Starting in the late 1970s, European unemployment began to increase while US unemployment remained constant. At the same time, capital-embodied technical change began to accelerate, and the United States adopted the new capital much faster than Europe. I argue that these two facts are related....

This article employs a dynamic general equilibrium model to study the implications of a nonstandard preference structure for the short-run dynamics of the economy. Preferences in this model are assumed to contain comparison elements for consumption and leisure, i.e. agents care about how their...

It is well known that hours per working-age person in continental Europe have shown a rather different time series pattern than in the US. While in 1970, hours per working-age person were similar, they subsequently fell in continental Europe but did not show a clear trend in the US. Strikingly,...

This paper studies the life-cycle dynamics of individual job mobility. After entry into the labor market, young individuals typically change jobs very frequently and retain new jobs just for a short period of time. In later stages of their career, workers tend to hold stable jobs and they are...

The divergence of unemployment rates between the U.S. and Europe coincided with a substantial acceleration in capital-embodied technical change in the late 70’s. Furthermore, evidence suggests that European economies have been lagging behind the U.S. in the adoption and usage of new...

The labor market is central to many issues in economics, including business cycles, unemployment, inequality, education, and growth. Moreover, it is the largest single market in most economies and it is fundamental in determining individual and household well-being. Therefore, a good...