This paper contributes to job-search literature by analysing commuter behaviour in the presence of asymmetric changes in the wage distribution. Job search theory predicts that reservation wages increase with the mean and mean-preserving spread of the wage distribution. However, changing...

This paper aims to test several hypotheses on determinants of the quality of trade in cross-country regressions, taking a sample of trade competitors in EU markets. The hypotheses are those underlying two models of vertical intra-industry trade: the so-called neo-Heckscher-Ohlin model, and an...

This is a companion paper to Ferragina, Giovannetti and Pastore (2005) and focuses on Romania-EU actual and potential trade. The Romanian trade potential with five EU members (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) is computed using an “out-of-sample” methodology for the period 1995-‘01....

The paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on regional unemployment during transition in Central and Eastern Europe. The focus is on Optimal Speed of Transition (OST) models and on comparison of them with the neoclassical tradition. In the typical neoclassical models, spatial...

This paper uncovers evidence on the distribution of wages in Belarus in the second half of the 1990s. The returns to education and work experience are high and stable, which is atypical for a transition country. This might be due to the pervasive role of the state in fixing wages in the dominant...

This paper suggests an analytical framework to analyse the joint evolution of female participation and wages across countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU), of which Belarus is a particular case. In CEE, female participation has reduced relatively more...

This paper studies regional unemployment inequality in Poland. We find that higher unemployment regions are those experiencing greater change in industrial structure. We also find high unemployment regions are those with higher inflow rates to unemployment rather than longer spells of...

Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in Mongolia. This paper addresses the issue by taking advantage of a recent ad hoc School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS) on young people aged 15-29 years carried out in 2006. After a period of sharp reduction in the 1990s, educational...

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on vulnerability and discrimination among women, children and ethnic minorities. Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses the articles in the special issue which employ a variety of individual‐level data, some...