Privatizing, or restructuring state-owned enterprises, may lead to massive layoffs, but the number of redundant workers is usually unknown beforehand. The authors estimate labor redundancy by comparing employment levels across enterprises with different degrees of state ownership. In their...

The authors explorethe labor dynamics of Russian enterprise restructuring, empirically assessing how patterns of job creation and destruction are related to various aspects of enterprise restructuring across firms in different sectors and regions, and to different forms, sizes, vintages, and...

This study presents an analysis of non-farm family businesses in Peru. It uses the enterprise rather than the individual as the unit of analysis, and incorporates enterprise characteristics (capital, nonlabor inputs, focus of operation) explicitly. The central question addressed is: does formal...

Where do industries locate within a metropolitan area? Do different industrial sectors have different patterns of location/clustering? Can these patterns be understood with reference to industry characteristics? What is the geographical relationship between clusters of different types of...

Before 1973, the labor market in Europe was tight and immigration from the South (chiefly North Africa and Southern Europe) was encouraged. But with the slowdown in growth in the mid-1970s, the rise in unemployment, and increased economic uncertainty, immigration came to be viewed as a burden by...

This paper offers an interim review of the Bank's experience with public sector pay and employment reform. Its aim is to establish what has been done and what has been learnt to date. The objectives of the paper are to inventory and analyze Bank operational work in selected countries and to...

Reform of the labor market in the former Soviet Union (FSU) is essential to increase productivity. The transition of the FSU economies to a market economy must involve a massive displacement of workers, and will entail labor shortages for certain skills. A key challenge will be to reallocate...

The authors analyze changes in the Russian labor market in 1992. They focus on the path of wages and employment in a context of partial price liberalization and considerable ambiguity about government and central bank policy. Under the former Soviet economy, the firm was the bedrock of the...

The authors explain why in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) - especially Russia - unemployment has remained low and employment in state and privatized firms has remained high, while at the same time the informal or unofficial economy has grown swiftly. They trace this development to a combination...

The authors try to answer important questions. How important is the phasing of political and economic liberalization and the active (versus passive) role of the state in reform? What lessons can be learned about comprehensive top-down reform as opposed to experimental bottom-up reforms; fast...