With the beginning of economic reform in the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), open unemployment rapidly reached comparable levels to those in Western economies. Governments in the region reacted to this rise by adopting active labor market policies (ALMP)...

This paper provides micro-econometric evidence on the effectiveness of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMP) in Poland. We sketch the theoretical framework of matching estimators as a substitute for randomization in labor market programs. Using retrospective data from the 18th wave of the Polish...

This paper estimates causal effects of two Polish active labor market policies – Training and Intervention Works – on employment probabilities. Using data from the 18th wave of the Polish Labor Force Survey we discuss three stages of an appropriately designed matching procedure and...

The paper was produced as a background paper on labor issues for the UNDP study Convergence to the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities. It first looks at the issue of how the labor market institutions of an acceding country like Macedonia should be shaped to further the integration of...

This paper analyzes, using country-level panel data from transition economies and Latin America, the impact of labor market institutions on informal economic activity. The measure of informal economic activity is taken from Schneider et al. (2010), the most comprehensive study to date. The data...