Labour market institutions for the AI era: The need for verified employment records

The rise of AI fundamentally alters the balance between formal credentials and verified experience in labour markets, but without verified employment records, experience remains invisible.
Conflict in dismissals: Evidence from ‘separations by mutual agreement’ in France

Dismissals are costly and are often subject to stringent employment protection regulations. This column explores how France’s 2008 introduction of separation by mutual agreement affected
Lessons from Denmark’s eight-hour workday reform

In recent years, calls for shorter working weeks have re-emerged in Europe and elsewhere. This column examines how Denmark’s 1919 shift to the eight-hour workday
Gold gains on US interest rate expectations

Investors have their eyes on other news, including ADP U.S. employment data and ISM PMIs this week, for indicators that could alter the Fed’s hawkish
Updating my priors on the effectiveness of wage subsidies in developing countries

In 2017 I published (ungated) a review of active labor market programs in developing countries, in which I concluded that the “accumulated evidence suggests that wage subsidies
Data, power and emissions: How AI’s growth may slow down the green transition

AI and other data-intensive technologies may help optimise energy use, but the technologies themselves are power hungry. This column explores how the diffusion of AI
Insuring labour income shocks: The role of the dynasty

Beyond government and market-based insurance, the family remains a key institution for coping with economic risk. This column uses detailed Norwegian data to study how
Leading firms are falling behind in developing East Asia

For decades, East Asia has been a paragon of economic dynamism. But today, in an era of rapid global technological advances, productivity growth in the
Sustained growth through creative destruction: Nobel laureates Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt

Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have been jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Joel Mokyr ‘for having explained innovation-driven economic growth’.
US weekly jobless claims decline, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs estimate

Economists estimate weekly jobless claims fell to 217,000 from 235,000. The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week, economists at

