Author: Andrea De MichelisPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Essays on the Macroeconomic Effects of Labor Market Rigidities
Hysteresis and Business Cycles
Author: Ms.Valerie CerraPublisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513536990
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 50
Book Description
Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.
Explaining Unemployment in Spain
Author: Mr.Jeffrey R. FranksPublisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451852576
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 42
Book Description
Spain has the most serious and persistent unemployment problem in Europe, with an unemployment rate that reached 24.6 percent in early 1994. This paper explores the characteristics of this unemployment problem, its causes, and provides a brief discussion of recent labor market reform measures and their likely Impact. A demographic shift in recent years has produced a large rise in female labor force participation and a decrease in agricultural jobs to which the economy has been unable to adjust. The effects of generous unemployment benefits and the large underground economy may explain 6–12 percentage points of the resulting unemployment, but the remainder must be explained by failures and rigidities in the labor market. The paper presents econometric evidence that unemployment displays hysteresis, and that wages are not responsive to changes in the unemployment rate. This evidence supports the claim that insider-outsider factors and rigidities in the legal structure of the labor market are responsible for much of the high unemployment rate. Recent reforms have improved the functioning of the labor market, but they are unlikely to be sufficient to reduce unemployment to single digit rates without further action.
What is the Impact of Increased Business Competition?
Author: Sónia FélixPublisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513521519
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 57
Book Description
This paper studies the macroeconomic effect and underlying firm-level transmission channels of a reduction in business entry costs. We provide novel evidence on the response of firms' entry, exit, and employment decisions. To do so, we use as a natural experiment a reform in Portugal that reduced entry time and costs. Using the staggered implementation of the policy across the Portuguese municipalities, we find that the reform increased local entry and employment by, respectively, 25% and 4.8% per year in its first four years of implementation. Moreover, around 60% of the increase in employment came from incumbent firms expanding their size, with most of the rise occurring among the most productive firms. Standard models of firm dynamics, which assume a constant elasticity of substitution, are inconsistent with the expansionary and heterogeneous response across incumbent firms. We show that in a model with heterogeneous firms and variable markups the most productive firms face a lower demand elasticity and expand their employment in response to increased entry.
The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and MedicinePublisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309444454
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 643
Book Description
The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration finds that the long-term impact of immigration on the wages and employment of native-born workers overall is very small, and that any negative impacts are most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born high school dropouts. First-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born, but the second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. This report concludes that immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S. More than 40 million people living in the United States were born in other countries, and almost an equal number have at least one foreign-born parent. Together, the first generation (foreign-born) and second generation (children of the foreign-born) comprise almost one in four Americans. It comes as little surprise, then, that many U.S. residents view immigration as a major policy issue facing the nation. Not only does immigration affect the environment in which everyone lives, learns, and works, but it also interacts with nearly every policy area of concern, from jobs and the economy, education, and health care, to federal, state, and local government budgets. The changing patterns of immigration and the evolving consequences for American society, institutions, and the economy continue to fuel public policy debate that plays out at the national, state, and local levels. The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration assesses the impact of dynamic immigration processes on economic and fiscal outcomes for the United States, a major destination of world population movements. This report will be a fundamental resource for policy makers and law makers at the federal, state, and local levels but extends to the general public, nongovernmental organizations, the business community, educational institutions, and the research community.
The Demographic Dividend
Author: David BloomPublisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833033735
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127
Book Description
There is long-standing debate on how population growth affects national economies. A new report from Population Matters examines the history of this debate and synthesizes current research on the topic. The authors, led by Harvard economist David Bloom, conclude that population age structure, more than size or growth per se, affects economic development, and that reducing high fertility can create opportunities for economic growth if the right kinds of educational, health, and labor-market policies are in place. The report also examines specific regions of the world and how their differing policy environments have affected the relationship between population change and economic development.
Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality
Author: Ms.Era Dabla-NorrisPublisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513547437
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 39
Book Description
This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.
Private Government
Author: Elizabeth AndersonPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691192243
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can’t see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.
Wage-Led Growth
Author: Engelbert StockhammerPublisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137357932
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
This volume seeks to go beyond the microeconomic view of wages as a cost having negative consequences on a given firm, to consider the positive macroeconomic dynamics associated with wages as a major component of aggregate demand.
Informality
Author: Guillermo PerryPublisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821370936
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
Analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. This book uses two distinct but complementary lenses. It concludes that reducing informality levels and overcoming the "culture of informality" will require actions to increase aggregate productivity in the economy.