This paper addresses the directions to follow when designing new educational systems and school-to-work transition regimes to adhere to the needs of Industry 4.0. Although a high level of general education will be important for its training content to develop adaptability, it is not the only...

The twin problem of in-work poverty and persistent labour market difficulties of low-skilled individuals has been one of the most important drivers of tax-benefit policy reforms in OECD countries in recent years. Employment-conditional cash transfers to individuals facing particular...

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...

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...

Over the past 20 years, Portugal has gone through a boom, a slump, a sudden stop, and now a timid recovery. Unemployment has decreased, but remains high, and output is still far below potential. Competitiveness has improved, but more is needed to keep the current account in check as the economy...

Adam Smith alleged that secret employer collusion to reduce labor earnings is common. This paper examines an important case of such behavior: no-poach agreements through which technology companies agreed not to compete for each other's workers. Exploiting the plausibly random timing of a US...

This paper analyses the factors explaining moderate wage growth in the EU in the post-crisis period. It investigates whether the historical relationship between wages and unemployment has weakened and whether composition effects moderated wage growth. The results suggest a negative answer to...

We analyse wage differences between permanent and fixed-term contracts across the EU using data from the European Structure of Earnings Survey. We find that, after controlling for individual and job characteristics, workers on permanent contracts earn on average about 15% more than workers on...

Inequality has increased considerably in many Western countries over the past decades. When dealing with economic inequality as a research subject the question "inequality of what among whom" arises. Analyses of inequality are typically concerned with the distribution of wages, earnings or...

Wage inequality is a highly debated topic in policy and academic circles. Policy makers typically consider that a policy promoting the equalization of education levels among the individuals of a society – pushing everybody towards tertiary education – is a good strategy to fight wage...