A large body of empirical literature indicates that, contrary to predictions from economic theory, wages in the informal sector increase after any minimum wage hike. This phenomenon was so far explained as a byproduct of a signal conveyed by statutory minimum wages to wage setting in the...

A range of alternative empirical definitions of informal activity have been employed in the literature. Choice of definition is often dictated by data availability. Different definitions may imply very different conceptual understandings of informality. This paper investigates the degree of...

This paper discusses a set of statistics for examining and comparing labor market dynamics based on the estimation of continuous time Markov transition processes. It then uses these to establish stylized facts about dynamic patterns of movement using panel data from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico....

We investigate both theoretically and empirically the relationship between economic expansion and the degree of formalization of the Brazilian labor market in the recent period. Based on search models, we present a theoretical framework that attempts to explain the recent increase in the share...

This document is based on a series of studies and researches that have been developed by Ipea, since 2003, regarding the labor market in the tourism sector. These studies are aimed at subsiding public policy elaboration, planning and evaluation of this sector as well as its social and economic...

This paper presents a description of the Brazilian public employment trend since the middle of the twentieth century. Its objective is to stress the causes of the increasing in public employment levels and also its role to the Brazilian labor market transformations since then. In this paper,...