Monthly panel (1998-2003) data from regional labor offices in Latvia are used to analyze the matching process in a high unemployment – low labor demand environment and to evaluate the impact of active labor market policy programs on outflows from unemployment. Results suggest that the hiring...

A modified version of a tax-based incomes policy (TIP) incentive tax is proposed that retains the aggregate wage-restraining effect of the tax proposed by Jackman and Layard, but in addition should help to speed the elimination of unemployment that results from the slow response of relative...

This paper provides an overview of the analysis of the indirect effects of active labour market policies. Indirect effects arise where some of the improved labour market outcomes for programme participants come at the expense of other workers or jobseekers. The paper outlines some common...

We are increasingly cognizant of the limits to large cross-country empirical studies in trying to understand in-depth a particular country reality, in ways useful for advice. At the same time, merely relying on a single country account at a particular point in time ignores the historical and...

Since recent immigrants tend to earn less than natives, their relative labor market status has been adversely impacted by an increase in the return to labor market skills and widening wage inequality over the past two decades. To evaluate the magnitude of this effect, this study uses Social...

This study uses Social Security earnings records matched to recent cross-sections of the SIPP and CPS to study the earnings progress of U.S. immigrants.The data show that immigrants' earnings grow 10 to 13 percent during their first twenty years in the U.S. relative to the earnings of natives...

This paper extends the standard Real Business Cycle model to incorporate sectoral shifts in unemployment. Using relative sectoral technology and sectoral tastes shocks, combined with labor adjustment costs across sectors, we assess the possibility of generating persistent aggregate unemployment....

This paper shows that in the Baltic countries, commuting reduces urban- rural wage and employment disparities and increases national output. To quantify the effect of commuting on wage differentials, two sets of earnings functions are estimated (based on Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian Labor...