Using a sample of 97 countries spanning the period 1980?2008, we estimate that financial crises have a large negative impact on unemployment in the short term, but that this effect rapidly disappears in the medium term in countries with flexible labor market institutions, whereas the impact of...

The aim of this paper is to assess the ability of social spending to smooth output shocks and to provide stabilization. The results show that overall social spending is able to smooth about 16 percent of a shock to GDP. Among its subcategories, social spending devoted to Old Age and Unemployment...