The United States is currently trying to manage a fast-moving public health crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19). The economic and financial ramifications of the outbreak are serious. This Working Paper discusses these ramifications and identifies three interrelated but potentially...

The paper surveys unemployment policies for advanced market economies and evaluates them by examining the predictions of the underlying macroeconomic theories. The basic idea is that, for the most part, different unemployment policy prescriptions rest on different macroeconomic theories, and our...

The Canadian labour market experienced a period of unprecedented turmoil following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze the main changes using standard labour force statistics and new data on job postings. Envisaging a phase of temporary severing of employment relationships followed by...

The Canadian labour market experienced a period of unprecedented turmoil following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze the main changes using standard labour force statistics and new data on job postings. Envisaging a phase of temporary severing of employment relationships followed by...

At the onset of the COVID pandemic, the U.S. economy suddenly and swiftly lost 20 million jobs. Over the next two years, the economy has been on the recovery path. We assess the labor market two years into the COVID crisis. We show that early employment dynamics were almost entirely driven by...

We live in an age where digital platforms have the power to shape and channel our social and economic choices. The advent of technology and growth of digital platforms has created avenues for sharing outside trusted circles and brought opportunities for the establishment of entirely new kind of...

This paper studies the role of labor courts in determining labor market outcomes in the Brazilian economy. First, by exploring the fact that judges are assigned randomly to cases and using the universe of labor lawsuits filed in the country's largest labor courthouse from 2008 to 2013, we show...

Many studies show that workers make poor decisions about pension savings. Policy responses to these failures include social security retirement arrangements, tax benefits for pension savings and, in some countries, also mandatory private savings towards retirement. This study examines the...

This paper estimates the marginal treatment effect of formality on wages for Brazil at the individual level leveraging regional data on labor inspections for identification. The results show that there is significant essential heterogeneity among otherwise identical workers that lead them to...