Many countries suffer from persistently high unemployment rates. The scope for labour market reforms is often limited …

unemployment benefits reduce unemployment? Using a recent labour market reform in Germany as background, we find that an enhanced … effectiveness of the PEA explains about 20% of the observed post-reform unemployment decline. The role of unemployment benefit … the PEA could have had an even higher impact on unemployment reduction if there had been less focus on long …

In order to alleviate unemployment it is often recommended to reduce social security contributions (SSC) and to … compensate for the ensuing loss in revenues by a rise in the value-added tax (VAT). Assuming unemployment to be caused by … neutralised, for example, by imposing a constant wedge, the employment impact will depend on the nature of the unemployment …