In this chapter we argue that the endogenous growth model with quality-improving innovations provides a framework for analyzing the determinants of long-run growth and convergence that is versatile, simple and empirically useful. Versatile, as the same framework can be used to analyze how growth...

It is widely accepted that the costs of under-pricing energy are large, whether in advanced or developing countries. This paper explores how large these costs can be by focussing on the size of the external effects that energy subsidies in particular generate in two important sectors –...

We study selection and labour market outcomes among Ukrainian migrants using unique data from a survey conducted in Ukraine in August – October 2011. We find that migrants are positively selected in terms of age and education. Yet, this is not associated, as might be expected, with their...

The paper uses a unique survey of recruitment firms to look at how Russian firms perceive the supply of skills in the labour market and how well those skills match to their demand for labour. Firms invest significant amounts of time in search to fill vacancies and search time is unambiguously...

Energy subsidies are used widely. Although adverse from an efficiency perspective, subsidies confer private benefits on particular groups and, once introduced, tend to be persistent. This paper examines the reasons why and possible ways of overcoming the barriers to reform. The starting point is...

The ¿beneficial brain drain¿ hypothesis suggests that skilled migration can be good for a sending country because the incentives it creates for training increase that country¿s supply of skilled labour. To work, this hypothesis requires that the degree of screening of migrants by the host...

This paper looks at the well-being of children in transition economies in the light of greater economic integration. The different stages of integration of the transition economies into the world economy are marked by substantial variations in trade and capital flows. International labour...