This policy brief looks at the major developments in women's position on the European labour market over the past two decades, identifying several pathways to increased female labour market activity and obstacles to overcome.

CGE models are widely used for policy evaluation and impact analysis especially with respect to trade reforms, tax reforms, energy sector reform and development policy analysis. However, the results of such models are often argued to be sensitive to the choice of exogenous parameters such as...

Using a unique panel dataset collected from rural households in Bangladesh, we examine the role of microcredit in the intra-household and inter-sectoral distribution of labour supply. The data also enables us to discuss seasonality in labour supply. We find robust evidence that the effects of...

While uncertainty abounds in almost any decision on investment in schooling, it is mostly ignored in research and virtually absent in labour economics text books. This paper documents the scope for risk, discusses the tough disentanglement of heterogeneity and risk, surveys the analytical...

In this paper, the effects of capital income taxation on wage formation are studied using OECD data. The results indicate that a rise in the tax rate on capital income will reduce real wages and increase employment.

The opportunity costs associated with the provision of informal care are usually estimated based on the reduced potential of the caregiver to partake in paid work (both in terms of whether they are able to undertake paid work, and if so the hours of work undertaken). In addition to the hours of...

A factual and descriptive analysis of the employment situation in Bulgaria showed that the transition to a market economy has led to a substantial reduction of employment. The economic restructuring has begun in 1990 has proved very difficult, and the privatization of the large industrial...

This chapter gives an overview of the male labour supply literature, focusing on what that literature implies for the design of the tax-transfer system. According to conventional wisdom, male labour supply is rather insensitive to tax rates. This, in turn, implies that the welfare losses from...

In 1978, Singapore was the first country to introduce legislation allowing foreign domestic workers (e.g. maids) to work in the country with special visas. Singapore, with its liberal wage policy (no minimum wage), is also the best quasi-natural experiment in determining how a reduction in the...

We examine what happens to Sri Lankan men’s labour supply when their wives emigrate to work and leave the husbands and children at home—the effects of maternal migration on the husbands’ labour supply. Using sibling sex-composition of a household as an instrumental variable for the...