Do labor regulations influence the reaction of stock markets and firm profitability to cross-border acquisitions? We discover that acquiring firms enjoy smaller abnormal stock returns and profits when targets are in countries with stronger labor protection regulations, i.e., in countries where...

We analyze the effect of rising protectionism towards foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic employment, exploiting revisions in Indonesia’s highly-granular negative investment list, and spatial variation in the exposure of the manufacturing sector to these investment restrictions. Rising...

This paper studies the impact of product and labor market regulations on informality and unemployment in a general framework where formal and informal firms are subject to the same externalities, differing only with respect to some parameter values. Both formal and informal firms have monopoly...

The integration of active labour market policies within income support schemes - such as unemployment insurance and social assistance - has been a key component of social protection in high-income countries since the 1990s, with a rich literature reviewing its effects and implementation...

In this paper we review the literature on the impact that monetary policy has on growth and employment in developing countries. Much of the literature focusses on the impact of monetary policy on inflation levels and inflation volatility, and sometimes on output (GDP) levels and volatility of...

Contrary to the predictions of the insider-outsider model, we show that the large majority of outsiders in developing countries support, rather than oppose, protective labour regulations. This evidence holds across countries in different regions, across different types of protective labour...

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of fiscal and labor market policies in a small open developing country. The basic framework considers an economy with a large informal production sector and a heterogeneous work force. The labor market is segmented as a result of efficiency...

Governments around the developing world face pressure to intervene actively to help jobseekers find employment. Two of the most common policies used are job training, based on the idea that many of those seeking jobs lack the skills employers want, and job search assistance, based on the...

The issue of employer power is underemphasized in the development literature. The default model is usually one of competitive labor markets. This assumption matters for analysis and policy prescription. There is growing evidence that the competitive labor markets assump- tion is not valid for...

Fostering and supporting start-up businesses by unemployed persons has become an increasingly important issue in many European countries. These new ventures are being supported by various governmental programs. Potential benefits include not only the end of unemployment for the new entrepreneur...