Why are average hours worked per adult lower in rich countries than in poor countries? We consider two natural explanations: income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, and distortionary tax systems, which are more prevalent in richer countries. To...

Why are average hours worked per adult lower in rich countries than in poor countries? We consider two natural explanations: income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, and distortionary tax systems, which are more prevalent in richer countries. To...

The Covid-19 crisis has hit labor markets. School and child-care closures have put families with children in challenging situations. We look at Germany and quantify the macroeconomic importance of working parents. We document that 26 percent of the German workforce have children aged 14 or...

This paper measures the job-search responses to the COVID-19 pandemic using realtime data on vacancy postings and ad views on Sweden's largest online job board. First, the labour demand shock in Sweden is as large as in the US, and affects industries and occupations heterogeneously. Second, the...

The COVID19 crisis has hit labor markets. School and child-care closures have put families with children in challenging situations. We look at Germany and quantify the macroeconomic importance of working parents. We document that 26 percent of the German workforce have children aged 14 or...

This paper identifies and analyses a new effect related to the cyclical behavior of labor supply: the Entitled-Worker Effect (EWE). This effect is different from the well-known Added-Worker Effect (AWE) and Discouraged-Worker Effect (DWE). The EWE is a consequence of one of the most important...

Results of general equilibrium models are sensitive to model parameterization and specification. The role of macroeconomic closures and the effect of trade elasticities are documented in the literature, but there is no systematic analysis of the implications of different labor supply...

I define occupations that are employed in more industries as "broader" occupations. I study the implications of broadness for mismatch of the unemployed and vacancies across occupations and industries. I empirically find that workers in broader occupations are better insured against...

We propose a model to evaluate the U.K.'s zero-hours contract (ZHC) – a contract that exempts employers from the requirement to provide any minimum working hours, and allows employees to decline any workload. We find quantitatively that ZHCs improve welfare by enabling firms with more volatile...

Over the past 40 years, Australia has experienced significant changes to the proportion of the population that is attached to its labour market. From the early 1980s, the aggregate labour force participation rate rose steadily, climbing from around 60 per cent in 1983 to almost 66 per cent in...