This paper proposes a model of the US unemployment rate which accounts for both its asymmetry and its long memory. Our approach, based on the tests of Robinson (1994), introduces fractional integration and nonlinearities simultaneously into the same framework (unlike earlier studies employing a...

A firm monopsonistically hires labor from a pool containing both skilled and unskilled workers. The marginal value of a worker depends on the match between the job and the worker's skill level. Unskilled workers can have negative productivity if they are placed in a skilled job. The firm cannot...

Border regions are likely to play a critical role within the spatial dynamics initiated by the enlargement of the EU. This paper deals with the effects of integration on labour markets in border regions. Within the framework of different theoretical approaches, the effects of integration on...

Recent studies of border effects have focused on the intra-country and inter-country comparison of trade flows. It is found that borders have a negative impact on the size of cross-border trade. In order to estimate border effects on a regional level one needs not only data on inter-country but...

In this paper we find evidence that the new economic geography approach is able to describe and explain the spatial characteristics of an economy, in our case the German economy. Using German district data we estimate the structural parameters of a new economic geography model as developed by...

The paper develops a sequential migration model and derives a worker's optimal policies for migration and employment. With the worker's simulated reservation wage functions for employment and migration, a stationary equilibrium is defined. In that equilibrium, stationary distributions of...

One of the most prominent instruments of regional policy is to foster education and human capital formation in economically lagging regions. However, regional policy of this type can actually hurt instead of help the poor areas. The reason is that individual geographical mobility increases with...

We address the effects of wages on employment growth on the basis of a theoretical model from which cost and demand effects can be derived. In the empirical analysis we take a highly disaggregated perspective and apply a newly developed shift-share regression technique on an exhaustive and very...

The paper develops an overlapping generations model that highlights interactions between social security, unemployment and growth. The social security system has two components: old age pensions and unemployment insurance. Pensions have a different effect on economic growth. Both pensions and...