Unemployment, Restructuring, and the Labor Market in Eastern Europe and Russia

Unemployment, Restructuring, and the Labor Market in Eastern Europe and Russia

Author: Simon Commander

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 9780821329887

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World Bank Technical Paper No. 263. Management of water resources is essential for long-term, environmentally sustainable human and economic development. Increasingly, the World Bank and other international organizations are called upon to provide support in the formulation of water resources strategies. This volume serves as a guide for developing countries in creating their strategies by outlining a general process. It also suggests ways for countries to build capacity through the process of designing and implementing such strategies. The volume is divided into two parts. Part I covers the purpose and process of strategy formulation. The process consists of a water resource assessment and then the design and choice of options. Part II reviews such main concepts as institutional and human resources, stakeholder participation, information systems, economics, environment and health, and international issues.


The Russian Labour Market

The Russian Labour Market

Author: Vladimir Gimpelson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2002-07-15

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0585379564

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Labour markets are a central element of any transition from planned economy to market-oriented system. This groundbreaking book examines the plight of Russian workers and employers during the first decade of post-Soviet reforms. The authors argue that higher-than-expected labour market flexibility early in the transition provided an important cushion for workers who would have been displaced with little recourse to social protection. However, over time, this flexibility reduced pressure for enterprise restructuring and accommodated policy drift. Although many workers were quite mobile, often this translated into a loss of human capital for older enterprises_even potentially viable ones_and to OchurningO in the labour market, accompanied by only limited restructuring. There was little job creation, labour hoarding persisted, and many workers saw their wages eroded by inflation and late payment of wages. The authors show this situation was largely the result of insufficient structural reforms, poor institutional development, and misplaced incentives. First providing an overview of the economic situation, key labour market trends, and the institutional situation during the 1990s, the book then reviews labour market dynamics. The authors assess changes in OoldO jobs at former state enterprises and evaluate OnewO job creation, mostly in private businesses. They examine the evolution of wages and the availability of social protection to workers. A special thematic section considers the political economy of labour market policy that brought the ORussian approachO to labour market adjustment to life. The conclusion presents an integrated picture of the Russian labour market in the aftermath of the early transition period and highlights the implications of the experience for current policy.


Grime and Punishment

Grime and Punishment

Author: Hartmut Lehmann

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Using information from two complementary household survey data sets, we show that the dominant form of labor market adjustment in the Russian transition process has been the delayed receipt of wages. More than half the workforce is experiencing some form of disruption to their pay. Wage arrears are found across the private, state and budgetary sector. Workers in the metropolitan center are less affected by delayed and incomplete wage payments than workers in the provinces. There is less evidence that individual characteristics contribute much toward the incidence of wage arrears, but the persistence of arrears is concentrated on a subset of the working population. We show that workers can only exercise the exit option of a job quit from a firm not paying wages in full or on time if the outside labor market is sufficiently dynamic.


Reforming the Russian Legal System

Reforming the Russian Legal System

Author: Gordon B. Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-12-12

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9780521456692

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This book examines how traditional indigenous Russian legal values and the 74-year experience with communism and "socialist legality" are being combined with Western concepts of justice and due process to forge a new legal consciousness in Russia today.


Taxation and Unemployment

Taxation and Unemployment

Author: Mr.Howell H. Zee

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1996-05-01

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13: 1451974345

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This paper reviews conceptual linkages between taxation and unemployment, available empirical evidence and country policies that may have a bearing on these linkages in the OECD and in a sample of developing and transitional economies, Fund policy advice on these issues, and tax policy options in addressing the unemployment problem. It concludes that the emphasis in policy should be placed on minimizing tax distortions, rather than on formulating activist tax policies to reduce unemployment.


Is Russia Restructuring?

Is Russia Restructuring?

Author: Harry G. Broadman

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13:

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The authors explore the labor dynamics of Russian enterprise restructuring, empirically assessing how patterns of job creation and destruction are related to various aspects of enterprise restructuring across firms in different sectors and regions, and to different forms, sizes, vintages, and performance characteristics of ownership. Evidence from case studies - based on more than 50 site visits in 2000 - suggests that jobs have been destroyed, but only to a limited degree in some sectors and regions, largely because of institutional and incentive constraints and a still-widespread "socialist" corporate culture. Jobs have been created - particularly in sectors where devaluation had the most pronounced effect on important substitution and export promotion - but only slowly, mostly for lack of skilled workers and because regional mobility is limited. Labor turnover appears higher within regions than across regions. Newly available data for 1996 - 99 (provided by Goskomstat) for about 128,000 enterprises in 24 industrial sectors in Russia's 89 regions indicates that the typical firm has experienced only modest downsizing - about 12 percent - in number of employees. Smaller firms have entered, and larger, mature businesses have exited some sectors. Except for a lull in 1998, the rate of job creation has steadily increased and the rate of job destruction has declined, dropping substantially in 1998 - 99. "Voluntary" worker separations remain the main - and growing - form of layoff, and the proportion of layoffs through redundancies is shrinking (now about 4 percent of total separations). Firm size and net employment growth are not statistically related, but form of ownership seems to matter. Firm size is also statistically correlated (positively) with profitability, but restructuring through changes in net employment growth appears not to be. It seems Russian restructuring needs to become more efficient.


Transition Economics

Transition Economics

Author: Peter Luke

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2012-07-26

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 1136909095

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Celebrating twenty years of transition from socialism to capitalism, this book is designed to be the core textbook for undergraduate courses in transition economics and comparative economic systems. Given the passage of time, Transition Economics: Two Decades On reviews and accounts for the outcomes in the so-called transition economies and, from an academic perspective, takes the reader through developments and issues in the twenty years of transition from plan to market. Treating its subject matter thematically, the book incorporates much of the transition economics literature and evidence that have evolved over the past two decades. In particular, the authors focus on the most important aspects of economic transition, including: The initial conditions at the outset of transition Paradigms and patterns of transition The main transition policies and economic reforms The performance of transition countries and firms The lessons from transition The textbook covers a wide range of both contemporary microeconomic and macroeconomic issues, in over thirty ex-socialist European and Asian countries, including Russia and China. Transition Economics: Two Decades On is more than just a book about a particular part of the world or the transformation that was experienced at a particular time in history. The authors believe that the study of the economics of transition gives the reader an insight into theories, policies, reforms, legacies, institutions, processes and lessons that have application and relevance, beyond the specific transition from plan to market, to other parts of the world and to other times in history.