The number of people fleeing war and persecution worldwide has nearly tripled since the early 2010s, challenging European policymakers to ensure swift integration of asylum seekers into the labour market. This column assesses a pilot programme in Italy that provides early, personalised labour market support to asylum seekers. Even in resource-constrained settings, the early targeted […]
Increasing women’s labour force participation and career progression is a key priority for policymakers in developing and developed economies alike. A central question is whether economic development and rising incomes naturally lead to greater female labour market engagement. This column highlights that the answer depends critically on prevailing gender role attitudes. In societies with more […]
France has narrowed its gender lifetime earnings gap, but has not managed closed it. Despite legal guarantees, French women still earn 30% less than men over a career. This column tracks lifetime income for cohorts born 1942–1964 and finds that convergence has stalled since the 1980s, mostly due to rising part-time work among women. Working […]
During the pandemic, annual CPI inflation in the US rose sharply to a peak of 9% in June 2022. This column argues that the rise of inflation can be explained with a framework in which inflation depends on three factors: long-term expectations, the tightness of the labour market as measured by the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio, and […]
Depending on how it is measured, China’s economy is now the world’s largest or second largest. It is also the world’s second-most intertwined in terms of trade relationships, after the European Union, and is a major investor and lender in the emerging world. Understanding where China is heading is important for the whole world. This […]
A widely cited argument in favour of easing employment protection rules is that greater flexibility in hiring and firing can lead to increased job matching efficiency and productivity, but this may come at a cost for certain groups of workers. This column examines the impact of the 2012 ‘Fornero Reform’ in Italy, which lowered the […]
