We analyze the effect of land reform legislation on labor market dynamics in the Romanian economy. We show that the agricultural sector, a source of precarious employment, has become an absorbing state for certain categories of workers who lost their jobs in the nonagricultural sector. A random...

This paper uses individual-level data to characterize economy-wide job creation and destruction during periods of massive structural adjustment. We contrast the gradualist Czech and the rapid Estonian approach to the destruction of the communist economy to provide evidence on selected...

In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. The data for the U.S. and for a cross section of countries make it clear that urbanization and industrialization are strongly associated with the rise of social insurance. We describe a model economy in which...

This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion...

Many developed countries have recently experienced a significant inflow of immigrants in the agricultural sector. At the same time, the sector is still in a process of structural transformation resulting in fewer but bigger and presumably more efficient farms. In this paper, we exploit detailed...

In the information age an exchange with the media is part of the duties the economics profession has to deliver to educate the public and to ensure its position in society. A key issue is the education of policymakers through the media. It is the silver bullet of policy advice in comparison to...