Documents transition economies 171 results

"Informal jobs offer skill acquisition opportunities that may facilitate a future switch to formal employment for young workers. In this sense, informal training on the job may be a viable alternative to formal schooling in an economy with a large and diverse informal sector. In this paper, I investigate if these considerations are relevant for the schooling decisions of young individuals using panel data for 17 Latin American countries and micro-level data for Turkey. Specifically, I ask if the prevalence of informal jobs distorts schooling attainment. I concentrate on three measures of schooling outcomes: (1) secondary education enrollment rate; (2) out-of-school rate for lower secondary school; and (3) tertiary education graduation rate. I find that the secondary education enrollment rate is negatively correlated with the size of the informal economy, whereas the out-of-school rate is positively correlated. Moreover, the tertiary education graduation rates tend to fall as the informal employment opportunities increase. This means that informal training on the job may be crowding out school education in developing countries. Policies that can potentially affect the size of the informal sector should take into consideration these second-round effects on aggregate schooling outcomes."

"International organizations and mainstream economists have consistently promoted the view that labour market rigidities are responsible for high unemployment, and that wide-ranging institutional deregulation is an appropriate policy response. Yet, as demonstrated by recent literature, the empirical support for the deregulatory view is ambiguous. This paper re-assesses this debate by bringing in new evidence from a larger group of countries, which includes advanced and new market economies. Using new data and paying special attention to the robustness of estimation results, we find rather thin support for the deregulatory view. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that in most cases the adverse effects of institutions disappear with small changes in the sample or the use of alternative estimators and specifications. The impact of institutions is particularly weak in new market economies, where unemployment is related primarily to macroeconomic factors. Overall, our findings challenge the policy orthodoxy that comprehensive deregulation is the universal solution to unemployment."

"The present study examines how growing socio-economic inequalities in transitional countries that have followed different health policy paths affect women's access to reproductive health care. I conducted surveys in Kazakhstan and Belarus and used logistic regression analyses to determine accessibility to and satisfaction with reproductive health services, reproductive status, and reproductive history based on country of residence. By all measures, access to reproductive health services was most problematic for the low-income women in Kazakhstan but to a significantly lesser extent for economically disadvantaged respondents in Belarus. Differences in education had a significant effect on women's access to reproductive health services in Kazakhstan but were not present in Belarus. Household income was the most powerful predictor of self-perceived health in Kazakhstan, but not in Belarus. The unreformed health-care system in Belarus appears to be more accessible for all women than Kazakhstan's health-care system that underwent significant market-oriented reform."

"What do we know about the politics of corporate governance in emerging markets? Although the state-level institutions have been amply explored, firm-level dynamics remain under-theorized. Complementing the orthodox emphasis on external finance as causal force behind the adoption of ‘minority shareholder protections', the article outlines an alternative mechanism for firms operating in political settings with heightened risk of state intrusion. The Anglo-Saxon governance institutions can serve domestic managers as a strategy to build alliances with foreign stakeholders so as to counteract a dirigiste government. Empirically, the author seeks to explain the implementation of internationally accepted standards of corporate governance by Russia's big business between 1999 and 2004. The project disaggregates ‘corporate governance' into specific institutions and examines their quality at the firm level. The causal inference links the shift in state policy vis-à-vis corporate property to the improved treatment of minority owners by the company insiders."

"Even though informal employment is wide-spread in transition economies the literature on this phenomenon in the region is rather scarce. For policy makers it is important to know the incidence and the determinants of informal employment. In the first part of the paper we demonstrate that its incidence and to a lesser degree its determinants depend on the definition used. We then discuss studies that attempt to test for labor market segmentation in transition economies along the formal-informal divide. The presented results are inconclusive and we come to the conclusion that more work needs to be done before we can make definitive statements about whether labor markets are integrated or segmented in transition economies. Last but not least we introduce a new research area that links risk preferences and selection into labor market states. We show that if individuals have a choice, relatively risk loving workers have an increased likelihood to choose informal employment and self-employment."

"If society's goal is to increase people's feelings of well-being, economic growth in itself will not do the job. Full employment and a generous and comprehensive social safety net do increase happiness. Such policies are arguably affordable not only in higher income nations but also in countries that account for most of the population of the less-developed world. These conclusions are suggested by an analysis of a wide range of evidence on happiness in countries throughout the world. "

"This article explores the meaning of the decent work concept as applied in industrialized countries, developing countries and transition economies. After a brief discussion of the uses and limitations of indicators in these environments, the author considers more closely the suitability of indicators applied to the four major components of decent work: employment, social protection, workers' rights and social dialogue. In the process, he brings out the ILO's long-established and continuing concern with these issues, identifying relevant ILO instruments. Finally, he presents an index to measure decent work performance by 22 industrialized countries, and the results obtained."