This paper presents the first evidence on the efficacy of a major program designed to encourage the return migration of high-skilled individuals. The Malaysian Returning Expert Program targets high-skilled Malaysians abroad and provides them with tax incentives to return. At several eligibility...

Civil war in Syria has resulted in more than four million refugees fleeing the country, of which 1.8 million have found refuge in Turkey, making it the largest refugee-hosting country worldwide. This paper combines newly available data on the 2014 distribution of Syrian refugees across...

This paper employs the synthetic control method to examine the impact of using a non-native language as the medium of instruction in schools on a student’s learning. Exploiting an unanticipated policy change in Malaysia and using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science...

This paper offers evidence on the relationship between the minimum wage and unemployment and informal employment, and identifies some of the lessons learned on the potential effects of increasing the minimum wage. Most of the evidence suggests that sizable increases in the minimum wage are...

This paper investigates the relationship of household income with child labor. The analysis uses a rich dataset obtained in the context of a conditional cash transfer program in a poor region of Nicaragua in 2005 and 2006. The program has a strong productive emphasis and seeks to diversify the...

The impact of immigration on native workers is driven by two countervailing forces: the degree of substitutability between natives and immigrants, and the increased demand for native workers as immigrants reduce the cost of production and output expands. The literature so far has focused on the...

The labor force of each industrial country is being shaped by three forces: ageing, education and migration. Drawing on a new database for the OECD countries and a standard analytical framework, this paper focuses on the relative and aggregate effects of these three forces on wages across...

This paper uses administrative, survey, and online vacancy data to analyze the short-term labor market impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown in Greece. The analysis finds that flows into unemployment have not increased; instead, separations were lower than would have been expected given trends in...

This paper uses Labor Force Survey data to assess key aspects of the labor market in Vietnam over 2007-14. The analysis finds large growth in wage employment in the foreign-owned and domestic private sectors. However, the state sector remains a major employer, particularly for workers with...

This paper investigates the relationship between immigration and the exposure of native workers to the health and labor-market risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using various measures of occupational risks based on European Union labor force survey data, the paper finds that immigrant...