Publications

168 publications found, searching for 'Employment Policy and Labor Markets '

• Policy Notes April 21, 2025

  Remembering Pope Francis’s Call for a Universal Basic Wage

  Pavlina R. Tcherneva
  Abstract

  On April 21, 2025, a day after Easter Sunday, the world mourned the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis. Five years earlier, on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020—amid the devastating COVID-19 pandemic—he issued a powerful plea for economic justice, urging leaders to address the deepening crisis of insecurity faced by workers. His call for a universal […]

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• Working Paper No. 1066 December 06, 2024

  Job Guarantee Program and the Kaleckian Dilemma

  Caio Vilella, and Eduardo F. Bastian
  Abstract

  Originally issued as EDI Working Paper No. 10, November 2023 Minsky (1965) has presented the Job Guarantee program as a recommendation in the war against unemployment and poverty. Kalecki (1943), on the other hand, argued that the full employment situation could be technically feasible but politically hard to implement due to the class struggle, resulting […]

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• Working Paper No. 1060 November 26, 2024

  The Job Guarantee

  Pavlina R. Tcherneva
  Abstract

  Originally issued as EDI Working Paper No. 02, 2022 Orthodox economic theory presents the policy maker with an impossible choice: eradicate unemployment at the cost of undesirable inflation or keep prices stable by maintaining some level of involuntary unemployment. This is the canon, as embodied in the natural rate of unemployment theory and the Non-Accelerating […]

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• Policy Notes March 14, 2024

  European Job Guarantee

  Rania Antonopoulos
  Abstract

  Despite the gradual economic recovery and positive policy responses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem of long-term unemployment continues to plague millions in Europe. To effectively address this and other overlapping crises in Europe, we need radical changes, according to Senior Scholar Rania Antonopoulos; and in this context, the job guarantee policy has been gaining […]

  Download Policy Note 2024/4 PDF (293.42 KB)
• One-Pager No. 71 December 14, 2023

  Has the Time Arrived for a Job Guarantee in Europe?

  Rania Antonopoulos
  Abstract

  In comparison to the policy responses in the aftermath of the 2008–9 global financial crisis, the reactions of EU policymakers to the combined shocks of the COVID-19 crisis and Ukraine-Russia conflict reveal a greater willingness to deploy public finance in support of the population. Yet, while this display of renewed solidarity is commendable, policymakers have […]

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• Working Paper No. 1022 July 12, 2023

  Has the Time for a European Job Guarantee Policy Arrived?

  Rania Antonopoulos
  Abstract

  As country after country in the European Union is called to respond to the current challenge of our time—high inflation and declining real wages—governments must engage in a transformative agenda and go beyond emergency energy vouchers and income support cash-transfers. And if the goal is to lead the way to a resilient and sustainable European […]

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• Working Paper No. 997 December 22, 2021

  Identity and Well-Being in the Skilled Crafts and Trades

  Martin Binder, and Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg
  Abstract

  We analyze the extent to which occupational identity is conducive to worker well-being. Using a unique survey dataset of individuals working in the German skilled crafts and trades (2017–18, n=757), we use a novel occupational identity measure that captures identity more broadly than just referring to organizational identification and social group membership, but rather comprises […]

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• Working Paper No. 981 January 19, 2021

  What Jobs Should a Public Job Guarantee Provide?

  Daniel Haim
  Abstract

  The job guarantee is a viable policy option for tackling both unemployment and underemployment. Hyman P. Minsky was one of the seminal writers on this subject. The first part of this working paper provides a survey of Minsky’s writings to identify what kind of jobs he had in mind when recommending employer-of-last-resort policies. Minsky favored: […]

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• Working Paper No. 976 November 11, 2020

  The Palestinian Labor Market over the Last Three Decades

  Sameh Hallaq
  Abstract

  This paper consists of three economic literature review essays that survey the Palestinian labor market during the last three decades. The first essay examines the economic return to schooling since 1981 until the recent period, taking into consideration the major shocks that the Palestinian economy experienced, such as the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas (1987–93 […]

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• Working Paper No. 963 July 16, 2020

  The Early Impact of COVID-19 on Job Losses among Black Women in the United States

  Thomas Masterson, Michelle Holder, and Janelle Jones
  Abstract

  The COVID-19 pandemic seemingly appeared out of nowhere but changed nearly everything. As the pandemic unfolded, industries deemed nonessential were leveled. Many occupations in these industries are low-wage, and women constitute a greater share of America’s low-wage labor force than men. Even as some workers were able to do their jobs from their homes, a […]

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• Book Series July 07, 2020

  The Case for a Job Guarantee

  Pavlina R. Tcherneva
  Abstract

  One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false. In this book, leading expert Pavlina R. Tcherneva challenges us to imagine a world where the phantom of […]

• Policy Notes No. 4 May 05, 2020

  Guaranteeing Employment during the Pandemic and Beyond

  Pavlina R. Tcherneva
  Abstract

  The ongoing job losses, already numbering in the tens of millions, and the mass unemployment that will remain once the COVID-19 crisis has passed are of our own making, argues Pavlina R. Tcherneva, created by our inability to conceive of policies that protect and create jobs on demand. There is another option: instead of capitulating […]

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• Working Paper No. 949 February 12, 2020

  A Labor Market–Augmented Empirical Stock-Flow Consistent Model Applied to the Greek Economy

  Christos Pierros
  Abstract

  This paper extends the empirical stock-flow consistent (SFC) literature through the introduction of distributional features and labor market institutions in a Godley-type empirical SFC model. In particular, labor market institutions, such as the minimum wage and the collective bargaining coverage rate, are considered as determinants of the wage share and, in turn, of the distribution […]

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• Working Paper No. 946 February 03, 2020

  The Relationship between Technical Progress and Employment

  Jesus Felipe, Gemma Estrada, Donna Faye Bajaro, and John McCombie
  Abstract

  We show that Autor and Salomons’ (2017, 2018) analysis of the impact of technical progress on employment growth is problematic. When they use labor productivity growth as a proxy for technical progress, their regressions are quasi-accounting identities that omit one variable of the identity. Consequently, the coefficient of labor productivity growth suffers from omitted-variable bias, […]

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• Working Paper No. 941 December 12, 2019

  Wage Differential between Palestinian Non-refugees and Palestinian Refugees in the West Bank and Gaza

  Sameh Hallaq
  Abstract

  This paper measures the wage differential between Palestinian non-refugees and Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza over the years 1999–2012. First, the main individual and occupational differences between the two groups in the two regions are presented. Then, the wage differential is decomposed into two components: a “human capital effect, explained part” and […]

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• Working Paper No. 939 October 18, 2019

  The Macroeconomic Loss Due to Violence against Women and Girls

  Kijong Kim, Srinivas Raghavendra, Sinead Ashe, Mrinal Chadha, Felix Asante, Petri T. Piiroinen, and Nata Duvvury
  Abstract

  Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a widely recognized human rights violation with serious consequences for the health and well-being of women and their families. However, the wider ramifications of VAWG for businesses, communities, economies, and societies are only recently being recognized. Despite this recognition, there are few studies exploring how the economic and social […]

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• Working Paper No. 923 February 06, 2019

  Economic Planning under Capitalism

  Abstract

  By the beginning of the 20th century, the possibility and efficacy of economic planning was believed to have been proven by totalitarian experiments in Germany, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser degree, Fascist Italy; however, the possibilities and limitations of planning in capitalist democracies was unclear. The challenge in the United States in the […]

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• Working Paper No. 922 February 05, 2019

  It Pays to Study for the Right Job

  Fernando Rios-Avila, and Fabiola Saavedra Caballero
  Abstract

  With the rapid increase in educational attainment, technological change, and greater job specialization, decisions regarding human capital investment are no longer exclusively about the quantity of education, but rather the type of education to obtain. The skills and knowledge acquired in specific fields of study are more valuable for some jobs compared to others, which […]

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• Working Paper No. 921 January 29, 2019

  Social Policy in Mexico and Argentina

  Martha Tepepa
  Abstract

  This paper is a comparison between two programs implemented to combat poverty in Latin America: Prospera (Prosper) in Mexico and Asignación Universal por Hijo (Universal Assignment for Child) in Argentina. The first section offers a review of the emergence of the welfare state, examining economic and urban development in both countries and the underlying trends of […]

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• Working Paper No. 915 September 19, 2018

  Black Employment Trends since the Great Recession

  Thomas Masterson
  Abstract

  The Great Recession had a devastating impact on labor force participation and employment. This impact was not unlike other recessions, except in size. The recovery, however, has been unusual not so much for its sluggishness but for the unusual pattern of recovery in employment by race. The black employment–population ratio has increased since bottoming out […]

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• One-Pager No. 55 May 29, 2018

  The Job Guarantee and the Economics of Fear

  Pavlina R. Tcherneva
  Abstract

  The job guarantee (JG) is finally getting the public debate it deserves, according to Pavlina R. Tcherneva, and criticism is expected. Following the Levy Institute’s latest report analyzing the economic impact of a JG proposal and providing a blueprint for its implementation, Tcherneva responds to alarmist claims that the JG is (1) an expensive big-government […]

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• Working Paper No. 905 May 08, 2018

  Reflections on the New Deal

  John F. Henry
  Abstract

  I subject some aspects of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to critical analysis, with particular attention to what is termed “liberal democracy.” This analysis demonstrates the limits to reform, given the power of “vested interests” as articulated by Thorstein Veblen. While progressive economists and others are generally favorably disposed toward the New Deal, a critical perspective casts […]

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• Policy Notes No. 3 May 01, 2018

  A Consensus Strategy for a Universal Job Guarantee Program

  L. Randall Wray
  Abstract

  The idea of a universal job guarantee (JG) policy for the United States has become the subject of renewed public debate due to a number of high-profile political endorsements. L. Randall Wray recently coauthored a report that presented a JG proposal—the Public Service Employment program—along with estimates of the economic impact of the plan. However, […]

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• Research Project Report April 17, 2018

  Public Service Employment

  L. Randall Wray, Flavia Dantas, Scott Fullwiler, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, and Stephanie A. Kelton
  Abstract

  Despite reports of a healthy US labor market, millions of Americans remain unemployed and underemployed, or have simply given up looking for work. It is a problem that plagues our economy in good times and in bad—there are never enough jobs available for all who want to work. L. Randall Wray, Flavia Dantas, Scott Fullwiler, […]

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