The paper asks why retirement can be so abrupt in countries such as France (1/2% of the workforce over 65), yet staged in Japan (8% over 65). We find part of the answer in tax laws that prevent people working and receiving a pension, and make little allowance for fair pension increases if...

We review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on the welfare state and on individual attitudes. The outcome variables that we cover in the survey are on the one hand public spending, and on the other hand individual attitudes and behaviour, including charity...

This paper provides a survey of the recent literature about firing costs and discusses the transmission channels of firing costs in a partial equilibrium context. In addition, we expand our analysis two types of firing costs in a New Keynesian model with purely endogenous separations. We further...

With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design, including...

Der Beitrag gibt einen ergebnisorientierten Überblick über den Stand der Evaluation der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik in Deutschland. Die Befunde weisen darauf hin, dass keine der bisherigen Instrumentengruppen überflüssig ist. Die meisten Maßnahmen können die Beschäftigungschancen...