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In this Manifesto, we make a set of proposals to fight unemployment in the EU. We believe that the European unemployment problem needs to be attacked on two fronts: through a broad spectrum of supply-side policies and the demand management policy. The expansion of aggregate demand is necessary to increase both investment and employment. However, unless supply-side measures are also taken, demand expansion can result in more inflation instead of more employment, because of the mismatch between the demand and supply of labour. What is important to stress is that both demand and supply-side policies must be adopted together by all European countries, in order both to avoid beggar-thy-neighbor problems and, at the same time, to catch all the possible complementary effects of these policies. JEL Codes: E24, E60, J30, J60, PSL Quarterly Review, V. 51, N. 206 (1998)

We consider a dual labor market with a frictional formal sector and a competitive informal sector. We show that the size of the informal sector is generally too large compared to the optimal allocation of the workers. It follows that our results give a rationale to informality-reducing policies. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A persistent increase in the unemployment rate ignites speculations about whether the changes to unemployment are structural or cyclical. The New Zealand economy has been through major restructuring since the mid-1980s. The labour market’s institutional changes were the last in the sequence of these reforms. As reforms began to take effect and expectations adjusted, unemployment in New Zealand has declined steadily and persistently since 1993-1994. Along the way, however, transitory increases in unemployment occurred. Major increases occurred after the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis with similar dynamics.

This paper analyzes the Polish wage curve using individual data from the Polish Labor Force Survey (LFS) at the 16 NUTS2 regions over the period 1999 - 2010. This survey does not gather information on wages of self-employed or paid family workers. After excluding the unemployed, inactive and missing observations, we are left with over 102,924 observations. We find evidence in favor of the Polish wage curve with an unemployment elasticity of -0.06. We also find that males in Poland are significantly more responsive to local unemployment rates (-0.08) than their female counterparts (-0.04). Moreover, if the lagged unemployment rate is used as an instrument for current unemployment rate, we find that the unemployment elasticity increases substantially for less experienced and temporary workers.

This paper presents information on labour market mobility in 23 EU countries, using Eurostat's Labour Force Survey (LFS) data over the period 1998-2008. More specifically, it discusses alternative measures of labour market churning; including the ease with which individuals can move between employment, unemployment and inactivity over time. The results suggest that the probability of remaining in the same labour market status between two consecutive periods is high for all countries. Nonetheless, transitions from unemployment and inactivity back into the labour market are relatively weak in the euro area and central eastern European EU (CEE EU) countries compared to Denmark and, particularly, Sweden. Moreover, comparisons of transition probabilities over time suggest that – until the onset of the financial crisis – the probability of remaining in unemployment over two consecutive periods decreased in Sweden, the euro area, and, to a lesser extent, Denmark, while it increased in the average CEE EU countries. At the same time, however, successful labour market entries (from outside the labour market) increased in the average CEE EU countries, Denmark and Sweden. On the basis of an index for labour markets turnover used in the paper (Shorrocks, 1987), labour markets in Spain, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden are the most mobile on average, with these results mainly reflecting higher mobility of people below the age of 29, highly educated and female workers. We also find that mobility of all worker groups has generally increased over time in the euro area, Denmark and Sweden. Finally, we ask whether some of the observed changes in mobility can be broadly restraint to some "macro" explanatory factors, including part time and temporary employment, unemployment and structure indicators. The results provide a mixed picture, suggesting that the sense of mobility strongly varies across countries.

WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 49, 28 pages Fears of increasing inequality play a dominant role in current debates on how globalization is affecting our economies. After a brief review of recent trends in wage inequality, this policy paper presents new insights on the dynamic effect of trade liberalization on wage inequality. In the context of a dynamic trade model with costly labour mobility (Lechthaler and Mileva, 2013), we show that the effect of trade liberalization on wage inequality depends on i) the time horizon considered, ii) the degree of worker mobility, and iii) the degree of trade liberalization (partial/full). In the short-run, observed increases in wage inequality are driven by an increase in inter-sectoral wage inequality, while in the long run, wage inequality is driven by an increase in the skill premium.

Self employment comprises around thirty percent of the workforce in Latin America. Most self employed evade payroll taxes, have low education, and run small businesses requiring low skills. I develop and estimate a life cycle search model where workers can be wage earners in the formal or informal sector, self employed or unemployed. Firms in the formal sector pay payroll and severance taxes, and in the informal sector, they can be fined. The estimated model (i) reproduces well the composition of workers over the life cycle as observed in Brazilian Labour Force data, and (ii) shows that the job value of the self employed is similar to that of informal wage earners. The model is used as a tool to evaluate the welfare impact of labour market policies, where self employment may be an option. When simulating an increase in the cost of informality by ten percent, results showed (i) small impact on employment composition and informality; (ii) significant cost pass-through to wages in the informal sector, meaning a reduction in the lowest wages in the economy, hence higher wage inequality. On the other hand, (iii) it led to substantial improvement in the welfare of formal firms and of all workers. These results prove that taking into account labour market frictions is important in welfare analyses of policies in multisectoral labour markets. As simulations which increase the cost of informality suggest, stricter enforcement of labour regulations (at least to a certain degree) can be a way towards efficient labor markets.

The 2008 financial crisis hit the world’s economies in different ways. In Spain, the economic crisis has had an acute effect on unemployment and access to health care and education, aggravated by the austerity plans of the Spanish government. In order to cope with the crisis, government efforts have aimed to control public deficit and stabilize financial markets, rather than directly support citizens’ wellbeing. In this context, the paper uses a subjective wellbeing (SWB) approach to study the relationship between the socioeconomic aspects most influenced by the crisis and the wellbeing of Spaniards. In order to do so, we use representative data from households in Granada in 2012. The city has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, which has more than doubled since the beginning of the crisis. Regression analysis using three different SWB indicators as dependent variables reveals that unemployment and higher education are strong determinants of SWB, particularly regarding the perceived satisfaction of material needs. In this context of crisis, income has a weak and non robust relationship with SWB, except in the case of satisfying material needs. In the light of the empirical results, we propose that in order to maintain quality of life in Spain, policy interventions should focus more on social policies, such as reducing unemployment and keeping people in education, than on meeting the requirements of the financial markets.

Summary Employment and activity rates in the new EU Member States (NMS) declined significantly up to the early 2000s and started to increase along with strong GDP growth thereafter. Job losses following the outbreak of the economic and financial crisis varied substantially across countries and have not been offset yet. Overall, the low-educated and the young people are very disadvantaged on the NMS labour markets. With the exception of Poland and Slovenia, non-standard types of employment are uncommon in the NMS, following the pattern of Southern EU countries. Employment protection legislation has been adjusted to ‘European standards’ in the entire region. Union density and consequently the impact of trade unions on wage setting and employment in the NMS fell dramatically. In all NMS unemployment insurance schemes as well as minimum wage regulations were introduced at the beginning of the 1990s, but are less generous than in the EU-15.

This paper presents information on labour market mobility in 23 EU countries, using Eurostat’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) data over the period 1998-2008. More specifically, it discusses alternative measures of labour market churning; including the ease with which individuals can move between employment, unemployment and inactivity over time. The results suggest that the probability of remaining in the same labour market status between two consecutive periods is high for all countries. Nonetheless, transitions from unemployment and inactivity back into the labour market are relatively weak in the euro area and central eastern European EU (CEE EU) countries compared to Denmark and, particularly, Sweden. Moreover, comparisons of transition probabilities over time suggest that – until the onset of the financial crisis – the probability of remaining in unemployment over two consecutive periods decreased in Sweden, the euro area, and, to a lesser extent, Denmark, while it increased in the average CEE EU countries. At the same time, however, successful labour market entries (from outside the labour market) increased in the average CEE EU countries, Denmark and Sweden. On the basis of an index for labour markets turnover used in the paper (Shorrocks, 1987), labour markets in Spain, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden are the most mobile on average, with these results mainly reflecting higher mobility of people below the age of 29, highly educated and female workers. We also find that mobility of all worker groups has generally increased over time in the euro area, Denmark and Sweden. Finally, we ask whether some of the observed changes in mobility can be broadly restraint to some “macro” explanatory factors, including part time and temporary employment, unemployment and structure indicators. The results provide a mixed picture, suggesting that the sense of mobility strongly varies across countries.

We estimate how much of the gains from productivity spillovers through worker mobility is retained by the hiring firms, by the workers who bring spillovers, and by the other workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Danish manufacturing for the period 1995-2007, we find that at least two-thirds of the total output gain of 0.11% per year is netted by the firms, while the workers who bring spillovers receive at most 6% of it as the wage premium. The large share retained by the firms implies that spillovers through worker mobility are mostly a positive externality to them.

"Objectives: A multitude of studies has established a negative relationship between unemployment and health. With the 'Hartz-reforms', unemployment benefit II was introduced in 2005. Whether unemployment benefit II receipt has an impact, additional to unemployment, on health, is investigated. Methods: For this study data of the panel study 'Labour market and social security' is used. The sample consists out of 14.282 respondents aged 18 to 65, who participated up to five years from 2006 to 2011. Measures of subjective health by social status were analyzed using Fixed Effect panel models. Results: Unemployment is negatively and significantly associated with subjective health. A weaker negative association is found for the receipt of unemployment benefit II. Separated by gender, different patterns of associations emerge. For men, an additive association for unemployment and unemployment benefit II is found. For women effect of unemployment alone is sometimes significantly, stronger than the combined effect of unemployment and the receipt of unemployment benefit II. The differences are smaller, after restricting the analysis sample on unemployed and employed. For mediator variables like income and partnership no consistent associations with subjective health are found. Discussion: Unemployment and unemployment benefit II receipt should be used as separate factors when analyzing subjective health. Employment is positively associated with health, even if the employment provides insufficient resources for maintaining an appropriate standard of living and unemployment benefit II is needed to provide for the basic needs." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

In the twentieth century, the Irish-born population in England has typically been in worse health than both the native population and the Irish population in Ireland, a reversal of the commonly observed healthy migrant effect. Recent birth cohorts living in England and born in Ireland, however, are healthier than the English population. The substantial Irish migrant health penalty arises principally for cohorts born between 1920 and 1960. In this article, we attempt to understand the processes that generated these changing migrant health patterns for Irish migrants to England. Our results suggest a strong role for economic selection in driving the dynamics of health differences between Irish-born migrants and white English populations.

We model empirically the role of labor market institutions in affecting the response of inflation to labor market and exchange rate shocks in the EU. We adopt a simple Phillips curve framework, treating separately the sectors producing traded and non-traded goods. Our results show that labor market institutions have a significant role in affecting cross-country differences in inflation adjustment for the "sheltered" (non-trading) sector; the effects in the "exposed" (trading) sector are also significant but more limited. Increased wage coordination and more expenditure on LM policies (active or total) flatten the Phillips curve in both sectors. More active LM policies also reduce the persistence of inflation. However, but only in the non-trading sector, this effect is more than offset (in 15 countries out of 21) by the presence of stronger wage coordination, which increases the persistence of inflation. Finally, the adjustment of inflation to the real exchange rate, i.e. the exchange rate pass-through, is largely unaffected by institutional variables; only for non-tradables there is a strong negative effect of increased union density.

As by product of economic growth, jobs are indeed transformational. In other words, efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do (as more productive jobs appear and less productive one disappear). In fact societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and social backgrounds while providing alternatives to conflict. Unfortunately, in many African countries, unemployment rates are low and growth is seldom jobless. Regrettably, most of the poor work long hours and cannot make ends meet while the violation of basic human rights is not uncommon. Again, youth unemployment and unmet job expectations are alarming. Consequently, this paper provides a framework that cuts across sectors and shows that the best policy responses vary across African countries (depending on their levels of development, endowments, demography and institutions). Thus, at all stages of development, forcing economic production to spread evenly across areas is both elusive and expensive. Policy makers should therefore identify and execute strategies that balance development outcomes across areas by means of domestic integration instruments. However, in places where integration is hardest, the policy response should be comprehensively total: institutions that unite, infrastructure that connects, interventions that target, incentives that motivate as well as information and communication technologies that enables or drives.

Large regional unemployment disparities are a common feature of the labor market in many countries. This study deals with the question whether regional unemployment disparities in western Germany widen, become narrower or remain constant over time. It examines the hypothesis of convergence for regional unemployment rates of western German Federal States and the time period 1968 to 2009 following different concepts of convergence. Western German regional unemployment rates exhibit ß-convergence but no 0-convergence. Further, regional unemployment rates show a high degree of intra-distributional dynamics. Panel unit root tests designed for cross-sectional dependent panels are applied to investigate the hypothesis of stochastic convergence. This is necessary because the assumption of cross-sectional independency does not hold. The results do not indicate the existence of stochastic convergence. This is in contrast to previous studies that do not take cross-sectional dependence into account. However, additional robustness checks show that evidence of stochastic convergence depends on the underlying assumption about the shape of the equilibrium relationship between regional unemployment rates and their national counterpart. Western German regional unemployment is not characterized by a catching-up process between high and low unemployment regions. The development of regional unemployment disparities is mainly driven by economic disturbances. In vielen Ländern ist die Arbeitslosigkeit auf regionaler Ebene sehr unterschiedlich verteilt. Diese Arbeit setzt sich mit der Frage auseinander, ob die Unterschiede zwischen den Arbeitslosenquoten westdeutscher Bundesländer im Zeitraum 1968 bis 2009 zugenommen haben, zurückgegangen sind oder stabil geblieben sind. Dazu werden verschiedene Konvergenzkonzepte herangezogen. Zwar finden sich Hinweise für Beta-Konvergenz, jedoch nicht für Sigma-Konvergenz. Die regionale Verteilung der Arbeitslosigkeit zeigt eine hohe Dynamik. Um die Hypothese stochastischer Konvergenz zu prüfen, werden Panel-Einheitswurzeltests für Panels mit abhängigen Querschnitteinheiten verwendet, da die Annahme unabhängiger Querschnitteinheiten nicht erfüllt ist. Im Gegensatz zu existierenden Studien, welche die Abhängigkeit der Querschnitteinheiten nicht berücksichtigen, finden sich keine Hinweise auf stochastische Konvergenz. Wie zusätzliche Analysen jedoch zeigen, werden die Ergebnisse für stochastische Konvergenz von der Annahme hinsichtlich der Art der langfristigen Gleichgewichtsbeziehung von regionaler und nationaler Arbeitslosenquote beeinflusst. Die Arbeit findet keine Hinweise auf einen Aufholprozess zwischen Regionen mit hohen und niedrigen Arbeitslosenquoten. Die Entwicklung regionaler Arbeitslosigkeitsdisparitäten wird in erster Linie von Änderungen des wirtschaftlichen Umfelds bestimmt.

We investigate the role of complementarities in production and skill mobility across cities. We propose a general equilibrium model of location choice by heterogeneously skilled workers, and consider different degrees of complementarities between the skills of workers. The nature of the complementarities determines the equilibrium skill distribution across cities. We prove that with extreme-skill complementarity, the skill distribution has fatter tails in large cities; with top-skill complementarity, there is first-order stochastic dominance. Using the model to back out skills from wage and housing price data, we find robust evidence of fat tails in large cities. Big cities have big inequality. This pattern of spatial sorting is consistent with extreme-skill complementarity: the productivity of high skilled workers and of the providers of low skilled services is mutually enhanced.

The Phillips Curve (hereafter PC) is widely viewed as dead, destined to the mortuary scrapyard of discarded economic ideas. The coroner's evidence consists of the small standard deviation of the core inflation rate in the past two decades despite substantial volatility of the unemployment rate, and in particular the common tendency of PC inflation equations to predict ever greater amounts of negative inflation (i.e., deflation) over the years of labor-market slack since 2008, sometimes called "the case of the missing deflation". The apparent failure of the PC deprives the Fed of a means of estimating the natural rate of unemployment (or NAIRU), and thus the Fed is steering the economy in a fog with no navigational device to determine the size of the unemployment gap, one of the two primary goals of its "dual mandate." The results of this paper contain important new information for Fed policymakers, for Fed-watchers, and almost everyone else in the community of policy-makers and practitioners of applied macro. The greatest failure in the history of the PC occurred not within the past five years but rather in the mid-1970s, when the predicted negative relation between inflation and unemployment turned out to be utterly wrong. Instead inflation exhibited a strong positive correlation with unemployment. Failure bred success, as a revolution in thinking rebuilt macroeconomics to be not just about demand, but also about supply. By 1980 diagrams of shifting demand and supply curves had appeared in most macroeconomics textbooks. An econometric model of the inflation rate developed in 1982, soon dubbed the "triangle model", incorporated explicit variables for supply shifts and has successfully tracked inflation behavior since then. The triangle model shows that the puzzle of missing deflation is in fact no puzzle. It can estimate coefficients up to 1996 and then in a 16-year-long dynamic simulation, with no information on the actual values of lagged inflation, predict the 2013:Q1 value of inflation to within 0.50 of a percentage point. The slope of the PC relationship between inflation and unemployment does not decline by half or more, as in the recent literature, but instead is stable. The model's simulation success is furthered here by recognizing the greater impact on inflation of short-run unemployment (spells of 26 weeks or less) than of long-run unemployment. The implied NAIRU for the total unemployment rate has risen since 2007 from 4.8 to 6.5 percent, raising new challenges for the Fed's ability to carry out its dual mandate.

Characteristics of informal activity that are highly flexible in terms of working hours, barrier to entry, mobility, capital and skills requirement, have made informal jobs attractive for migrant workers in developing countries. Informal jobs are also theoretically claimed as a temporary position or transition for migrants who seek to work in more certain, formal jobs. Using individual’s jobs and migration history of adults obtained from the 2007 IFLS data from 2000--2007, this study aims to analyse how migration affects individual’s tendency to work in informal jobs by measuring the immediate effect of migration on the job's status. The result of clustered multinomial logit regression shows that individuals who migrate are less likely to work in informal job relative to formal job compared with individuals who do not migrate. This result contradicts the notion that migration is an act to look for opportunities with high uncertainty because migrants seem more likely to engage in formal jobs compared to non migrants. It may show that temporary positions into the formal jobs are not what the adult migrants in Indonesia are looking for.

This paper provides evidence that unemployment rates across US states are stationary and therefore behave according to the natural rate hypothesis. We provide new insights by considering the effect of key variables on the speed of adjustment associated with unemployment shocks. A highly-dimensional VAR analysis of the half-lives associated with shocks to unemployment rates in pairs of states suggests that the distance between states and vacancy rates respectively exert a positive and negative influence. We find that higher homeownership rates do not lead to higher half-lives. When the symmetry assumption is relaxed through quantile regression, support for the Oswald hypothesis through a positive relationship between homeownership rates and half-lives is found at the higher quantiles. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This study analyzes the educational attainment and early labor market outcomes of young migrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who arrived in Germany between 1989 and 1994. The results reveal that migrants have lower educational attainments than natives, and that within the group of migrants, Jewish migrants perform better than ethnic German migrants. A decomposition analysis reveals that this competitive edge can, for the most part, be explained by a higher socioeconomic background. In the labor market, migrants cannot compensate for their educational disadvantage and have poorer labor market outcomes than natives. The results of this study stress the importance of an early educational integration of migrants for a successful labor market integration in the long run.

Flexibility of employment protection is considered to be essential for rapid adjustments in the workforce to changing economic conditions and for the reallocation of labour towards more productive activities. This was one of the main arguments for the new Employment Contracts Act in Estonia, which eased employment protection by reducing the costs of terminating employment relationships. Since such substantial changes in employment protection legislation (EPL) are quite rare, this reform provides a good chance to examine the outcomes of the relaxation of employment protection. This paper evaluates the effects of this institutional change on labour reallocation. Exploiting the microdata of the Labour Force Surveys for the years 2007–2011, we analyse worker flows and employ the difference in differences approach to identify the effects of the EPL reform, using Lithuanians as a control group for Estonians. Subsequent to the reform, labour flows out of and into employment increased in Estonia relative to Lithuania. However, from the regression analysis, a statistically significant impact of the EPL reform was identified only on the former of these two types of flows. Both the assessment of aggregate flows and the estimation of difference in differences effects for transition probabilities indicate that the reform of employment protection resulted in lower job-to-job flows while the overall effect on labour reallocation was positive.

In terms of output decline and increase in unemployment, the economic recession in Latvia that started during the 2008-09 financial crisis was one of the most severe in the world. Using both decomposition of the unemployment rate into structural and cyclical components and Mortensen and Pissarides’ search and matching approach, we demonstrate that the changes in unemployment should be attributed primarily to cyclical, rather than structural factors; as of 2013, a large share of Latvian unemployment is still cyclical. Our results provide important implications for anti-crisis policy in Latvia and elsewhere in the world: the surge in unemployment was largely a consequence of Latvia’s austerity policy.

"Using rich German linked employer-employee data and endogenous switching regression models, I show that large firms and firms with a high export share or a low proportion of fixed-term workers provide higher wage growth for low-wage workers. While having many low-paid co-workers dampens the wage growth of both low-wage workers and higher-wage workers, there are also employers who provide higher wage growth only for higher-wage workers. The results indicate a certain degree of labour market segmentation that is a) important for the wage mobility of individual workers and b) relevant in the context of polarisation and rising wage inequality." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Researchers claim that India is poised for reaping demographic dividend and leapfrog to a higher level of income-employment situation utlising the relatively larger share of youth or working age persons in total population. However, the outcome depends on the contribution of youth to national product. India at present suffers from remarkably high educated unemployment and questions are also raised about the employability of the youth because of their inadequate education, training, and market ready skill. Huge youth unemployment, especially educated unemployment is the surest way to social tension, unrest, and unlawful activities turning the demographic dividend into a demographic nightmare. In this paper we look at the issue of education, skill formation and unemployment among youth in India, focusing specially on educated unemployment. We find that current skill/training situation of youth in India is inadequate. Surplus and shortage coexists in the labour market indicating serious mismatch between supply and demand. There is an urgent need to relook at human resource development strategies in the country. Regional analysis suggests presence of both demand scarcity and excess supply of educated youth in the labour market.

Demographic transition creates a small window for countries to leverage their demographic dividend and leapfrog to a higher level of income-employment situation. This opportunity comes in the middle stage of demographic transition when the population pyramid shows signs of maturity and bulges in the middle, indicating a relatively larger share of youth or working age persons in total population, and hence a low dependency ratio. Consequently, countries can engage this human resource to augment its productive capacity. If sensibly utilised, this can raise per capita income level dramatically – pulling up the country to a substantially higher plane of living standards. However, the efforts will fall flat if this group of youth, on which so much depends, are not productive enough to enhance output significantly. Often questions are raised about the employability of the youth because of their inadequate education, training, and market ready skill and if the youth are not absorbed meaningfully into the workforce and are productive enough, this demographic dividend will turn into a demographic nightmare. Huge youth unemployment is the surest way to social tension, unrest, and unlawful activities. Hence to understand India’s readiness in this aspect we must look at the issue of education, skill formation and employment among youth in India. In this overview paper we find that current skill/training situation of youth in India is inadequate. Surplus and shortage coexists in the labour market indicating serious mismatch between supply and demand. There is an urgent need to relook at human resource development pattern in the country. It appears that a socioeconomic crisis is looming large and demographic opportunities will turn to threat unless intervened immediately.

This paper examines the importance of gender on different job mobility patterns using an extensive household survey data from İzmir, third largest city in Turkey. The determinants of job-to-job and job-to-non-employment transitions are analyzed with the help of a multinomial logit estimation method. The results indicate that there is a distinction regarding the probability of job mobility patterns based on gender. It is more likely for women to be engaged in job-to-non-employment transition, whereas men tend to switch jobs more often. Although gender plays a significant role regarding job mobility patterns, traditionally imposed social constraints associated with childcare and household duties provide us with mixed results considering the behavior of women in the job market. On the other hand, having high-paid and secure jobs decreases the probability of both patterns of job mobility.

Many people remain in the same income group as their parents and this is a cause of much discussion and some concern. In this work, we examine how intergenerational mobility affects subjective wellbeing (SWB) using the British Cohort Study. Our SWB measures encapsulate life satisfaction and mental health. We find that relative income mobility is a significant predictor of life satisfaction and mental health whether people move upward or downward. For absolute income, mobility is only a predictor of SWB and mental health outcomes if the person moves downward. We also explore pathways through which income mobility can impact on these outcomes. In particular, we present evidence that suggests much of the effect of income mobility on SWB is due to changes in the perception of financial security. But those who slide down are still less satisfied with their lives over and above any effect of financial insecurity. Overall, there is an asymmetric effect of income mobility: the losses of sliding on down are larger than the gains of moving up.

By using panel data, this study examines the effect of unemployment on various types of individual health-related behavior, namely physical exercise, dietary habits, smoking, drinking, and sleep duration among Japanese men aged 20 ?40 years. The results indicate that the effect of unemployment on health-related behavior varies. It is found that exercise habits and sleep duration are affected by unemployment, while there are no observed effects on dietary habits, smoking, and frequency of drinking. Being unemployed has positive effects on frequency of exercise and sleep duration. When an individual suffers from unemployment in two successive periods, he increases the frequency of exercise, while current unemployment directly affects sleep duration. The positive effects of unemployment on exercise and sleep are explained by the increased time in the health investment function.

This contribution reveals some structural properties of the Czech and Slovak labour markets. A search and matching model incorporated into a small standard DSGE model is estimated using Bayesian techniques. Two sources of rigidities are implemented: wage bargaining mechanism and “search and matching” process matching workers and firms. The results show that the search and matching aspect provides satisfactory description of employment flows in both economies, and that the institutional characteristics do not differ too much in both economies. The model estimates provide interesting evidence that wage bargaining process is determined mainly by the power of firms. These results support the view of flexible wage environment in both economies. On the other hand, firms are confronted by increasing vacancy posting costs that limit vacancies creation. Relative low separation rate provides evidence of reduced mobility of the workers.

This paper analyses changes in job opportunities of older workers in the Netherlands in the period 1996-2010. The standard human capital model predicts that, as a result of human capital obsolescence, mobility becomes more costly when workers become older. We measure and interpret how changing job opportunities across 96 occupations affect different age and skill groups. Older workers end up in shrinking occupations, in occupations with a lower share of high-skilled workers, in occupations facing a higher threat of offshoring tasks abroad, more focus on routine-intensive tasks and less rewarding job content. This process is not only observed for the oldest group of workers, but for workers aged 40 and above. Observing older workers in declining occupations is to a large extent a market outcome, but declining job opportunities in terms of less satisfying working conditions and job tasks and content could potentially raise incentives to retire early.

Self-reported satisfaction measures respond to a great variety of socio-demographic characteristics as well as the job and living environment. In this paper we ask whether the recent financial market crisis has caused a deterioration of satisfaction not only for the unemployed but also for those out of the labour force and especially those in employment. The focus of our analyses is on the pattern of life, job and health satisfaction over time and the influence of unemployment rates, inflation rates and GDP growth. We compare the UK and Germany, two countries with different employment protection regulations and different consequences of the crisis for the labour market. For our analysis we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) for the period 1996 to 2010 and supplement this with annual information on macroeconomic indicators. We estimate Ordered Logit and OLS models, both with individual fixed effects.We were somewhat surprised to find significant differences between the formerly separated parts of Germany even twenty years after re-unification – not only in satisfaction but also its determinants. While people living in the western part of Germany report somewhat lower satisfaction in 2009 compared to the previous years, those living in the eastern part report higher levels than in 2006, the year before the financial crisis started. This could be due to the largely different employment structures in both parts of Germany. As exports and not so much services were hit by the crisis, western German federal states were facing stronger negative demand pressures. Our findings for the UK are similar to the East German evidence, as year dummies for the crisis years 2008 to 2010 do not show any sign of a decrease, except for a fall in job satisfaction in 2010. Looking at the impact of macroeconomic indicators such as GDP growth, inflation and unemployment, we find mostly diverse effects between the two German regions but similar between West Germany and the UK. First of all, satisfaction with life is related to the business cycle, we observe positive reactions to an increase in GDP in the whole of Germany and negative reactions to rising inflation in the UK and Germany. However, the strongest and most robust result concerns the relationship between self-reported satisfaction and the regional unemployment rate: The higher regional unemployment the more satisfied people in East Germany seem to be irrespective their current labour market status. Both unemployed and employed seem to be more satisfied with their lives, jobs and health when unemployment is rising around them. At the same time, the overall level of unemployment has a significantly negative effect. In West Germany and the UK, on the contrary, the reverse is true: overall unemployment is positively related to satisfaction and regional unemployment in West Germany is negatively related. Interestingly, we get similar though somewhat weaker results when looking at job and health satisfaction. Hence, though the direct costs of the financial and economic crisis in form of falling GDP seem to have been by far larger than the psychological costs, we find some limited additional costs in the crisis years, and a considerable impact of regional and national unemployment rates.

In this paper, we document the intensive and extensive margin adjustments of labor market in Turkey and US.We find that both margins are important. More interestingly, the weight of intensive margin adjustment is substantially smaller than that of the extensive margin in both countries. This is robust to using various data sets and methods. Common wisdom and some theory would expect these countries to divert from each other significantly, because they represent two extreme points of labor market exibility with respect to OECD Employment Protection Index. A possible explanation for our empirical result is the sizable informal sector and self employment in Turkey as it might reduce the large hiring and firing costs and encourage firms towards extensive margin adjustment, and high hours per worker which might restrict the intensive margin adjustment, especially during booms.

Subjective well-being is primarily treated as an outcome variable in the economic literature. However, is happiness also a driver of behavior and life's outcomes? Rich survey data of recent entrants into unemployment in Germany show that a significant inverted U-shaped relationship exists between residual happiness and an unemployed individual's future reemployment probability and the reentry wage. Residual life satisfaction displays higher (or lower) satisfaction levels than would be predicted by a number of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. This paper is the first to show that happiness is mainly a predictor for self-employment and less for standard reemployment. Related findings suggest that happiness matters for male unemployed, and the concept of locus of control is able to explain part of the effect. If reemployment and higher wages are considered desirable outcomes for the unemployed individual and society, the shape of the effect suggests an optimal level of happiness, which is not necessarily the highest.

Usually, when the attention is focused on the different performances of the labour market, the overall rate of unemployment is at the center stage. But this is misleading: while short term unemployment can be seen as physiological for the the working of the labour market, long-term unemployment is certainly pathological. The paper considers how the different varieties of capitalism affect the rate of long-term unemployment, rather than the aggregate rate. The liberal market variety, where employment protection is the lowest, presents lower rates of long-term unemployment than the continental European and the Mediterranean varieties. In the latter both employment protection and long-term unemployment are the highest and labour market participation the lowest. The social-democratic Scandinavian variety gets the best of both worlds: low rates of long-term unemployment, high rates of labour participation, lower degree of inequality, with relatively high levels of employment protection. However the Scandinavian model may be hardly applicable in countries, such as the Mediterranean ones, where a sizable part of public opinion apparently adheres to the various specifications of the “lump of something” economic fallacy. Low rates of long-term unemployment and high levels of labour participation are also produced by the far-Eastern Asian variety, but at the cost of a markedly dualistic labour market structure.

In this paper we present data on flows in the labour market for the period 1980 - 2010, which have been constructed using various sources. The focus of our analysis is on four labour market states within the working age population of age 15 - 64: Employment, Unemployment, Not working and Disabled. A comparison is provided with the earlier studies of Broersma and den Butter (1994) and Kock (1998), and with the data published by the CBS from the labour force survey (EBB). The latter comparison is also used to indicate the presence of the time aggregation bias in the CBS data.

The aim of this paper is to extend the Solow model in a way that permits to endogenize unemployment. Starting from a Neoclassical growth model, as the Solow model, we introduce a mechanism that allows us to determine the Keynesian unemployment, i.e. unemployment that is caused by the weakness of the aggregate demand. Using our base model, that works as a Keynesian demand-driven model, we find that an increase in the aggregate demand (due to a reduction in the saving rate or to an increase in public expenditures) reduces unemployment and stimulates the GDP. Then, we modify the investment function in order to take into account for the crowding-in/crowding-out effect on investments. This allows us to build a model which is between Neoclassical supply-driven models and Keynesian demand-driven models.

This paper estimates a stylized search and matching model on data for Australia covering the period 1978-2008. Using Bayesian methods we find that the model does a fairly good job in replicating the data. Surprisingly, we find a large value for the worker’s bargaining power and low vacancy posting costs. The model generates a strong Beveridge curve and matches the standard deviations of all variables but vacancies. We identify technology and separation shocks to be the main driver of fluctuations.

This paper investigates the relationship between an adverse health shock - limitation in preforming daily activities - and labour market transitions in twenty-six European countries. The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions dataset is used (2007- 2009). Matching techniques are implemented in order to control for the non-experimental nature of the data. The empirical analysis reveals a significant causal effect of the health shock on the likelihood of leaving full-time employment. Individuals who incur an adverse health shock are significantly more likely to transit either into part-time, unemployment or inactive status. The estimated effect, using the pooled European sample, is negative. Nevertheless, the results differ across countries depending on the country-specific social security system. The largest negative effect is found in Romania, Cyprus and Bulgaria, ranging from 31% to 23%, respectively. It is close to zero in Slovakia and Latvia. I argue that these discrepancies are explained through the heterogeneity in social security systems across Europe. Individuals living in countries characterised by higher work incentives, within the integration disability policy, are less likely to drop out from full-time employment after the health shock occurs.

The progressive wage tax is the instrument commonly used by democracies to fund public expenditures. Yet it still divides opinions about its impact on skill formation. We develop a general equilibrium model to analyze this impact, in the context of uncertain return on higher education. We show that the quantitative impact on skill formation of switching from the flat to the progressive tax varies with the level of efficiency with which higher education imparts graduates with suitable skills. This impact is negative when the level of efficiency of higher education is low and positive when it is high.

For many years, Donald Shoup has been advocating cashing out free and underpriced curbside parking. How should this be implemented in practice, taking into account the stochasticity of curbside parking vacancies? Shoup has proposed setting neighborhood/period of the day-specific meter rates such that a common target (average) curbside parking occupancy rate is achieved. Taking as given how the average occupancy rate affects expected cruising-for-parking time and expected walking time (between parking space and destination), this paper investigates the optimal (surplus-maximizing) target curbside parking occupancy rate. The principal result is that the rate should be higher, the higher is the level of demand.

We investigate whether non-cognitive skills - in particular Locus of Control - are important determinants of the labour market processes at the low-wage margin. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate dynamic multinomial logit models with random effects and investigate whether Locus of Control influences the probability of being higher-paid or low-paid as well as the probability of escaping low wages by moving up to higher-paid employment. Our results reveal a significant amount of state dependence in low pay even after controlling for Locus of Control and other non-cognitive skills. Furthermore, compared to individuals with an external Locus of Control, individuals with a more internal Locus of Control have a significantly higher probability of being higher-paid instead of low-paid. Conditional on being low-paid, individuals with an internal Locus of Control additionally have a significantly higher probability of moving to higher-paid employment in the following year than individuals with an external Locus of Control.

Mortgage applications are a detailed and accurate source of household information that is verified by underwriters, making it a more accurate data source than self-reported survey answers. This paper discusses how mortgage data can be applied to areas of economics outside mortgage finance. As a supplement to variables from the application form, the self-selection of mortgage points is used to infer expected mobility. A duration model of housing spells is estimated, and the points indicator is shown to be highly significant in predicting mobility for low loan-to-value borrowers. The findings demonstrate the potential fruitfulness of using this new data source.

The aim of this paper is to explore the significance of gender role attitude among the other socio-economic determinants of female labor force participation rate. This paper employs a recent household labor market survey that was conducted in Izmir during the summer of 2010 covering 9,756 individuals. Our initial findings based on logit estimations indicate that the gender role attitude associated with the job market behavior of the mother is an important determinant of female labor force participation. However, the same effect loses its significance once we control for women’s own job experience. This result suggests that although the gender role attitude associated with the job market behavior of the mother can induce women to participate in the labor market initially, the same attitude can change by women’s own experience in the job market and affect labor force participation rate adversely. The results of this paper are also robust when the sample is disaggregated by education in order to account for the difference between less and more educated women in the labor market.

In state-of-the-art macroeconomic and labor market models shocks are assumed to be homoscedastic. However, we show that this assumption is much too restrictive. We �find signifi�cant evidence for strong time-varying volatility in all considered labor market time series. First, we estimate the unconditional variance-covariance matrix and �find signi�cant evidence for time variability. Second, we estimate the conditional variance-covariance matrix and discuss the time-varying risk contained in labor market variables. The implications are relevant for modelling purposes, welfare analysis, and the understanding of sources of fl�uctuations.

Both the euro-area and the United States suffered an initially quite similar housing and financial shock in 2007/8, with several states in both regions being particularly badly affected. Yet there was never any question that the worst hit US states would need a special bail-out or leave the dollar area, whereas such concerns have worsened in the euro-area. We focus on three badly affected states, Arizona, Spain and Latvia, to examine the working of relative adjustment mechanisms within the currency region. We concentrate on four such mechanisms, relative wage adjustment, migration, net fiscal flows and bank flows. Only in Latvia was there any relative wage adjustment. Intra-EU migration has increased, but is more costly for those involved in the EU (than in the USA). Net federal financing helped Arizona and Latvia in the crisis, but not Spain. The locally focussed structure of banking amplified the crisis in Spain, whereas the role of out-of-state banks eased adjustment in Arizona and Latvia. The latter reinforces the case for an EU banking union.

This paper estimates the causal effect of temporary work agency (TWA) employment on the subsequent probability of employment in the regular labor market. The main purpose is to estimate the stepping-stone effect separately for natives and immigrants, where the latter group potentially benefits the most from TWA employment. Since no quasi-experiment is available, individual Differences-in-Differences and matching is used to deal with the potential selection bias. The results point at a negative regular employment effect, which slowly fades away over a couple of years. Thus no evidence of a stepping-stone effect is found. When conditioning on immigrants this negative effect is absent. A long-run significant effect is found on overall employment probability (including TWA employment), there is even a long-run positive effect on annual earnings (mainly driven by women). Unemployment probabilities decreased, however the results in the estimation were less stable over time compared to the employment estimates, suggesting that the TWAs might keep individuals from exiting the labor market. Stratification on gender showed that the negative regular employment effect on women persisted for two more years compared to men.

In this paper we highlight the link existing between economic growth and inequality. Using the FH-DADS panel data set, resulting from the matching of Pôle Emploi (French National Employment Agency) historical database and the "Déclarations Annuelles de Données Sociales” data set (DADS), we show that inequality increases with mobility, and that mobility evolves with GDP variations. Data show indeed that inequality tends to increase during economic growth periods and to decrease during slow down, through unequal mobility between individuals. In order to explain this phenomenon, we use two structural models. One based on Jolivet, Postel-Vinay and Robin (2006) allows us to link inequality and mobility through equilibrium changes on the job market. Another one, due to Robin (2011), confirms on US data the link existing between inequality and economic growth

This paper presents wage curves for formal and informal workers using a rich individual level data for Turkey over the period 2005-2009. The wage curve is an empirical regularity describing a negative relationship between regional unemployment rates and individuals' real wages. While this relationship has been well documented for a number of countries including Turkey, less attention has focused on how this relationship differs for informal versus formal employment. This is of utmost importance for less developed countries where informal employment plays a significant role in the economy. Using the Turkish Household Labor Force Survey for the period 2005-2009 observed over 26 NUTS-2 regions, we find that real hourly wages of informal workers in Turkey are more sensitive to variations in regional unemployment rates than wages of formal workers. This is true for all workers as well as for different gender and age groups Key Words: Formal/Informal Employment; Wage Curve; Regional Labor Markets JEL No. C26, J30, J60, O17

The nexus between income and happiness is very much disputed. Many cross-sectional studies see a positive relationship, most longitudinal studies don’t. Starting from the fact that the theoretical basis in happiness research has been comparatively weak, we develop a model that identifies distributional consequences of unemployment with their importance conditional per-capita income as at the heart of the matter. Our theory is backed by empirical evidence on OECD data: in low-income countries, well-being significantly depends on income, in highincome countries on the unemployment-related Gini. Insofar, our findings establish the income-satiation hypothesis of longitudinal studies also in cross-sectional perspective.