Labour market constraints constitute prominent obstacles to firm development and economic growth of countries located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This paper aims at examining the implications of firm characteristics, national locations, and sectoral associations for the...

Labour market constraints constitute prominent obstacles to firm development and economic growth of countries located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This paper aims at examining the implications of firm characteristics, national locations, and sectoral associations for the...

This paper looks to uncover the growth traps and opportunities for the South African economy, with a focus on underlying labour market dynamics. We explore the potential of South Africa’s demographic dividend. We also consider the structure of the labour market and the growth-employment...

US states have implemented lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We assess the impact of state policy responses on local economic and health conditions, with the goal to shed light on marginal health benefits and economic costs associated with social distancing. We find that...

In June 2016, the European Commission issued a new EU Blue Card proposal. This proposal is meant to make the EU more attractive for highly qualified workers from third countries. While strengthening the knowledge economy of the EU, the potential impacts of the new Blue Card proposal on...

The empirical evidence currently available in the literature regarding the effects of a country's IMF program participation on its output growth is rather mixed. To shed new evidence on this issue, in this paper we specify a state-dependent panel data model accounting in particular for program...

This paper assesses the impact of the 2008-09 global financial and economic crisis on the medium-term growth prospects of the countries of central and eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, which began an economic transition about two decades ago. We use cross-country growth regressions,...

This paper assesses the impact of the 2008-09 global financial and economic crisis on the medium-term growth prospects of the countries of central and eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, which began an economic transition about two decades ago. We use cross-country growth regressions,...

This paper analyzes the existing relationship between economic growth and the monitoring of corruption and examines the possible outcome of the implementation of a State reform in order to weed out corruption. Growth is always higher when monitoring is high and therefore corruption eradicated....