The markets for talent often produce large income inequality and therefore raise political attention. While such inequality can be due to superstar dynamics or factor complementarities, Terviö ("Superstars and Mediocrities: Market Failure in The Discovery of Talent", the Review of Economic...

Services trade has become increasingly important, yet its impact on employment has been understudied at present. This paper uses fine-grained data on firm- and worker-level information to shed light on the impact of services trade on employment and wages in the United Kingdom. It finds that...

Greece’s labour market entered the COVID-19 shock following several years of sustained employment growth and with wages picking up. Unemployment remained high and employment rates were low, especially among women, the young and older workers. The shock led to a sharp fall in labour force...

How do firm-level collective agreements affect firm performance in a multi-level bargaining system? Using detailed Belgian linked employer-employee panel data, our findings show that firm agreements increase both wage costs and labour productivity (with respect to sector-level agreements)....

Education is a crucial determinant of labour market success. We investigate whether education is an appropriate means to cushion the negative consequences of job loss and study the role of age as a second major labour market factor. Using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data for the years...

Private debt owed to banks and other financial institutions has been at unprecedented high levels. This paper studies the role of these high levels of debt for workers, based on an assembled micro-dataset that harmonises household surveys from 29 OECD countries. High debt is found to be...

This paper studies the effects of a voluntary skill certification scheme in an online freelancing labour market. The paper show that obtaining skill certificates increases a worker’s earnings. This effect is not driven by increased worker productivity but by decreased employer uncertainty. The...

Cognitive skills, such as reading and numeric skills, are key determinants of wages, employment and long-term economic growth. Good cognitive skills also reduce poverty risk and improve non-material wellbeing, such as health and social cohesion. Non-cognitive skills, such as skills to use...

Although Lithuania’s growth has been impressive, inequality is high, the risk of poverty is one of the highest of European countries, and life expectancy is comparatively low and strongly dependent on socio-economic background. The low job satisfaction reduces well-being and feeds high...