Berkshire Hathaway, among history's largest and most successful corporations, shuns middlemen; its chairman, the legendary investor Warren Buffett, excoriates financial intermediaries. The acquisitive conglomerate rarely borrows money, retains brokers, or hires consultants. Its governance is...

This paper investigates the fiscal pressure from demographic change in relation to the labour marketspace for fifty countries that cover 75% of the world population. The pressure-to-space indicator ranks Poland, Turkey and Greece high. Apart from Turkey and India, developing countries rank low...

On top of the sovereign debt crisis in the European Union, demographic change is exerting enormous pressure on public finances. We analyse four policy options: lowering pension benefits, increasing labour market participation of the native population, immigration and participation of older...

After following inward oriented economic policies for nearly four decades, India opened up to international trade in the early 1990s. Since then, the trade integration of the Indian economy in general and the manufacturing sector in particular has increased phenomenally. Against this backdrop,...

The Indian economy has observed significant trade reforms since the mid 1980s, and the Indian manufacturing sector has rapidly increased its integration with the world economy. In this paper, we ask the question: did the increased trade integration create or destroy jobs in the Indian...

The mild response of the German labor market to the worst global recession in post-war history appears as an economic miracle. In response to the crisis, Germany has shown to be a strong case of internal flexibility. We argue that important factors that have contributed to this development...

The paper aims at comparing the formal and informal labour markets in the Central and Eastern European new EU Member States and candidate countries of the European Union. First, the current situation of the labour market is described, focusing on the recent developments since the breaking up of...

Germany's recovery from an unemployment disease and its resilience to the Great Recession is remarkable. Its success story makes it a showcase for labor policy and labor market reforms. This paper assesses the potential of the German experience as a model for effective, evidence-based...

This paper investigates gender inequality in vulnerable employment: forms of employment typically featuring high precariousness, inadequate earnings, and lack of decent working conditions. Using a large collection of harmonized household surveys from developing countries, we measure long-term...