This paper provides an explanation for the observed positive relationship between youth unemployment and the cost of firing workers. When the cost of firing workers is high, firms only fire when the present discounted value of future losses is high, in which case they gain little by postponing...

OECD unemployment rates show long swings which dominate shorter business cycle components and these long swings show a range of common patterns. Using a panel of 21 OECD countries 1960-2002, we estimate the common factor that drives unemployment by the first principal component. This factor has...