June 2021
01Jun

Ghana. NPRA advises commercial drivers to join third tier pensions

The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) has called on commercial drivers to register and benefit from the third tier pension scheme for a secured future. Mr Samuel Baffour Awuah, Corporate Affairs Officer of the NPRA who made the call said the third tier pension provided decent retirement packages for beneficiaries. Speaking at separate sensitization exercises held for taxi and commercial drivers in Sunyani, Mr Awuah explained retirement was inevitable and a reality of life, which could not be escaped whether in...

June 1, 2021
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May 2021
28May

Population and Labor Dynamics in Large Informal Markets: Implications for Pension Systems with Evidence from Ecuador

By Margarita Velín-Fárez This paper reviews Ecuador’s population structure and labor market dynamics with a focus on the causes of inequality, particularly among older adults receiving contributory pensions. This serves as a basis for characterizing the main restrictions that the Ecuadorian pension system must address. This analysis is valuable for three key reasons. First, the population structure of many less developed countries is converging toward that of developed countries, with older age groups increasing in proportion. Second, Ecuador is among...

May 28, 2021
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13May

Integrating Social Insurance and Social Assistance Programs for the Future World of Labor

By Robert J. Palacios, David A. Robalino Given the prevalence of informal labor, most countries have combined contributory social insurance programs (pensions, unemployment benefits, and health insurance), with non-contributory insurance programs and several types of "safety nets." All of these programs involve different types of subsidies and taxes, sometimes implicit. Because of design problems and the lack of coordination/integration between programs, these subsidies/taxes tend to cause four problems: 1) they can reduce incentives to contribute to mandatory insurance programs and...

May 13, 2021
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06May

Labour Force Survey in the EU, EFTA, United Kingdom and candidate countries

By Eurostat This report describes the main characteristics of the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) conducted in 2019 in the Member States of the European Union (EU), three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), the United Kingdom and four candidate countries (Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey). All of these countries provide Eurostat with EU-LFS microdata. The purpose of this report is to inform about the technical features of the surveys carried out in these countries, in order to...

May 6, 2021
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06May

Does it Matter to be Informal? Type of employment and political opinions in the MENA region

By Anil Duman Informal activities are highly persistent in developing countries, and their economic effects are widely studied in the literature. Yet, political consequences of informality are relatively an understudied topic and big chunk of the existing work does not offer systematic examination of how informal sector participation shape preferences and attitudes. Our paper contributes to the literature by focusing on Arab countries that have very stable and large size of informal sectors in the world. Additionally, we take into...

May 6, 2021
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April 2021
15Apr

Financial Inclusion Through Fintech in the Digital Economy

By Eunsook Seo, Kyeong-Won Yoo Since the 2008 global financial crisis, including the recent COVID 19 pandemic, low interest rates and low economic growth have continued around the world. In spite of this low interest rate trend, as the economic downturn prolongs, there is a situation of concern called the “new normal” of low interest rates and low economic growth, and low prices. In this new normal economic structure, the rapid progress of aging is increasing the necessity and desire...

April 15, 2021
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08Apr

The pandemic has shown that workers in the informal economy need a safety net, too

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the developing world’s informal economy hard. Existing on the margins, with no access to social safety nets such as unemployment insurance and pensions, many of the 2 billion informal workers around the world were already barely keeping their heads above water before the lockdowns. One analysis estimated that 1.6 billion informal sector workers worldwide would suffer a 62 percent decline in income in the first few months of the crisis alone, with workers in...

April 8, 2021
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01Apr

Informal Sector in GDP: A Panel Estimation Method

By Nitesh Kansara, Gopal K. Basak, Pranab Kumar Das Estimation of the activities of the informal sector in an economy poses a serious problem for obtaining a correct estimate of GDP. This happens to be so because of the fact that informal sector activities are not registered. The literature has tried to solve the problem of estimation of the informal sector using the method of latent variables. The standard approach is generally aims to estimate for a single point. The present...

April 1, 2021
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March 2021
25Mar

Managing the Employment Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis: Policy Options for Relief and Restructuring

By Eliana Carranza, Thomas Farole, Ugo Gentilini, Matteo Morgandi, Truman Packard, Indhira Santos, and Michael Weber This note discusses policy options for managing the employment impacts of the COVID-19 crisis aimed at relief and restructuring. The relief phase corresponds to an initial COVID-19 phase when the health emergency dominates, lockdowns are common, and the focus is on saving lives, providing support to workers and households to manage the income shock and to firms to say afloat and, often retain workers;...

March 25, 2021
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17Mar

Uber Grants Vacation Pay, Pensions to U.K. Drivers in Change of Job Status

Uber Technologies Inc. said it will grant its U.K. drivers an employment status entitling them to vacation pay and pension contributions, a costly shift in one of its largest overseas markets amid a global debate over the treatment of gig-economy workers. Read also UK. Pension longevity risk transfers reach record-breaking £55.8bn in 2020 The changes may presage legal wrangling, however, because the ride-hailing company says it will guarantee its drivers the U.K.’s minimum wage only after they have accepted a trip—not...

March 17, 2021
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