To finance unemployment insurance, states raise payroll tax rates on employers who engage in layoffs. Tax rates are, therefore, highest for firms after downturns, potentially hampering labor-market recovery. Using full-population, administrative records from Florida, I estimate the effect of...

In 2005 the German government implemented the so-called Hartz IV reform, which amounted to a complete overhaul of the German unemployment insurance system and resulted in a significant reduction in unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. In this paper, we use an incomplete-market...

This paper does two things. First, it articulates what are the main implications of theoretical and empirical research for design of labor market policies and labor market institutions. Second, in this light, the paper analyzes the IMF’s labor market recommendations since the beginning of the...

JEL Cl This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government...

Using panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have raised employment rates in the business sector in the 1990s, after controlling for many institutions, country-specific effects, and economic variables. Among such policies, direct subsidies to...

Over the last 15 years, the reforms of employment protection legislation (EPL) in European countries have mainly eased hiring and firing restrictions for temporary employment while leaving the strict EPL provisions for regular or permanent contracts unchanged. Recent reforms in France follow...

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between reservation wages of unemployed workers and macroeconomic factors--including the unemployment rate and generosity of the unemployment compensation system--as well as individual-specific determinants, such as human capital...

This paper analyzes the determinants of labor market performance in Algeria. When the model is estimated with panel data on a sample of MENA and transition countries for 1995- 2005, the results suggest that lower growth in labor productivity in Algeria is associated with higher unemployment than...

This paper proposes an ex ante evaluation of the effects of new labor contracts such as the "Contrat Nouvelle Embauche" (CNE) introduced in France in 2005. The lessons we draw are of sufficiently general interest to be applicable to other countries or reforms of employment protection laws. Using...