Activation policies aimed at getting working-age people off benefits and into work have been embraced by many OECD countries. In a previous paper, I have argued that activation strategies have performed well during the Great Recession and subsequent recovery in some, but not all, of these...

Activation policies aimed at getting working-age people off benefits and into work have become a buzzword in labour market policies. Yet they are defined and implemented differently across OECD countries and their success rates vary too. The Great Recession has posed a severe stress test for...

The world is changing rapidly. This paper describes key shifts and it discusses their likely impacts on employment-related aspects. Labor market pressures are felt around the globe, and robots and automation increasingly become reality. However, there will be no "end of work". Rather, it is that...

To improve the employment rates and earnings of Americans workers, we need to create more coherent and effective education and workforce development systems, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on disadvantaged youth and adults, and with education and training more clearly targeted...

The purpose of the paper is to analyse how labour market and labour market institutions reacted during recent crises. In early 1990s Estonia introduced a set of rather unique policy options like currency board as a ground for monetary policy, low taxes, open foreign trade policy, low public...

The estimation of the economic return to education has perhaps been one of the predominant areas of analysis in applied economics for over 50 years. In this short note we consider some of the recent directions taken by the literature, and also some of the blockages faced by both science and...

In this paper we will briefly review recent trends in employment outcomes for disadvantaged youth, focusing specifically on those who have become disconnected from school and the labor market, and why these trends have occurred. We then review a range of policy prescriptions that might improve...

Germany plays a pioneering role in replacing conventional power plants with renewable energy sources. While this is beneficial with respect to environmental quality, the energy turnaround implies increasing electricity prices for private households and firms. The extent to which this is...

The paper was produced as a background paper on labor issues for the UNDP study Convergence to the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities. It first looks at the issue of how the labor market institutions of an acceding country like Macedonia should be shaped to further the integration of...

Can expanded apprenticeship reduce the concerns about the U.S. workforce? The U.S. labor market faces a rise in unemployment rates, sharp declines in the employed share of U.S. adults, extremely high youth unemployment, high wage inequality, and low or stagnant wage growth for workers below the...