We analyze the impact of the elimination of textile and clothing (T&C) quotas in 2005 on India. Our simulations suggest that while Indian exports of T&C will continue to expand in the presence of the safeguards on China, they will be affected adversely once these safeguards are lifted. We argue...

This paper evaluates the effects on the Bangladeshi economy of phasing out textile and clothing (T&C) quotas currently maintained by industrial countries. The planned abolition of the quotas under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing in 2005 will alter the competitiveness of various exporting...

Labor market informality is a pervasive feature of most developing economies. Motivated by the empirical regularity that the labor informality rate falls with GDP per capita, both at business cycle frequency and in a cross-section of countries, and that the Okun's coefficient falls with the...

Employment is key to combating poverty. Thus, detractors of social assistance programs argue that they create disincentives to work. While there is substantial evidence showing limited effects of these programs on overall labor supply, the jury is still out with respect to their impact on formal...

Uruguay enjoys favorable social outcomes, and its labor indicators are comparable to other Latin American countries, but its youth unemployment is one of the highest in the world. To help understand this duality, we employ synthetic panels from repeated household surveys for LA6 countries from...

Raising South Africa's low employment rate to levels seen in emerging market or advanced economy peers could raise GDP per capita by 50 to 60 percent and reduce income inequality dramatically in the long term. By putting further strain on an already fragile labor market, Covid-19 has raised the...

This paper summarizes statistics on the key aspects of the distribution of earnings levels and earnings changes using administrative (social security) data from Italy between 1985 and 2016. During the time covered by our data, earnings inequality and earnings volatility increased, while earnings...

We explore the impact of major labor and product market reforms on current account dynamics using a new 'narrative' database of major changes in employment protection for regular workers and product market regulation for non-manufacturing industries covering 26 advanced economies over the past...

We document the short-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Brazilian labor market focusing on employment, wages and hours worked using the nationally representative household surveys PNAD-Continua and PNAD COVID. Sectors most susceptible to the shock because they are more...

While the Korean unemployment rates are currently among the lowest in OECD countries, the labor market duality and the underemployment in some segments of the population are important labor market challenges, and factors contributing to lower potential growth. The paper shows the benefits of...