We propose that the natural rate of unemployment has an active role in the business cycle, in contrast to the prevailing view that the rate is essentially constant. We demonstrate that this tendency to treat the natural rate as near-constant would explain the surprisingly low slope of the...

In this paper, a theory of the natural or equilibrium rate of unemployment is built around a theory of the duration of employment. Evidence is presented that most unemployed workers became unemployed because their previous jobs came to an end; only a minority are on temporary layoff or have just...

In this article we estimate the long-run aggregate elasticity of substitution between skilled and unskilled workers. This is an important parameter as it allows us to compute the skill biased technological progress (SBTP) from the evolution of relative wages. However, it is hard to estimate...