Data and anecdotal evidence suggest that Japan is suffering from labor shortages, which are large in an international perspective, have a negative impact on potential growth, and reduce the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal stimulus. This paper focuses on policy options to ease Japan's labor...

Estimates of the current and future structure of employment in sub-Saharan Africa (2005–20) are obtained based on household survey estimates for 28 countries and an elasticity-typemodel that relates employment to economic growth and demographic outcomes. Agriculturestill employs the majority...

This paper argues that Japan's excessive labor market duality can reduce Total Factor Productivity (TFP) due to a negative impact on non-regular workers' effort and on firms' incentives to train them. On the basis of cross-country empirical evidence, the paper proposes some reform options. In...

Evidence that the automation of routine tasks has contributed to the polarization of labor markets hasbeen documented for many developed economies, but little is known about its incidence in developingeconomies. We propose a measure of the exposure to routinization-that is, the risk of the...

China is on the eve of a demographic shift that will have profound consequences on its economic and social landscape. Within a few years the working age population will reach a historical peak, and then begin a precipitous decline. This fact, along with anecdotes of rapidly rising migrant wages...

We exploit a survey data set that contains information on how 11,000 workers across advanced and emerging market economies perceive the main forces shaping the future of work. In general, workers feel more positive than negative about automation, especially in emerging markets. We find that...

This paper proposes an ex ante evaluation of the effects of new labor contracts such as the quot;Contrat Nouvelle Embauchequot; (CNE) introduced in France in 2005. The lessons we draw are of sufficiently general interest to be applicable to other countries or reforms of employment protection...

The short answer: The size of the Russian State has not increased much in the last few years, but its economic footprint remains significant. Concretely, the state's size increased from about 32 percent of GDP in 2012 to 33 percent in 2016, not far from the EBRD's estimate of 35 percent for...

This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the macroeconomic, distributional, and fiscal effects of three reform proposals for Germany: i) a reduction in the social security tax in the low-wage sector, ii) a publicly financed expansion of full-day child care and full-day schooling, and...

As China implements reforms under the “new normal,” maintaining stability in the labor market is a priority. The country's demography and labor dynamics are changing, after benefitting in past decades from ample cheap labor. So far, the labor market appears to be resilient, even as growth...