In their survey of the literature on ethnic fractionalization and economic performance, Alesina and La Ferrara (JEL 2005) identify two main directions for future research. One is to improve the measurement of diversity and the other to treat diversity as an endogenous variable. This paper tries...

China has achieved tremendous economic progress in the last three decades, but there is much work to be done to make the economy resilient to large shocks, ensure the sustainability of its growth, and translate this growth into corresponding improvements in the economic welfare of its citizens....

Estimations of the size and development of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of official GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing...

This paper develops a model in which the interaction of entrepreneurial investments and power of the owners of land or other natural resources determines structural change and economic development. A more equal distribution of natural resources promotes structural change and growth through two...

Using data for 22 economies in Eastern and Western Europe, we find evidence that having studied under communism is relatively penalized in the economies of the late 2000s. This evidence, however, is limited to males and to primary and secondary education, and holds for eight CEE economies but...

This paper shows that specialized education reduces workers' mobility and hence their ability to cope with economic changes. We illustrate this point using labor force data from two countries having experienced important macroeconomic turbulence; a large economy with rigid labor markets, Poland,...

This paper uses quantile regression techniques to analyze heterogeneous patterns of return to education across the conditional wage distribution in four transition countries. We correct for sample selection bias using a procedure suggested by Buchinsky (2001), which is based on a Newey (1991,...

This paper examines an atypical south-north labour migration that emerged in the post-socialist international migration system: China-to-South Korea ethnic labour migration. Over the past decade, South Korea has experienced an unprecedented increase in the arrival of foreign labour. The majority...