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...

Africa will account for 80 percent of the projected 4 billion increase in the global population by 2100. The accompanying increase in its working age population creates a window of opportunity, which if properly harnessed, can translate into higher growth and yield a demographic dividend. We...

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...

The Greek unemployment rate rose from 2 percent in the 1960s to 9-10 percent in the 1990s. This reflected the increase in female participation rates, the slowdown in growth, the restructuring of production, and the increased mismatch between jobs and job seekers. But the most crucial factor was...

Spain has the most serious and persistent unemployment problem in Europe, with an unemployment rate that reached 24.6 percent in early 1994. This paper explores the characteristics of this unemployment problem, its causes, and provides a brief discussion of recent labor market reform measures...

The working age population is expected to grow faster in the Middle East than in any other region in the world between now and 2015—rising annually by 2.7 percent, or 10 million people. This demographic explosion presents the region with a major challenge in terms of providing jobs, incomes,...

The labor participation rate in Slovenia has been lower than in the EU-15 (the members states prior to May 2004), particularly for the low-income and older individuals. Using simulations of tax and social benefits and public pensions, the paper shows how the current tax, welfare, and pension...

Structural reforms in the liquidity trap need not be deflationary. This paper develops a simple framework to study the role that key characteristics of Japan's labor and product markets-labor-market duality and weak corporate governance-play in generating unfavorable wage-price dynamics. The...

This paper examines the macroeconomic interaction between informality and gender inequality in the labor market. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model is built to study the impact of gender-targeted policies on female labor force participation, female formal employment, gender wage gap,...