Two features distinguish European and US labor markets. First, most European countries have substantially more generous unemployment insurance. Second, the duration of unemployment and employment spells are substantially higher in Europe - employment turnover is lower. We show that...

We analyze whether the introduction or an increase of unemployment insurance (UI hereafter) benefits in developing countries reduces the e¤ort made by unemployed workers to secure a new job in the formal sector. We adopt a comparative static approach and we consider the consequences of an...

This article discusses full employment policies in their general and theoretical terms and assesses their possibility of application in Italy. Firstly Vito examines the arguments provided by neoclassical theory against full employment policies. Secondly Vito examines the causes of unemployment...

We study the effect of UI benefits in a typical developing country where the informal sector is sizeable and persistent. In a partial equilibrium environment we characterize the stationary equilibrium of an economy where policyholders may be employed in the formal sector, short-run unemployed...

This paper examines the non-reversal of fortune thesis proposed by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2002) in the light of the Colombian experience over the last 500 years. Using a total of 14 national population censuses and the record of tributary Indians in 1559, it is found that the...

El presente ensayo constituye la segunda parte del trabajo titulado Las Teorías del Desarrollo en América Latina", cuya primera entrega se publicó en el número anterior de esta Revista. En esta segunda entrega se examina en su orden el pensamiento monetarista y neoestructuralista sobre los...

In an article published in Development and Change in 2011, I suggested an alternative measure of inequality to the Gini - a "19th Century statistic" - which has subsequently become known as the ´Palma Ratio'. In this new article, I revisit the argument for such a measure. Using new data, I...

Latin America is a region whose critical social imagination has stalled, changing from a uniquely prolific period during the 1950s and 1960s - revolving around structuralism, 'dependency', Baran and Sweezy-type analysis of 'monopoly capitalism', French structuralism, the German Historical...

This paper analyses stability in real multilateral exchange rates in six leading Latin-American economies during the XXth century using a new data set.  A univariate approach is complemented by an error-correction model including key fundamentals.  Unit-root testing shows a very slow process...