The Great Recession pushed Japan’s unemployment rate to historic highs, but the increase has been small by international standards and small relative to the large output shock. This paper explores Japan’s cyclical labor market response to the global financial crisis. Our findings suggest...

Sweden is a very egalitarian country but inequalities have risen and some groups are poorly integrated into the labour market. For growth to become more inclusive, the gap between the cost of labour and productivity for some groups needs to be reduced, transitions from education to work should...

An influential strand of recent research has claimed that large governments in European countries explain their weaker long-term economic performance compared to the U.S. On the other hand, despite these alleged costs, large governments have been popular with electorates. This paper seeks to...

The key policy challenge for Turkey in the years ahead will be to enhance and consolidate the advances made since the nation’s 2000-01 economic crisis. Higher growth could reduce unemployment and raise living standards toward European Union levels. This paper reviews Turkey’s...

This paper analyzes the decision of a government facing electoral uncertainty to implement structural reforms in the presence of fiscal restraints similar to the Stability and Growth Pact. The model shows that a pact may harm structural reforms, sacrificing future growth for present stability....

Using new quarterly narrative evidence, this paper examines the macroeconomic impact of reforms of unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the euro area from a Bayesian narrative panel VAR. The approach complements existing micro-econometric evidence by aligning...