Caseworker meetings have been shown to accelerate exit from unemployment. We explore whether they are also effectual before entering unemployment. In a natural field experiment, we offer caseworker meetings to workers at risk of losing their jobs while they are still employed. We find that the...

This paper evaluates the effects of policy interventions on sectoral labour markets and the aggregate economy in a business cycle model with search and matching frictions. We extend the canonical model by including capital-skill complementarity in production, labour markets with skilled and...

We examine the effects of a 2013 labour market reform in Slovenia which made permanent contracts less restrictive and fixed-term contracts more restrictive. Using matched employer-employee database covering the entirety of Slovenia's labour market participants, we compare the difference in...

We analyse the use of short-time work (STW) by Luxembourg firms during the years of economic and financial crisis (2008-2009) and the subsequent European sovereign debt crisis (2010-2013). The economic and financial crisis saw a surge in the number of firms using short-time work. We find that...

We analyse the use of active labour market policy (ALMP) measures by Luxembourg firms during the years of economic and financial crisis (2008-2009) and the subsequent European sovereign debt crisis (2010-2013). About 34% of Luxembourg firms used ALMPs between 2008 and 2013. Economy-wide, the use...

We use linked longitudinal data on employers and employees to estimate how the 2003-2005 Hartz reforms affected the wages of displaced German workers after they returned to work. We also present a simple new method to decompose the wage effects into components attributable to selection on...

Using firm-level data from a large-scale European survey among 20 countries, we analyse the determinants of firms using short-time work (STW). We show that firms are more likely to use STW in case of negative demand shocks. We show that STW schemes are more likely to be used by firms with high...

Employment protection legislation may affect the degree of substitutability among different types of labour contracts by changing the individuals sorting into jobs and firms screening in and out jobs. Using administrative data, we document this substitutability in the context of a labour market...

In spring 2005, Austria launched a campaign to inform employers and newspapers that gender preferences in job advertisements were illegal. At the time over 40% of openings on the nation's largest job-board specified a preferred gender. Over the next year the fraction fell to under 5%. We merge...

Wage decompositions suggest that a large share of the gender wage gap can be explained by differences in occupation and employer choices. If female workers are not well informed about these pay differences, increasing wage transparency might alleviate the gender gap. We test this hypothesis by...