The past several years of recession and slow recovery have raised much interest on the effect of fiscal stimulus on economic activity, even as high public debts in many countries would call for fiscal consolidation. To evaluate the delicate balance between stimulus and consolidation requires...

The past several years of recession and slow recovery have raised much interest on the effect of fiscal stimulus on economic activity, even as high public debts in many countries would call for fiscal consolidation. To evaluate the delicate balance between stimulus and consolidation requires...

Legally mandated reductions in the workweek can be either a constraint on individuals'' choice or a tool to coordinate individuals'' preferences for lower work hours. We confront these two hypotheses by studying the consequences of the workweek reduction in France from 39 to 35 hours, which was...

Regional labor market discrepancies have been widening in Belgium in the last two decades and are more evident within particular demographic groups. These developments can largely be accounted for by worse matching of people to jobs in the high-unemployment provinces. Using a structural VAR, it...

Using panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have raised employment rates in the business sector in the 1990s, after controlling for many institutions, country-specific effects, and economic variables. Among such policies, direct subsidies to...

This study investigates the impact of the current financial crisis on Canada''s potential GDP growth. Using a simple accounting framework to decompose trend GDP growth into changes in capital, labor services and total factor productivity, we find a sizeable drop in Canadian potential growth in...

Using household level data for France from 1990 to 2000, we estimate a relationship between wages and unemployment taking into account compositional, time and regional effects. We show that this relationship shifted outward during the 1990s most likely because of a structural change in workers''...

The recent crisis has had differential effects across U.S. states and industries causing a wide geographic dispersion in skill mismatches and housing market performance. We document these facts and, using data from the 50 states plus D.C from 1991 to 2008, we present econometric evidence that...

The paper investigates how changes in industries'' funding costs affect total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Based on panel regressions using 31 U.S. and Canadian industries between 1991 and 2007, and using industries'' dependence on external funding as an identification mechanism, we show...

Euro-area real wages have decelerated sharply in the last 20 years, but this has not yet translated into visibly lower unemployment or faster growth. Weak output growth after such a cost shock is somewhat puzzling and has led some to question the benefits of wage moderation. By isolating...