Increasing the productivity of traditional farming systems in rural areas such Middle Bush on Tanna, Vanuatu will require concerted extension and training effort. The situation found at Middle Bush is seen as the ‘face of the future’ for much of rural Melanesia.

Despite the huge challenges they face, refugees are the most entrepreneurial migrants in Australia and they are nearly twice as likely to be entrepreneurs as Australian taxpayers in general. Yet refugee entrepreneurship hardly features in public debate and receives little policy support.

This collection of best practice examples shows how European Union member states are improving access to social protection for workers and self-employed citizens. It was developed by national authorities and social partners for national authorities and social partners, to support the implementation of social protection...

Millions of workers do not have standard work arrangements—permanent jobs with a traditional employer-employee relationship. Rather, they are in temporary, contract, or other forms of non-standard employment arrangements in which they may not receive employer-provided retirement and health benefits, or have safeguards such as job-protected...

A growing number of American workers earn income outside of traditional employee-employer relationships through self-employment and business ownership. This paper draws on administrative tax records to provide a more complete picture of the self-employed, including how they differ from employees (which we define as workers...

Recent reports on the “gig economy” create an impression that a dizzying mix of technological and competitive forces is fundamentally reworking the landscape of employment in the United States. A central aspect of this change is the perceived rise of independent contracting as an alternative...

The rise of the “gig economy” has attracted wide attention from both scholars and the popular media. Much of this attention has been devoted to jobs mediated through various online platforms. While non-traditional work arrangements have been a perennial subject of debate and study, the...

The maker movement is on the rise. There are already over one million Etsy sellers worldwide. Together, they sold over $1.35 billion worth of goods in 2013. The emerging maker movement offers the tantalizing promise of a better economy—one that puts people at the center...

Although Etsy sellers differ from traditional entrepreneurs in many ways, they are emblematic of larger shifts in the economy towards self-employment and micro-business. Most are businesses of one, and face very different challenges from even a five- or ten-person enterprise. Government and regulatory agencies should...

To monitor trends in alternative work arrangements, we conducted a version of the Contingent Worker Survey as part of the RAND American Life Panel in late 2015. The findings point to a significant rise in the incidence of alternative work arrangements in the U.S. economy...

By the beginning of 2013, five years since the onset of the recession, there had been a loss of around seven million jobs across the European Union. On average, one in ten people were left without work, with countries such as Spain and Greece facing...

The UK’s micro business population is booming. Defined as firms with 0-9 employees, there are now 5m such businesses in the UK, up from 3.5m in 2000. In contrast, the populations of all other firm sizes have either increased only marginally or fallen over the...