We test the hypothesis that information and communication technologies (ICT) “polarize” labor markets, by increasing demand for the highly educated at the expense of the middle educated, with little effect on low-educated workers. Using data on the US, Japan, and nine European countries from...

There is a growing consensus among economists that extending shop opening hours creates jobs. While this is probably true in deregulating industries, this paper argues there are some deficiencies in the existing hypotheses about how exactly deregulation affects employment. First, this paper...

Growth of 'global cities' in the 1980s was supposed to have involved an occupational polarisation, including growth of low paid service jobs. Though held to be untrue for European cities, at the time, some such growth did emerge in London a decade later than first reported for New York. The...

Using nationally representative panel data for British private sector workplaces this paper points to the importance of distinguishing between workplace and firm size when analysing employment growth, and finds that the factors associated with growth differ markedly between single independent...

Using data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 1998, this paper shows that unionisation increased the probability of within-workplace job cuts and the incidence of job security guarantees. As theory predicts, both are more prevalent among market-sector workplaces with higher union...

This paper examines the determinants of self-employment success for microcredit borrowers. Theories of social capital and neighbourhood effects are integrated in an attempt to account for earnings differentials amongst a unique sample of microfinance borrowers. The paper posits that social...