This paper investigates the effect of minimum wages on employment using a panel of US state-based data. We estimate a minimalist dynamic version of the specification implied by neo-classical theory. We find statistically and economically significant effects of minimum wages on youth employment....

The extension of information and communication technologies to economic activity ischanging the labour market in important ways. This article shows that computerization anduse of the Internet are associated with greater hours worked as well as higher wages; that IToccupations are rapidly...

Privatization is one of the key policy problems for the new Central and Eastern European governments seeking to bring about the transition to market-type economies. Broadly interpreted, the topic includes both the transfer of existing state firms into private hands, and steps to encourage new...

We provide a comparison of poverty levels in Britain and the US based on a set of common definitions. We then ask what factors û demographic, economic, or policy û account for the observed changes in poverty in the two nations and what role could policy play in reducing poverty? We find that...

This paper examines whether the impact of house prices and of labour market variables on migration differs as between contiguous and non-contiguous regions. We find that house price elasticites are increasingly in the length of common regional boundaries. We argue that this effect may be due to...

The process of hyperinflationary acceleration in Serbia-Montenegro in 1992-3 is found to lie in a massive Tanzi effect and collapse in real money balances. The mechanism through which the hyperinflation caused widespread shortages in spite of an absence of price control is modeled, and other...

Persistent high unemployment in Europe has led to renewed interest in Active Labour Market Policy. However, most existing theory suggests that its effects are ambiguous at best. We argue that job search assistance and wage subsidies are more appropriately modelled as a transition rather than the...

In a simple efficiency wage model an employers' confederation always wants a lower wage than the individual employers. A centralized union normally wants a lower wage than local unions if the demand for labour in efficiency units is elastic, a higher wage if it is inelastic. Local unions which...

This paper begins by reviewing the impact of external considerations on British economic policy making over the last hundred and fifty years. We then go on to ask whether, in addition to the usual intertemporal solvency requirement, there is a period-by-period external constraint in the form of...