There is a stark contrast between the recent evolution of labor productivity (and TFP) in the US and EU countries. In the US it accelerated around the mid-1990s and there is evidence of reversion to a high-growth regime. In some EU countries, while employment-population ratios started to rise...

This paper examines the effects of transitory skill mismatch in a matching model with heterogeneous jobs and workers. In our model, some high-educated workers may accept unskilled jobs for which they are over-qualified but are allowed to engage in on-the-job search in pursuit of a better job. We...

This paper uses a Spanish panel of tax returns and another on household expenditure during the period 1985-1991 to examine the incidence of the introduction in 1988 of tax incentives to retirement savings on contributions to pension funds and on savings. We first identify the population cohorts...

The Phillips curve has flattened in Spain over 1995-2006: unemployment has fallen by 15 percentage points, with roughly constant inflation. This change has been more pronounced than elsewhere. We argue that this stems from the immigration boom in Spain over this period. We show that the New...

Over the last decade house prices increased remarkably in many countries. However, while in several countries there was an employment boom in the construction sector, in others the share of employment in this sector did not significantly change. In this paper we estimate a model of labor demand...

Despite a rapid decrease in unemployment and strong GDP and employment growth, real wages barely increased in Spain over the period 1995-2006. An explanation of this lack of growth may rely on employment composition effects derived from structural changes, such as the rise in the weights of...

We compare labor market outcomes under firm-level and sector-level bargaining in a one-sector Mortensen-Pissarides economy with firm-specific productivity shocks. Our main theoretical results are twofold. First, unemployment is lower under firm-level bargaining Second, introducing efficient...

We study changes in the wage structures in nine EU countries over 1995-2002 and the role of demand, supply and institutional developments in shaping these changes. Using comparable cross-country microeconomic data, we compute for each country and at each decile of the wage distribution, the part...

In light of the huge cross-country differences in job losses during the recent crisis, we study how labor market duality - meaning the coexistence of "temporary" contracts with low firing costs and "permanent" contracts with high firing costs - affects labor market volatility. In a model of job...

This paper develops a comprehensive framework for the quantitative analysis of the private and fiscal returns to schooling and of the effect of public policies on private incentives to invest in education. This framework is applied to 14 member states of the European Union. For each of these...