Youth Unemployment in Belgium: Diagnosis and Key Remedies In Belgium youth unemployment is structurally higher than the European (EU27) average, in particular for the low educated. In this study we set a diagnosis of the main structural factors and advance key remedies. We analyze the system of employment protection, education and passive and active labor market policies. A high minimum wage, a...

This article adds technology choice to a free-entry Cournot model with linear demand and constant marginal costs. Firms can choose from a discrete set of technologies. This simple framework yields non-existence of equilibrium, existence of multiple equilibria and equilibria in which ex-ante identical ̄rms choose di®erent technologies as possible outcomes. I provide a full characterization of th...

A Menu of Minimum Wage Variables for Evaluating Wages and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil The international literature on minimum wage greatly lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. Brazil’s minimum wage policy is a distinctive and central feature of the Brazilian economy. Not only are increases in the minimum wage large and frequent but the minimum wage has also been used...

Sharpening the Effectiveness of Natural Experiments as an Analytical Tool The importance of using natural experiments in economic research has long been recognized. Yet, it is only in recent years that natural experiments have become an integral part of the economist’s analytical toolbox, thanks to the efforts of Meyer, Card, Peters, Krueger, Gruber, and others. This use promises to shed new li...

We study the effect of a compulsory education reform that increased the compulsory level of schooling by two years on the development of cognitive and noncognitive skills and its subsequent impact on long-term labor market performance. We link individual data on cognitive and non-cognitive test scores before and after reform exposure, reform treatment, and labor market outcomes. This allows us ...

The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Prices It is well established in the international literature that minimum wage increases compress the wages distribution. Firms respond to these higher labour costs by reducing employment, reducing profits, or raising prices. While there are hundreds of studies on the employment effect of the minimum wage, there is less than a handful studies on its profit eff...

Governments in the U.S. must offer free legal services to low-income people accused of crimes. These services are frequently provided by assigned counsel, who handle cases for indigent defendants on a contract basis. Court-assigned attorneys generally garner worse case outcomes than privately retained attorneys. Using detailed court records from one large jurisdiction in Texas, we find that the...

Income Support Systems, Labor Market Policies and Labor Supply: The German Experience In view of the demographic trends, most EU countries face the problem of a declining work force in the future. Understanding the interaction between income support systems (such as unemployment benefits, social assistance, early retirement and pension systems) and total labor supply is of crucial importance to...

Reforming German Labor Market Institutions: A Dual Path to Flexibility Germany has always been one of the prime examples of institutional complementarities between social insurance, a rather passive welfare state, strong employment protection and collective bargaining that stabilize diversified quality production. This institutional arrangement was criticized for being the main cause of inferio...

Public works programs, aimed at building a strong social safety net through redistribution of wealth and generation of meaningful employment, are becoming increasingly popular in developing countries. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), enacted in August 2005, is one such program in India. This paper assesses causal impacts (Intentto-Treat) of NREGA on public works participatio...