Three Essays in Labour Macroeconomics

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This work collects three search and matching models that try to answer to different questions in the labour literature. The first model wants to reproduce the coexistence of two type of labour contracts in Europe: Fixed-Term Contracts, that terminate without additional costs, and Open Ended Conctrats, that instead entails a separation cost. To do so, I built a model that introduces the choice between fixed-term contracts and open-ended contracts in a search and matching model characterized by on-the-job search and a learning process about worker's ability. Then, the agents will compare the benefits of a FTC contract that does not involve any firing costs with the benefits of a OEC contract that is able to reduce the search intensity of the worker. The model is able to caputre important observational facts in the distribution of fixed-term contracts in the European workforce, leading to a more precise estimate of the effects of labour market policies. The second model is another search and matching model that aims to explain the drivers of the unemployment behaviour in the aftermath of the Great Recession in the main European countries. To do so, it allows for different shocks and different labour market institutions and it analyzes their interactions. The third model is a migration models with search frictions. It aims to study the aggregate macroeconomic role of migration in the case of an asymmetric shock in a country part of a currency union, when workers are heterogeneous in their skills and migration preferences.