El desempleo es uno de los fenómenos más temidos de nuestros tiempos. Pocos fenómenos económicos son reportados tan amplia y sistemáticamente por la prensa, y menos aún generan tal nivel de debate en la opinión pública. Hay razones para este nivel de interés. Los costos económicos de...

This article, which serves as an introduction to a group of studies prepared by the IDB Office of the Chief Economist, presents the perceptions of Latin American citizens and employers concerning the employment problem. It compares them to the conditions in the labor markets of the region.

This paper examines the impact of the recent wave of trade liberalization and economic reform on employment. Four alternative measures of openness and four measures of the real exchange rate are used to measure the impact of trade reforms on manufacturing and economy-wide employment. Across a...

This paper reviews the regulations governing hiring, firing, overtime work, social security contributions, minimum wages, and collective bargaining in the region, examining their impact on labor market outcomes.

The adoption of emergency employment and short-term training programs to provide income support to the population affected by the episodes of economic volatility since 1995 reveals the failure of the traditional, labor law-based income support mechanisms in the region. These emergency programs...

This paper uses a newly developed panel data set for Venezuela in the period between 1994 and 2002 to analyze three basic questions. the first relates to the influence of personal characteristics and previous labor market experience in the choice of different search methods. The second question...

Using 1980/81 and 1990/91 census data from Australia, Canada, and the United States, we estimate the effects of time in the destination country on male immigrants' wages, employment, and earnings. We find that total earnings assimilation is greatest in the United States and least in Australia....

How do international differences in labor market institutions affect the nature of immigrant earnings assimilation? Using 1980/81 and 1990/91 cross-sections of census data from Australia, Canada, and the United States, we estimate the separate effects of arrival cohort and duration of...

Beyond some contracted minimum, salaried workers? hours are largely chosen at the worker?s discretion and should respond to the strength of contract incentives. Accordingly, we consider the response of teacher hours to accountability and school choice laws introduced in U.S. public schools over...

We study worker and firm behavior in an environment where worker effort could depend on co-workers? wages. Theoretically, we show that an increase in workers? ?concerns? with coworkers? wages should lead profit-maximizing firms to compress wages under quite general conditions. However, firms...