Catholic countries of Europe pose a demographic puzzle -fertility is unprecedentedly low (total fertility=1.3) despite low female labor force participation. We model three channels of religious effects on demand for children: through changing norms, reduced market wages, and reduced costs of...

The RMI programme combines an allowance, associated rights, social accompaniments and activation measures. Since its creation in 1988, the operation of the programme has led to distinguish 3 modes of implementation ; minimum welfare, additional wages and unemployment benefit. The variety of its...

Temporary help services (THS) firms are increasing their hiring of disadvantaged individuals and claiming more subsidies for doing so. Do these subsidies—the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW)—create incentives that improve employment outcomes for THS...

This essay deals with the reasons explaining children’s work in 19th century textile factories and their removal during the first part of the 20th century. The inadequacy of the structure of incomes and expenditures of the household and the very low economic incentives to educate children can...

In the period of macroeconomic crisis in Georgia between 1991 and 1994 the combination of hyperinflation, catastrophic output drop and weak governance, have led to a sharp rise in inequality among households. Sharp inequities have arisen not only between households, but also between regions....

Temporary help services (THS) firms are increasing their hiring of disadvantaged individuals while also increasing their use of employment subsidies for doing so. Do these subsidies—the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW)—create incentives that improve...

Rapid urbanization is a fact of live even in the least developed countries (LDCs) where the lion’s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. At the turn of the millennium 75% of the LDCs’ population still lived in rural areas and...

Recent welfare reforms are prompting some state and local welfare agencies to use temporary help service firms to help place welfare recipients into jobs. Concerns have arisen that these jobs are more likely to pay low wages, provide fewer benefits, and offer less stability. We explore the...

The labor market is the main channel through which economic growth affects poverty. This paper is the first empirical account of main channels through which the growth in transition period has affected labor market and living standards in Georgia. It is based on both the official aggregate...

One of the most common myths in European economic history, and indeed in Economics itself, is that the Black Death of 1347-48, followed by other waves of bubonic plague, led to an abrupt rise in real wages, for both agricultural labourers and urban artisans – one that led to the so-called...