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Changes in economic systems provide a rare opportunity to redesign basic institutional structures in labor markets. This paper attempts to provide guidance for such institutional choice by drawing on the findings of recent labor market research in market economies on the links between institutional structure and labor market performance. After considering the suitability of research from market economies for the labor market problems faced by economies in transition from central planning, the paper considers the effects of alternative institutions for wage determination (collective bargaining structures and minimum wage and indexation legislation), employment security, income security, and active labor market policy.

The results of the review do not disappoint. The authors identified more than 120 cash transfer programs that were implemented between 2000 and mid-2009 in Sub-Saharan Africa. These programs have varying objectives, targeting, scale, conditions, technologies, and more. A sizable number of these programs conducted robust impact evaluations that provide important information, presented here, on the merits of cash transfer programs and their specific design features in the African context. The authors present summary information on programs, often in useful graphs, and provide detailed reference material in the appendixes. They highlight how many of the cash transfer programs in Africa that had not yet begun implementation at the time of writing will continue to provide important evaluation results that will guide the design of cash transfer programs in the region. In addition to presenting data and analysis on the mechanics of the programs, the authors discuss issues related to political economy. They highlight the importance of addressing key tradeoffs in cash transfers, political will, and buy-in, and they emphasize the need to build evidence-based debates on cash transfer programs. Useful anecdotes and discussion illustrate how some programs have dealt with these issues with varying degrees of success. This text will serve as a useful reference for years to come for those interested in large- and small-scale issues of cash transfer implementation, both in Africa and beyond. However, the book is not an end in itself. It also raises important questions that must be addressed and knowledge gaps that must be filled. Therefore, it is useful both in the information it provides and in the issues and questions it raises.

This paper develops a matching model of the labor market under wage rigidity when hiring decisions are irreversible. There are two types of workers, the skilled and the unskilled. The model is used to analyze whether technological advances may have increased unemployment. It is shown that it is likely to be so if they are associated with an increase in the productivity and/or the supply of skilled workers relative to unskilled workers. These effects are stronger when hiring decisions are more irreversible.

PurposeThere is a long period from completing studies to finding a permanent or temporary (but at least satisfactory) job in all European countries, especially in Mediterranean countries, including Italy. This paper aims to study the determinants of this duration and measure them, for the first time in a systematic way, in the case of Italy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides several measures of duration, including education level and other criteria. Furthermore, it attempts to identify the main determinants of the long Italian transition, both at a macroeconomic and an individual level. It tests for omitted heterogeneity of those who are stuck at this important crossroads in their life within the context of parametric survival models.FindingsThe average duration of the school-to-work transition for young people aged 18–34 years was 2.88 years (or 34.56 months) in 2017. A shorter duration was found for the highly educated; they found a job on average 46 months earlier than those with compulsory education. At a macroeconomic level, the duration over the years 2004–2017 was inversely related to spending in the labour market policy and in education, gross domestic product growth and the degree of trade union density; however, it was directly related to the proportion of temporary contracts. At the individual level, being a woman, a migrant or living in a densely populated area in the South are the risk factors for remaining stuck in the transition. After correcting for omitted heterogeneity, there is clear evidence of positive duration dependence.Practical implicationsPositive duration dependence suggests that focusing on education and labour policy, rather than labour flexibility, is the best way to smooth the transition.Originality/valueThis study develops our understanding of the Italian school-to-work transition regime by providing new and detailed evidence of its duration and by studying its determinants.

Since the economic crisis in 2008, European youth unemployment rates have been persistently high at around 20% on average. The majority of European countries spends significant resources each year on active labor market programs (ALMP) with the aim of improving the integration prospects of struggling youths. Among the most common programs used are training courses, job search assistance and monitoring, subsidized employment, and public work programs. For policy makers, it is of upmost importance to know which of these programs work and which are able to achieve the intended goals - may it be the integration into the first labor market or further education. Based on a detailed assessment of the particularities of the youth labor market situation, we discuss the pros and cons of different ALMP types. We then provide a comprehensive survey of the recent evidence on the effectiveness of these ALMP for youth in Europe, highlighting factors that seem to promote or impede their effectiveness in practice. Overall, the findings with respect to employment outcomes are only partly promising. While job search assistance (with and without monitoring) results in overwhelmingly positive effects, we find more mixed effects for training and wage subsidies, whereas the effects for public work programs are clearly negative. The evidence on the impact of ALMP on furthering education participation as well as employment quality is scarce, requiring additional research and allowing only limited conclusions so far

This paper answers the research question of whether economicintegration influences the drivers behind returns to education for native, EU and non-EU workers in the selected countries. It fills two gaps in the literature, assessing the role of economic integration in determining differences in returns on investments in education and testing whether ALMPs can bridge them. The literature has identified that returns to education vary between national and foreign workers. Differences among nationality groups regarding the quality of their educational background, their knowledge of the hosting labor market, or the mismatch between the qualifications and skills acquired abroad and those demanded by the local economy have been put forward to explain the gaps in returns to education. This paper contends that those factors might be economic reasons behind the differences in the returns to education but that their effect is mediated by the different degrees of economic integration between the host country and workers’ home country.

While welfare reform matters for workers and workplaces, it is peripheral in English-language sociology of work and industrial relations research. This article’s core proposition is that active labour market policies (ALMPs) are altering the institutional constitution of the labour market by intensifying market discipline within the workforce. This re-commodification effect is specified drawing on Marxism, comparative institutionalism, German-language sociology and English-language social policy analysis. Because of administrative failure and employer discrimination, however, ALMPs may worsen precarity without achieving the stated goal of increasing labour market participation.

This paper argues that an important group of labor market policies are complementary in the sense that the effect of each policy is greater when implemented in conjunction with the other policies than in isolation. This may explain why the diverse, piecemeal labor market reforms in many European countries in recent years have had so little success in reducing unemployment. What is required instead is deeper labor market reforms across a broader range of complementary policies and institutions. To be politically feasible, these reforms must be combined with measures to address distributional issues.

This paper examines recent developments in the Canadian labor market. Using disaggregated labor market data, various hypotheses concerning the slow employment growth and rise in unemployment since 1990 are evaluated. The analysis indicates that a large part of the recent rise in the unemployment rate may reflect an increase in the structural rather than the cyclical component of unemployment. Various sources of labor market rigidities that may have contributed to the increase in structural unemployment are examined. In particular, the role of the unemployment insurance system in contributing to labor market rigidity and measures for reforming this system, including the recent proposals of the government, are discussed. Finally, this paper examines active labor market policies that could help to alleviate structural unemployment.

The migration and integration of highly educated Ukrainian women immigrants into the Czech labor market is a serious problem in our increasingly global society. Exploring the influence of active labor market policies (ALMPs) on their integration uncovers both possibilities and challenges, emphasizing the need to understand how government actions may help or impede their professional development. The decision-making processes of these Ukrainian immigrant women will be investigated in this study, with an emphasis on the ways in which ALMPs impact their work integration and migration experiences. Using expert analysis and qualitative interviews, this study explores the institutional and personal dimensions of immigrant women’s integration experiences, shedding light on the systemic challenges and challenges they encounter. The findings indicate that, despite existing integration efforts through ALMPs, significant challenges persist, such as bureaucratic inefficiencies and fragmented support services. These problems can delay access to crucial resources, resulting in underemployment and job mismatches. This study emphasizes the urgent need for a more coordinated policy approach to better support the distinct decision-making processes of highly educated migrant women, ultimately fostering improved outcomes in labor market integration.