We sketch a visionary strategy for Europe in which full employment is quickly regained by 2020, income inequality is reduced and the economies are more sustainable. We call this scenario "vibrant". It is contrasted with what would happen if present policies continue within the European Union...

This paper is concerned with the labor market experience of Swedish youths during the 1980s and the 1990s. The first objective is to portray early economic attainment among young Swedes. The second objective of the paper is to examine the impact of labor market programs on youth employment. We...

Our paper studies the causes of poverty from the perspective of job search. We show that poor people remain poor because they have less time and initial endowment to search for a better job. Initial endowment is key to successful job search, as one can afford not to work and search longer for a...

As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, five million Russian and Russian-speaking people repatriated to Russia during 1990 - 2002. I use this natural experiment to study labor market assimilation of migrants and their effect on the employment and wages of the local population. I show...

This paper presents an impact evaluation of a revamped version of the Dominican Republic's youth training program Juventud y Empleo. The paper analyzes the impact of the program on traditional labor market outcomes and on outcomes related to youth behavior and life style, expectations about the...

Unemployment increased drastically over the course of the Great Recession from 4.5 percent prior to the recession to 10 percent at its peak in October 2009. Since then, the unemployment rate has come down steadily, and it stood at 5.8 percent in November 2014. Based on existing analyses and some...

In this report, we follow up the situation of individuals having re-entered the labour market with the help of a so-called job bank. The follow-up period extends over the next two years after their job-bank-mediated transition into the open labour market. We present two different sets of results...

In this report, we re-assess the role of so-called job banks as mediators into the open labour market but also as employers of unemployed job-seekers. The focus is primarily on the unemployed who became job bank clients during 2013. We follow up the labour market situation of these individuals...

In this research we show that workers aged 30-44 were significantly more likely than those aged 45-59 to find a job a year after being unemployed. The main contribution is demonstrating empirically that since older workers' difficulties are related to their age, while for younger individuals the...

This paper provides a robust estimation of the impact of both product and labour market regulations on unemployment using data for 24 European countries over the period 1998-2013. Controlling for country-fixed effects, endogeneity and various covariates, results show that product market...