Dealing with employment risk

The paper looks at the experience of advanced economies in dealing with employment volatility. It examines in detail the impact of labour market institutions on equilibrium unemployment and the possible lessons for emerging market economies trying to design policy for dealing with unemployment and a wider, growing demand for social protection from their citizens. Part of the paper concentrates on the transition economies whose institutional context may be relevant to other emerging markets. Some leading principles in policy design are elaborated that take into account some of the common features of emerging markets, notably a protected public sector, large informal sectors and weak institutions.