Estimations of the shadow economies for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of "official" GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing countries is 38.7%, in 28 transition...

This paper examines the movements in EU unemployment from two perspectives: (a) the NRU/NAIRU perspective, in which unemployment movements are attributed largely to changes in the long-run equilibrium unemployment rate and (b) the chain-reaction perspective, in which unemployment movements are...

This paper uses the job creation and destruction model of the search and matching type proposed by García-Pérez and Osuna (2014) to study the effectiveness of subsidizing permanent job creation as a strategy to reduce labour market segmentation between permanent and temporary contracts. The...

This paper analyses how and to which degree the Danish flexicurity concept and its various elements achieve the renowned Danish miracle by evaluating their unemployment and inequality effects and their complementarities. We develop a microfounded model of searching workers and firms, calibrate...

Do firms reduce employment when their insiders (established, incumbent employees) claim higher wages? The conventional answer in the theoretical literature is that insider power has no influence on employment, provided that the newly hired employees (entrants) receive their reservation wages....

We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UA) system. Under the UA system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during...

Apart from altruistic reasons, NGOs may engage in developing countries under conditions of conflict and war in order to secure funding and survive in the ‘market’ of humanitarian relief and development assistance. Applying a difference-in-difference-in-differences approach, we analyze...

Human trafficking is a humanitarian problem of global scale, but quantitative research on the issue barely exists. This paper is a first attempt to explore the economic drivers of human trafficking and migrant exploitation using micro data. We argue that migration pressure combined with informal...

Diversification into non-agricultural activities in rural areas can be broadly classified as either survival-led or opportunity-led. The existence of these two types of non-agricultural activities implies a U-shaped relationship between the share of income derived from non-agricultural...

Corruption has fierce impacts on economic and societal development and is subject to a vast range of institutional, jurisdictional, societal and economic conditions. Research indicates that corruption's predominantly negative effects have arisen to a massive trans-border threat while creating...