At the eve of 1999 the Hungarian government introduced radical reforms including a further cut of UI benefits and the abolishment of UA for benefit exhausters. The reforms were based on the assumption that the generosity of unemployment benefits combined with the availability of informal jobs...

The paper analyses regional relative wages using individual and firmlevel data from Hungary 1986-96. In regions hit hard by the transition shock labour costs fell substantially; the estimated elasticities of wages with respect to regional unemployment were in a range typical of mature market...

In January 2001 the Hungarian government increased the minimum wage from Ft 25,500 to Ft 40,000. One year later the wage floor rose further to Ft 50,000. The paper looks at the short-run impact of the first hike on small-firm employment and flows between employment and unemployment. It finds...

Hungary's sizeable Roma minority is hit by massive prejudice. Using 2011 Census data and supplementary sources, we study how ethnic bias translates to employment discrimination in local labor markets. The male ethnic employment gap, adjusted for a rich battery of controls, was 20-40 percent...

The paper analyses how the municipality-level unemployment rates of 1993 and their changes in 1993-2001 were affected by the availability of urban labour markets in Hungary. The year 1941 share of the Jewish population is used as an instrument for availability, in order to mitigate endogeneity,...

The paper analyses how the municipality-level unemployment rates of 1993 and their changes in 1993-2001 were affected by the availability of urban labour markets in Hungary. The year 1941 share of the Jewish population is used as an instrument for availability, in order to mitigate endogeneity,...