Unemployment is best described by two dimensions: incidence and duration. While the first issue has received little attention for developing countries, there is practically no research on the duration aspect for developing countries. This paper looks at duration of unemployment among young men in urban Ethiopia. We observe that mean duration is very long, namely around four years. And analyse t...

Using newly available data at the firm level, this study provides convincing evidence of the importance of financial constraints in explaining the timing of innovations in the German services sector. Based on a dynamic model of firms‘ optimal R&D behavior under financial constraints, we estimate various versions of an econometric specification of the model with dichotomous innovation data by us...

Enforcement of Labor Regulation and Informality Enforcement of labor regulations in the formal sector may drive workers to informality because they increase the costs of formal labor. But better compliance with mandated benefits makes it attractive to be a formal employee. We show that, in locations with frequent inspections workers pay for mandated benefits by receiving lower wages. Wage rigid...

Recent papers show that imperfect property rights to a natural resource–a sector-specific factor– can be a source of comparative advantage. In these models, weaker property rights attract labor–the only mobile factor– to the resource sector, increasing the country’s comparative advantage for that sector. If capital in addition to labor is mobile, and if the benefits of capital are non-excludabl...

Wage Mobility in Israel: The Effect of Sectoral Concentration Using a unique eight-year data set, merging population census and national insurance data, the paper examines and compares patterns of wage mobility in Israel. First, the public and the private sectors are compared. Second, within each of these sectors, a distinction is made between sub-sector groupings that exhibit a high level of c...

We examine the role of central bank transparency when the private sector is modeled as adaptive learners. In our model, transparent policies enable the private sector to adopt correctly specified models of inflation and output while intransparent policies do not. In the former case, the private sector learns the rational expectations equilibrium while in the latter case it learns a restricted p...

This paper reviews the recent experience of the UK electricity distribution sector under incentive regulation. The UK has a significant and transparent history in implementing incentive regulation in the period since 1990. We demonstrate the successes of this period in reducing costs, prices and energy losses while maintaining quality of service. We also draw out the lessons for other countries...

Interactions between Private and Public Sector Wages We examine the interactions between public and private sector wages per employee in OECD countries. The growth of public sector wages and of public sector employment positively affects the growth of private sector wages. Moreover, total factor productivity, the unemployment rate and the degree of urbanisation are also important determinants o...

Danish household consumption increased by 58% over the period 1966]1992 while CO2 emissions only increased by 7%. Using decomposition analysis we investigated the global CO impact of Danish household consumption from 1966 to 1992. Our conclusion is that 2 overall growth in private consumption } but not changes in the composition of consumption } is the key to understanding the increase in CO em...

Short-Run and Long-Term Effects of Childbirth on Mothers’ Employment and Working Hours Across Institutional Regimes: An Empirical Analysis Based on the European Community Household Panel The employment behavior of mothers is strongly influenced by labor market regulations and certain institutional arrangements, which both vary greatly across European countries. Using the European Community Hous...