In the conventional textbook demand-supply model of competitive labour markets, introduction of a minimum wage above the market-clearing level must reduce employment. Empirical findings suggest, however, that this might not always be the case, which appears to be most readily explained by...

Using the 2004 income survey of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office we consider the targeting of two types of unemployment-related benefits: a) unemployment insurance and re-training benefits and b) the unemloyment assistance (UA). The evidence suggests that unemployment-related benefits...

The paper investigates exit probabilities of registered unemployed to active labour market programmes using administrative records from the unemployment register of the Hungarian National Labour Centre. We estimate parametric duration models that summarise variation in exit probabilities with...

We extend the benchmark model of Aghion and Blanchard (1994) assuming two segments of the emerging private sector that differ in workers’ productivity. We look at the paths of employment, wages, taxes, labor costs and profits during and after the transition, up until the shock is fully...