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In an environment of rapid economic development with rising incomes, escalating motorization, and growing urbanization, it is natural that government policies focus on solving congestion-related problems caused by increased car ownership and usage. The mobility needs of the urban poor have traditionally been neglected in policy and in practice, particularly in developing countries. This article addresses the mobility challenges facing the urban poor and is based on a household travel survey in the city of Hefei in China. First we present the travel behaviors, transportation costs, and commuting problems of the urban poor. Then we discuss urban transportation-policy implications and examine the prevailing trends of urban transportation policies and plans in Chinese cities. Policy recommendations are suggested to improve the mobility needs of the urban poor.

The paper represents a study of the labour market functionality through the employment degree and how much of the employment improvement is reflected in the wage revenues. The study is based on the analysis and forecast of the earnings structure by branches and regions and also by property forms, being structured in 4 chapters. Within the study the earning is analyzed starting from two reasons: first, the wage synthetically reflects the structural evolution of the labour market and, second, the wage conditions and influences the employment possibilities. An important part of the study is represented by the analysis of the correlation between employment and earnings, marking out some features. First, 2002-2006 represented the period with structural changes in employment, the wages evolution being independent of the economic context or of the labour market imbalances. Second, in regional and county profile the correlation between the employment structure and the evolution of the earnings is more lax than the national economy level. If for the regions the main explanation could be the structural homogeneity of the regional economies, at county level the determinant element is the economic gap. In the first years of the actual development cycle, even if the intercounty economic gaps have maintained or deepened, the improvement of the employment has adequately been reflected in the increase in the average wage revenues. The paper also presents some perspectives on the earnings structure, marking out the fact that until 2010 the gaps between regions – from the net average earnings point of view – will not significantly improve, but there will be created the conditions for a future decrease. This fact can be explained, on one hand, by the absorption of the community funds which will be more consistent after 2009 (it is about the project implementation, not the contract), and, on the other hand, because – in a first stage – the more developed areas will access easier the European funds, having resources and also project and implementation organization competences, and for the fund allocation national projects (transport, education infrastructure, etc.) will be important.

This paper argues that preconditions for welfare benefit entitlements based on labour market prospects can be counterproductive when they create an incentive for individuals to abstain from any investment earlier in life that could improve future prospects. Benefit entitlements based partly on investments made prior to labour market entry are then Pareto-improving. Copyright 2008 , Oxford University Press.

We consider a version of the Solow growth model where technological progress can be investment specific or investment neutral. The labour market is subject to search frictions, and the existing productive units may fail to adopt the most recent technological advances. Technological progress can lead to the destruction of technologically obsolete jobs and cause unemployment. We calibrate the model to replicate the high persistence that characterizes the dynamics of firms' neutral technology and the frequency of firms' capital adjustment. We find that neutral technological advances increase job destruction and job reallocation and reduce aggregate employment. Investment-specific technological advances reduce job destruction, have mild effects on job creation, and are expansionary. Hence, neutral technological progress prompts Schumpeterian creative destruction, while investment-specific technological progress operates essentially as in the standard neoclassical growth model. Using structural VAR models, we provide support to the key dynamic implications of the model. Copyright 2007, Wiley-Blackwell.

Dieses Modell stellt das Niveau des Arbeitslosengeldes II nicht in Frage, macht aber seine Gewährung von einer Gegenleistung in Form von Workfare (d.h. öffentlich organisierter Vollzeitbeschäftigung) abhängig. Wer das Workfare-Angebot nicht annimmt, muss aber auf sein Arbeitslosengeld II verzichten.

Nach den Armuts- und Reichtumsberichten der Bundesregierung hat die Einkommensarmut in Deutschland den höchsten Stand seit 20 Jahren erreicht. Dieser statistische Befund wird vielfach als Beleg für die Existenz und das Wachstum einer "abgehängten Unterklasse" gesehen. In anderen Szenarien erscheinen große Teile der Gesellschaft vom Absturz in die Armut bedroht. Bezieht man die Dauer von individuellen Armutsphasen und die unterschiedlichen Lebensbereiche, in denen Notsituationen auftreten, in die Analyse ein, so zeigt sich eine Zunahme verfestigter Armut. Eine Ausbreitung der Prekarität, d. h. des Pendelns zwischen der "Mitte" und der "Armut", ist nicht zu beobachten. Hauptbetroffene verfestigter Armut sind nach wie vor Arbeiter, vor allem Arbeiterfamilien mit Migrationshintergrund oder mehreren Kindern. Armut entweder als Problem einer kulturell verwahrlosten neuen Unterschicht zu deuten oder als kollektive Abstiegsbedrohung der gesamten Gesellschaft zu dramatisieren, geht an der Realität vorbei.

Bei diesem Vorschlag wird das Niveau des Arbeitslosengeldes II nicht abgesenkt und auch kein größerer Workfare-Sektor eingerichtet. Die Autoren sprechen sich vielmehr für staatliche Zuschüsse zu den Arbeitnehmerbeiträgen zur Sozialversicherung aus. So sollen Einkommen bis zu 750 € (für Alleinstehende) und 1300 € (für Paare) pro Monat vollständig von Arbeitnehmerbeiträgen zur Sozialversicherung befreit werden. Die Arbeitgeberbeiträge müssen jedoch getragen werden. Außerdem sollen die Hinzuverdienstmöglichkeiten im Minijob-Bereich reduziert und Subventionen für andere atypische Erwerbsformen abgeschafft werden.

This paper estimates the importance of workers’ outside options in wage determination. In models of search and bargaining, a worker’s wage is determined by the marginal product of labour and by a weighted average of wages in alternate jobs. Thus, the nature of the wage equation makes it difficult to isolate changes in workers’ outside options that are independent from changes in the marginal product of labour. This paper builds on the predictions of a search and bargaining model with multiple cities, industries and occupations to propose novel identification strategies. Using a unique administrative panel database for Germany, the study exploits differences in both the employment composition across cities and in job-specific skill transferability as sources of variation for identification. The main finding of the paper is that a 10% increase in the outside options of a worker generates a 7% wage increase.

We use data from a résumé audit to estimate the impact of unemployment and underemployment on the employment prospects facing recent college graduates. We find no statistical evidence of negative duration dependence associated with unemployment spells for recent college graduates. Alternatively, college graduates who are underemployed have callback rates that are 30 percent lower than that for applicants who are adequately employed. The adverse effects of underemployment are robust across cities with different labor-market conditions. Internship experience obtained while completing one's degree reduces the negative effects of underemployment substantially. We conclude that underemployment serves as a strong, negative signal to prospective employers.

Adopting a simple Phillips curve framework, we show that different labour market institutions across EU countries are associated with significant differences in the response of inflation to unemployment and exchange rate shocks. More wage coordination and higher union density flatten the Phillips curve and increase the inflation response to the real exchange rate, i.e. the exchange rate pass-through. In addition, using a new approach to the classification of goods and services as "traded" or "non-traded", we show that both these institutional effects are significantly stronger for the more exposed (traded) sector.

The view that an institutional structure causes rigidities of the labour market is broadly accepted by policy makers. This assessment is conventionally based on unemployment theories that establish a linkage between labour market institutions and unemployment in the long run. Empirical research engages in investigation if the theoretical link between unemployment and labour market institutions could be proved to prevail. This paper provides an econometric analysis of determinants of unemployment in the long run in a set of Central and Eastern European countries for the period of 2002–2012. The evidence that institutional structure cause rigidities of the labour market and have direct effects on unemployment rate in these economies is found in this study. A set of non-structural indicators, accounted by macroeconomic shocks, also prove to have effects on the labour market outcomes. From a policy making perspective such implications suggest that structural labour market reforms and increases in the overall labour market flexibility in these economies is required to bring unemployment rates down.

We provide an assessment of the state of scholarly and policy debates on migrant entrepreneurs in development. They are often described as super-entrepreneurs who contribute to development through (i) being more entrepreneurial than natives; (ii) providing remittances that fund start-ups in their countries of origin and (iii) returning entrepreneurial skills to their home countries when they re-migrate. We evaluate these three views and conclude that the empirical evidence to support the notion of the migrant as a super-entrepreneur is weak. We further argue that the evidence is less ambiguous on the general development contribution of migration over and above its contribution through entrepreneurship. The implication is that removal of discriminatory barriers against migrants and against migrant entrepreneurs in labour, consumer and financial markets will promote development in both sending and receiving countries, not least through reducing the shares of migrants that are reluctant entrepreneurs.

The paper proposes a novel methodology based on a non-parametric method to estimate intragenerational income mobility. We apply it to the analysis of mobility of a sample of Italian individuals (between 16 and 65 years old) from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) by the Bank of Italy in the period 1987-2010. First, the linear specification of the Markovian model is estimated removing the assumption of no serial correlation in the error term suggesting a low level of income mobility. Second, a non-linear specification of Markovian model is estimated providing both "local" and global measures of income mobility. Income mobility appears to be low; in particular it reaches a minimum in the middle of income distribution and maximum values at the extreme bounds, with an income elasticity ranging from 0.4 to 0.8 in the relevant range of income (0.5-2). Moreover, from 1987-1998 to 2000-2010 income mobility has increased over time, in particular in the middle of distribution.

This paper studies gender spillovers in career advancement using 11 years of employer-employee matched data on the population of white-collar workers at over 4,000 private-sector establishments in Norway. Our data include unusually detailed job information for each worker, which enables us to define seven hierarchical ranks that are consistent across establishments and over time in order to measure promotions (defined as year-to-year rank increases) even for individuals who change employers. We first find that women have significantly lower promotion rates than men across all ranks of the corporate hierarchy, even after controlling for a range of individual characteristics (age, education, tenure, experience) and including fixed effects for current rank, year, industry, and even work establishment. In measuring the effects of female coworkers, we find positive gender spillovers across ranks (flowing from higher-ranking to lower-ranking women) but negative spillovers within ranks. The finding that greater female representation at higher ranks narrows the gender gap in promotion rates at lower ranks suggests that policies that increase female representation in corporate leadership can have spillover benefits to women in lowers ranks.

The global economic crisis of 2008 had great repercussions on labor markets around the world. In order to mitigate the adverse effects of the crisis on employment, Turkey introduced a number of measures in the last quarter of 2008 and during the first half of 2009, such as a general reduction of social security contributions, targeted reductions for hiring youth and women, an increase in unemployment insurance payments and a more active use of the short-time working compensation program. Using the Income and Living Conditions Survey panel data for 2006-2010, this study aims at examining the role of labor market reforms in shaping the labor market performance in Turkey. To this end, we compute the Markov transition probabilities of individuals moving across three different labor market states: employment, unemployment and not in labor force. The results of the study reveal that the policy measures, in general, helped in alleviating the adverse effects of the crisis on the Turkish labor markets. The measures specifically targeting youth and women were effective in promoting the employment of these disadvantaged groups, the beneficial effects being more pronounced for women. However, the results show that after the coverage of these measures was broadened to include all workers, the advantage of young and female workers disappeared. Finally, the transition probabilities calculated for different education groups reveal that the probability of remaining in employment increases significantly with education.

We use the survey Generation 98 to study the tra jectories of youth between ?ve states of the labour market: permanent employment contracts, temporary employment contracts, subsidized employments, unemployment, non-participation. These youths are leaving education system in 1998. We use a dynamic multinomial logit model with random e?ects in order to study labour market transitions of young workers. Initial conditions are treated using the method proposed by Heckman (1981). Initial conditions consist in the neighborhood of origin at the time they leave the education system, the level of the diploma and the initial position on the market. Censoring on the location at the time they leave education is formally taken into account in modeling. The model we use allows to disentangle true from spurious state dependence. We assess the impact of neighborhood of origin on youth labour market histories. We evaluate the impact of subsidized employment on labour market transitions on a recent period

Although private equity firms are often criticized for layoffs, little evidence exists regarding which employees lose their jobs and why. We argue that explanations for the job polarization process can also explain layoffs after buyouts. Buyouts reduce agency problems, which triggers automation, offshoring, and tougher bargaining with labor unions. We show that workers in less productive firms who perform routine or offshorable job tasks are more likely to lose their jobs. The opposite trend holds for workers who perform non-routine or non-offshorable job tasks. Moreover, workers who belong to aggressive labor unions are more likely to lose their jobs.

This research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects). The authors also acknowledge the Marie Curie programme under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects). The literature on neighbourhood effects suggests that the lack of social mobility of some groups has a spatial dimension. It is thought that those living in the most deprived neighbourhoods are the least likely to achieve upward mobility because of a range of negative neighbourhood effects. Most studies investigating such effects only identify correlations between individual outcomes and their residential environment and do not take into account that selection into neighbourhoods is a non-random mechanism. This paper investigates occupational mobility between 1991 and 2001 for those who were employed in Scotland in 1991 by using unique longitudinal data from Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS). We add to the existing literature by investigating neighbourhood effects on occupational mobility separately for social renters, private renters and home owners. We find that ‘neighbourhood effects’ are strongest for home owners, which is an unexpected finding. We argue that the correlation between characteristics of the residential environment and occupational mobility can at least partially be explained by selection effects: homeowners with the least resources, who are least likely to experience upward mobility, are also most likely to sort into the most deprived neighbourhoods. Social housing tenants experience less selective sorting across neighbourhoods as other than market forces are responsible for the neighbourhood sorting mechanism. Publisher PDF

This note examines whether subjective general health in Europe has changed since the onset of the economic crisis. Subjective general health for Ireland, Spain and Portugal is compared before and after the onset of the recession. Two other European economies, Germany and United Kingdom, are also examined. The change in the proportion of respondents reporting good or very good health is also plotted against the change in the unemployment rate over the period 2007-2012. Subjective general health improves slightly in countries experiencing sharp recessions. Across European countries there is no link between changes in subjective general health and in unemployment: no evidence is found to suggest that the Great Recession has worsened morbidity in Europe.

This paper investigates an equilibrium search model in which search frictions are increasing with the distance to a city’s central business district, allowing for on-the-job search and endogenous wage formation and land allocation. The findings suggest that the decentralized market results in a more segregated outcome than may be socially desirable. The externality comes from the misguided incentives for the low-paid workers, who have a high preference for central locations in order to climb up the job ladder. Policies reducing the rental costs of un- employed workers for locations close to the central business district may potentially increase welfare.

This paper presents a study of the monthly dynamics of social assistance benefit receipt – in particular the distribution of spell lengths and the incidence of repeat receipt – in four European countries: Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The analysis is based on four separate administrative panel data sets with long observation periods. Benefit dynamics vary considerably across countries over the eight-year period from January 2001 to December 2008: In the two Nordic countries, short-term benefit receipt is the norm with only around 6% and 11% of spells in Norway and Sweden lasting longer than 12 months. Most recipients however have multiple spells, and the majority of benefit leavers return to benefits within three months of leaving. In Luxembourg and the Netherlands, long-term benefit receipt is frequent, with median spell lengths of 14 and 9 months, respectively, and one-third and one-quarter of all spells lasting 24 months or longer. Benefit leavers in these countries are by contrast much less likely to return to benefit receipt after exit. The total duration of benefit receipt per individual across spells is two to three times as high in the Netherlands and Luxembourg than in Norway and Sweden over the eight-year period. Research Council of Norway (194339) INET grant INO1200010, Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School

This paper presents a study of the monthly dynamics of social assistance benefit receipt - in particular the distribution of spell lengths and the incidence of repeat receipt - in four European countries: Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The analysis is based on four separate administrative panel data sets with long observation periods. Benefit dynamics vary considerably across countries over the eight-year period from January 2001 to December 2008: In the two Nordic countries, short-term benefit receipt is the norm with only around 6% and 11% of spells in Norway and Sweden lasting longer than 12 months. Most recipients however have multiple spells, and the majority of benefit leavers return to benefits within three months of leaving. In Luxembourg and the Netherlands, long-term benefit receipt is frequent, with median spell lengths of 14 and 9 months, respectively, and one-third and one-quarter of all spells lasting 24 months or longer. Benefit leavers in these countries are by contrast much less likely to return to benefit receipt after exit. The total duration of benefit receipt per individual across spells is two to three times as high in the Netherlands and Luxembourg than in Norway and Sweden over the eight-year period.

The educational system is perhaps the most important feature for labour market entry. During the last decades huge investments have been made at different levels in this system, the Knowledge lift and a doubling of the number of students in tertiary education are examples, but what are the effects of these investments? The age of labour market entry has risen dramatically since the 1990s and in particular among those without fulfilled secondary schooling. In the paper I analyse the educational system in Sweden, mainly from secondary sources, in three dimensions – in terms of quality, efficiency and relevance. These are seen as essential in order to deliver both competence to businesses and to give young people opportunities in the labour market. Because of deficiencies in all three dimensions: foremost lack of quality at primary and secondary level, which is visible at PISA-tests, lack of efficiency at secondary and tertiary level that is visible when we measure examination frequency and graduation age, and lastly lack of relevance which is mostly notable in the vocational training.

It is well documented that displaced workers suffer severe earnings losses, but not why this is so. One reason may be that workers are unable or unwilling to move to regions with better employment opportunities. We study this and find that job displacement increases regional mobility but, surprisingly, we also find that displaced workers who move suffer larger income losses than displaced workers who stay in the same region. This is not a selection effect, but reflects the fact that non-economic factors such as family ties are very important for the decision to migrate. Workers are less likely to move if they have family in the region where they already live, and job loss stimulates workers to relocate with parents and siblings when they live in different regions. Looking at earnings we find that the entire post displacement income difference between displaced movers and stayers is driven by workers moving to regions where their parents live or to rural areas. Furthermore, when looking at long-run family income, we find that the difference between displaced movers and stayers is very modest. With respect to selection, we find that migrants are positively selected on average, but very heterogeneous. They seem to be drawn disproportionately both from the high and the low end of the skill distribution in the region they leave.

The purpose of this study is to adopt the principles of labour economics, behavioural economics (BE) and social economics (SE) to explain an agent's functioning over employment, non-employment and across various inactivity categories in the labour market. An empirical methodological approach has been adopted, where data from the British Household Panel Survey (2009) has been collected to formulate two types of models: the first type explaining non-employment and employment between genders, the second type investigating the subset of non-employed people and different categories of non-employment (such as employment (unemployment, students, disabled, early retired and carers), differentiating for gender and age characteristics. We found that labour market opportunities, choices and achievements are all affected by the interrelations and interactions of individual's demographic and psychological characteristics (such as age, gender, heuristic, perceptions, beliefs, attitude, goals and ambitions) with external factors (such as geographical, socio-cultural and economic conditions). This study makes a unique contribution to labour economics as we abandon the traditional welfare approach and use a more general framework of capabilities and refined functioning (proposed by Amartya Sen) to interpret how different types of constraints - ranging from socioeconomic conditions and environmental background to specific features of individual processes of choices and decision making - affect preferences and functionings. The influences of ``under-employment'' and ``career markers'' will also be evaluated in the context of this study.

This paper describes a dynamic factor model of 19 U.S. labor market indicators, covering the broad categories of unemployment and underemployment, employment, workweeks, wages, vacancies, hiring, layoffs, quits, and surveys of consumers' and businesses' perceptions. The resulting labor market conditions index (LMCI) is a useful tool for gauging the change in labor market conditions. In addition, the model provides a way to organize discussions of the signal value of different labor market indicators in situations when they might be sending diverse signals. The model takes the greatest signal from private payroll employment and the unemployment rate. Other influential indicators include the insured unemployment rate, consumers' perceptions of job availability, and help-wanted advertising. Through the lens of the LMCI, labor market conditions have improved at a moderate pace over the past several years, albeit with some notable variation along the way. In addition, from t he perspective of the model, the unemployment rate declined a bit faster over the past two years than was consistent with the other indicators.

We study the impact of graduating in a recession in Flanders (Belgium), i.e. in a rigid labor market. In the presence of a high minimum wage, a typical recession hardly influences the hourly wage of low educated men, but reduces working time and earnings by about 4.5% up to twelve years after graduation. For the high educated, the working time is not persistently affected, but the penalty on the hourly wage (and earnings) increases with experience, and attains roughly -6% ten years after labor market entry. We also contribute to the literature on inference with few clusters.

Using German establishment data, this study finds that the share of blue-collar workers, an outdated production technology and a high-wage policy increase the probability that employers regard the threat of dismissal as a suitable incentive. A participatory human resource management policy, the incidence of a works council and difficulties in filling vacancies decrease the probability.

Long-term unemployment was a problem both during the Great Depression and today. As employers view the long-term unemployed as lower-quality employees, this reduces their prospects for reemployment long after the end of a recession, a phenomenon which has been previously described as "hysteresis in unemployment." I find that hysteresis was a significant problem during the Great Depression as the number of long-term unemployed rose, but that the essentially unlimited labor demand during the Second World War provided jobs even to the long-term unemployed. As a result, the hysteresis effect was reversed and labor market conditions in the 1950s resembled those of the 1920s prior to the Great Depression. The Beveridge Curve has also shifted out during the Great Recession as long-term unemployment has risen. Both of these shifts are also evident during the Great Depression. I provide some rough estimates of the costs of this hysteresis effect through a counterfactual simulation where the unemployed are matched to new jobs during the Great Recession and its aftermath just as easily as they were before the Great Recession. Without the pernicious effect of hysteresis, there could be over 12 million more employed Americans today.

This research was funded by The Institute for Housing and Urban Research (IBF) at Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Marie Curie programme under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects). Studies of neighbourhood effects typically investigate the instantaneous effect of point-in-time measures of neighbourhood poverty on individual outcomes. It has been suggested that it is not solely the current neighbourhood, but also the neighbourhood history of an individual that is important in determining an individual’s outcomes. Using a population of parental home-leavers in Stockholm, Sweden, this study investigates the effects of two temporal dimensions of exposure to neighbourhood environments on personal income later in life: the parental neighbourhood at the time of leaving the home and the cumulative exposure to poverty neighbourhoods in the subsequent 17 years. Using unique longitudinal Swedish register data and bespoke individual neighbourhoods, we are the first to employ a hybrid model, which combines both random and fixed effects approaches in a study of neighbourhood effects. We find independent and non-trivial effects on income of the parental neighbourhood and cumulative exposure to poverty concentration neighbourhoods. Publisher PDF

Means-tested Social Assistance (SA) benefits play an important role as social protection floors supporting households in financial difficulties. This paper presents evidence on the patterns of SA benefit receipt in a selection of OECD and EU countries. It provides an overview of the role of SA benefits in social protection systems and assesses the generosity of benefit payments. It then studies the dynamics of SA benefit receipt based on micro-level data describing trends in aggregate receipt and transition rates and presenting new evidence on spell durations and repeat spells. The final part of the paper summarizes recent empirical evidence on state dependence (or 'scarring effects') in benefit receipt and discusses its possible sources and policy implications.

In this paper, we shed more light on the subjective well-being of workfare participants and compare it to the well-being of unemployed and employed workers. We use data from a self-conducted survey among participants in workfare schemes in Germany. We examine two subdimensions of subjective well-being – life satisfaction and emotional well-being – separately to obtain a more comprehensive view of the subjective impact of workfare jobs. Our results show that the life satisfaction of workfare participants is between that of employed and unemployed people. More surprisingly, perhaps, we find that their emotional well-being is the highest of these three groups.

Romania, an important provider of immigrants – especially for member states of the European Union – has remarkable potential for developing returnee entrepreneurship. Observing this context, through this paper I aim to highlight means of encouraging this phenomenon in Romania, one of the main objectives referring to the development of a best practice guide in order to promote and sustain returnee entrepreneurship. Based on an intensive process of literature review, following the experience of other countries with a high degree of experience in this field, I created a model that illustrates a series of specific features displayed by this phenomenon, as well as a best practice guide. This guide mainly outlines a series of directions regarding financial, legislative, institutional, and educational aspects. Through this paper, I aim to bring a contribution to the development of the scientific literature in the field of returnee entrepreneurship and to raise awareness among policy makers on the complexity and importance of this phenomenon. Furthermore, by detailing the components of this model in Romania and by presenting the best practice guide, this paper may represent an important starting point in developing a national strategy for encouraging emigrants` return and the development of entrepreneurial activities among them.

Decentralisation of decision-making in active labour market policy makes it possible to use local information to the fullest, but may also impinge on the fulfilment of national objectives, as suggested by principal-agent theory. The purpose of this study is to ex-amine the effects of a Swedish pilot programme in 1996, which strengthened the role of the local authorities in labour market policy in parts of the country. Survey evidence suggests a non-negligible divergence between the objectives of the municipality repre-sentatives and the central government's goals. Regarding programme effects, our econometric findings do not indicate any increase in geographical lock-in of the unem-ployed, but decentralisation seems to spur local initiatives in the form of labour market programmes organised by the municipalities. In addition, targeting on outsiders is to some extent more common in municipal projects than in others.

Atypical employment contracts are either considered as traps that hinder permanent employment in the primary segment of the labour market or as stepping-stones leading to stable employment. Whereas the former interpretation appears to apply to Germany, our analysis of on-call contracts in the comparatively weakly regulated Swiss labour market, dynamics are high: mobility between working on-call jobs and permanent employment contracts is sizable, and no evidence of discriminatory wage practices can be observed. Furthermore, no significant differences in job-satisfaction levels between on-call and other employees exist. Nevertheless, some persistence phenomena can be observed on the Swiss labour market as well.

Am 24. und 25. März 2006 fand an der Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing unter der Leitung von Dr. Wolfgang Quaisser und Karl-Heinz Willenborg die Tagung "Arbeitslosigkeit ohne Ende? Die Arbeitsmarkt- und Beschäftigungspolitik der neuen Bundesregierung in der Kontroverse" statt. Im Zentrum der Tagung standen die im Koalitionsvertrag vorgeschlagenen arbeitsmarktpolitischen Maßnahmen. Als Mitglied der Bundesregierung erläutert Franz Müntefering, Bundesminister für Arbeit und Soziales, die Arbeitsmarkt- und Beschäftigungspolitik der Bundesregierung. Hermann Otto Solms, FDP-Bundestagsfraktion, Heike Maria Kunstmann, Gesamtmetall, und Wilhelm Adamy, DGB, nehmen als Vertreter der Opposition, der Arbeitgeber und der Arbeitnehmer Stellung dazu. Joachim Möller, Universität Regensburg, legt seine Bewertung aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht dar. Im Anschluss daran prüfen Peter Hampe, TU Dresden, und Ulrich Walwei, Michael Feil und Lisa Tillmann, IAB, Nürnberg, ob aus der deutschen Wirtschafts- und Arbeitsmarktpolitik seit der Wiedervereinigung Lehren für Deutschland im Kampf gegen die Arbeitslosigkeit gezogen werden können. Zum Abschluss berichten Michael Knogler, Osteuropa-Institut München, und Wolfgang Quaisser, Politische Akademie Tutzing, Wolfgang Ochel, ifo Institut, und Henry Werner, dänische Botschaft, Berlin, über die Arbeitsmarktpolitik der neuen EU-Mitgliedstaaten, der USA sowie Dänemarks.

The Czech Republic is no longer an employment haven, the site of what had been declared as an “unemployment miracle.” What happened? In this paper, the authors gather various statistical and sociological data on employment and unemployment trends, wage development, and workers’ opinions and their labor market strategies, taken from various surveys. In such manner, not only is the history of the Czech labor market over the past decade written, but also the reasons for the deteriorating labor market performance are addressed, and an appropriate policy agenda is outlined. In particular, the authors identify existing labor market rigidities and show that high unemployment here proceeds in an ever-widening gyre, resulting in the emergence of the unemployment trap and benefit dependency. Active labor market policy measures alone appear to be insufficient to deal with this problem.

We simulate the effect of the introduction of premium differentiation (experience rating) in the Dutch Unemployment Insurance system on the demand for labor for a variety of sectors in the Dutch economy. For the simulations we use the Bentolila and Bertola (1990) framework as a point of departure. In the simulations, the introduction of experience rating is modeled as expenditure neutral: in the absence of premium differentiation the cost of financing UI is modeled as a wage tax (independent of the number of workers fired by the firm), whereas in the presence of experience rating this cost is attributed to firing cost (affected by the firing action). Thus, the introduction of experience rating results in a shift from wage cost to firing cost. Following the political debate on the issue in the Netherlands, we assume that the introduction of experience rating does neither lead to a change in tax rates paid by workers nor to a change in eligibility rules or replacement rates of benefit claimants. Specific attention is paid to the distinction between 'young' and 'old' workers . In the model, labor adjustment costs (hiring and firing costs) are linear. The model allows for uncertainty in the business cycle.

We analyze mobility in urban Mexico between three labor market states: working in the formal sector, working in the informal sector, and not working. We use a dynamic multinomial logit panel data model with random effects, explaining the labor market state of each individual during each time period. The data is drawn from Mexico's Urban Employment Survey, a quarterly household survey for urban Mexico. Two separate five-wave panels are used: the first covering a period of rapid economic growth (1992 - 1993), the second a period of recession after the Peso crisis (1994 - 1995). Our main results are in line with the theory that formal sector jobs are superior to informal sector jobs and that working in the informal sector is a temporary state for those who cannot find a formal sector job and cannot afford not to work. Entry and exit rates for the formal sector are lower than for the informal sector. The probability of formal sector employment strongly increases with education level. For men, it is easier to enter the formal sector from the non-working state than from the informal sector. The probability of working in the informal sector decreases with the level of income of other family members, while the probability of not working increases with it.

A two-region economy consists of a given but different number of immobile workers in each region, and a given number of mobile firms. Firms create jobs where they locate, but there is frictional unemployment. Two sorts of agglomeration effects arise: those from economies of scale in matching, and those from production economies external to the firm. Regions may either be part of a unitary state in which case all regional policies are decided by the central government, or they may abe part of a federal state in which case some policies are determined by the regional governments. We characterize the resource allocations in both a unitary and a federal state, and identify the set of instruments that are required to replicate the social optimum in each state.

Over the past few years, there has been a steadily increasing interest on the part of economists in happiness research. This paper argues that reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical approximation to individual utility and endeavors to provide an impression of this new, and challenging, development. We study data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to better understand (i) the role of aspirations in the relationship between income and happiness and (ii) the effect of unemployment on people?s satisfaction with life. We discuss some of the consequences for economic policy and for economic theory.

Using a general equilibrium model of a protected developing economy, we demonstrate that imperfect labor mobility may eliminate the possibility of immiserizing growth from foreign investment in an export enclave by allowing job creation to countervail losses in tariff revenue.

Trotz Rückgangs der erwerbstätigen Akademiker und steigender Arbeitslosenzahlen heben sich die qualifikationsspezifischen Arbeitslosenquoten der Akademiker immer noch deutlich positiv von den anderen Gruppen ab. Personen ohne Berufsabschluss sind weiterhin die größte Problemgruppe am Arbeitsmarkt: Auf einen Erwerbstätigen dieser Gruppe kommt in Sachsen mehr als ein registrierter Arbeitsloser.

Als weiterer Redner beim 3. Munich Economic Summit äußerte sich Prof. Giuseppe Bertola, Universitá di Torino, zu den aus seiner Sicht notwendigen Reformen in Europa. Er unterstrich in seinem Vortrag vor allen Dingen, dass nicht nur die Arbeitsmärkte, sondern auch andere Bereiche reformiert werden und dies in gewissem Rahmen EU-weit koordiniert werden sollte.

Pour sortir des approches centrees sur la resolution d’un probleme productif, ce texte prend le travail comme clef d’entree de la dynamique territoriale. La notion d’hybridation, traduisant l’enchevetrement des formes diverses de mise au travail caracterise la phase actuelle du capitalisme pour laquelle mobilite et flexibilite sont les maitres mots. L’evolution recente des districts industriels italiens, examinee sous cet angle, est evoquee pour elucider les possibles repercussions spatiales de la diversite des statuts du travail. Celles-ci ne tombent pas sous le sens, ce qui conduit a penser que pour analyser dans quelle mesure les pratiques de travail sont a la base de la constitution de territoires, une approche en termes d’economie solidaire offrirait une perspective renouvelee de la dynamique territoriale.

Mobility restrictions (e.g., severance payment, life-long tenure, and divorce ban) are widely observed. I present a partnership model that highlights the 'break-up externality' (i.e., the negative effect of a person's break-up decision on his current partner). Under this externality, there is too much searching for new partners and too much breaking-up of existing partnerships. Restrictions such as a break-up payment and break-up ban can reduce the levels of searching and breaking-up and improve welfare. Thus the paper rationalizes mobility restrictions as welfare-improving arrangements. (Copyright: Elsevier)

This paper examines the effect of a husband's job loss on the labor supply of his wife, an effect known as the 'added worker' effect. Unlike past added worker effect studies which focus on the effect of the husband's current unemployment status, this paper analyzes the wife's labor supply response in the periods before and after her husband's job displacement in order to examine the short- and long-run adjustments to an earnings shock. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, small pre-displacement effects are found along with larger and persistent post-displacement effects. The timing of the wives' responses differs by the type of displacement (plant closing vs. permanent layoff), possibly due to differences in the information wives acquire prior to the displacement. In addition, the response is found to increase with the magnitude of the husband's wage loss, to have changed over time (70's vs. 80's) and to vary by the husband's pre-displacement earnings. The long-run increases in the wife's labor supply account for over 25% of the husband's lost income.