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This paper reviews evidence from 44 middle-income countries on how the recent financial crisis affected jobs and workers' incomes. In addition to providing a rare assessment of the magnitude of the impact across several middle-income countries, the paper describes how labor markets adjusted and how the adjustments varied for different types of countries. The main finding is that the crisis affected the quality of employment more than the number of jobs. Overall, the slow-down in earning growth was considerably higher than that in employment, and the decline in gross domestic product was associated with a sharp decline in output per worker, particularly in the industrial sector. In several counties, hours per worker declined and hourly wages changed little. But both the magnitude and nature of the adjustments varied considerably across countries. For a given drop in gross domestic product, earnings declined more in countries with larger manufacturing sectors, smaller export sectors, and more stringent labor market regulations. In addition, overall employment became more sensitive to growth in gross domestic product. These findings have implications that go beyond the recent financial crisis as they highlight (i) the limitations of focusing policy responses on maintaining jobs and providing alterative employment or replacement income for the unemployed, and (ii) the critical role of fast-track data systems that are capable of monitoring ongoing labor market adjustment during economic downturns, in supporting the design of effective policy responses.

Banks & Banking Reform --- Employment --- Fast-track data systems --- Financial crisis --- Labor Management and Relations --- Labor market regulations --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets and Market Access --- Poverty Reduction --- Replacement income

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This paper analyzes recent trends in Sweden's labor market regulations in relation to comparator economies and examines the relationship between labor market regulations and outcomes. The paper finds that the Swedish labor market responded more rapidly to the recent global financial crisis than the majority of the European Union economies, which helped Sweden to recover quickly. Sweden's hiring regulations are more flexible than those of many comparator economies, however, fixed-term contracts of short duration might have adverse consequences for the economy. In addition, Sweden's regulations on work during the weekly holidays and mandatory paid annual leave are stricter than those of the majority of comparator economies. Moreover, among the economies of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Sweden has one of the largest differences in employment protection between permanent and temporary employees, which could lead to a segmented labor market, where insiders enjoy high job security and outsiders are largely marginalized. This could be cause for concern, given that Sweden has a higher share of involuntary temporary workers among youth and involuntary part-time workers than both the Nordic and European Union averages. While protecting employees is important, excessive protection, particularly if it differs across different types of employment contracts, has been shown to have adverse effects on welfare and economic performance.

Banks and Banking Reform --- Labor Management & Relations --- Labor Market Regulations and Flexibility --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Markets & Market Access --- Private Sector Development --- Productivity --- Social Protections and Labor --- Temporary Employment --- Unemployment --- Wage Determination

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While the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all countries, output losses vary considerably across countries. We provide a first analysis of robust determinants of observed initial output losses using model-averaging techniques—Weighted Average Least Squares and Bayesian Model Averaging. The results suggest that countries that experienced larger output losses are those with lower GDP per capita, more stringent containment measures, higher deaths per capita, higher tourism dependence, more liberalized financial markets, higher pre-crisis growth, lower fiscal stimulus, higher ethnic and religious fractionalization and more democratic regimes. With respect to the first factor, lower resilience of poorer countries reflects the higher economic costs of containment measures and deaths in such countries and less effective fiscal and monetary policy stimulus.

Labor --- Macroeconomics --- Diseases: Contagious --- Demography --- Institutions and the Macroeconomy --- Financial Crises --- Demographic Economics: General --- Fiscal Policy --- Health Behavior --- Health: General --- Labor Law --- Population & demography --- Infectious & contagious diseases --- Health economics --- Labour --- income economics --- Population and demographics --- Fiscal stimulus --- COVID-19 --- Health --- Labor market regulations --- Population --- Fiscal policy --- Communicable diseases --- Manpower policy --- Bangladesh --- COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020. --- Monetary policy. --- Economic policy.

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While the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all countries, output losses vary considerably across countries. We provide a first analysis of robust determinants of observed initial output losses using model-averaging techniques—Weighted Average Least Squares and Bayesian Model Averaging. The results suggest that countries that experienced larger output losses are those with lower GDP per capita, more stringent containment measures, higher deaths per capita, higher tourism dependence, more liberalized financial markets, higher pre-crisis growth, lower fiscal stimulus, higher ethnic and religious fractionalization and more democratic regimes. With respect to the first factor, lower resilience of poorer countries reflects the higher economic costs of containment measures and deaths in such countries and less effective fiscal and monetary policy stimulus.

Bangladesh --- COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020. --- Monetary policy. --- Economic policy. --- Communicable diseases --- Covid-19 --- Demographic Economics: General --- Demography --- Diseases: Contagious --- Financial Crises --- Fiscal Policy --- Fiscal policy --- Fiscal stimulus --- Health Behavior --- Health economics --- Health --- Health: General --- Income economics --- Infectious & contagious diseases --- Institutions and the Macroeconomy --- Labor Law --- Labor market regulations --- Labor --- Labour --- Macroeconomics --- Manpower policy --- Population & demography --- Population and demographics --- Population

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This study explores the effects of labor and product market deregulation on employment growth. Our empirical results, based on an OECD country panel from 1990-2004, suggest that lower levels of product and labor market regulation foster employment growth, including through sizable interaction effects. Based on these findings, the paper develops a theoretical framework for evaluating deregulation strategies in the presence of reform costs. Optimal deregulation takes various forms depending on the deregulation costs, the strength of reform interactions, and the perspective of the policymaker. Unless deregulation costs are very asymmetric across markets, optimal deregulation requires some form of coordination.

Electronic books. -- local. --- Employment (Economic theory) -- Econometric models. --- Labor market -- Econometric models. --- Finance: General --- Labor --- General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) --- Employment --- Unemployment --- Wages --- Intergenerational Income Distribution --- Aggregate Human Capital --- Aggregate Labor Productivity --- Labor Law --- Demand and Supply of Labor: General --- Labor Economics Policies --- Labour --- income economics --- Finance --- Commodity markets --- Labor market regulations --- Labor markets --- Labor market reforms --- Commodity exchanges --- Manpower policy --- Economic theory --- Labor market --- Germany --- Employment (Economic theory) --- Econometric models. --- Income economics