This paper presents a dynamic model that gives an account of some of the forms that the Dutch Disease can take through both product and labour markets. These involve an effect of primary sector output - through real wages and the level and volatility of real-exchange rates - on secondary sector...

The negative effect of quits on the willingness of firms to provide on-the-job training is well documented in the theoretical literature. Here we explore the strength of this effect by solving a firm's dynamic optimization problem where there is uncertainty about future productivity and nonzero...

This paper uses a threshold autoregressive (TAR) framework to assess the relative importance of structural breaks and asymmetric persistence in accounting for the post-war unemployment experience. In comparing unemployment patterns across time periods and countries, we take the US as a...

This paper assesses empirically two competing unemployment theories. It identifies one structural break in U.K. and German unemployment around 1980 that is more severe in both absolute and relative terms than that for the United States in 1973. This offers support for the structuralist theory. A...

In Keynes' General Theory, investment determines effective demand, which determines unemployment and the labour market plays a negligible role. In New Keynesian models, labour market institutions determine the natural rate of unemployment and the speed at which unemployment adjusts to it....

We develop a model demonstrating conditions under which firms will invest in the general training of their workers, and show that firms’ incentives to invest in general training are increasing in task complexity. Workers’ heterogeneous observable innate ability affects the variety of tasks...

It is well known that workers in Europe appear to receive more firm-provided general training than their counterparts in the United States. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that firms, in many cases, pay for the general training, contrary to the predictions of Becker (1964). In important...

Iceland became one of the symbols of the global financial crisis. It provides an ideal test case for the perceptions of economists, in particular their ability to anticipate crises. The book contains papers and reports, written prior to the collapse of Iceland's financial system, about the...