Using firm level data on 70,000 enterprises in 107 countries, this paper finds important effects of access to finance, business regulations, corruption, and to a lesser extent, infrastructure bottlenecks in explaining patterns of job creation at the firm level. The paper focuses on how the...

This paper investigates the relationship between part-time work and job satisfaction using a recent household survey from Honduras. In contrast to previous work for developed countries, this paper does not find a preference for part-time work among women. Instead, both women and men tend to...

The formality status of a job is the most widely used indicator of job quality in developing countries. However, a number of studies argue that, at least for some workers, the informality status may be driven by choice rather than exclusion. This paper uses job satisfaction data from three...

This paper assesses labor market segmentation across formal and informal salaried jobs and self-employment in three Latin American and three transition countries. It looks separately at the markets for skilled and unskilled labor, inquiring if segmentation is an exclusive feature of the latter....

Total factor productivity (TFP) in Latin America has not increased relative to the US since the mid- 1970s, and in many countries it has declined. Moreover, resource misallocation can lower aggregate TFP. This paper presents evidence based on firm-level data from 10 Latin American countries to...

Raising labor productivity is recognized as a critical factor for increasing economic growth and reducing poverty levels in Latin America. Low levels of education continue to be singled out as the main obstacle to higher productivity in the region. We examine the scope for education to lift...

This paper examines the economic effects of employment protection legislation in a sample of developed and developing countries. Implementing a difference-in-differences test lessens the potentially severe endogeneity and omitted variable problems associated with cross-country regressions. This...

This paper analyzes the recent performance of Latin American labor markets. We find that unemployment rates are on the rise in most countries and sub-regions of Latin America. The rise in unemployment over the 1990s is not driven by a higher proportion of women, adults or urban workers in the...

This paper analyzes the reasons behind the low rates of contribution to social security programs in developing countries. Using a large set of harmonized household surveys from Latin America we compare contribution patterns among wage employees, for whom participation is compulsory, with...

This paper examines the effect of employment protection regulation on gross job flows in a sample of developed and developing countries. By implementing a differences-in-differences test we lessen the potentially severe endogeneity and omitted variable problems associated with cross-country...