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Business and Economics > Insurance

You are looking at 1 - 8 of 8 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General x
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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
St. Kitts and Nevis: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper reviews anecdotal evidence on labor market conditions and discusses policy options to strengthen the labor market and support growth in St. Kitts and Nevis. The diagnosis of labor market conditions reveals challenges and opportunities in wages, productivity, and labor allocation across sectors. These include strengthening jobs and growth opportunities across sectors, enhancing the wage setting system to support competitiveness, and increasing the efficiency of the public sector. Strong institutions are needed to effectively manage public sector wages over the medium term. Several institutional arrangements can facilitate this goal including regular comparison between public and private sector wages, regular wage negotiations as opposed to ad hoc adjustments, and using medium-term wage bill forecasting to support better fiscal outcomes. Labor market and growth policies could play a key role in strengthening jobs and growth in the post-coronavirus disease era, including by leveraging sectoral linkages to provide more diversified and higher quality job opportunities, enhancing labor market policies, and increasing the efficiency of the public sector.
Keywords:
C. climate change ADAPTATION; labor market diagnosis; staff team of the International Monetary Fund; D. wage policy; Policy implication; Public sector wages; Labor markets; Wages; Employment; Caribbean; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
U.S. Healthcare: A Story of Rising Market Power, Barriers to Entry, and Supply Constraints
Ms. Li Lin
and
Mr. Mico Mrkaic
Healthcare in the United States is the most expensive in the world, with real per capita spending growth averaging 4 percent since 1980. This paper examines the role of market power of U.S. healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies. It finds that markups (the ability to charge prices above marginal costs) for publicly listed firms in the U.S. healthcare sector have almost doubled since the early 1980s and that they explain up to a quarter of average annual real per capita healthcare spending growth. The paper also finds evidence that the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion were successful in raising coverage and expanding care, but may have had the undesirable side-effect of leading to labor cost increases: Hourly wages for healthcare practitioners are estimated to have increased by 2 to 3 percent more in Medicaid expansion states over a five-year period, which could be an indication that the supply of medical services is relatively inelastic, even over a long time horizon, to the boost to demand created by the Medicaid expansion. These findings suggest that promoting more competition in healthcare markets and reducing barriers to entry can help contain healthcare costs.
Keywords:
Medicaid expansion; sector markup; healthcare cost; healthcare in the United States; healthcare provider; Wages; Employment; Insurance companies; Insurance; Labor costs; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Slovak Republic: 2015 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Slovak Republic
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This 2015 Article IV Consultation highlights that Slovakia remains among Europe’s stronger economies, with growth continuing to pick up in 2015, driven by strong domestic demand. A push to spend expiring European Union funds has underpinned rising investment while job creation and real wage growth have supported private consumption. Unemployment has fallen significantly since 2013, but is still about 11 percent overall, and is much higher for the long-term unemployed, youth, and women. The outlook is favorable with growth of 3–3.5 percent expected through the medium-term, reflecting sustained domestic demand as well as further contributions from the important export sector as substantial additional foreign auto sector investment is planned.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; energy company Enel; energy company; ente nazionale per l'energia elettrica; student housing cost; carmaker Jaguar Land Rover; energy company EPH; staff appraisal; Labor markets; Unemployment; Loans; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Search in the Labor Market under Imperfectly Insurable Income Risk
Mr. Mauro F Roca
This paper develops a general equilibrium model with unemployment and noncooperative wage determination to analyze the importance of incomplete markets when risk-averse agents are subject to idiosyncratic employment shocks. A version of the model calibrated to the U.S. shows that market incompleteness affects individual behavior and aggregate conditions: it reduces wages and unemployment but increases vacancies. Additionally, the model explains the average level of unemployment insurance observed in the U.S. A key mechanism is the joint influence of imperfect insurance and risk aversion in the wage bargaining. The paper also proposes a novel solution to solve this heterogeneous-agent model.
Keywords:
WP; unemployment insurance; labor market; replacement ratio
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Kingdom of the Netherlands-Netherlands: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund
This Selected Issues paper highlights that over the past decade, the Netherlands has undergone a remarkable fiscal adjustment, with the deficit, the tax burden, and the expenditure-to-GDP ratio falling significantly. The switch from a deficit-target-based to an expenditure-target-based fiscal framework in 1994 and commitments to two successive four-year fiscal plans have played an important role. The current multiyear framework expires in 2002, and the Study Group on the Budgetary Margin has produced recommendations for the coming government period.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; minimum wage; central government; income support; purchasing power; SER proposal; sick leave; Kingdom of the Netherlands-Netherlands; break-even wage; CPB simulation; GDP deflator; work contract; expenditure ceiling; high'skill worker; wage supplement; SER report; Income; Wages; Health care; Insurance
Cover IMF Working Papers
Trust As a Means of Improving Corporate Governance and Efficiency
Mr. Ralph Chami
and
Connel Fullenkamp
Agency problems within the firm are a significant hindrance to efficiency. We propose trust between coworkers as a superior alternative to the standard tools used to mitigate agency problems: increased monitoring and incentive-based pay. We show how trust induces employees to work harder, relative to those at firms that use the standard tools. In addition, we show that employees at trusting firms have higher job satisfaction, and that these firms enjoy lower labor cost and higher profits. Finally, we show how trust may also be easier to use within the firm than the standard agency-mitigation tools.
Keywords:
WP; wage contract; profit sharing; company loyalty; nonaltruistic firm; asymmetric information; efficiency; trust; moral hazard; corporate governance; firm need; shareholder-employee agency relationship; Wages; Insurance; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
What is Different About Family Businesses?
Mr. Ralph Chami
Family businesses make up forty percent of the Fortune 500 companies in the US, generate about two-thirds of the German GDP, employ about one-half of the labor force in Britain, and account for the majority of the private economies in developing countries. This paper develops a theory of family business that brings market forces and the family, as a nonmarket institution, under one rubric. The paper highlights and analyzes important factors, including product market competition, trust, and succession, which allow family businesses to thrive and to successfully compete with other businesses.
Keywords:
WP; altruism; asymmetric information; family business; trust; nonmarket transactions; moral hazard; corporate governance; family firm; wage contract; wage insurance; agency problems arise; firm profits; Wages; Insurance; Competition; Income; Europe; Asia and Pacific; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Netherlands: Statistical Appendix
International Monetary Fund
In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Netherlands; business sector; staff estimate; percent share; summary balance of payments; factor cost; employment scheme; labor cost indicator; gross investment; Employment; Wages; Public sector; Income