19. "Measuring Aversion to Employment Risk: An Analysis Based upon Worker Quit Functions in Transition Labor Markets", by Henry W. Herzog, Jr., April 2000.
In many instances, and typically in transition economies, undertaking market oriented reforms, employed workers experience considerable uncertainty regarding immediate and future job tenure. This study examines workers' aversion to such employment risk, and in turn, their willingness to pay for risk reduction (added job security) through wage reduction. Estimates of this utility preserving wage/risk tradeoff can be obtained from worker quit functions that include second-stage estimates or prospective wages and perceived employment risk as regressors. Utilizing microdata on Polish workers employed full-time as of 1993, risk aversion is determined under alternative assumptions regarding the explicit form ot the utility function pertinent to the current job. In addition, the study examines how one's willingness to pax for risk reduction (risk aversion) likely varies by worker attributes to include gender, marital status, age and education.

18. "Sickness Absence: An International Comparison", by Tim A. Barmby, Marco G. Ercolani and John G. Treble, February 2000.
Previous attempts to analyse international differences in patterns of worker absenteeism have not been convincing because of the difficulty in obtaining internationally comparable data. In this paper, we apply the technique described by Barmby, Ercolani and Treble(1999) to data on full-time workers in 9 countries who have deposited Labour Force Survey returns with the Luxembourg Employment Study. We use the resulting dataset to verify relationships between absence and age, gender and other socio-economic characteristics of workers. These relationships prove to be similar across countries with widely differing mean rates of absence. Since our dataset uses individual observations we are also able to carry out a multivariate analysis of absence and its correlates. The most revealing result of the analysis is that the gender difference in absence rates that is apparent in the raw data is shown to be entirely due to differences in the age structures of the male and female workforce and their marital status.

17. "Are Redundant Workers Stigmatized in Transition Labor Markets? Long-Term Unemployment in Central Europe", by Henry W. Herzog, Jr., October 1999.
This study examines whether redundant workers are stigmatized in transition labor markets, and if so, the severity of the effects. Stigmatization is assumed to obtain whenever likelihoods of long-term unemployment are systematically elevated, among otherwise equivalent individuals, due to involuntary job-loss. Such effects are considered during early transition in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Poland, and within a modeling framework whereby current search duration (likelihood of long-term unemployment) and benefit receipt are jointly-determined. Although econometric estimates of long-term unemployment indicate significant stigmatization within the Polish labor market, the adverse effects of redundancy on job-search extend no longer than two years.

16. "Youth Employment in Finland, Norway and Sweden", by Raili Hyrkkänen, September 1999.
One deviation in the uniformity of the Nordic welfare states is that in Finland, the earnings-based pension is calculated on the basis of employment from the age of 23 years and not from 16 years like in other Nordic countries. The aim of this study was to examine whether there are such differences in youth employment in Finland compared with Norway and Sweden that justify this age limit. The time series covered the period 1989-1997; in addition, the years 1990 and 1997 were compared with each other. At the end of the 1980's, there were no significant differences in youth employment among people under 25 in these countries. At the beginning of the 1990's, Finland and Sweden met with a serious recession. In consequence of that, youth unemployment rates were still exceptionally high in Finland in 1997. Apart from this, the development of youth employment in Finland in the 1990's has many common traits with the other nordic countries: the improvement of educational attainments of the young labour force, the increase of the proportion of young people in education and the growth of part-time work also among young men.

15. "Working and Studying: What Explains Youngsters Decisions?", by Carla Sá and Miguel Portela, April 1999.
During the last decades, major changes have occurred in youth labour markets and it has become harder for young people who have finished their secondary education to find a job. This study aims at identifying the factors behind individuals' decisions in their transition from high school, in Spain and in the United Kingdom. To do so, we have modelled a bivariate probit to the choices of studying and working. The propensity for unemployment and the educational level of the reference person in the household are the major factors that influence these decisions.

14. "Employment Uncertainty and the Incidence of Job-Loss in Transition Economies: The Case for Central Europe", by Henry W. Herzog, Jr., November 1998.
A shared concern among Central European countries is the significant social cost imposed by market-oriented reforms, as well as the skewed distribution of these costs among workers, prior workers, and their families. Although a growing body of literature has addressed the incidence of such reforms on unemployment distribution and duration, little is known of the actual transitions of workers from employment to unemployment, and specifically the dynamics of transition-induced job loss. This study examines such transitions in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Poland and Slovenia within econometric models in which voluntary and involuntary employment separations are jointly determined.