Applying quantile analysis to detailed firm-level data from Mexico, the authors study determinants of demand and wages for two classes of labor. Unions appear to have a strong impact on how much unskilled labor is employed but not on wages. This suggests an extreme example of"monopoly...

Latvia has recorded sustained GDP and productivity growth since 1997. Yet unemployment rates, despite gradual decrease, have remained high. The paper explores the mysteries of unemployment in Latvia. It analyzes labor flows between employment, unemployment, and nonparticipation and finds the...

Competing conceptions of the large, unprotected,"informal"workforce in developing countries differ greatly in their implications for the labor reform considered to be essential complements to trade liberalization and"fair"competition in international trade. Traditionally, the informal sector is...

In 1995-96, Mexico shifted to a multipillar approach to old-age security. The objective of the publicly managed first pillar is redistribution; a fully-funded second pillar provides for mandatory individual savings accounts and competitive but exclusive and specialized pension fund management;...

The economies of Latin America have undergone extensive reforms, raising concerns about how these changes have affected the labor market. But there is also increasing concern that the reforms may have deeper social ramifications as the new economies strain the ability of certain groups of men to...

Most downsizing operations show high financial returns, but their economic returns depend crucially on their design. After comparing public sector employment across countries, the author analyzes the optimal design of downsizing operations from a microeconomic perspective. The author discusses...

The author analyzes production and labor market data for a random selection of small to medium-size firms in Ethiopia to answer two questions: 1) Does a worker's marginal productivity increase with time in the labor market or with job security, as must be the case if on-the-job skill formation...

Argentina implemented a major reform of its pension system in 1994. The new system has a mixed public-and-private two-pillar structure. Its main elements are an unfunded, defined benefit pillar operated by the state and paying a basic pension to all workers who meet the minimum eligibility...

Indonesia's labor markets, especially on the island of Java, have been transformed in the past 30 years, especially since liberalization picked up speed in the mid-1980's. The author explores the regional dimensions of that transformation. In some other countries, when labor markets changed,...

Global capitalism, vintage early 21st century, favors the movement of goods and capital across national borders more than it does the movement of people. It was not always this way. The first wave of globalization, in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th, came with massive...