While Africa's recent decade of growth and poverty reduction performance has been lauded, concern has been expressed regarding the structure of this growth. In particular, questions have been raised about whether the growth is based on a commodities boom, or whether it is the beginning of a...

In 1995, Latvia became the first country in Central and Eastern Europe to implement parametric reform of the Soviet-style PAYGO pension system, and the first in the world to implement the"notional defined contribution (NDC) system"originally designed for Sweden. The Government's intention was to...

A legacy of the command economy in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is a social protection system that emphasizes institutional care for vulnerable individuals. It has been well established that in many cases institutionalization can be more expensive per client served and...

This paper focuses on the experience of the transition countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, in providing adequate safety nets for the poor during the last ten years. The paper discusses the problem of poverty, and vulnerability, and looks at the typical types of interventions offered by...

This paper analyzes the design, coverage, implementation and enforcement of incomes policy in two transitional economies: Bulgaria and Romania. Lessons drawn from Bulgarian and Romanian experiences might also be relevant for other countries which are currently in the process of formulating and...

We use firm-level survey data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and Doing Business (DB) country indicators to explore the links between employment protection regulation (EPR) and firm job growth during the period 2003–07. We find that EPR is uncorrelated...

We use firm-level survey data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and Doing Business (DB) country indicators to explore the links between employment protection regulation (EPR) and firm job growth during the period 2003–07. We find that EPR is uncorrelated...

Employment and earnings statistics are the key link between the size and structure of economic growth and the welfare of households, which is the ultimate goal of development policy, so it is important to monitor employment outcomes consistently. A cursory review of employment data for...

We exploit a unique dataset of retrospective information from urban Tanzania to estimate the effect of early labour market experiences on adult labour market outcomes. We consider four labour market entry states – wage employment, selfemployment, employment in the family business, and...

Sub-Saharan Africa has just experienced one of the best decades of growth since the 1960s. Between 2000 and 2012, gross domestic product (GDP) grew more than 4.5 percent a year on average, compared to around 2 percent in the prior 20 years (World Bank various years). In 2012, the region's GDP...