This paper uses an oligopoly model with heterogeneous firms to examine how an industry adjusts to rising import competition. The model predicts that in the short run the least efficient firms in the industry become inactive, surviving firms face a fall in output, mark-ups and profits, and the...

Economists recommend to partly redistribute gains to losers from a structural reform, which in many cases may be required for making the reform politically viable. However, taxation is distortionary. Then, it is unclear that compensatory transfers can support a Pareto-improving reform. This...

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...

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 examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms for a sample of CEEC/CIS transition countries. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms are complements or substitutes for monetary commitment in the attempt to...

The paper analyses the problem of a "skills shortage" in Australia. It begins with an analysis of the operation of a labour market in terms of stocks and flows of labour services and human capital acquisition. It discusses the definition of a skills shortage, why it persists, and then looks at...

We examine changes in migration to the UK in the period leading up to the Great Recession and in its immediate aftermath. In so doing, we pay particular attention to the changing countries of origin of recent migration flows to the UK, especially in relation to migration from other parts of the...

This paper evaluates the mobility patterns of Slovaks into the rest of the European Union (EU) following Slovakia's EU accession in 2004 and through the Great Recession. Combining information from various data sources including the Slovak Labor Force Survey and conducting our own statistical...

This paper investigates the labour market and welfare changes experienced by enlarged-EU migrants before and after 2007. For this purpose, we briefly review the Spanish socio-economic institutional background, as well as its migration policy towards enlarged-EU citizens. Then we discuss the...

This paper uses the BEEPS firm-level data to study the process of convergence of transition countries with developed market economies. The primary focus of the study is on competition and market structure, finance and the structure of lending to firms, and how firms respond to the economic...