This paper documents and analyses the predominance of informal employment in Africa and shows that lack of demand for labour rather than worker characteristics is the main reason for pervasive underemployment. Integration into the global economy and expor

The transition to a market economy in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union has been associated with greater inequality and social stratification. This paper prepared within the UNU/WIDER project on "Income Distribution and Social Structure during the Transition' analyses trends in social...

The paper analyses the small- and medium-sized enterprise sector in Poland, seeking to answer the question of whether SME development along current lines is sufficient to assure the sustainable development of the Polish economy.

Purposeful, well-targeted and successful transformation policies will be elusive for a country or region that does not understand the relative importance of its sectoral sources of growth. This study aims at eliciting our understanding in this respect by providing an assessment of the relative...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of institutional reforms on the revival of African economies. We study the impact of positive changes in business environment indicators of the Doing Business project and the Economic Freedom Index of the Heritage Foundation on the private sector...

Does democracy promote economic growth? There is still an ongoing debate over the economic implications of democracy, and this question has gained critical importance particularly in the African context, where a wave of democratization in the early 1990s