We consider the differences in income distribution between market and planned economics in two ways. First, using benchmarks from the OECD area we review evidence from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union during the socialist period. Second, we look at the...

One of the most remarkable features of international economic performance in the last decade has been the employment performance of the United States. While unemployment rates in almost all other developed countries remain high by postwar standards, the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to...

A statistical association between poor child health and low family income has been well established by Lipman, Offord and Boyle (1994, 1995) and Dooley and Lipman (1995) in a series of papers using data from the Ontario Child Health Study (OCHS). The incidence of psychiatric disorders and poor...

This paper considers the possible role of shifts in labour demand away from unskilled workers, combined with an institutionally- generated greater labour supply elasticity in Canada, in explaining the apparent secular increase in Canadian male unemployment, and in explaining the emergence of the...

Discussion of convergence in the European Union in recent years has centred on macroeconomic indicators, in line with requirements for participation in the single currency. But it is convergence of living standards that is an ultimate goal of European Integration - the greater "economic and...

This paper seeks to explain why young women are much more likely to report being harmed by gender discrimination than older women. Using a recent sample of job seekers, we conclude that the answer does not lie in higher "objective" discrimination, as usually measured by economists, since...

We use Canadian SCFs 1971-1993 to study the wages of full-time, full-year male and female workers. Median real wages of 24-year-old males without a university degree fell by 25% between 1978 and 1993. For 24-year-old females the decline was more modest and reversed in 1987, but real wages in...

We present theoretical and empirical results on consumption during an unemployment spell. The theory model extends the conventional intertemporal allocation model to take explicit account of the fact that households buy clothing and small durable goods (such as pillows and plates) that are...

This paper provides a first look at the dynamics of social assistance use among lone mothers in Ontario. We use an administrative caseload data set to analyse the relationship between the duration of spells, both on welfare and off welfare, and a series of factors including the clients’...