The paper examines labor market developments in the four hard-peg European Union (EU) accession candidates during transition, with a view toward understanding the persistent high unemployment experienced in each country. Despite the significant levels of unemployment in all four countries, labor...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the regional labor markets for Belgium. The paper examines labor market performance, and argues that a number of factors—poor worker-job matching, a compressed wage structure, and low geographical mobility—contribute to economic disparities. The paper...

The GCC growth model has delivered substantial improvements in living standards over several decades. Access to foreign labor has supported rapid growth in the non-oil sector and price stability in the region. It has also resulted in positive spillovers to the migrant-sending countries through...

In designing policy measures, including possible social safety nets, targeted to the poor, it is important to fully understand the efficiency implications of these measures. There is abundant macroeconomic literature on their negative effects on the poor’s work effort. The literature, however,...

In flow models of the labor market, wages are determined by negotiations between workers and employers on the surplus value of a realized match. From this perspective, this paper presents an econometric analysis of the influence of labor market flows on wage formation as an alternative to the...

The growth rate of real hourly wages in France has fallen below the trend growth rate of total factor productivity. The distribution of wage and earnings growth has not been uniform across deciles. A breakdown in employment growth by wage deciles also suggests important composition changes. The...

Increased globalization - the international integration of markets forgoods, technology, labor, and capital - has coincided in the past 20years with a shift in demand from less-skilled workers to those with moreskills. Have imports from developing countries been responsible for thelowered wages...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper reviews the Staff-Monitored Program (SMP) for the Union of the Comoros. The authorities’ program for 2005 is focused on macroeconomic stabilization. This is predicated on a consolidated budget entailing a domestic fiscal adjustment slightly above 3 percent of GDP. Monetary policy...

The paper analyzes the macroeconomic implications of different systems of industrial relations. After reviewing the relevant literature, and analyzing cross-country evidence, the paper focuses on the experience of centralized bargaining characterizing Spain in the period 1979-86. The paper...