The analysis presented in this paper defines three different synthetic measurements ofdisincentives for formal work: two standard measurements, namely the tax wedge and themarginal effective tax rate (METR); and a new, innovative measurement called formalizationtax rate (FTR). The novelty of the...

Portability of social benefits across professions and countries is an increasing concern for individuals and policy makers. Lacking or incomplete transfers of acquired social rights are feared to negatively impact individual labor market decisions as well as capacity to address social risks with...

This paper provides a new perspective by classifying active labor market programs (ALMPs) depending on their main objectives and their relevance and cost-effectiveness during normal times, during a crisis, and during recovery. We distinguish ALMPs that provide: (i) incentives for retaining...

Today, Europe is a continent of low participation, low employment labor markets. Many observers would like to blame poor employment outcomes on the Euro or on austerity. But these are dangerous distractions from real problems that constitute imperatives for structural reform.There are...

Ukraine's economy lacks dynamism, and this is both the cause and the effect of people not moving across the regions. The rate at which Ukrainians move from one region to another within the country is only half of what would be expected in comparison with other countries. This paper examines the...

The paper examines severance pay programs around the world by providing the first ever overview of existing programs, examining their historic development, assessing their economic rationale and describing current reform attempts. While a significant part of the paper is devoted to a...

We study how the differential timing of local lockdowns due to COVID-19 causally affects households' spending and macroeconomic expectations at the local level using several waves of a customized survey with more than 10,000 respondents. About 50% of survey participants report income and wealth...

We use a repeated large-scale survey of households in the Nielsen Homescan panel to characterize how labor markets are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We document several facts. First, job loss has been significantly larger than implied by new unemployment claims: we estimate 20 million...

We compare the causal effects of forward guidance communication about future interest rates on households' expectations of inflation, mortgage rates, and unemployment to the effects of communication about future inflation in a randomized controlled trial using more than 25,000 U.S. individuals...

This paper presents the main results of three Discrete Choice Experiments designed to estimate youth preferences for different jobs attributes, and their willingness to pay for support services to access wage or self-employment. The experiments took place in urban areas in Kenya. We find that...