Scholars have long recognized the importance of so-called “Ghent” systems of unemployment insurance for working-class strength and therefore national capitalist development. While only three European countries currently maintain “pure” Ghent systems, nearly a dozen did so during the first half of the last century. This article investigates the discontinuation of these systems in two paradigmatic cases, Belgium and the Netherlands. By focusing on the irreconcilable nature of trade union goals regarding the delivery, range, and funding of unemployment insurance, the analysis explains how the discontinuation of Ghent in these two countries could occur under distinctly union-friendly governments and with the explicit consent of their trade union movements. By showing that both the Belgian and Dutch trade union movements displayed great uncertainty regarding the organizational costs and benefits of assuming responsibility for benefit delivery, the article also explains why Belgium subsequently created a semi-Ghent system that continued to significantly boost union membership, while the Netherlands did not.

Exogeneous disruptions in labor demand have become more frequent in recent times. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in millions of workers being repeatedly laid off and rehired according to local public health conditions. This may be bad news for market efficiency. Typical employment relations—which resemble non-enforceable (implicit) contracts—rely on reciprocity (Brown et al. in Econometrica 72:747–780, 2004), and hence could be harmed when workers’ efforts no longer guarantee reemployment in the next period. In this paper we extend the BFF paradigm to include a per-period probability (0%, 10%, 50%) of publicly observable “shutdown”, where a specific firm cannot contract with any workers for several periods. A Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium exists in which these shutdowns destabilize relationships, but do not harm efficiency. Our experiment shows that, remarkably, market efficiency can be maintained even with very frequent stochastic shutdowns. However, the dynamic of relational contracts changes from one where a worker finds stable employment to one where she juggles multiple employers, laying the burden of maintaining productivity upon workers and worsening worker-side inequality.

This article analyzes the impact of the coronavirus epidemic in India after first situating it in the wider international context. It begins with a global perspective on the spread of the pandemic that correlates more with geography, demography and seasonality than lockdown stringency and sequencing. The responses of governments have damaged economies, lost livelihoods, worsened healthcare-access and learning-outcomes, while curbing rights and freedoms of citizens. In India, the draconian lockdown dealt a crippling blow to the economy which has hurt the poor badly but could not ‘flatten the curve’. The inadequate and inappropriate policy response has made the task of economic recovery even more difficult. Yet, the crisis also opens possible opportunities for India to enhance its global role and profile.

How does the allocation of scarce jobs and production influence their supply? We present the results of a macroeconomics laboratory experiment that investigates the effects of alternative rationing schemes on economic stability. Participants play the role of worker-consumers who interact in labor and output markets. All output, which yields a reward to participants, must be produced through costly labor. Automated firms hire workers to produce output so long as there is sufficient demand for all production. In every period either output or labor hours are rationed. Random queue, equitable, and priority (i.e., property rights) rationing schemes are compared. Production volatility is the lowest under a priority rationing rule and is significantly higher under a scheme that allocates the scarce resource through a random queue. Production converges toward the steady state under a priority rule, but can diverge to significantly lower levels under a random queue or equitable rule where there is the opportunity for and perception of free-riding. At the individual level, rationing in the output market leads consumer-workers to supply less labor in subsequent periods. A model of myopic decision-making is developed to rationalize the results.

Countless experimental studies have shown that markets converge quickly and efficiently to the competitive outcome under many trading institutions, particularly the double auction mechanism. This creates difficulties for Keynesian stories of unemployment creation—which suggest a noncompetitive outcome in an essentially competitive world. Such stories were popular in the late 1960s and 1970s. One of these stories—the dual decision hypothesis of Clower—was seen then as the beginning of a story of unemployment. This article reports the results of an experiment designed to test this hypothesis. Specifically, we set up an experiment in which there are two sequential double-auction markets, in the first of which one good (labour) is traded, after which the second market (goods) is opened and the second good traded. We compare the outcome of our experiment with that of the competitive theory. One general finding is that not enough trade takes place in the two markets. In other words, the usual finding that competitive equilibrium is achieved in double-auction markets is not replicated in this sequential setting.

Depression and anxiety are common mental health issues globally, yet limited research has focused on job seekers in Bangladesh. This study examines the prevalence and associated factors of depression and anxiety symptoms among Bangladeshi graduates seeking employment. A cross-sectional study was conducted among graduates from two public universities in Bangladesh, using face-to-face interviews and a semi-structured questionnaire. Data were collected between March and April 2024 through convenience sampling. Chi-square tests and logistic regression were used for analysis with SPSS software. Among the participants, 46.8% experienced depressive symptoms and 67.8% had anxiety symptoms, with 42.3% experiencing both. Factors associated with a reduced risk of depressive symptoms included being a first child (OR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.25–0.93, p = 0.031) and exam satisfaction (OR = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.12–0.39, p < 0.001). Lower symptoms of anxiety were associated with being male (OR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.25–0.80, p = 0.007), first-born status (OR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.22–0.92, p = 0.030), financial contribution to family (OR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.19–0.81, p = 0.011), over 12 months of preparation (OR = 0.37, 95% CI: 0.15–0.92, p = 0.034) and exam satisfaction (OR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.22–0.71, p = 0.002). Intentionally unemployed participants had a higher risk of anxiety symptoms (OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.00–2.89, p = 0.046). This study reveals high rates of depressive and anxiety symptoms among job-seeking graduates in Bangladesh. Socio-demographic and job-related factors appear to significantly impact mental health, underscoring the need for a holistic approach to address these challenges. Targeted mental health interventions and increased public awareness are essential to support vulnerable groups in navigating the highly competitive job market.

Some leading UK politicians have claimed that a culture of welfare dependency exists and that a sizeable number of unemployed benefit claimants lack an appropriate commitment to employment. Such claims were used to justify the 2012 Welfare Reform Act’s new measures to steer unemployed claimants towards applying for and retaining jobs they might not want. The statistical analysis presented here is the first to explore possible connections between people’s attitudes towards disliked/unattractive jobs, their parents’ employment status, and the total time they have spent in unemployment. Logistic regression analysis used Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE)/Next Steps data on people born in 1989/90 to predict whether they spent an unusually long time unemployed between age eighteen and twenty-five; an attitude favouring joblessness over a disliked/unattractive job was a nonsignificant predictor in eleven of twelve multivariate models, and a weak predictor (OR = 1.32) in the other.

This research is focused on investigating the efficiency of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMP) expenditures of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries including institutional quality of governance. The emphasis is on the quality of governance that affects the supply and demand of employment and the ability of governments to master public spending. Using the general method of moments (GMM) for sixteen OECD countries over the 2005/2018 period, we show that Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reduced significantly the efficiency of ALMP on unemployment rate. This result is found consistent using another corruption proxy, Corruption Kaufmann Index (CKI). Moreover, our estimation suggest that the effectiveness of governance reinforces the effectiveness of ALMP.

The aim of this study was to understand how and why relational welfare works to support young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). It builds on research discussing the limitations of work-first and human capital strategies in social policy while responding to calls for theory-driven insights into initiatives that move beyond employability and rapid employment. The material for this realist evaluation includes programme documents, fieldnotes and 75 interviews with practitioners and participants in community-based multicomponent initiatives delivered by Swedish municipalities. These data were scrutinised against programme theories while integrating literature on relational welfare as underpinned by co-creation and capability approaches. The results illustrate how flexible, challenging and coordinated programming strengthen beings and doings of young people in NEET situations while improving their wellbeing by overcoming isolation and forming a future orientation. The study provides guidance for supporting NEET-situated young people through a relational approach to welfare. It also offers a model against which local initiatives provided to a youth group high on the policy agenda can be mapped.

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of skill mismatch on labour turnover, unemployment, and informality, in the case of Colombia. We study Colombia because it is a developing country with one of the highest levels of unemployment and informality in Latin America, along with very restrictive institutions, such as the minimum wage. We found that skill mismatch can explain the high turnover of workers in the Colombian labour market, evident in the increase in hirings and also in separations. Additionally, we find a positive significant effect of skill mismatch on the levels of informality, but no significant effect on unemployment. This evidence remains even once we consider the role of labour market institutions such as minimum wage and non-wage labour costs.