Consistent with its focus on social policies, Sri Lanka has devoted significant attention to worker protection. One of the main pillars of its worker protection policy is the Termination of Employment of Workman Act (TEWA) introduced in 1971. The act aims to limit unemployment by raising the...

The paper examines severance pay programs around the world by providing the first ever overview of existing programs, examining their historic development, assessing their economic rationale and describing current reform attempts. While a significant part of the paper is devoted to a...

Economic transition in Bulgaria has been associated with the emergence of unemployment, the fall in real wages and a substantial increase in wage inequality. The ranks of low-paid workers have grown and their relative wage status has substantially deteriorated. Unemployment is of long duration....

This paper focuses on minimum wages (MW), mandated benefits (MB), employment protection legislation (EPL), and unemployment insurance benefit systems (UIB). Even though different institutions might try to accomplish the same goal(s), the mechanisms through which each regulation interacts with...

This paper asks whether the increased openness and technological innovation in East Asia have contributed to an increased demand for skills in the region. The author explores a unique firm level data set across eight countries. Results strongly support the idea that greater openness and...

To what extent have macro and structural reforms in many developing countries affected the labor market? Are current policy settings in the labor market adequate to cope with the current challenges of a more dynamic but also more risky economic environment? Are there examples of successful labor...

The authors study the effect of enforcement of labor regulation in Brazil, an economy with a large informal sector and strict labor law. Enforcement affects mainly the degree of compliance with mandated benefits (severance pay, health, and safety) in the formal sector and the registration of...

This report examines the two most common programs that provide cash compensation to unemployed workers: unemployment insurance (UI) and unemployment assistance (UA). It compares them in two areas: costs and labor market disincentives. The cost analysis first derives a framework for examining...

This report examines unemployment protection with emphasis on three groups of countries: 1) OECD, 2) Central-East Europe and the Former Soviet Union; and 3) East and South Asia. Section 1 notes the presence of various public social protection programs including pensions, work injury insurance,...