This paper analyzes the cyclical properties of worker flows in Brazil and Mexico, two important developing countries with large unregulated or informal sectors. It generates three stylized facts that are critical to the accurate modeling of the sector and which suggest the need to rethink the...

The author tests how the local economic structure-measured by a region's sector specialization, competition, and diversity-affects the technological growth of manufacturing sectors. Most of the empirical literature on this topic assumes that in the long run more productive regions will attract...

Using novel data on unemployment benefits and active labor market policies in 191 countries in 2019 and 2020, this paper investigates the patterns of unemployment benefits and active labor market policies and their relationship with labor market outcomes. This study is unique in that it covers a...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to analyze the marginal and joint impacts that alternative macroeconomic, education, and social protection policies have on the dynamics of employment and unemployment by skill level. The model introduces a disaggregated treatment of the labor...

A puzzle in the recently stagnated economy of Jamaica is that high rates of unemployment have persisted even when real wages have been increasing. This paper examines aspects of the labor supply in an effort to understand why high rates of unemployment have existed with increasing real wages....

Latvia has recorded sustained GDP and productivity growth since 1997. Yet unemployment rates, despite gradual decrease, have remained high. The paper explores the mysteries of unemployment in Latvia. It analyzes labor flows between employment, unemployment, and nonparticipation and finds the...

The author studies the potential disincentive effects of unemployment insurance, and social assistance payments on the duration of unemployment in the Slovak Republic. For this purpose, she uses new, very detailed data on receipt of benefits from the Unemployment Registry (1990-2000) and the...

This paper studies the impact of labor market policies on growth and unemployment in labor-exporting countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The analysis is based on a framework that captures many of the main features of the labor market in these countries. We conduct a variety of policy...

Workfare schemes impose work requirements on beneficiaries. This has seemed an attractive idea for self-targeting transfers to poor people. This incentive argument does not imply, however, that workfare is more cost-effective against poverty than even poorly-targeted options, given hidden costs...

This study uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze various policy scenarios for a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum fuels and kerosene in Ethiopia. The carbon tax starts at $5 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2018 and rises to $30 per ton in 2030. Different...