Many arguments that have been advanced in favor of maintaining capital controls within the EC have not paid sufficient attention to the welfare consequences of this type of market intervention. Our paper provides a simple, optimizing framework in which the welfare consequences of capital...

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,...

Denmark’s flexicurity model has performed well during the crisis. The actions and the improvement in economic conditions have restored overall stability to the banking system. Private consumption has been dented by the decline in housing prices and net household wealth. Exports have...

The paper discusses the flexicurity model, its key policy elements, and association with a low unemployment rate and a high standard of social security for the unemployed. It provides details of an empirical analysis of unemployment performance and the flexicurity model. It also presents...

This Selected Issues paper examines conditions in Colombian labor markets, which present a big challenge to the country. At end-2004, the unemployment rate amounted to 12 percent, and about one-third of the labor force was considered underemployed. The paper reviews labor market developments...

Governments often intervene in labor markets with the aim of reducing inequality and promoting employment. Such intervention often results in wage compression and restrictions on how firms use their workers. This paper investigates the impact of such interventions on the labor market conditions...

Belgium has effected a remarkable fiscal adjustment, best illustrated by the decline in its public debt. While benefiting from an appreciable decline in interest rates, most of the underlying consolidation reflected a considerable increase in the tax burden, one of the highest in the...

Real unit labor costs (RULC) growth differentials between euro area members have persisted since EMU began and even widened out in the run-up to the crisis. This paper focuses on the causes underlying such dispersion. According to our empirical findings, persistent RULC growth differentials can...

The paper describes a global model consisting of several industrial and developing country blocks built to analyze alternative economic policies in a medium-term context. The model, which has been used to construct medium-term scenarios for the World Economic Outlook, consists of aggregate...

This paper develops a simple model for measuring potential output that uses data on inflation, unemployment, and capacity utilization. We apply the model to 10 countries, in addition to the United States and the euro area. While there is a substantial amount of uncertainty around our estimates,...