Sri Lanka’s Termination of Employment of Workmen Act (TEWA) requires that firms with 15 or more workers justify layoffs and provide generous severance pay to displaced workers, with smaller firms being exempted. Although formally subject to TEWA, firms in Export Promotion Zones (EPZs) do not...

This study examines long-term effects of a minimum wage increase using an innovative identification strategy based on categorising workers according to their predicted marginal revenue products. It finds that the increase had a large and persistent disemployment effects on low-paid workers and...

Many developing countries have tried to increase firm provision of training by providing subsidies funded by taxes proportional to the firm’s wage bill. These training funds, however,may backfire if the adverse effect of the tax on training incentives outweighs the positive effects of the...

The authors use a retrospective survey of 9,608 individuals, aged 16 to 75, to monitor the effects of Estonia's economic transition on wages and employment. Estonia is an interesting case because of its early adoption of relatively free labor market policies. Estonia's transition led to rapid...

Changes in women's relative wages and employment are analyzed, using social security data from Slovenia (1987-1992) and a retrospective labor force survey in Estonia (1989-1994). Estonia adopted liberal labor market policies. Slovenia took an interventionist approach. Nevertheless, relative...

Training funds are used to incentivize training in developing countries, but the funds are based on payroll taxes that lower the return to training. In the absence of training funds, larger, high-wage and more capital intensive firms are the most likely to offer training unless they are...