This article draws on our qualitative study of trans unemployment to introduce considerations of the relationship between trans unemployment and the demands for workers across economic sectors to perform affective labour as integral to industrial service relations. Affective dimensions of labour are often unspoken and unconscious, rendering it challenging for anti-discrimination laws to accommodate. We demonstrate the ways that recent cases grounded on unconscious bias open spaces for further consideration of the ways that trans employment discrimination rooted in demands for affective labour can be dealt with by anti-discrimination law.

A general conclusion of the theoretical literature on pensions is, confronted to an increased longevity, to encourage continued activity. This literature however assumes a perfect labour market. The central question addressed in this article is whether it is still desirable to increase the retirement age when individuals face the risk of being unemployed.

In this purpose, we study the design of the P ay-As-You-Go pension system, focusing on the determination of the retirement age, in a model where people differ according to age only and face in every period a given probability of becoming unemployed.

We first determine the optimal pension system, which consists in a payroll tax rate, a pension benefit level and a retirement age and study its comparative statics with respect to a change of the unemployment rate and the length of life. Our main findings are the following. First, it is optimal to postpone retirement when life expectancy increases. Second, when unemployment benefits are low the optimal retirement age may decrease with the unemployment rate.

We then characterize the issue-by-issue voting equilibrium and compare it to the optimal pension scheme. It is shown that the median voter in general chooses a retirement age lower than the optimal one as well as a higher payroll tax rate.

This paper provides a simple matching model in which unemployed workers and employers can be matched together through social networks or through more “formal” methods of search. We show that, in some case, networks substitute for labor market and that this crowding-out effect may be socially costly. For that reason, a policy increasing the social capital of the disadvantaged workers can increase the unemployment rate and decrease workers' output.

L'amour lorsqu'il est poussé à son paroxysme confine à l'étouffement. Telle est la morale de cet article dans lequel un parent altruiste module son offre de travail en partie pour assurer le meilleur niveau de vie possible à son enfant. Lorsque le travail des parents et celui des enfants sont parfaitement substituables dans la production, ce comportement pousse les salaires à la baisse. Si les salaires horaires sont rigides, l'emploi est rationné et les jeunes sont les premières victimes de ce rationnement. Nous montrons que ce mécanisme est à l'origine de fluctuations endogènes entre chômage et plein emploi lorsque la productivité des travailleurs âgés est négativement influencée par la durée de chômage passée. Nous analysons également le soutien politique pour le salaire minimum lorsque la productivité des jeunes est soumise à un aléa : le salaire minimum, l'offre de travail des vieux et le chômage des jeunes augmentent tous trois avec le facteur d'altruisme.

The main claim of this paper is that in a world of equal entitlements to work rights the justification for a basic income is stronger, and that its level should be higher, the higher the level of unemployment or job scarcity. Point of departure is an economy with job scarcity. A fair way to deal with job scarcity is to grant everybody an equal right to work, where these rights can be freely traded. It turns out that such a Labour Rights scheme and a basic income scheme are equivalent. The equivalence is that the price of Labour Rights and the unemployment benefit corresponds to the income tax rate and basic income respectively. The tax rate can thus be considered as what workers have to pay to appropriate scarce job assets. Both schemes allow that some people voluntarily abstain from doing paid work, in return for a financial compensation. Therefore, the advantages in terms of equity and efficiency of a Labour Rights scheme equally apply to the basic income proposal. This analysis provides an argument against cutting unemployment and social assistance benefits during economic downturns and it offers new insights to evaluate the parasitism and exploitation objection raised against basic income.

The main claim of this paper is that in a world of equal entitlements to work rights the justification for a basic income is stronger, and that its level should be higher, the higher the level of unemployment or job scarcity. Point of departure is an economy with job scarcity. A fair way to deal with job scarcity is to grant everybody an equal right to work, where these rights can be freely traded. It turns out that such a Labour Rights scheme and a basic income scheme are equivalent. The equivalence is that the price of Labour Rights and the unemployment benefit corresponds to the income tax rate and basic income respectively. The tax rate can thus be considered as what workers have to pay to appropriate scarce job assets. Both schemes allow that some people voluntarily abstain from doing paid work, in return for a financial compensation. Therefore, the advantages in terms of equity and efficiency of a Labour Rights scheme equally apply to the basic income proposal. This analysis provides an argument against cutting unemployment and social assistance benefits during economic downturns and it offers new insights to evaluate the parasitism and exploitation objection raised against basic income.

We build a model of endogenous destruction with credit and labor market imperfections, represented by a matching process between financiers and entrepreneurs on one hand, and entrepreneurs and workers on the other hand. Business creation, credit opening and job destruction represent three active margins of the model. Financial imperfections lead to financial fragility. This implies the existence of a forth latent margin which may be activated in the case of repudiation of financial contracts. This paradigm is applied to the recent development of the U.S. economy. An empirical test in panel of OECD countries further suggests the importance of venture capital for macroeconomic variables.