28 research outputs found
Does strict employment protection discourage job creation? Evidence from Croatia
Employment protection legislation in Croatia is among the most strict in Europe. Firing is difficult and costly, and flexible forms of employment are limited. Is this apparent rigidity reflected-as one would expect based on standard economic theory-in low labor market dynamics? Is job creation low and hiring limited? Is the job security of insiders achieved at the cost of outsiders not being able to enter thelabor market? The author attempts to answer these questions by examining job flows. If the employment protection legislation is binding, then job and worker turnover should be low. He shows that this is indeed the case. Hiring is limited and the average job tenure is very long in Croatia. Job destruction is low, however job creation is still lower. The result is accumulation of unemployment, in large part due to new labor market entrants not being able to find a job. The high degree of job protection also seems to strengthen the bargaining position of insiders and results in relatively high wages. So, wages in Croatia are higher than among its competitors, even after adjusting for productivity. These high labor costs are likely to contribute to limited job creation in existing firms, but also are likely to discourage the entry of-and thus job creation in-new firms. The author presents evidence that firm growth has been indeed limited in Croatia, contributing to the low employment level. The author examines other potential causes of high unemployment in Croatia (the unemployment benefit system, labor taxation, the wage structure, and skill and spatial mismatches). He argues that they do not play a substantial part in accounting for poor labor market outcomes in Croatia. The author concludes that the stringent employment protection legislation is the key labor market institution behind low job creation and high unemployment. Based on this he recommends specific measures aimed at liberalizing the labor market to foster job creation and employment.Labor Management and Relations,Labor Policies,Labor Markets,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Finance and Investment,Labor Markets,Labor Management and Relations,Labor Standards,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies
Transforming the old into a foundation for the new - lessons of the Moldova ARIA Project
This paper is a case study of what is recognized as one of the more successful projects in any country in the Europe and Central Asia region, not to mention in the poorest country of the region-Moldova. The ARIA project shows new ways to attack some of the most intractable problems of private sector development in Europe and Central Asia: how to facilitate reorganization and liquidation bankruptcies; how to promote small and medium enterprise spin-offs and new start-ups; and how to promote new learning at the enterprise level, both in the form of"Marshall Plan"programs with more advanced post-socialist countries, as well as continuous improvement programs (such as those adapted from Japanese programs). The prime mover for these programs is the quasi-public restructuring agency, ARIA, which was established as part of the Moldova Private Sector Development I loan. ARIA was structured to try to combine private sector entrepreneurship with a public function in the process of restructuring and bankruptcy. The study tries to account for the strategies and innovations that lead to results. And it tries to connect the ARIA strategy to past development literature by viewing the study through Albert Hirschman's work on social learning and change.Enterprise Development&Reform,Public Health Promotion,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Small Scale Enterprise,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Banks&Banking Reform,Small Scale Enterprise,Microfinance,Private Participation in Infrastructure
Governance and economic growth
Because protection of property rights cannot be appropriated by any individual, it is widely recognized as being the state's responsibility. Moreover, recent empirical evidence suggests that protection of property rights leads to higher investment levels and faster growth. The extent of property rights protection differs significantly across countries. The author integrates the emergence of property rights within a simple growth framework. Drawing on North (1990), he presents a model where economic performance and enforcement of property rights may reinforce each other.Initial conditions determine the economy's convergence to a high-income or a low-income steady state. Existing empirical evidence offers tentative support for this theory.Judicial System Reform,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Common Property Resource Development,Economic Theory&Research,Inequality,Common Property Resource Development,Environmental Economics&Policies,Governance Indicators
Extruder for food product (otak–otak) with heater and roll cutter
Food extrusion is a form of extrusion used in food industries. It is a process by which a set of mixed ingredients are forced through an opening in a perforated plate or die with a design specific to the food, and is then cut to a specified size by blades [1]. Summary of the invention principal objects of the present invention are to provide a machine capable of continuously producing food products having an’ extruded filler material of meat or similarity and an extruded outer covering of a moldable food product, such as otak-otak, that completely envelopes the filler material
An IT Service Taxonomy for Elaborating IT Service Catalog
In this thesis, I, as the author, have tried to propose a methodology for establishing IT service taxonomy in order to elaborate IT service portfolio and IT service catalog. As a core part of my thesis, IT service taxonomy has been discussed to manage IT services in an efficient way in the small and medium sized enterprises The small and medium sized enterprises can use the categories and sub categories of this taxonomy to define their service catalog and portfolio. In that regards, a list of IT services has been identified from the industries and has been used to define the IT service taxonomy
Assessing the Frontiers of Ultra-Poverty Reduction: Evidence from CFPR/TUP, an Innovative Program in Bangladesh
This paper uses household panel data to provide robust evidence on the effects of BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra-poor Program in Bangladesh. Our identification strategy exploits type-1 errors in assignment, comparing households correctly included with those incorrectly excluded, according to program criteria. Evidence from difference-in-difference matching and sensitivity analysis shows that participation had significant positive effects on income, food consumption and security, household durables, and livestock, but no robust impact on health, ownership of homestead land, housing quality and other productive assets. Using quantile difference-in-difference, we find that the income gains from program participation is smaller for the lowest two deciles.Ultra-poor, CFPR/TUP, BRAC, Bangladesh, Microfinance, Bangladesh, Assignment Error, Difference-in-Difference, Matching, Heteroskedasticity-Based Identification
Public spending and outcomes : does governance matter?
The authors examine the role of governance-measured by level of corruption and quality of bureaucracy-and ask how it affects the relationship between public spending and outcomes. Their main innovation is to see if differences in efficacy of public spending can be explained by quality of governance. The authors find that public health spending lowers child and infantmortality rates in countries with good governance. The results also indicate that as countries improve their governance, public spending on primary education becomes effective in increasing primary education attainment. These findings have important implications for enhancing the development effectiveness of public spending. The lessons are particularly relevant for developing countries, where public spending on education and health is relatively low, and the state of governance is often poor.Health Systems Development&Reform,Public Health Promotion,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Decentralization,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,National Governance,Governance Indicators,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Public Sector Economics&Finance
Review on Etymological History of Exotic Cultured and Aquarium Fishes of Bangladesh
Commercially important 14 cultured and most popular 14 aquarium exotic fish and their scientific names have been illustrated in this review paper. Although aquarium owners keep many other ornamental fishes into their hobbies in Bangladesh. But most of them are close relatives or varieties or strains of the discussed aquarium species. For this, it would not be a problem for a person to identify them who is properly acquainted with these 14 species. Being exotic fishes their origin and distributions have been discussed. Scientific name explanations and the account of geographical locations will help to draw outstanding features of the concerned fish species. Fisheries scientists will find very useful information from this paper
Credit rationing and pass-through in supply chains: theory and evidence from Bangladesh
Traders are often blamed for high prices, prompting government regulation. We study the effects of a government ban of a layer of financing intermediaries in edible oil supply chain in Bangladesh during 2011-12. Contrary to the predictions of a standard model of an oligopolistic supply chain, the ban caused downstream wholesale and retail prices to rise, and pass-through of the changes in imported crude oil price to fall. These results can be explained by an extension of the standard model to incorporate trade credit frictions, where intermediaries expand credit access of downstream traders.https://people.bu.edu/dilipm/publications/Edoilaeja.pdfFirst author draf
