Working Paper
Demographic, employment, and wage trends in South Africa
This paper looks to uncover the growth traps and opportunities for the South African economy, with a focus on underlying labour market dynamics. We explore the potential of South Africa’s demographic dividend. We also consider the structure of the...
Working Paper
The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes on Household Work Decisions in Ghana
A cash transfer programme ‘Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty’ has been implemented with the aim of addressing poverty and vulnerability in Ghana. This study looks at the impact of this conditional cash transfer programme on households’ supply of...
Working Paper
Cross-Border Movements of People
This paper sketches a profile of international labour migration over the past fifty years and draws a distinction between different categories of labour flows in the contemporary world economy. It examines the underlying factors with an emphasis on...
Working Paper
Return International Migration and Geographical Inequality
This paper explores entrepreneurship amongst return migrants, how their business locations and characteristics differ from other businesses, and the implications for rural-urban inequality. First, we examine, amongst returnees, the determinants of...
Working Paper
Trade Liberalization and the Self-employed in Mexico
In this paper I examine the trend in income inequality and poverty among the self-employed workers in Mexico over the last two decades (1984–2002). This is the period over which Mexico opened its economy to the global market through trade and...
Working Paper
The elasticity of substitution and labour-displacing technical change in post-apartheid South Africa
This paper uses normalized constant elasticity of substitution production functions to estimate the elasticity of substitution and labour-augmenting technical change in South Africa over the period 1994-2012. We find elasticities of 0.6-0.9 and...
Working Paper
Links between foreign direct investment and human capital formation
This paper is related to the literature on the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the labour market of host countries. Labour market literature has focused on the demand side of FDI; that is, increasing wage inequality by demanding more...
Journal Article
Labor-use efficiency in Tunisian manufacturing industries
This paper investigates the process of adjustment in employment. A dynamic model is applied to a panel of six Tunisian manufacturing industries observed over a period of 25 years, from 1971 to 1996. Industries are assumed to adjust their labor inputs...
Working Paper
The Microeconomics of Inequality, Poverty and Market Liberalizing Reforms
This paper illustrates how the use of microeconometric techniques can be used to uncover the micro dynamics behind macro shocks. Using Mexican micro data we find out that—controlling for everything else—between 1994 and 1998 returns to personal...
Working Paper
International Trade and Manufacturing Employment Outcomes in India
The Indian economy has observed significant trade reforms since the mid 1980s, and the Indian manufacturing sector has rapidly increased its integration with the world economy. In this paper, we ask the question: did the increased trade integration...
Working Paper
Conflict, Disasters, and No Jobs
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the highest growth rate in net international migration in the world. The reasons for this migration are investigated in this paper. First, a survey of the literature on the profile and determinants of international...
Book Chapter
South Africa
Part of Book
Africa's Lions
Working Paper
Foreign Trade and the Gender Earnings Differential in Urban Mexico
This paper examines the effect of foreign trade induced product market competition, upon workplace gender discrimination in urban Mexico as measured by the gender earnings differential. More than four decades ago, Becker argued that labour market...
Working Paper
Trade with China and India and Manufacturing Labour Demand in Argentina
For many in Latin America, the increasing participation of China and India in international markets is seen as a looming shadow of two ‘mighty giants’ on the region’s manufacturing sector. Are they really mighty giants when it comes to their impact...
Working Paper
ICT Opportunities and Challenges for Development in the Arab World
This paper examines the status of ICT in the Arab world and the potential opportunities and challenges that ICT is expected to create for development in the region. The analysis shows that, despite the recent growth in the demand for ICT, it has a...
Research Brief
Demographic, employment, and wage trends in South Africa
While South Africa’s democratic transition precipitated a period of growth, this growth was not inclusive and both poverty and inequality remain high A significant trend in the South African labour market has been the rising share of workers in the...
Working Paper
New Economy and ICT Development in China
The rapid development and diffusion of the information and communications technology (ICT) is the major driving force of the New Economy. While there is ample evidence to suggest that the ICT industry has contributed a great deal to the overall...
Working Paper
Labour-Use Efficiency in Tunisian Manufacturing Industries
This paper investigates the process of adjustment in employment. A dynamic model is applied to a panel of six Tunisian manufacturing industries observed over the period 1971–96. The adjustment process is industry and time specific. The adjustment...
Journal Article
The rise in women's labour force participation in Mexico
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study estimates the relative importance of alternative supply and demand mechanisms in explaining the rise of female labor-force participation (FLFP) over the last 55 years in Mexico. The growth of FLFP in Mexico...
Working Paper
Labour demand and the distribution of wages in South African manufacturing exporters
This paper contributes to the understanding of the linkages between exporting, labour demand, and wages in South Africa. We disentangle labour market differences between exporters and non-exporters and find that exporters employ more people and pay...
Working Paper
Interplay of Human and Social Capital in Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries
This paper discusses the characteristics and determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour in Uganda. It is based on a recent survey of urban and rural entrepreneurs, executed in May 2008. The main dependent variables are business success, gestation...
Working Paper
The rise in women’s labour force participation in Mexico
We estimate the relative importance of alternative labour supply and demand mechanisms in explaining the rise of female labour force participation over the last 55 years in Mexico. The growth of female labour force participation in Mexico between...