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This paper uses a game theoretic model to explain empirical research which has revealed higher relational satisfaction among married couples than cohabiting couples, as well as among married couples who did not cohabit before marriage. Despite these findings, in recent decades cohabitation rates have dramatically increased in both Europe and the United States. Instrumental variables estimations on data from 28 industrialized countries and 50 U.S. states show cohabitation strongly correlated with increases in women's labor force participation, where a 10 percent increase in women's labor force participation results in a 6.4 to 14.6 percent increase in cohabitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between graduates' skills and their risk of over-education and unemployment in 17 European countries. Distinguishing between field-specific and academic skills, the authors find that, as predicted by the crowding-out hypothesis, field-specific skills offer more protection against the risk of over-education when the excess labour supply in the occupational domain of the graduate's field of study increases. Conversely, academic skills have that effect when excess supply in the overall labour market is higher. Field-specific skills also protect graduates against the risk of unemployment, whereas graduates' level of academic skills appears to be unrelated to the risk of becoming unemployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a simple model of labor supply extended to allow for home production to understand the extent to which differences in taxes can account for differences in time allocations between the US and Europe. Once home production is included, the elasticity of substitution between consumption and leisure is almost irrelevant in determining the response of market hours to higher taxes. But to account for observed differences in leisure and time spent in home production, one still requires a relatively large elasticity of substitution between consumption and leisure, combined with a relatively small elasticity of substitution between time and goods in home production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social contacts help to find jobs, but not necessarily in the occupations where workers are most productive. Hence social contacts can generate mismatch between workers' occupational choices and their productive advantage. Accordingly, social networks can lead to low labour force quality, low returns to firms' investment and depressed aggregate productivity. We analyse surveys from both the US and Europe including information on job finding through contacts. Consistent with our predictions, contacts reduce unemployment duration by 1–3 months on average, but they are associated with wage discounts of at least 2.5%. We also find some evidence of negative externalities on aggregate productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine the dynamic evolutions of unemployment, hours of work, and the service share since the war in the United States and Europe. The theoretical model brings together all three and emphasizes technological growth. Computations show that the very low unemployment in Europe in the 1960s was due to the high productivity growth associated with technological catch-up. Productivity also played a role in the dynamics of hours, but a full explanation for the fast rise of service employment and the big fall in aggregate hours needs further research. Taxation has played a role but results are mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]