Each May, Forbes magazine publishes a study on tax misery. The Forbes Tax Misery Index is a proxy for evaluating whether tax policy attracts or repels capital and talent. It is computed by adding the top marginal tax rate for the corporate income tax, individual income tax, wealth tax,...

High levels of unemployment and rising social charges have lead to considerable pressure on labour markets to adjust. Major steps in labour market reform have been implemented over the last three years. These need to be followed up in several respects in order to raise the economy’s capacity...

The paper analyses complementarities among a variety of labour market policies. It shows: (a) that a wide range of labour market institutions (e.g. unemployment benefits, job security legislation and payroll taxes) have complementary effects on unemployment; and thus (b) that policies aimed at...

Because of the apparent simplicity of defined contribution plans, they have until recently received relatively little analysis by economists. The presumption that defined contribution plans are non-distortionary is stronger for voluntary than mandatory plans because with voluntary plans workers...

This article investigates, from a gender and marital status perspective, the effects of pension and health care contributions on the employment and wages of workers covered by social security regulations. To do this, I use as a natural experiment a reform implemented in Colombia during the...

Do firms reduce employment when their insiders (established, incumbent employees) claim higher wages? The conventional answer in the theoretical literature is that insider power has no influence on employment, provided that the newly hired employees (entrants) receive their reservation wages....

The composition of the nursing and caring workforce in Australia has changed substantially over the last 15 years. The workforce has an older age profile, works shorter hours and employs substantially more carers. In spite of the ageing of the population and a substantial increase in the number...