In this paper an effort is made in order to investigate the nexus of dynamic interrelations between the general macroeconomic environment of Greek economy with a special reference to the real wages determination. For the causality analysis among real wages, consumer price index, labour productivity, unemployment rate and gross domestic product a multivariate autoregressive VAR model was used, c...

This paper studies the factors responsible for the secular decline of Singapore’s unemployment rate over the period 1966-2000 in an environment of low and stable inflation rates. We introduce wage bargaining and unions into a specific-factors, two-sector economy with an export sector and a non-tradable sector to obtain an endogenous natural unemployment rate. Increases in the relative export pr...

This paper explores the empirical relationship between unemployment rate and product market competition in eighteen OECD countries through three sets of quantitative analyses. We find that the effect of competition on employment depends on the existing competition intensity and the relationship between the unemployment and competition appears to be inverted-N shape—in countries where existing c...

Extensions of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits have been implemented in response to the Great Recession. This paper measures the effect of these extensions on the unemployment rate using a calibrated structural model featuring job search and consumption-saving decisions, skill depreciation, and UI eligibility. The ongoing UI benefit extensions are found to have raised the unemployment rate ...

We study unemployment insurance (UI) in a general equilibrium environment in which unemployed workers only receive benefits for a finite length of time. Although all workers have identical productivity and leisure value, the random arrival of job offers creates ex-post differences with respect to their time remaining until benefit expiration. Firms, which are also homogenous, can exploit these ...

The natural unemployment rate seems to have taken a wild ride. As late as 1970 the natural rate is thought to have been still low, perhaps 5.5 percent. Then unemployment rose in the mid-1970's, dipped, and rose again in the early 1980's. The impression formed that beneath this movement was a major rise of the natural rate--to about 6.5 percent at mid-decade in some estimates. Now the American u...