This paper applies recent advances in the study of labor market dynamics to a representativedeveloping country with a large unregulated of “informal” sector. It confirms the relevance ofthe recent mainstream models and debates surrounding gross worker flows to the developingcountry context,...

This paper analyzes the cyclical properties of worker flows in Brazil and Mexico, two important developing countries with large unregulated or "informal" sectors. It generates three stylized facts that are critical to the accurate modeling of the sector and which suggest the need to rethink the...

Using the 1996-2001 Chilean CASEN Panel Survey, this paper analyzes the impact onincome of the switch from salaried employment to entrepreneurship (self-employment andleadership of micro-enterprises). By means of a difference-in-differences non-parametricmatching estimator the paper alleviates...

This paper uses a unique data set containing detailed micro-information on organisations, managers, workers and volunteers belonging to public, private forprofit and private nonprofit institutions delivering social services in Italy. The analysis aims to estimate the determinants of wages across...

We analyze optimal taxation in an economy with monopsonistic labor markets. Theindividuals, whose only decisions are whether to work, or not, have heterogeneousproductivities and opportunity costs of work. Given its preferences for redistribution, thegovernment, which does not observe the...

Census data show that since 1980 low-skill workers in the United States have beenincreasingly employed in the provision of non-tradeable time-intensive services - such asfood preparation and cleaning - that can be broadly thought as substitutes of homeproduction activities. Meanwhile the wage...

This paper examines the performance of minimum wage legislation in Kenya, both in terms of its coverage and enforcement as well as in terms of their implications for wages and employment. Our findings based on the 1998/99 labor force data - the last labor force survey available - indicate that...

We show theoretically that when larger firms pay higher wages and are more likely to becaught defaulting on labour taxes, then large high-wage firms will be in the formal sector andsmall low-wage firms will be in the informal sector...

Econometric evaluations of public-sponsored training programmes generally find littleevidence of an impact of such policies on transition rates out of unemployment. We performthe first evaluation of training effects for the unemployed adults in France, exploiting a uniquelongitudinal dataset...

In many environments, tournaments can elicit more effort from workers, except perhapswhen workers can sabotage each other. Because it is hard to separate effort, ability andoutput in many real workplace settings, the empirical evidence on the incentive effect oftournaments is thin...