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The efficient functioning of the labour market is an important factor that affects long-term economic growth. The interaction of supply and demand on the labour market is influenced by institutions which change the motivations and behaviour of economic actors and, ultimately, the flexibility of the labour market. There is no consensus in the literature on the effect these institutions have on labour market outcomes. This chapter focuses on a set of selective labour market institutions (employment protection legislation, minimum wages, unemployment benefits, labour taxation, trade unions and active labour market policies), compares their relevance to other European Union (EU) countries and through the lens of the Beveridge curve it tries to evaluate their impact on effectiveness of the Czech labour market. The international comparison shows that most of the considered institutions/regulations do not reach such importance (except employment protection legislation) and that they have a significant negative effect on labour market outcomes. Even the model of the Beveridge curve does not indicate that the Czech labour market is characterised by rigidities that would impair the effectiveness of a matching process at the aggregate level.

Following the COVID-19 outbreak, there are concerns whether economies are becoming farther from equality and competency. While this matters to every economy, it is more crucial for developing ones who already suffer from income inequalities and lack of competency. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

This study uses an administrative data from the Iran's Social Security Organization (ISSO) that provides insurance to workers entitled to the Labor Law of Iran. The data contain more than 7,000,000 workers. The authors assess heterogeneous impact of the first wave of the pandemic by firms' size and average payment.

The authors’ estimation results indicate that, following the initiation of the pandemic, the workers whose corresponding firms are smaller, overall, are more prone to the pandemic and are more likely to submit a request for unemployment benefits. However, the relation is neither homogeneous across sectors nor linear among micro-sized firms. Few sectors indicate a positive relationship between size and likelihood of request submission, including cultural activity, shoemaking and clothing sectors. Besides the size, the authors investigate whether pay grades could explain the probability of becoming unemployed after the pandemic. Results show that workers whose corresponding firms pay less are more likely to submit a request. This is robust within different sectors.

The ISSO dataset is not a panel, so the authors cannot employ methods of causal inferences. The authors’ results should be seen as correlation; however, due to exogeneity and sharpness of the pandemic the result infers to some degree of causality. The data does not cover the informal sector, so the estimates are at lower boundary.

Administrative data on unemployment benefits during COVID-19 show that the pandemic interferes with competition by forcing low-paid workers and small firms to exit the market. This is an alarm for the competition in every economy, specially developing ones.

In this paper, the authors attempt to understand how labour market attachment during the ages of 30–59 influences individuals' transition out of the labour market.

Using high-quality Swedish register data, the authors follow individuals born in 1950 and observe their labour market attachment during mid-life and their exit from the labour market.

The authors find evidence that labour market attachment in different stages of the career is differently related to exit from the labour market. At the age of 30, as well as between the ages 50–59, low attachment is related with earlier exit from the labour market. On the contrary, low labour market attachment during the ages 40–49 is related with later exit from the labour market. However, regardless of age, lower labour market attachment increases the risk of work-related benefit receipt in the exit year. The authors also find evidence that gender, migration status and childhood socioeconomic disadvantages may represent obstacles to longer working lives, while high education is a consistent factor in avoiding early exit from the labour market.

This study provides insights on the link between labour market attachment in different stages of the career and the exit from the labour market as well as work-related benefits dependency in the year of exit.

We study the potential effects of pension underfunding on corporate investment, financial constraints and improved employee bonding using 10 Pacific-Basin countries (including the United States, Australia, and eight Asian countries) at heterogeneous economic development stages and different regulatory environments. We document that corporate pensions are significantly underfunded in most countries of our sample in the period of 2001–2017, when interest rates were ultralow in most countries. In addition, firms from countries with stronger employee protection and more generous retirement benefits tend to show higher levels of underfunding in their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. To the extent of pension underfunding imposing constraints on corporate investment, we find that firms in these countries can face more constraints on investment when their pension is underfunded.

The Great Resignation has led to a significant increase in the number of people quitting their jobs due to reasons such as stagnant wages, rising cost of living, job dissatisfaction and safety concerns. Therefore, the aim of this study is that it is important to help people develop better cognitive resources to face adversity.

The Great Resignation has led to a significant increase in the number of people quitting their jobs due to reasons such as stagnant wages, rising cost of living, job dissatisfaction and safety concerns. Therefore, it is important to help people develop better cognitive resources to face adversity. In this study, we administered a questionnaire to 250 employees to determine the variables that could help them build cognitive resources. These variables included the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and affiliation), psychological capital, motivation regulation (within the self-determination theory) and well-being (assessed by self-esteem, positive emotions, positive automatic thoughts and vitality). The results revealed that satisfaction of basic needs is associated with better psychological capital and more self-autonomous behavior, which leads to higher psychological well-being. These findings are discussed in the paper, emphasizing the importance of management and work context that satisfy the basic needs and help to build resources with psychological capital.

The results revealed that satisfaction of basic needs is associated with better psychological capital and more self-autonomous behavior, which leads to higher psychological well-being. These findings are discussed in the paper, emphasizing the importance of management and work context that satisfy the basic needs and help to build resources with psychological capital.

Highlight the importance of consequences of the Great Resignation and the need to internationalize this concept.

Financial inclusion can be proxied by banking status. The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential effects of financial capability on the financial fragility of US adults with various banking statuses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study utilized the 2021 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) dataset to investigate the relationship between financial capability and financial fragility among consumers with different banking statuses. The analysis controlled for employment shocks, health shocks and other consumer characteristics. Banking statuses included fully banked, under-banked (utilizing both banking and alternative financial services) and unbanked individuals. Logistic regression analyses were conducted on both the entire sample and subsamples based on banking statuses.

The results showed that financial capability was negatively associated with financial fragility. The magnitude of the potential negative effect of financial capability was the greatest among the fully banked group, followed by the underbanked and unbanked groups. Respondents who were underbanked or unbanked were more likely to experience financial fragility than those who were fully banked. Additionally, respondents who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic were more likely to experience financial fragility than those without employment shocks. The effect size of financial capability factors was greater than that of COVID-19 shock factors. These results suggest that higher levels of both financial capability and financial inclusion may be effective in reducing the risk of financial fragility.

This study represents one of the first attempts to examine the potential effects of financial capability on financial fragility among consumers with various banking statuses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this study offers new evidence to determine whether COVID-19 shocks, as measured by health and employment status, are associated with financial fragility. Additionally, the effect size of financial capability factors is greater than that of COVID-19 shock factors. The results from the 2021 NFCS dataset provide valuable insights for banking professionals and public policymakers on how to enhance consumer financial wellbeing.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, transitory unemployment insurance (UI) policies substantially increased unemployment benefits (UBs) and the number of eligible groups in Russia. The procedure for registering as unemployed was moved to an online platform. The present paper aims to distinguish the effect of anti-COVID-19 restrictions on unemployment from that of the transitory unemployment insurance policies.

Using 553,627 approved claims for unemployment benefits from the Russian Public Employment Service (PES) administrative records (June 2019–December 2020), monthly data on the number of individuals registered as unemployed are aggregated in a pseudo panel. A double-difference approach is employed to identify the effects of the social interaction intensity and teleworkability (TW) of the latest occupation on unemployment. The first is associated with a direct effect of anti-COVID-19 restrictions and the latter with the simplified application procedure.

The face-to-face (F2F) intensity of the latest occupation did not lead to any increase in the number of unemployed persons as could be expected in response to anti-COVID-19 restrictions. Job TW had two opposite effects on unemployment: it decreased individuals' risk of job loss and increased their likelihood of claiming unemployment benefits. Surprisingly, however, in line with the typical response of the Russian labour market to downturns, the latter dominated. The largest response was found among men and individuals with primary education.

This study is the first to attempt to distinguish the effect of anti-COVID-19 restrictions from that of the transitory UI policies on unemployment in Russia.

This paper documents a robust empirical regularity: higher trade openness is associated with a lower unemployment rate. This paper also examines whether or not the effects of trade liberalisation depend on countries' income levels. Further, the dynamic causation between trade openness and unemployment is also examined.

In order to obtain insight into the openness–unemployment nexus, following empirical methods were utilised - static panel models, dynamic panel models and a novel panel Granger causality approach proposed by Juodis et al. (2021).

Results suggest that openness negatively affects unemployment; the extent to which trade liberalisation affects unemployment depends on the income level of each country. The Juodis, Karavias, and Sarafidis (JKS) test confirmed that the past values of trade openness, inflation, foreign direct investment and gross domestic product per capita contain information that helps to predict unemployment in a more robust manner. To simply put, opening upto trade may eventually become a requirement for creating more job opportunities, but this alone may not be enough. The extent to which nations benefit from trade liberalisation is largely dependent on the overall economic conditions and their capability to move up the income scale.

A major difference between this study and those performed previously is that this study does not only examine the impact of trade openness on unemployment, but also investigates whether the unemployment effect of liberalisation is affected by countries' income levels – an issue that has received little attention in the past. Additionally, the unique panel non-causality approach put forth by Juodis et al. (2021) is used in the first instance to look into the causal link between trade openness and unemployment. This method has advantages in that the method enables capturing Granger-causality in homogeneous or heterogeneous panels amongst multiple variables.

The purpose of the paper is to study how technology choice is affected by capital accumulation when there is unemployment and firms engage in oligopolistic competition.

In this infinite horizon model, unemployment results from the existence of efficiency wages. Consumers choose saving optimally, and there is capital accumulation. Firms producing intermediate goods engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies to maximize profits. A more advanced technology has a higher fixed cost but a lower marginal cost of production.

In the steady state, it is shown that an increase in population size or a decrease in the discount rate leads intermediate good producers to choose more advanced technologies and the wage rate increases. Interestingly, the equilibrium unemployment rate decreases with the size of the population.

In this model, unemployment results from the existence of efficiency wages and firms engage in oligopolistic competition. One difficulty with efficiency wage models is that saving is not allowed. However, in this model, consumers choose saving optimally, and capital accumulation is allowed. With oligopolistic competition, the authors show that an increase in population size or a decrease in the discount rate leads intermediate good producers to choose more advanced technologies and the wage rate increases. The equilibrium unemployment rate decreases with the size of the population.

This study attempts to explain the impact of Fintech on the Asian economies through two main indicators, inflation and unemployment over the period 2011-2014-2017.

This study uses panel data regression models to explain the relationship between Fintech, inflation as an indicator of currency circulation and unemployment since Fintech has disrupted the labor market.

Empirical results show a consistently strong and positive relationship between the development of financial technologies and the reduction of inflation and unemployment unless these technologies are actively used. Digital finance has become a new driver of economic development. Therefore, governors should not only improve their economies but also expand their information and communication technologies to develop their digital infrastructure, especially for businesses.

The present study contributes to the existing literature on the impact of disruptive digital innovation on the socioeconomic development of emerging countries. The empirical evidence highlights the importance of distinguishing between active and passive uses of Fintech in order to anticipate its economic impact.