This paper reviews international experiences with the implementation of wage subsidies and develops a policy framework to guide their design in developing countries. The evidence suggests that, if the goal is only to create jobs, wage subsidies are unlikely to be an effective instrument. Wage...

The paper examines the following pension reform strategy that aims to defuse the pension time-bomb without giving rise to intergenerational conflict. Let people with rights to public pensions have the option of using a portion of their potential pensions to provide employment vouchers for...

The paper examines the following pension reform strategy that aims to defuse the pension time-bomb without giving rise to intergenerational conflict. Let people with rights to public pensions have the option of using a portion of their potential pensions to provide employment vouchers for...

The paper examines how asymmetric information affects the supply of entrepreneurs and the level of unemployment. The model first analyzes the case where banks, when providing credit, are unable to observe entrepreneurs' risk of failure. We find that credit rationing may increase the number of...

We examine how three sources of asymmetric information affect the supply of entrepreneurs and unemployment. In the first case, banks cannot observe entrepreneurs' risk of failure, so they ration credit. This increases the number of entrepreneurs and the level of unemployment. In the second case,...

The paper provides a selective survey of methods and findings concerning the impact of tax and welfare policies on employment unemployment and economic growth in OECD countries. The paper examines a number of facets of tax and welfare policy and concludes that cross-country macroeconomic studies...

The double-dividend argument (as used in political debates) addresses worries that a green tax may lead to higher unemployment when wages are inflexible. As protection against this possibility, it is proposed to use the proceeds of the green tax to subsidize employment. In the best case, this...