The paper aims at comparing the formal and informal labour markets in the Central and Eastern European new EU Member States and candidate countries of the European Union. First, the current situation of the labour market is described, focusing on the recent developments since the breaking up of...

This paper constructs a theory of the coexistence of fixed-term and permanent employment contracts in an environment with ex ante identical workers and employers. Workers under fixed-term contracts can be dismissed at no cost while permanent employees enjoy labor protection. In a labor market...

Using the Colombian Annual Manufacturing Survey (AMS) between 2000 and 2014, this paper investigates the effect of labor contract modalities on firm productivity within the industrial sector through a structural model. We find that temporary workers contribute to firms’ labor productivity to a...

The paper studies how social connections affect firm-level hiring decisions and performance. We characterize the social connections of firms' employees using register data and for causal identification we use job displacements, which create directed positive shocks towards connected firms by...

This paper is the first to use program administrative data from Brazil's National Employment System (SINE) to assess the impact of SINE job interview referrals on labor market outcomes. Data for a five-year period (2012-2016) are used to evaluate the impact of SINE on employment probability,...

How skills acquired in vocational education and training (VET) affect wages and employment is not clear. We develop and estimate a search and matching model for workers with a VET degree. Workers differ in interpersonal, cognitive and manual skills, while firms require and value different...

Internal migration flows from rural to urban areas have greatly contributed to population declines in many rural areas across both Europe and the US. At the same time there is mounting evidence for a tight connection between internal migration and shifts in labor demand, with the latter being...

In recent decades right-wing populist parties have experienced increased electoral success in many western democracies. This rise of the far-right, which is strongly built on the support of the working class, coincides with a sharp decline of the manufacturing sector. This paper analyzes the...

This paper studies the way in which labor market fluctuations affect the transition to early retirement among older employees in Sweden via the practice of negotiated pensions. The results indicate that downturns (upturns) in aggregated industry employment increases (decreases) the probability...