This paper examines public sector size and performance management in post-revolution Tunisia, drawing on macro-empirical, legal, and qualitative analyses. The paper first shows that public sector employment figures and the wage bill have increased significantly since the 2011 revolution, but...

This paper analyzes recent trends in Sweden's labor market regulations in relation to comparator economies and examines the relationship between labor market regulations and outcomes. The paper finds that the Swedish labor market responded more rapidly to the recent global financial crisis than...

Firms very rarely cut nominal wages, even in the face of considerable negative economic shocks. This paper uses a unique survey of fourteen European countries to ask firms directly about the incidence of wage cuts and to assess the relevance of a range of potential reasons for why the firms...

This paper investigates whether the Ethiopian economy is undergoing a virtuous process of structural change. In particular, it assesses the relative contributions of within-sector and between-sector productivity to output per capita growth. Based on data disaggregated into eight sectors for the...

Unemployment rates for tertiary-educated youth in Jordan are high, as is the duration of unemployment. Two randomized experiments in Jordan were used to test different theories that may explain this phenomenon. The first experiment tested the role of search and matching frictions by providing...

Estimates of labor mobility costs are needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to trade shocks when factor adjustment is costly. Available methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which are seldom available in developing countries. The authors propose a method to...

Using an extraordinarily rich panel dataset from Ghana, this paper explores the nature of self-employment and informality in developing countries through the analysis of self-reported happiness with work and life. Subjective job satisfaction measures allow assessment of the relative desirability...

One of the responses to new challenges in the labor market has been the development and expansion of employment services and active labor market policies based on activation principles. The objective of this study is to document and review international experiences, predominantly from selected...

Was economic growth in East Asia jobless? This paper addresses this question using data from eight East Asian countries during the period between 1997 and 2011 to estimate the Okun's Law Coefficient, which captures the relationship between growth and employment. The analysis suggests that growth...

This paper contributes new evidence from two large household surveys on the compliance of firms with severance pay regulations in Indonesia, and the extent to which changes in severance pay regulations could affect employment rigidity. Compliance appears to be low, as only one-third of workers...