About IZA World of Labor

IZA World of Labor is a comprehensive, reliable, and up-to-date information resource aimed at decision makers, advisors, interested citizens and others who are concerned with issues in labor worldwide.

IZA World of Labor is designed to be a readable online encyclopedia that contains articles dealing with issues related to people's working life. Our articles summarize state-of-the-art research and do so in such a way that they are easily readable by people who have no expert background on the subject or issue covered. The one-page summaries that lead the article provide an easy way for the reader to get a quick overview of the issues and what we know about them.

Political stakeholders in labor markets regularly face the challenge of responding to acute or systemic problems, and identifying new approaches. Evidence-based, scientific analysis can support and guide the process of identifying, evaluating, and implementing economic policy options.

IZA World of Labor offers assistance by presenting empirically founded research on markets and related economic policy measures in an innovative way to meet the needs of stakeholders in labor markets worldwide.

IZA World of Labor was launched by the IZA-Institute of Labor Economics in 2014. IZA's activities receive support from Deutsche Post Foundation.

If you wish to find out more about the features our website has to offer, please view our short introductory video.

IZA World of Labor content is regularly cited by key media outlets and policy-making organizations.
 

Editorial Board

IZA World of Labor benefits from the dedicated work of its authors and editorial board. Our Editor-in-Chief is Pierre Cahuc, who coordinates the wide thematic array of our online compendium. Olga K. Nottmeyer serves as Managing Editor of IZA World of Labor and ensures its high publishing standards.

All articles are solicited and handled by experts in each field—view the full editorial board here.

 

Publication policies

IZA World of labor articles require careful selection of authors and topics, rigorous peer review, and professional development editing. IZA World of Labor upholds the highest ethical standards in its publication practices and follows an open-access policy. In addition, IZA World of Labor recognizes the importance of proper citation of data.

Please find below further information on all these aspects and view our FAQs in case of further questions.
 

Authors and review process

Authors, who are well-known experts in their field, are invited based on their expertise and contribute free of charge. We ask each of our authors to follow our publication policies. Each IZA World of Labor article is subject to single-blind peer review. In addition, each article goes through thorough developmental editing, a process which may include some rewriting to bring the article in line with our unique, recognizable style, and to make sure that the article fits the needs of our target audience.

Both peer review and development editing ensure that our articles meet our high-quality standards and refer to the most relevant empirical research findings. Especially peer review is a critical element of scholarly publication and the integrity of what we publish is central to our mission.

For each article, we translate the one-pager element into German and Spanish. The translation is then published with the English version of the article. 

To ensure their currency, the Editorial Board continually reviews articles. If new evidence has been published that would substantially change the conclusions of an article, then the board commissions a new updated version from the original and/or additional authors. If new evidence is available yet does not substantially change the conclusions of an article then we will simply add the new evidence to the additional references section of that article. You can view version information about an article under the Versions panel, displayed on the bottom right-hand side of each article. From this panel, you will be able to view previous versions of articles.
 

IZA code of conduct

IZA’s work is based on common values of transparency, mutual respect, integrity and reliability. In order to uphold the high standards of excellent research, and provide a healthy and open work environment, IZA has set out its Code of Conduct.
 

Open access statement

All articles published by IZA World of Labor are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers.

Authors of articles published in IZA World of Labor are the copyright holders of their articles. For authors who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, IZA World of Labor can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact the IZA World of Labor Office if further information is needed.
 

Open science, FAIR data

IZA is a strong proponent of Open Science and the FAIR principles in regards to data. Data should be F(indable), A(ccessible), I(nteroperable) and R(eusable) and well as properly cited acknowledging the author's sources, to make identifying data easier, to promote the reproduction of research results, and to allow the impact of data to be tracked.

To that end, IZA's Research Data Center (IDSC), one of over 40 accredited RDCs nationwide, offers a number of data services among them the IDSC Dataverse, a data, metadata and code repository for labor and behavior economics. IZA affiliated entities such as Projects, Institutions or Journals as well as individual authors may request their own sub-dataverse within the repository as well as deposit their data to satisfy funding or journal requirements adhering to the Open Science principles. On the other side data is then made available for academic purposes such as teaching, secondary research and replication.

The IDSC of IZA, as a member of the CrossRef DOI Registration Agency, issues its own DOIs under its own prefix, the same one IZA World of Labor registers its articles under. The IDSC uses such DOIs to create a citation for the data it hosts. For support please contact idsc@iza.org.