The paper analyses various mechanism through which monetary union in Euroep may affect unemployment. The focus is on the political incentives for labour-market reform. There will be more reform outside than inside the EMU to the extent that a national inflation bias can be reduced. But if there...

In recent years, the OECD has measured the structural rate of unemployment by an indicator called the Non-Accelerating Wage Rate of Unemployment. The NAWRU-indicator is an important element in the policy analysis of the OECD. The rise in the estimated NAWRUs is also taken as evidence that Nordic...

In this paper, the authors incorporate a positive theory of unemployment insurance into a dynamic overlapping generations model with search-matching frictions and on-the-job learning-by-doing. The model shows that societies populated by identical rational agents, but differing in the initial...

Two features distinguish European and US labor markets. First, most European countries have substantially more generous unemployment insurance. Second, the duration of unemployment and employment spells are substantially higher in Europe - employment turnover is lower. We show that...

The paper examines the implications of an important aspect of the ongoing reorganization of work - the move from occupational specialization toward multi-tasking - for centralized wage bargaining. The analysis shows how, on account of this reorganization, centralized bargaining becomes...

This paper investigates the consequences of labour supply changes in the OECD countries in the last decades. It is argued that changes in supply cannot be thought as homogenous: these changes involve more young and more adult female workers, that are complement with skilled men and substitute...