Pissarides by an endogenous job...

I extend the model-based literature on spillover effects of labour market reforms on foreign (un-)employment by allowing for third-country effects. When the workhorse two-country model is enlarged to include a third country, a reform causes an additional indirect effect through a terms-of-trade...