Deadline: 27-Jun-22
The World Bank’s Office of the Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa region has launched a research program on “Margins of Adjustments to Labor Market Shocks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).”
The program aims to produce a series of academic research papers. The main objective is to build a new body of empirical work describing how MENA labor markets adjust to short- and long-term shocks in the region. This accompanies another research program on “Drivers of Gender Inequality in MENA.”
The ongoing pandemic has brought the issues of labor market dynamics and adjustments to the front of global policy and academic discussions. Unemployment spiked at the beginning of the pandemic across the MENA region. Uneven vaccinations and the mutations of the coronavirus have made the labor market recovery fragile and uncertain.
Topics
The Research Program team is thus seeking research proposals on the following broad topics:
- What Are the Short-term Impacts of Labor Market Shocks in MENA?
- Short-term labor market impacts are understood as the impacts during labor market shocks. Note that the shocks can be short-term (such as economic recessions). However, they can also be long- term (such as technological change or climate change shocks).
- What Are the Long-term Consequences of Labor Market Shocks in MENA?
- When the effects last beyond the period of a shock, the effects are interpreted as long-term. For example, a short-term unemployment spell due to a temporary adverse shock (such as Covid-19) can carry long-term negative effects on the workers beyond the shock period.
- What is the Role of MENA’s Pre-existing Structural Issues in the Short-term Impact and Long-term Consequences of Labor Market Shocks?
- The goal of this topic is to understand how and to what extent MENA’s pre-existing structural issues play a role in the short-term impacts and long-term consequences of labor market shocks.
Funding Information
- For each accepted proposal from authors outside the World Bank, the author(s) will receive a research support amount of US$7000.
Criteria
Key criteria for selecting authors and coauthors include the following:
- Proven track record of publications in peer-reviewed journals.
- Demonstrated expertise in MENA labor markets.
- The research proposal must be feasible, data are available, and the methods are clearly explained.
For more information, visit https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2022/04/27/call-for-proposals-margins-of-adjustments-to-labor-market-shocks-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa