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This thesis presents the author's work in two parts. Part I contains two studies of the modelling of growth and convergence, Part II examines empirical issues regarding the determinants of labour market outcomes. In Chapter 1 we tackle and solve a methodological issue in the application of the distribution dynamics method for studying the evolution in time of an entire cross section distribution. The problem of discretisation of a continuous state space Markov process is solved by employing a new method proposed in the statistical literature. The method is applied to the distribution of per capita income across countries and the (non-) convergence phenomenon is reassessed. In Chapter 2 we model the evolution of per capita incomes across countries as a semi-markov process, with variable sojourn times between states. We uncover asymmetries in the distribution of transition times and find very low persistence of income dynamics, especially in the high portion of the income distribution. In Chapter 3 we investigate the existence of a long run equilibrium relationship between unemployment and a set of labour market institutional variables by means of newly developed panel unit root and cointegration models. We find that these variables are integrated of order one and cointegrated. We estimate the long run effects of institutions on unemployment. In Chapter 4 we estimate a model of equilibrium employment with endogenous technological progress. Innovation arises as a consequence of investment in research and development and impacts on job creation and job destruction. We find that technological progress increases unemployment on impact, but has a positive long run effect on job creation.

This thesis is a collection of three essays in which the behaviour of unemployment is studied in different dynamic environments. Throughout, unemployment is understood to be involuntary, arising due to the uncoordinated nature of trade in the labour market as viewed from the perspective of the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides equilibrium matching model. It goes without saying that the fundamental motivation for pursuing this line of research is provided by the untold consequences, both human and economic, of otherwise capable people remaining involuntarily idle. An attempt, therefore, is made to contribute to the understanding of how various aspects of macroeconomic policy can influence unemployment outcomes. The approach maintained throughout is to combine general equilibrium modelling with simulation techniques in order to provide not only qualitative inferences but also quantitative descriptions of equilibrium dynamics. The dynamic environments considered cover both the business cycle (the first two chapters) and the life cycle (the third chapter). In the first chapter, Structural Tax Reform and the Cyclical Behaviour of the Labour Market, we build a real business cycle model with frictional unemployment and distortionary tax rates which are increasing in individual taxable labour income. The cyclical aspects of tax reform that are addressed in this chapter are distinct from the stationary state distributional issues that have garnered most of the attention in the existing literature on structural tax reform. Estimating the tax code parameters from federal income tax return data for the U.S., we find that a reduction in the progressivity of the tax system is associated with a significant increase in the volatility of hours per worker. The intuition is simply that the greater the extent to which marginal tax rates fluctuate in response to shocks, the smaller the incentive to adjust working hours. But in a frictional labour market in which it is costly for forms to issue vacancies, the behaviour of hours - i.e. intensive adjustment, or adjustment in the intensive margin - is a determining factor of job creation - i.e. extensive adjustment. We then explain how the dynamic behaviour of hours along the adjustment path to an aggregate productivity shock generates o¤setting incentives for job creation, with the result that tax reform has little impact on unemployment fluctuations. The welfare cost of the business cycle is also computed under different tax regimes. It is found that although business cycles are more costly under a flat tax, the overall welfare implications are quantitatively negligible regardless of the tax system. Having described the effects of the tax system on equilibrium dynamics when perturbed by a productivity disturbance, we then consider business cycle adjustment to an aggregate demand shock in the form of fiscal stimulus. In light of recent fiscal developments in the U.S. and Europe, the ability of expansionary fiscal policy to stimulate output has gained renewed interest in the business cycle literature. We contribute to the analysis by assessing whether the efficacy of government expenditure in reducing unemployment depends on the structure of the tax system. It is demonstrated that a less progressive tax policy increases the ability of expansionary fiscal policy to stimulate output due to a larger response in hours, but this comes at the cost of a smaller unemployment multiplier. Tax reform therefore causes a compositional shift in labour market adjustment in response to aggregate demand shocks, with relatively more adjustment occurring in the intensive margin and less adjustment in the extensive margin the flatter the tax schedule is. The reason why this compositional shift occurs for a demand shock but not a supply shock is that the adjustment path of hours is qualitatively dependent on the type of disturbance. In particular, we describe how equilibrium undershooting in hours occurs only in response to an aggregate productivity (supply) shock, whereas the negative wealth effects arising from increased government expenditure exert sustained upward pressure on hours along the entire adjustment path, thus providing a significant incentive for firms to substitute away from job creation. The second chapter, Monetary Policy and Job Creation in a New Keynesian Model, is motivated by the work of Cooley and Quadrini (1999) and Krause and Lubik (2007). These studies indicate that a typical monetary business cycle model with frictional unemployment and endogenous job destruction tends to encounter difficulty in generating a rise in job creation in response to expansionary monetary policy, rendering the model inconsistent with the downward sloping Beveridge curve that appears in the data and implying only a limited policy role for inflationary job creation. Matching frictions in the labour market congest the job creation process so that firms tend to skew adjustment to shocks towards the job destruction margin. In recognition of the assertion put forth but unpursued by Cooley and Quadrini (1999) that fluctuations in the size of the labour force may ease labour market congestion and therefore amplify cyclical job creation, in Chapter II we extend a New Keynesian model with unemployment to feature an endogenous labour market participation decision. However, a baseline model with a standard degree of risk aversion tends to exhibit countercyclical labour force participation, which is inconsistent with the data. In order to address this issue, we propose the notion of labour market participation as a social consideration, which we demonstrate to be capable of generating procyclical participation incentives. The basic idea is that agents will tend not to exit the labour force during booms in order to "keep up with the Joneses". We then find that plausible fluctuations in the size of the labour force do not exert a quantitatively significant effect on job creation. In light of this result, we search for alternative mechanisms which may overturn the conclusion that inflationary policy is incapable of incentivising job creation. The approach taken involves switching focus to the characteristics of aggregate demand dynamics along the adjustment path to a monetary shock. It is well known that standard New Keynesian models fail to deliver the gradual, hump-shaped adjustment path to monetary policy shocks that is observed in the data. We argue that if aggregate demand experiences a persistent increase in response to a monetary shock instead of peaking on impact, the incentive for firms to create jobs becomes amplified. The intuition is that, since the job creation decision is forward-looking due to the presence of matching frictions, aggregate demand must rise persistently even after the shock takes place so that firms anticipate a further increase in aggregate demand in order for the time consuming process of issuing a vacancy to be justified. To demonstrate this, it is shown that, by altering the dynamics of aggregate demand, time-inseparability in the utility function can significantly improve the ability of expansionary monetary policy to increase job creation, allowing the model to generate a downward sloping Beveridge curve conditional on monetary shocks. In the appendix to Chapter II, we lend further credence to this hypothesis by describing how the manner in which monetary policy it- self is specified may give rise to hump-shaped adjustment dynamics and, consequently, amplify inflationary job creation. Finally, in Chapter III on Equilibrium Matching and Age Discrimination Policy, we abstract from business cycle issues and concentrate instead on the life cycle. Federal legislation prohibiting the discrimination of workers on the basis of age has been in place in the United States since the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

Στη παρκάτω διπλωματική εργασία τέθηκαν τρεις στόχοι: 1) Να παρουσιάσουμε σε θεωρητική βάση την ανεργία και το πληθωρισμό. 2) Να δείξουμε πώς αυτά τα δύο μεγέθη συνδέονται μεταξύ τους (καμπύλη Phillips) και 3) Μια οικονομετρική εκτίμηση, για το κατά πόσο ισχύει η καμπύλη Phillips στην Ελλάδα, για τη περίοδο 1975-2009. / -

Ce travail est le résultat d’une enquête à dominante qualitative menée entre 2007 et 2012 dans une Maison de l’Emploi. À partir d’une centaine d’entretiens semi-directifs et d’observations en continue, nous nous sommes attachés à comprendre comment se construisent les rapports des chômeurs aux intermédiaires de l’emploi. Nous avons ainsi échangé (de manière formelle et informelle) avec des conseillers et des chômeurs au sujet de leurs usages et attentes à l’égard du Service Public de l’Emploi. Cette recherche a été réalisée dans un contexte de fortes mutations institutionnelles (mise en place des Maison de l’Emploi en 2005, fusion du réseau des Assedic et de l’ANPE en 2008 et généralisation du RSA en 2009). Ces réformes visent notamment à simplifier les modalités de coordination entre les opérateurs du marché du travail et à simplifier les démarches des chômeurs tout au long de leur recherche d’emploi. Dans cette thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés aux différentes implications de la mise en œuvre des Maisons de l’Emploi. Dans une première approche, nous avons retracé les restructurations du paysage de l’emploi dans une perspective socio-historique. Nous avons porté une attention particulière aux partages des responsabilités entre l’État et les collectivités territoriales dans la définition des politiques publiques en matière d’emploi. Dans la seconde approche, nous nous sommes interrogés sur la place et le rôle des Maisons de l’Emploi au sein du Service Public de l’Emploi élargi. Sur la base de neuf monographies, nous avons cherché à comprendre la spécificité de leur champ d’action au regard des autres acteurs de l’emploi, ainsi que les articulations concrètes qui s’opèrent entre eux. La troisième approche traite plus directement des itinéraires administratifs des chômeurs au sein du maquis des intermédiaires de l’emploi. Nous y retraçons leurs démarches, ainsi que leurs rapports aux institutions au travers d’une analyse dynamique de leurs trajectoires institutionnelles. Cette option méthodologique nous a permis de mettre en évidence cinq profils idéal-typiques de chômeurs ; profils qui se construisent de manière itérative, au gré des effets d’interactions cumulées avec les acteurs de l’emploi. / This work is the result of a mostly qualitative study carried out in a Maison de l’Emploi from 2007 to 2012. Based on about one hundred semi structured interviews and continuous observation, we set out to understand how relations between the unemployed and employment intermediaries are constructed. We discussed (both formally and informally) with counselors and unemployed persons concerning their uses and expectations of the Service Public de l’Emploi. This research was conducted in a context of important institutional transformations (the creation of Maison de l’Emploi in 2005, the fusion of the Assedic and the ANPE networks in 2008 and the implementation of the RSA in 2009). These reforms notably aim to simplify the processed of coordination between job market operators as well as unemployment procedures throughout the search for employment. In this thesis, we took particular interest in the creation of the Maison de l’Emploi. In the first approach, we retrace the restructuring of the employment landscape through a socio historical perspective. We paid particular attention to the shared role of State and territorial collectivities in defining public policy regarding employment. In the second approach, we contemplated the place and role of the Maison de l’Emploi within the larger Service Public de l’Emploi. Using nine monographs, we sought to comprehend the specificity of their field of action regarding other employment agencies, as well as the connections between them. The third approach deals more directly with the administrative itineraries of the unemployed within the jungle of employment intermediaries. We retrace their procedure, as well as their relations to institutions through a dynamic analysis of their institutional trajectories. This methodological choice allowed us to identify five ideal type profiles of the unemployed; profiles constructed iteratively, over the course of accumulated interactions with employment agencies.

This thesis investigates how the experience of labour market insecurity affects individuals’ life courses and family lives in the UK. It focuses on unemployment and temporary work as the two sources of insecurity and examines their consequences on partnership formation, transition into parenthood, the well-being within family, and partnership dissolution. It follows a longitudinal approach and uses a sample from the BHPS. The results showed that unemployment has serious negative consequences for individuals’ family outcomes. Temporary work also has some negative outcomes, particularly for the vulnerable groups. Unemployment and temporary employment seem to discourage young adults to form marital unions, whereas especially for the young and non-married men unemployment increased the risk of fatherhood. Temporary work has a similar effect for those with no educational qualification, who are more likely to have their first child. Unemployed individuals and their spouses report a drop in their life-satisfaction, psychological well-being and are more likely to feel depressed, and they face a greater risk of marital separation. Male temporary work is associated with poorer well-being for the low-skilled employees and those who report subjective job insecurity. The wives of men working on temporary contracts also suffer from a decline in the well-being. The thesis also looked into the consequences of insecurity at the couple level. Contrary to our initial assumption, dual-insecurity - where both of the spouses are in insecure employment - does not have the strongest effect on the family. Rather, role-reversal between the spouses has the largest impact for family outcomes. When a male partner is unemployed and the female partner is employed, or when the male partner is working on temporary basis and the female partner is working on permanent basis, then the couple delays transition into parenthood, it suffers from a decline in the well-being, and it is more likely to separate.

La thèse étudie les liens qui existent entre les recommandations issues de la littérature sur l'assurance chômage optimale et la qualité des emplois repris par les chômeurs. Nous nous intéressons en particulier à une dimension de la qualité de l'emploi qu'est la stabilité des emplois dans un contexte où les contrats de courte voire de très courte durée sont en pleine expansion en France. En utilisant les modèles théoriques de recherche d'emploi et d'appariement, nous analysons la manière dont les caractéristiques de l'assurance chômage affectent la stabilité des emplois repris. La particularité de notre analyse consiste à intégrer la manière dont les employés sont influencés par les paramètres de l'assurance chômage. En effet, si l'on souhaite analyser de manière globale l'impact des paramètres du système d'indemnisation sur l'évolution du taux de chômage, il convient de déterminer comment ces derniers influencent le taux de sortie du chômage (analyse du comportement des demandeurs d'emploi) mais aussi comment ils affectent le taux d'entrée au chômage (analyse du comportement des employés). Pour étudier le comportement des employés nous considérons que ces derniers influencent leur probabilité de conserver leur emploi en fournissant des efforts de rétention d'emploi. Nous montrons notamment que les chômeurs qui quittent rapidement le chômage retrouvent fréquemment des emplois peu stables. Une fois en emploi, ils exercent relativement peu d'efforts pour conserver leur emploi augmentant par là même leur probabilité de retourner rapidement au chômage. L'impact final d'une réduction du montant de l'indemnisation sur l'évolution du chômage est donc indéterminé dès lors que l'on intègre les employés dans l'analyse. / The thesis studies the relationships between the Optimal Unemployment Insurance (UI) literature recommendations and post unemployment job stability. We focus on one particular job quality dimension that is job stability within a context of a huge increase of very short duration job contracts in France since the 2000’s. Using job search and matching frameworks, we analyse how the features of the UI system affect job stability. The particularity of our approach is that we account for employees’ behaviors while the majority of the literature on optimal UI focuses only on jobless workers behaviors. We show notably that job-seekers who leave quickly unemployment tend to find unstable jobs. Once employed they have a greater probability to return to unemployment because the job-retention efforts they exert are not sufficient.

La thèse étudie le travail ordinaire de mobilisation des chômeurs dans différentes organisations militantes. Ce faisant, elle interroge les conditions de leur représentation en regard de l’« autonomie relative » de l’espace des organisations de chômeurs. La faible unification sociale de cette catégorie administrative et la pluralité des inscriptions sociales, politiques et professionnelles des groupes engagés dans la cause déterminent des logiques d’engagement fortement différenciées. En reconstituant l’espace des positions et des prises de position au sein de ces organisations, la thèse montre d’une part l’influence qu’exercent certains groupes sociaux et, à travers eux, les logiques spécifiques à d’autres champs sociaux (syndical, du travail social) sur le travail militant. D’autre part, elle invite à repenser l’opposition classique entre producteurs et bénéficiaires de l’action collective en analysant les effets différenciés du chômage sur les carrières militantes. / This research investigates the ordinary work of mobilization of the unemployed by several militant organizations. By doing so, it interrogates conditions of their representation in light of the “relative autonomy” of the unemployed organizations space. The faint social unification of this administrative category added with the plurality of social, political, and professional admissions of groups involved in that cause determine highly differentiated commitments strategies. Through the reconstitution of stances and standpoints space within the organizations, this thesis shows on the one hand the influence exerted by certain social groups and, through them, specific logic of other social fields (trade-union, social work) on the militant work. On the other hand it tempts to review the classical opposition between producers and recipients of the collective action by analyzing unemployment’s differentiated effects on militant careers.

Στην παρούσα εργασία παρουσιάζονται οι οικονομετρικές σχέσεις του νόμου του Okun, που συνδέουν τις μεταβολές στο προϊόν της οικονομίας (ΑΕΠ) με τις μεταβολές στο επίπεδο ανεργίας. Διάφορες θεωρητικές προσεγγίσεις του νόμου, εμπειρικές μελέτες προηγούμενων οικονομολόγων σχετικά με το θέμα και μία εμπειρική εφαρμογή για δεδομένα που αφορούν την Ελλάδα, θα παρουσιαστούν και θα αναλυθούν με σκοπό να διαπιστώσουμε την αποτελεσματικότητα του νόμου διαχρονικά, και ποιες αναβαθμίσεις των μορφών του, οδηγούν προς σε αυτήν την κατεύθυνση. / In this work we present the econometric relationships of Okun’s law that connect the changes in the product of economy (GDP) with those of the level of unemployment. Different theoretical approaches of the law, empirical studies of other economists, relative to the subject and one empirical application of data that concern Greece, will be described and analysed in purpose of examine, the effectiveness of Okun’s law through time and which upgrades of its versions, lead to that direction.