Education has long been perceived as a great equalizer, but even with universal rises in schooling years, income distribution worsened world-wide. We propose a method for decomposing the contribution of a variable to the change in inequality into mean, dispersion, and price components. The...

A number of studies documents that minimum wage policies have the potential to reduce income inequality. The recently adopted EU Commission's proposal for a Directive on adequate minimum wages was supported by a detailed analysis of the social impacts of hypothetical minimum wage levels in...

We analyse the evolution of the systemic risk impact of oil and natural gas companies since 2000. This period is characterised by several events that affected energy source markets: the real effect of the global financial crisis, the explosion of shale production and the diffusion of the...

The paper investigates the influence of the speed of liquidation of insolvent firms on leverage. The theoretical model presented formalizes the intuitive view that an increase in liquidation speed is expected to decrease average leverage as highly leveraged firms exit. Analysis of Indian data,...

This study examines the annual investment required for universal, collectively funded childcare and longterm care services, as well as adequate paid care leave and breastfeeding breaks to parents in 82 countries. Simulations of policy reforms show that extending paid leave and breastfeeding...

Statistical evidence from 58 countries shows that although people in rural areas are more likely to be in employment than those in urban ones, they also tend to have jobs that can put them at risk of experiencing inadequate labour protection as well as low pay. In particular, rural workers are...

Job polarization was first identified in the US in the 1990s, when employment growth concentrated in the highest and lowest wages jobs with much less growth in middle wage jobs. Research since then has identified continuing polarizing pressures in the US and Europe, but also evidence of job...