A firm that faces insufficient supply of labor can either increase the wage offer to attract more applicants, or reduce the hiring standard to enlarge the pool of potential employees, or do both. This simultaneous adjustment of wages and hiring standards has been emphasized in a classical...

Migration is a universal phenomenon. From time immemorial women and men have travelled in search of better living. Historical nomadic instinct of man had been in tune with his necessities – more endurable climate, adequate water supply, fertile land and general availability of resources have...

Using firm-level data for Estonia for the years 1997-2005, we analyze the impact of international competition on firm dynamics, considering both firm closedown and product switching. We contribute to the literature in two important ways: (1) this is the first paper to study the determinants of...

This paper investigates the efficiency of domestic and foreign banks in the Central American region during 2002-07. Using two main empirical approaches, Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Analysis, the paper finds that foreign banks are not necessarily more efficient than their...

We are on the threshold of a truly revolutionary era of discovery - ranging from the origins of the universe to new states of matter and microscopic machines, from a new understanding of the oceans and of the biological connections across the Earth's species to the functioning of the human brain...

Wage Dispersion and Efficiency. It is often assumed that markets generate efficient allocations, but these are not necessarily fair. The widening of wage differentials that is currently observed is interpreted in this manner: Skill-biased technological progress increases demand for skilled work...

This paper presents a simple framework that illustrates the link between skill-based wage differentiation and human capital acquisition given skill-biased technical progress. The analysis points to the economic costs resulting from labor market and income redistribution policies that prevent the...

A labor market is considered that is characterized by job competition over job ladders. Firms paying more for comparable jobs can attract workers with better background characteristics (with general human capital) and will lose fewer trained workers (with general and firm-specific human...

Labor markets around the world have become increasingly integrated over the last two decades, with the entry of China, India and the former Eastern bloc into the world trading system, the removal of restrictions on trade and capital flows, and rapid technological progress. At the same time, the...

The paper adduces recent existing evidence on the scope and dimensions of “brain-drain “ from Bulgaria. The analysis started with the clarification of the concepts and definitions for brain drain. The authors based the analysis on the common accepted understanding of brain drain as tertiary...