Malaysia has to address the challenges of globalization to become a developed nation by year 2020. Changing economy to one that is based on knowledge-economy and enhanced importance of the service sector needs a competitive workforce with high performance and capability. This article analyses...

In this paper, we explore a simple model which focuses on the joint role of workers’ heterogeneity and imperfect competition in the endogeneous formation of labor market equilibria. We show that, compared to the competitive case, imperfect competition leads to a misallocation of workers and to...

After two generations of economic growth, the next phase of structural transformation for Asia will have several salient features. Our results suggest that no single policy orientation, pathway, or even destination will apply to all economies. The main driver for each economy's structural change...

The share of non-standard jobs in total employment has increased in Germany over recent decades. Research tends to attribute this in particular to labour market re-forms and socio-economic change. However, it becomes clear upon closer inspection that macro trends alone cannot provide...

We present a detailed analysis of energy intensity developments across 23 service sectors in 18 OECD countries over the period 1980-2005. We find that the shift towards a service economy has contributed to lower overall energy intensity levels in the OECD, but this contribution would have been...