Recent reforms to the Australian system of income support for the unemployed have been designed to encourage the welfare to work transition. Mutual obligation measures have been accompanied by an easing of the income test taper rate and by less generous indexation arrangements for unemployment...

In spite of extensive regulations, Germany’s job offices and their caseworkers have substantial discretion in implementing labor market policies. Based on the analysis of combined survey and administrative data, this study compares the effectiveness of different strategies aimed at...

Degressivity of unemployment benefits is a major feature of social protection in most industrialised countries: the replacement rate (the ratio between the level of welfare benefits and the previous income) typically declines with the length of the unemployment spell. Moreover degressivity of...

Examining the structure of long-term unemployment first reveals a number of effects, Le. the cohort effect, the seniority effect, the structure due to seniority effect. An empirical application is developed from data compiled by INSEE. An unemployment recurrence index is then constructed. The...

A general consensus has emerged that while the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) raised the pay of low wage workers it did little to harm their employment prospects. This is in contrast to the US and other countries where a debate over minimum wage effects still rages on. We re-examine the evidence...

The crisis of work in Europe and in Italy. Towards a radical change The economic crisis since 2008 has reduced income and destroyed jobs, and the economic recovery announced in 2014 will not reabsorb unemployment especially in Europe. ILO and IMF forecast a jobless recovery. Nevertheless, the...

La crisi europea origina anche da una crescita delle disuguaglianze e dalle deregolamentazioni nei mercati finanziari, dei beni e del lavoro, che invece di curare il malato ne aggravano la malattia. "Austerità espansiva" e "riforme strutturali" sono i due pilastri di un Europa che ha perso la...

From 2006 to 2009, Federal minimum wages in Australia were set by the Australian Fair Pay Commission. This paper uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia panel survey to investigate the circumstances of persons who are paid at or near the minimum wage, and thus...

This paper provides pictures of low pay adult employees in Australia in 2004 drawing on data from the HILDA survey. The low paid are disaggregated into full-time and part-time employees. Estimates from multivariate probit models reveal that low wage employees are more likely to have casual...