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We investigate the role of spatial frictions in search equilibrium unemployment. For that, we develop a model of the labor market in which workers' location in an agglomeration depends on commuting costs, the endogenous price of land and the value of job search and employment. We first show that there exists a unique and stable market equilibrium in which both land and labor markets are solved for simultaneously. We then compare this decentralized equilibrium to a social planner's optimum and we find that distortions (subventions or imperfect competition in the transport market) modify the usual Hosios efficiency condition. Indeed, the social planner needs to adjust the transportation spending of the decentralized equilibrium. Given differences in commuting costs between the employed and the unemployed, this is realized by a change in the fraction of unemployed workers: the socially optimal number of unemployed workers depends both of matching externalities and on distortions in the transport market. In absence of these distortions and despite spatial terms in wages, the standard condition holds: a spatial efficient equilibrium may thus occur. We however show that space has still an important role on the interaction between land and labor markets, and decompose the equilibrium unemployment rate into two parts: a pure non-spatial one (which corresponds to the standard matching model) and a mixed of non-spatial and spatial elements, the first element amplifying the other one.

Labor market frictions are not the only possible factor responsible for high unemployment. Credit market imperfections, driven by microeconomic frictions and impacted upon by macroeconomic factors such as monetary policy, could also be to blame. This paper shows that labor and credit market imperfections interact in a complementary way - which may explain why European and US unemployment differ so much when labor markets have become more similar at the margin in Europe and the US. To develop this idea, we build a search model that treats credit and labor market imperfections in a symmetrical way. We introduce specificity in credit relationships, and assume that credit to potential entrepreneurs is rationed due to endogenous search frictions, in the spirit of Diamond (1990). These imperfections mirror the job search frictions that we introduce, à la Mortensen- Pissarides (1994), in the labor market.

French workers are more dissatisfied with their jobs than their European peers, and they are among the most stressful in the world. This seems all the more paradoxical given that, according to many indicators, working conditions are apparently favourable to employees: compared to other Europeans, French people work fewer hours, are less often mobilised at weekends, and generally have less support in working patterns. In this study, Etienne Wasmer demonstrates, based on international comparisons, that the weak dialogue within companies, as well as the lack of mobility and the rigidity of our labour law, create stress for employees. He made a series of proposals to facilitate job mobility and to make the labour market more fluid. ; Les travailleurs français sont plus insatisfaits de leur emploi que leurs pairs européens, et ils sont parmi les plus stressés au monde. Le constat semble d'autant plus paradoxal que, selon de nombreux indicateurs, les conditions de travail sont en apparence favorables aux salariés : par rapport aux autres Européens, les Français travaillent moins d'heures, sont moins souvent mobilisés le week-end, et ont généralement des rythmes de travail moins soutenus. Dans cette étude, Etienne Wasmer démontre, en s'appuyant sur des comparaisons internationales, que la faiblesse du dialogue au sein des entreprises, ainsi que le manque de mobilité et la rigidité de notre droit du travail, sont générateurs de stress pour les salariés. Il formule une série de propositions pour faciliter les mobilités professionnelles et pour fluidifier le marché du travail.

http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_REVUE=RECO&ID_NUMPUBLIE=RECO_586&ID_ARTICLE=RECO_586_1247 ; Housing is fully an economic good. Demand and supply factors play first order roles on prices and quantity exchanged. It is also a heavily regulated market. The law, in particular in France, is complex, its execution described by the « Code de procédure civile » is even more complex. In this text, we focus on the rental housing market and attempt to rationalize the existence of such regulations by various market imperfections. In a first part, we describe the lenght of litigation procedures between landlords and tenants. In a second part, we study the consequences of such delays under adverse selection: landlords attempt to screen tenants according to their (exogenous) propensity to sustain the rent. In a third part, we consider moral hazard issues, whereby tenants undertake actions affecting their likelihood of defecting on the rent. We conclude on the need for economists to consider asymmetries of information in urban economics and for law scholars willing to defend the Civil Code of French origine, to investigate where economic inefficiencies lie in order to keep its initial spirit. ; Le logement est un bien économique à part entière. Il fait l'objet de transactionsdans lesquelles l'offre et la demande ont un impact de premier ordre et déterminenten grande partie le niveau des prix. C'est ainsi un des marchés les plus régulés.La loi, en particulier en France, est complexe. Son exécution, fortement encadréepar le Code de procédure civile, est complexe plus encore. Dans ce texte, nousanalysons le marché locatif exclusivement et tentons de rationaliser l'existence derégulations par diverses imperfections de marché. Dans une première partie, nousdocumentons la durée des procédures de contentieux locatif. Dans une secondepartie, nous évaluons les conséquences de ces délais dans un cadre de sélectionadverse : les propriétaires tentent de sélectionner les locataires en fonctionde leur propension (exogène) à payer ...

http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_REVUE=RECO&ID_NUMPUBLIE=RECO_586&ID_ARTICLE=RECO_586_1247 ; Housing is fully an economic good. Demand and supply factors play first order roles on prices and quantity exchanged. It is also a heavily regulated market. The law, in particular in France, is complex, its execution described by the « Code de procédure civile » is even more complex. In this text, we focus on the rental housing market and attempt to rationalize the existence of such regulations by various market imperfections. In a first part, we describe the lenght of litigation procedures between landlords and tenants. In a second part, we study the consequences of such delays under adverse selection: landlords attempt to screen tenants according to their (exogenous) propensity to sustain the rent. In a third part, we consider moral hazard issues, whereby tenants undertake actions affecting their likelihood of defecting on the rent. We conclude on the need for economists to consider asymmetries of information in urban economics and for law scholars willing to defend the Civil Code of French origine, to investigate where economic inefficiencies lie in order to keep its initial spirit. ; Le logement est un bien économique à part entière. Il fait l'objet de transactionsdans lesquelles l'offre et la demande ont un impact de premier ordre et déterminenten grande partie le niveau des prix. C'est ainsi un des marchés les plus régulés.La loi, en particulier en France, est complexe. Son exécution, fortement encadréepar le Code de procédure civile, est complexe plus encore. Dans ce texte, nousanalysons le marché locatif exclusivement et tentons de rationaliser l'existence derégulations par diverses imperfections de marché. Dans une première partie, nousdocumentons la durée des procédures de contentieux locatif. Dans une secondepartie, nous évaluons les conséquences de ces délais dans un cadre de sélectionadverse : les propriétaires tentent de sélectionner les locataires en fonctionde leur propension (exogène) à payer le loyer. Dans une troisième partie, nousconsidérons les problèmes de risque moral, qui conduisent les locataires à entreprendredes actes affectant la probabilité d'impayé. Nous concluons sur l'utilitépour les économistes d'introduire dans les modèles urbains les questions d'asymétried'information, et pour les juristes, souhaitant défendre l'édifice du droit civild'origine française, d'en rechercher les inefficacités économiques pour en garder l'esprit originel.

Housing is an economic good in its own right. It is subject to transactionswhere supply and demand have a major impact and determine to a large extent the level of prices. This is one of the most regulated markets. The law, particularly in France, is complex. Its enforcement, which is strongly framed by the Code of Civil Procedure, is even more complex. In this text, we will analyse the rental market exclusively and try to rationalise the existence of deregulation by various market imperfections. In the first part, let us document the length of the tenancy proceedings. In an assistant, we assess the consequences of these deadlines in a context of selection: landlords try to select tenants in function of their (exogenous) propensity to pay rent. In a third part, we consider moral hazard issues, which lead tenants to undertake acts affecting the likelihood of unpaid payments. We conclude on the tool for economists to introduce asymmetrical information questions into urban models, and for lawyers wishing to defend the construction of civil law of French origin to seek economic inefficiencies in order to keep their original mind. ; http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_REVUE=RECO&ID_NUMPUBLIE=RECO_586&ID_ARTICLE=RECO_586_1247 Housing is fully an economic good. Demand and supply factors play first order roles on prices and quantity exchanged. It is also a heavily regulated market. The law, in particular in France, is complex, its execution described by the « Code de procédure civile » is even more complex. In this text, we focus on the rental housing market and attempt to rationalize the existence of such regulations by various market imperfections. In a first part, we describe the lenght of litigation procedures between landlords and tenants. In a second part, we study the consequences of such delays under adverse selection: landlords attempt to screen tenants according to their (exogenous) propensity to sustain the rent. In a third part, we consider moral hazard issues, whereby tenants undertake actions ...

Human capital investments are not independent of the aggregate state of labor markets: frictions and slackness of the labor market raise the returns to specific human capital investments relative to general investments. We build a macroeconomic model with two pure strategy regimes. In the pure G-regime, workers invest in general skills. This occurs when they face high turnover labor markets and in the absence of employment protection. The pure 5-regime in which workers invest in skills specific to their job appears when employment protection is high enough. Implications for a characterization of Europe-United States differences are provided in conclusion.

Unlike many other contracts, employment contracts are subject to various external administrative procedures governing separations, ranging from compulsory severance payments and advance notice periods (usually seniority based), to collective layoff procedures (usually depending on the firm's size), and other forms of protections against arbitrary dismissal. These external constraints may raise the wellbeing of workers if everything remains constant, but may fail to do so once other economic channels are accounted for. Here, we explore the effect of such legislation on the firm's attitude towards insiders (i.e. protected workers), notably worker monitoring, working environment, and ultimately what we could term harassment. We show that during downturns, harassing workers in order to induce a quit is a substitute for greater dismissal freedom, and that intense monitoring and depreciated working conditions will occur. Thus, a more protected workforce may loose more than it gains from non-pecuniary pressures exerted by the firm. We test these mechanisms using data from a panel of Canadian individuals (the National Public Health Survey) including details on work-related stress and the consumption of various medications, including anti-depressants. By exploiting cross-province differences in employment protection legislation (EPL), we cannot reject the theoretical hypothesis: we even find positive links between individual employment protection and some dimensions of stress, and weaker but positive links between employment protection, depression and the consumption of various psychotropic drugs. Tenure and firm size information from another dataset is then used to generate further variance in EPL by imputation. This confirms the previous results, as well as falsification exercises: family stress for instance is not correlated with regional EPL, while financial stress is negatively correlated with EPL.

This test is the result of a series of reflections on the poor functioning of the French housing market. It extends an article published in the Rebonds de Libération pages on 5 September 2005, which itself was based on a series of research into the legal economy on the one hand and the housing economy on the other (.). ; Cet essai est issu d'une série de réflexions sur le mauvais fonctionnement du marché du logement français. Il prolonge un article paru dans les pages Rebonds de Libération le 5 septembre 2005, qui lui-même s'appuyait sur une série de travaux de recherche menés sur l'économie du droit d'une part, l'économie du logement d'autre part (.).

Unlike many other contracts, employment contracts are subject to various external administrative procedures governing separations, ranging from compulsory severance payments and advance notice periods (usually seniority based), to collective layoff procedures (usually depending on the firm's size), and other forms of protections against arbitrary dismissal. These external constraints may raise the wellbeing of workers if everything remains constant, but may fail to do so once other economic channels are accounted for. Here, we explore the effect of such legislation on the firm's attitude towards insiders (i.e. protected workers), notably worker monitoring, working environment, and ultimately what we could term harassment. We show that during downturns, harassing workers in order to induce a quit is a substitute for greater dismissal freedom, and that intense monitoring and depreciated working conditions will occur. Thus, a more protected workforce may loose more than it gains from non-pecuniary pressures exerted by the firm. We test these mechanisms using data from a panel of Canadian individuals (the National Public Health Survey) including details on work-related stress and the consumption of various medications, including anti-depressants. By exploiting cross-province differences in employment protection legislation (EPL), we cannot reject the theoretical hypothesis: we even find positive links between individual employment protection and some dimensions of stress, and weaker but positive links between employment protection, depression and the consumption of various psychotropic drugs. Tenure and firm size information from another dataset is then used to generate further variance in EPL by imputation. This confirms the previous results, as well as falsification exercises: family stress for instance is not correlated with regional EPL, while financial stress is negatively correlated with EPL.

Unlike many other contracts, employment contracts are subject to various external administrative procedures governing separations, ranging from compulsory severance payments and advance notice periods (usually seniority based), to collective layoff procedures (usually depending on the firm's size), and other forms of protections against arbitrary dismissal. These external constraints may raise the wellbeing of workers if everything remains constant, but may fail to do so once other economic channels are accounted for. Here, we explore the effect of such legislation on the firm's attitude towards insiders (i.e. protected workers), notably worker monitoring, working environment, and ultimately what we could term harassment. We show that during downturns, harassing workers in order to induce a quit is a substitute for greater dismissal freedom, and that intense monitoring and depreciated working conditions will occur. Thus, a more protected workforce may loose more than it gains from non-pecuniary pressures exerted by the firm. We test these mechanisms using data from a panel of Canadian individuals (the National Public Health Survey) including details on work-related stress and the consumption of various medications, including anti-depressants. By exploiting cross-province differences in employment protection legislation (EPL), we cannot reject the theoretical hypothesis: we even find positive links between individual employment protection and some dimensions of stress, and weaker but positive links between employment protection, depression and the consumption of various psychotropic drugs. Tenure and firm size information from another dataset is then used to generate further variance in EPL by imputation. This confirms the previous results, as well as falsification exercises: family stress for instance is not correlated with regional EPL, while financial stress is negatively correlated with EPL.