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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Pascal Belan (LEN, Université de Nantes); Martine Carré (CEPII, CREST and THEMA, Université de Cergy); Stéphane Gregoir (CREST-INSEE) |
| Abstract: | A large exclusion from the labor market or an important unemployment of low-skilled workers is observed in some developed economies in which a minimum wage has been introduced. In such circumstances, governments may adopt two kinds of policies. They may pay unemployment benefits or they may try to increase demand for low-skilled labor by subsidizing low-skilled jobs. In this paper, we propose a matching model which allows to analyze the effects of these policies on the labor market. In our framework, the government budget is balanced through taxes on occupied workers and classical and frictional unemployment simultaneously exist. The labor market is dual featuring low-skilled and high-skilled workers. Low-skilled jobs pay the minimum wage, while high-skilled wages result from bargaining. Moreover, high-skilled unemployed can apply for both types of jobs thereby accepting to be downgraded, while opportunities for low-skilled workers are limited to low-skilled jobs. We first give conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a steady- state equilibrium and we analyze the effects of several fiscal instruments. In this set-up, increasing low-skilled job subsidies does not necessarily reduce low-skilled unemployment or unemployment spells. We provided empirical evidence by calibrating our model on French labor market data, it is found that for five low-skilled workers leaving classical unemployment, two high-skilled workers are downgraded (although they might have been previously unemployed). |
| Keywords: | Crowding-out, Matching, On-the-job search, Taxation |
| JEL: | H21 H23 J41 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2007-17&r=lab |
| By: | Francisco M. Gonzalez; Shouyong Shi |
| Abstract: | In this paper we consider learning from search as a mechanism to understand the relationship between unemployment duration and search outcomes as a labor market equilibrium. We rely on the assumption that workers do not have precise knowledge of their job finding probabilities and therefore, learn about them from their search histories. Embedding this assumption in a model of the labor market with directed search, we provide an equilibrium theory of declining reservation wages over unemployment spells. After each period of search, unemployed workers update their beliefs about the market matching efficiency. We characterize situations where reservation wages decline with unemployment duration. Consequently, the wage distribution is non-degenerate, despite the facts that matches are homogeneous and search is directed. Moreover, aggregate matching probability decreases with unemployment duration, in contrast to individual workers' matching probability, which increases over individual unemployment spells. The difficulty in establishing these results is that learning generates non-differentiable value functions and multiple solutions to a worker's optimization problem. We overcome this difficulty by exploiting a connection between convexity of a worker's value function and the property of supermodularity. |
| Keywords: | Reservation wages; Learning; Directed search; Supermodularity |
| JEL: | E24 D83 J64 |
| Date: | 2007–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-292&r=lab |
| By: | Wachter, Till von; Bender, Stefan (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Influential studies have suggested that initial conditions can have persistent effects on workers' careers within firms. It is a longstanding question among economists whether such lasting wage differentials among firms and industries are due to persistent deviations of wages from workers' skills due to contracting and market frictions, or whether they arise from permanent differences among workers' skills. However, there is currently little representative evidence on firm-entry cohort effects and few explicit tests of alternative explanations. We use information on the universe of workers from a large German manufacturing sector from matched employer- employee records to show that firm-entry cohort effects are a pervasive phenomenon for the firms we study. The cohort effects we estimate are highly heterogeneous across firms and slowly fade over time. We also find that wage premiums on the past job are lost at job displacement, and that initial positive effects on wage levels at the new job fades over time. This suggests that at least part of firm-entry cohort effects arise from transitory rents, and that initial effects from previous wages fade as workers' search for better jobs." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Date: | 2007–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:200719&r=lab |
| By: | Sandra E. Black (University of California, Los Angeles, NHH, NBER and IZA); Alexandra Spitz-Oener (Humboldt University Berlin, ZEW and IZA) |
| Abstract: | The closing of the gender wage gap is an ongoing phenomenon in industrialized countries. However, research has been limited in its ability to understand the causes of these changes, due in part to an inability to directly compare the work of women to that of men. In this study, we use a new approach for analyzing changes in the gender pay gap that uses direct measures of job tasks and gives a comprehensive characterization of how work for men and women has changed in recent decades. Using data from West Germany, we find that women have witnessed relative increases in non-routine analytic tasks and non-routine interactive tasks, which are associated with higher skill levels. The most notable difference between the genders is, however, the pronounced relative decline in routine task inputs among women with little change for men. These relative task changes explain a substantial fraction of the closing of the gender wage gap. Our evidence suggests that these task changes are driven, at least in part, by technological change. We also show that these task changes are related to the recent polarization of employment between low and high skilled occupations that we observed in the 1990s. |
| Keywords: | occupational skill requirements, gender wage gap, technological change |
| JEL: | J31 J24 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2803&r=lab |
| By: | F. Alfonso Arellano |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses the effects of individual and group outplacement services for a group of unemployed workers in Spain on their unemployment spells. Two data bases are used, one from the Spanish Department of Employment (INEM) and other from one of the most important outplacement firms (Creade), between 1998 and 2003. Using (non-parametric) matching methods and unemployment duration as outcome variable, the results suggest outplacement produces a “reservation wage” effect for men, increasing unemployment spell by three and two months for individual and group outplacement, respectively. Women who receive the services increase very slightly unemployment duration, showing also (non-significant) spell reductions for individual outplacement. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2007-16&r=lab |
| By: | Javier Ortega (Université de Toulouse (GREMAQ, IDEI), CEP (LSE), CEPR and IZA); Laurence Rioux (CREST-INSEE) |
| Abstract: | A dynamic labor matching economy is presented, in which the unemployed are either entitled to unemployment insurance (UI) or unemployment assistance (UA), and the employees are either eligible for UI or UA upon future separations. Eligibility for UI requires a minimum duration of contributions and UI benefits are then paid for a limited duration. Workers are riskaverse and wages are determined in a bilateral Nash bargain. As eligibility for UI does not automatically follow from employment, the two types of unemployed workers have different threat points, which delivers equilibrium wage dispersion. Most of the variables and parameters of the model are estimated using the French sample of the European Community Household Panel (1994-2000). We show that extending the UI entitlement improves the situation of all groups of workers and slightly lowers unemployment, while raising UI benefits harms the unemployed on assistance and raises unemployment. Easier eligibility for UI also improves the situation of all groups of workers and favours relatively more the least well-off than longer entitlement. The re-entitlement effect in France lowers by 10% the rise in the wage and by 13% the rise in unemployment following a 10% increase in benefit levels. |
| Keywords: | re-entitlement effects, unemployment compensation, matching |
| JEL: | J41 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2807&r=lab |
| By: | Markus Pannenberg (DIW Berlin, University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship between individual risk aversion and reservation wages using a novel set of direct measures of individual risk attitudes from the German Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP). We find that risk aversion has a significantly negative impact on the level of reservation wages. Moreover, we show that the elasticity of the reservation wage with respect to unemployment benefits is remarkably lower for risk-averse job seekers than for risk-loving job seekers. The results are consistent with an interpretation that risk-averse job seekers set their reservation wage levels sufficiently low, so that they accept almost every job offer. |
| Keywords: | risk aversion, reservation wages, survey data |
| JEL: | J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2806&r=lab |
| By: | Julio J. Rotemberg |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a model in which firms recruit both unemployed and employed workers by posting vacancies. Firms act monopsonistically and set wages to retain their existing workers as well as to attract new ones. The model differs from Burdett and Mortensen (1998) in that its assumptions ensure that there is an equilibrium where all firms pay the same wage. The paper analyzes the response of this wage to exogenous changes in the marginal revenue product of labor. The paper finds parameters for which the response of wages is modest relative to the response of employment, as appears to be the case in U.S. data and shows that the insistence by workers that firms act with a minimal level of altruism can be a source of dampened wage responses. The paper also considers a setting where this minimal level of altruism is subject to fluctuations and shows that, for certain parameters, the model can explain both the standard deviations of employment and wages and the correlation between these two series over time. |
| Keywords: | Employment ; Unemployment ; Wages |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbwp:07-5&r=lab |
| By: | Pourpourides, Panayiotis M. |
| Abstract: | Despite the success of Walrasian equilibrium models in explaining economic growth facts they fail to simultaneously account for the cyclical behavior of wages and the skill premium. In this paper I calibrate and solve a general equilibrium implicit contracts model where the workers are in fixed supply, homogeneous in preferences and the wage is the only insurance device available to them. I show that the Pareto optimal allocation is able to capture the weak contemporaneous correlation of wages and the skill premium with output while performing relatively well in matching other basic macroeconomic regularities. The key aspects of the model are the contracts and the capital utilization margin, and not the skill-complementarity of capital. |
| Keywords: | Implicit Contracts; Wages; Wage Inequality; Skill Premium; Business Cycles; Capital-Skill Complementarity |
| JEL: | E10 E20 E32 E37 J31 J41 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2007/19&r=lab |
| By: | Anzelika Zaiceva (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents whether female East-West migrants in Germany after the reunification experience a gain or a disadvantage after they moved compared to both stayers and males. It employs panel data techniques to take account of unobserved heterogeneity. I find that migrant women after migration neither experience a drop in relative employment, nor lower relative hourly wages. They do, however, work less hours and have a lower annual income. The results also suggest that for them, the income effect dominates the substitution effect and they substitute market work with home production, specifically with childcare. |
| Keywords: | migration, gender, panel data |
| JEL: | J16 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2810&r=lab |
| By: | Otrok, Christopher; Pourpourides, Panayiotis M. |
| Abstract: | Using longitudinal microdata we implement a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model to analyze the cyclical properties of real wages. Contrary to previous econometric models our model does not impose an a priori structure on the relationship of wages with the business cycle. The factors and the parameters are sampled from posterior distributions using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. We show that the comovement of real wages can be related to a common factor that exhibits a negative correlation with the growth rate of real GDP. Our findings indicate that the common factor explains only 14% of wage variation which cannot justify claims of a strong systematic relationship between wages and the business cycle. The latter suggests that wage dynamics are more consistent with models of labor contracting. We also confirm findings of previous studies in which skilled and unskilled wages exhibit the same degree of cyclical variation. Finally, we find that neither gender nor race contribute substantially in wage variation. |
| Keywords: | Wages; Wage Differentials; Business Cycles; Bayesian Analysis |
| JEL: | C11 C13 C22 C23 C81 C82 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2007/20&r=lab |
| By: | Aline Valette (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - [CNRS : UMR6123] - [Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I][Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II]) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to enlighten the debate around the increase of instability in contemporary labour markets. Based on the case of France and the UK, we analyse the position in the national employment system of employees, from 30 to 55 years old, concerning their job stability. National employment systems are broken down into four stability regimes created from the stability variable we generate. This variable is calculated on the basis of the ratio of tenure in current job to total time spent in the labour market. Both descriptive statistics of the stability variable and probabilities for employees to joint one regime or another, show the absence of a generalised employment instability for this “central” work force. |
| Keywords: | France; United-Kingdom; Employment system; Job stability; |
| Date: | 2007–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00156459_v1&r=lab |
| By: | Pages, Carmen; Ahsan, Ahmad |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the economic effects of legal amendments on different types of labor laws. It examines the effects of amendments to labor dispute laws and amendments to job security legislation. It also identifies the effects of legal amendments related to the most contentious regulation of all-Chapter Vb of the Industrial Disputes Act-which stipulates that firms with 100 or mor e employees cannot retrench workers without government authorization. The analysis finds that laws that increase job security or increase the cost of labor disputes substantially reduce registered sector employment and output but do not increase the labor share. Labor-intensive industries, such as textiles, are the hardest hit by laws that increase job security while capital-intensive industries are most affected by higher labor dispute resolution costs. The paper concludes that widespread and increasing use of contract labor may have brought some output and employment gains but did not make up for the adverse effects of job security and dispute resolution laws. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Standards,Labor Management and Relations,Public Sector Regulation,Legal Products |
| Date: | 2007–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4259&r=lab |
| By: | Ruta Aidis (University College London and FEE, University of Amsterdam); Cecile Wetzels (FEE, University of Amsterdam and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the relationship between self-employment, partner’s employment, the household and children on a mother’s and father’s probability to choose self-employment. Few studies are available on this topic and their analysis is mainly limited to the female role in the North American context. In this study, we examine the influence of personal characteristics, household and labor market characteristics for both mothers and fathers in a family context and their probability to be self-employed as compared to parents who have chosen formal, gainful employment. We focus on the data from the European context comparing results from Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. Using these large and comparable data sets, our logit model estimates show that mothers who choose self-employment do not work fewer working hours than those in gainful employment. Similar results were found for fathers in Spain and Italy. Perhaps the most striking result is the very strong significance of the partner’s self-employed status on the choice for self-employment for both mothers and fathers in all three countries. Other effects such as human capital, household income, presence of grandmothers and number of young children indicate country differences. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, parenthood, self-employment, gender, Europe |
| JEL: | M13 J24 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2813&r=lab |
| By: | Fogli, Alessandra; Veldkamp, Laura |
| Abstract: | Much of the increase in female labour force participation in the post-war period has come from the entry of married women with young children. Accompanying this change has been a rise in cultural acceptance of maternal employment. We argue that the concurrent S shaped rise in maternal participation and its cultural acceptance comes from generations of women engaged in Bayesian learning about the effects of maternal employment on children. Each generation updates their parents' beliefs by observing the children of employed women. When few women participate in the labour force, most observations are uninformative and participation rises slowly. As information accumulates and the effects of labour force participation become less uncertain, more women participate, learning accelerates and labour force participation rises faster. As beliefs converge to the truth, participation flattens out. Survey data, wage data and participation data support our mechanism and distinguish it from alternative explanations. |
| Keywords: | female labour force participation; information diffusion; labor supply; preference transmission; S-shaped learning |
| JEL: | E2 J21 N32 Z1 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6324&r=lab |
| By: | Carsten Ochsen (University of Rostock) |
| Abstract: | The author analyses the relationship between labour market institutions and unemployment for 20 industrial countries. He examines, whether there is a non-linear relationship between institutions and unemployment. The author estimates country-specific equations and as well as panel data models. He draws the conclusion that there is a non-linear relationship between labour market institutions and unemployment. However, the institutions have played only a minor role for the level and development of unemployment in recent decades. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:studie:03-2007&r=lab |
| By: | Brännström, Lars (Institute for Futures Studies) |
| Abstract: | One subject that has received ample attention in recent years is the potential negative effects of spatial concentrations of disadvantage on participation in society, particularly in terms of labour market participation and educational careers. This study contributes to the literature on the effects of neighbourhood and school on individual educational outcomes by examining whether and to what extent adolescent educational achievement is determined by neighbourhood and school population characteristics. By using an unusually rich administrative data set of leaving certificates for around 26,000 upper secondary school students who were registered as residing in any of the three metropolitan areas of Sweden in the school year 2004, cross-classified multilevel analyses show that characteristics attributable to upper secondary schools matter much more for the variability in achievement than do neighbourhoods. There are also indications of contextual effects at each level (particularly among boys with an immigrant background) that operate above and beyond the impact of observed individual-level background attributes. Since the estimated effects of concentrations of (dis)advantage and immigrant density at neighbourhood and school level point in different directions, this study demonstrates the benefits of analysing the effects of neighbourhood and school on individual educational outcomes at the same time. |
| Keywords: | education; neighbourhood |
| JEL: | I20 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifswps:2007_003&r=lab |
| By: | Carlos Gradín (Universidade de Vigo and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This study aimed to identify the major factors underlying the large discrepancy in poverty levels between two Brazilian racial groups: whites and Afro-Brazilians. We performed an Oaxaca-Blinder-type decomposition for nonlinear regressions in order to quantify the extent to which differences in observed geographic, sociodemographic, and labor characteristics (characteristics effect) account for this difference. The remaining unexplained part (coefficients effect) provides evidence on how these characteristics differentially impact on the risk of poverty in each group. A detailed decomposition of both effects allows the individual contribution of each characteristic to be determined. Our results show that the characteristics effect explains a large part of the discrepancy in poverty levels, with education and labor variables of household members explaining at least one half of the effect, and geographic and demographic variables accounting for the remainder. However, the unexplained part that remains significant has increased in importance in recent last years, and probably results from unequal access to high-quality education and the persistence of discrimination against colored workers in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | poverty, gap, race, skin color, decomposition, Oaxaca-Blinder, Brazil, PNAD, labor market, participation, education, household characteristics |
| JEL: | D31 D63 J15 J82 O15 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2809&r=lab |
| By: | Nahum, Ruth-Aïda (Institute for Futures Studies) |
| Abstract: | This study examines labour supply responses to spousal sickness absence (SSA) using a Swedish longitudinal panel data, from 1996-2002. The overall results present an evidence of a decrease in labour supply in response to spousal sickness absence. The effect on labour supply increases with spousal earnings level. Women react stronger than men, and more often respond to current shorter term SSA, whereas men mostly react to longer term SSA. |
| Keywords: | sickness absence; labour supply; panel data |
| JEL: | I12 J12 J14 J22 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifswps:2007_002&r=lab |
| By: | Harding, Don |
| Abstract: | Theory cannot provide an unambiguous prediction regarding the economic effects of employment protection laws. Such laws confer benefits on employees and shift the labour supply curve to the right. But they also impose costs on business and therefore shift the labour demand curve to the left. The net effect on employment is ambiguous and depends on the magnitudes of the costs and benefits as well as the elasticities of labour supply and labour demand. The net effect on welfare is also ambiguous. However, since many businesses did not provide protection against unfair dismissal in the 1990s one can argue that that indicates that the costs exceed the benefits and thus the unfair dismissal laws introduced in 1993 reduced employment and welfare. Reduced form models that use employment or unemployment as the dependent variable are useless for identifying and measuring the economic effects of unfair dismissal laws. Structural models or survey based evidence is required to answer these questions. Evidence from a survey of 1800 businesses establishes that unfair dismissal laws impose significant costs on businesses and cause them to make major changes to the way in which they hire and fire workers. An estimated lower bound on these costs is $296 per full time employee. This is a lower bound in part because some business said unfair dismissal laws raised their costs but were unable to quantify by how much. Also, the opportunity cost in terms of lost productivity of continuing to employ those workers whose performance is unsatisfactory is excluded from the calculation above. Evidence from the 1990 and 1995 AWIRS survey shows that dismissal rates for cause declined from 4.4 per cent to 2.1 per cent and may have declined even further in the past decade. This suggests that the lost productivity from retaining unsatisfactory employees is likely to be high. The AWIRS data shows that in 1990 small and medium sized businesses were more likely than larger business to dismiss employees for cause. The 1995 AWIRS survey shows that small and medium sized businesses made much larger adjustments to their firing practices and thus shouldered more of the burden of these laws. Discussion of unfair dismissal laws has ignored the fact that these laws increase the risk born by businesses. Small business is unable to pool this risk and so it poses a much greater cost for such businesses. This feature may also explain why small businesses reported that they spent more on complying with and reducing their exposure to unfair dismissal laws. These considerations suggest that the Government's policy of exempting businesses with fewer than 100 employees from the unfair dismissal laws will most likely not cause major resource allocation costs. But a better policy would be abolish the unfair dismissal laws. Using a labour demand elasticity of 0.7 percent I estimate that the existing unfair dismissal laws reduce employment by at least 0.46 per cent (about 46,000 employees). Freyens and Oslington question my findings. There are two mistakes in their paper that account for their position. First they underestimate by a factor of 10 the probability that a worker is dismissed for cause. Second, they exclude the costs incurred by business in avoiding exposure to the law and focus only on the cost of complying with the law. Both their paper and my paper can be criticised for underestimating costs because we exclude the foregone productivity that arises where businesses retain some employees whose performance is unsatisfactory and who would have been dismissed under an employ-at-will regime. |
| Keywords: | Employment termination laws; unfair dismissal |
| JEL: | J60 J65 |
| Date: | 2005–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3700&r=lab |
| By: | Antonio Golpe (University of Huelva, Spain); Andre van Stel (EIM Business and Policy Research, Zoetermeer, Netherlands; Cranfield University School of Management, UK; Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relation between changes in self-employment and changes in unemployment at the regional level in Spain in the period 1979-2001. We estimate a vector autoregression model as proposed by Audretsch, Carree, van Stel and Thurik (2005) using a data base for Spanish regions. By estimating the model we are able to empirically distinguish between two directions of causality. On the one hand increases in self-employment may contribute to lower unemployment rates (the "entrepreneurial" effect). On the other hand, higher unemployment rates may push individuals into self-employment, thereby contributing to higher self-employment rates (the "refugee" effect). In our analysis of these two effects we distinguish between higher and lower income regions within Spain. We find empirical support for the "entrepreneurial" effect to exist, both in higher income and in lower income regions. As regards the "refugee" effect, the evidence is mixed. We find empirical support for this effect for higher income regions. Remarkably, we do not find evidence for a "refugee" effect in lower income regions of Spain, even though unemployment rates are on average higher in these regions. We argue that this may be partly related to a lack of incentives for unemployed individuals in these regions to find paid employment. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, self-employment, unemployment, economic growth, Spain |
| JEL: | E24 L11 M13 O10 O52 |
| Date: | 2007–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-021&r=lab |
| By: | Albanesi, Stefania; Olivetti, Claudia |
| Abstract: | Until the early decades of the 20th century, women spent more than 60% of their prime-age years either pregnant or nursing. Since then, the introduction of infant formula reduced women's comparative advantage in infant care, by providing an effective breast milk substitute. In addition, improved medical knowledge and obstetric practices reduced the time cost associated with women's reproductive role. We explore the hypothesis that these developments enabled married women to increase their participation in the labour force, thus providing the incentive to invest in market skills, which in turn reduced their earnings differential with respect to men. We document these changes and develop a quantitative model that aims to capture their impact. Our results suggest that progress in medical technologies related to motherhood was essential to generate a significant rise in the participation of married women between 1920 and 1950, in particular those with young children. |
| Keywords: | female labour force participation; gender earnings gap; medical progress |
| JEL: | E24 J13 J16 J21 J22 J31 N3 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6352&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Nunnenkamp; José Eduardo Alatorre Bremont |
| Abstract: | We raise the question whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed to employment generation in Mexico and, thereby, helped overcome the country’s pressing labor market problems. The analysis draws on highly disaggregated FDI and employment data covering almost 200 manufacturing industries. We estimate dynamic labor demand functions for blue and white collar workers, including both FDI and its interaction with major industry characteristics. By employing the GMM estimator suggested by Arellano and Bond, we account for the relatively short time dimension of our panel (1994-2006). It turns out that FDI has a significantly positive, though quantitatively modest impact on manufacturing employment in Mexico. Moreover, we find no evidence supporting the widely held view that FDI adds to white collar employment in the first place. However, the positive effect on blue collar employment diminishes with increasing skill intensity of manufacturing industries. |
| Keywords: | Foreign direct investment, employment, blue and white collar workers, manufacturing sector, Mexico |
| JEL: | F23 J23 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1328&r=lab |
| By: | Lídia Farré (University of Alicante); Francis Vella (Georgetown University and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Using a sample of mother-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the Young Adults of the NLSY79 we explore the relationship between a woman’s attitudes towards the role of females in the labor market and the attitudes of her children. We also examine whether this intergenerational cultural link has implications for the labor market behavior of the females in the NLSY79. We find that a woman’s attitudes have a statistically significant effect on her children’s views towards working women. Furthermore we find that this cultural transmission influences female labor market decisions. Our results imply that a woman’s view regarding the role of females in the labor market and family not only affects the labor market force participation decision of her daughter, but also has an equally strong association with the labor force participation of the wife of her son. These results indicate that the transmission of gender role attitudes contributes to the persistence of economic status across generations. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational cultural transmission, gender role attitudes, female labor force participation |
| JEL: | J12 J62 D1 Z1 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2802&r=lab |
| By: | Devashish Mitra (Syracuse University, NBER and IZA); Priya Ranjan (University of California, Irvine) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, in order to study the impact of offshoring on sectoral and economywide rates of unemployment, we construct a two sector general equilibrium model in which labor is mobile across the two sectors, and unemployment is caused by search frictions. We find that, contrary to general perception, wage increases and sectoral unemployment decreases due to offshoring. This result can be understood to arise from the productivity enhancing (cost reducing) effect of offshoring. If the search cost is identical in the two sectors, or even if the search cost is higher in the sector which experiences offshoring, the economywide rate of unemployment decreases. We also find multiple equilibrium outcomes in the extent of offshoring and therefore, in the unemployment rate. Furthermore, a firm can increase its domestic employment through offshoring. Also, such a firm's domestic employment can be higher than a firm that chooses to remain fully domestic. When we modify the model to disallow intersectoral labor mobility, the negative relative price effect on the sector in which firms offshore some of their activity becomes stronger. In such a case, it is possible for this effect to offset the positive productivity effect, and result in a rise in unemployment in that sector. In the other sector, offshoring has a much stronger unemployment reducing effect in the absence of intersectoral labor mobility than in the presence of it. Finally, allowing for an endogenous number of varieties provides an additional indirect channel, through which sectoral unemployment goes down due to the entry of new firms brought about by offshoring. |
| Keywords: | offshoring, unemployment, search, general equilibrium |
| JEL: | F1 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2805&r=lab |
| By: | Jose Ignacio Gimenez; Jose Alberto Molina; Almudena Sevilla Sanz |
| Abstract: | This paper complements conventional economic analysis and presents a social norms interpretation to explain cross-country differences in partnership formation rates, and the dramatic decrease in partnership formation rates in Southern Europe in particular. We argue that increases in female human capital - by raising the opportunity cost of entering a partnership - had a differential impact on partnership formation rates in Northern and Southern Europe due to the different social norms regarding the household division of labor. Social norms are modeled as a constraint on the allocation of household labor that (if binding) diminishes the gains to enter a partnership. Furthermore, highly educated women are less likely to form a partnership, because the utility loss when a partnership is formed is lower the higher the female opportunity cost. We test the predictions of the model using 7 waves of the European Community Household panel (1995-2001). For each country and year we construct the average of the female to male ratio of childcare time as an indicator of social norms regarding the household division of labor. The empirical findings support the predictions of the model. After controlling for the time and country variation in the data, as well as for permanent individual heterogeneity and other aggregate variables at the country level, the results suggest that more traditional social norms regarding the household division of labor negatively affect a woman`s probability of forming a partnership. Thus, a woman living in a country with a more traditional division of household labor has, ceteris paribus, a lower probability of forming a partnership. Furthermore, as predicted by the theory, social norms have a stronger negative effect for highly educated women. To the extent that female education has increased over the years, and that Southern European countries have more traditional social norms, this latter finding may partly explain the dramatic decrease in partnership formation rates in Southern Europe. |
| Keywords: | Marriage Market, Gender Roles, Household Labor |
| JEL: | E21 I29 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:333&r=lab |
| By: | Michael D. Giandrea (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics); Kevin E. Cahill (Analysis Group, Inc.); Joseph F. Quinn (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | Are today's youngest retirees following in the footsteps of their older peers with respect to gradual retirement? Recent evidence from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) suggests that most older Americans with full-time career jobs later in life transitioned to another job prior to complete labor force withdrawal. This paper explores the retirement patterns of a younger cohort of individuals from the HRS known as the "War Babies." These survey respondents were born between 1942 and 1947 and were 57 to 62 years of age at the time of their fourth bi-annual HRS interview in 2004. We compare the War Babies to an older cohort of HRS respondents and find that, for the most part, the War Babies have followed the gradual-retirement trends of their slightly older predecessors. Traditional one-time, permanent retirements appear to be fading, a sign that the impact of changes in the retirement income landscape since the 1980s continues to unfold. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Aging, Partial Retirement, Gradual Retirement |
| JEL: | J26 J14 J32 H55 |
| Date: | 2007–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:670&r=lab |
| By: | Kaul Asha; Nandan Debmalya |
| Abstract: | Multiple research studies on grammar and syntax used by men and women stress disparities stemming from gender specific styles of “talk”. Borrowing from the existing literature, we analyzed transcripts of 107 employees in an Indian organization to study variations, if any, in grammar and syntax across genders at the middle management level. Our study was based on an analysis of reported speech of a critical incident of upward influence in the organization. We classified the transcripts into two clusters, viz., male and female. A frequency count for some grammatical and syntactical forms was taken. Frequency count of the grammatical forms revealed no significant disparity in language used by males and females in same and mixed sex groups. The reasons for this finding are as follows: 1. Use of language is not gender specific. More specifically, sentential constructs are not governed by gender. 2. The content and context, if similar, yield similar results. 3. Evolution of a language pattern that is “organizationally fit” rather than gender governed. Significant variations in use of tags and hedges were identified. Based on the above findings, we attribute the variations in syntactical forms to aspects other than those related to “male” or “female” concepts of style, proposed by earlier researchers – for a study of the concept of style will require a framework which studies the linguistic form and the social functions in sync. |
| Date: | 2007–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2007-06-03&r=lab |
| By: | Beat Hedinger (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich); Lorenz Goette (Economic Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) |
| Abstract: | Cooperation between workers is important for firms. Cooperation can be maintained through positive or negative reciprocity between workers. In an environment where cooperation yields high efficiency gains negative reciprocity may, however, result in high costs for firms. Therefore positive reciprocity should be prevailing in these environments. To test this assumption we conduct experiments with Swiss Air Force pilots and a student reference group. We find that pilots’ cooperation is based on stronger positive reciprocal behaviour. We conclude that Swiss Air Force pilots maintain team-work with high levels of positive reciprocity, regardless of the identity of their partner. |
| Keywords: | Trust, Reciprocity |
| JEL: | C9 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:wpaper:0066&r=lab |
| By: | Congdon Fors, Heather (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | There are several factors that may contribute to the decision to send a child to work, such as poverty, market imperfections and parental preferences. The aim of this paper is to determine empirically the relative importance of these diverse factors on the incidence of child labor in rural India. In order to examine several potentially influential factors separately, we outline a theoretical model of child labor in a peasant household based on the model presented in Bhalotra and Heady (2003) with modifications to allow for the child to participate in different types of labor. We then use the theoretical model to specify and estimate an empirical model of rural child labor participation. Our results indicate that parental education and household income appear to play the most important role in determining whether a child works, attends school or is idle. Market imperfections, on the other hand, only play an important role in determining whether the child participates in family labor. <p> |
| Keywords: | child labor; school attendance; market imperfections; India |
| JEL: | I20 J13 J21 |
| Date: | 2007–06–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0256&r=lab |
| By: | El Lahga, AbdelRahmen; Moreau, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | Living arrangements have undergone considerable change in recent decades. In most Western countries marriage is no longer the exclusive context of family formation. In the United States (US) for instance, the number of unmarried couples nearly doubled in the 1990s, from 3:2 million couples in 1990 to 5:5 million couples in 2000 (source: U.S. Census Bureau). Le Goff (2002) reports that in the case of French women born between 1944 and 1948, 22 percent started their first union as a cohabiting union. For the cohort 1964-1968, this applies to 81 percent. In the former Federal Republic of Germany, about 38:3 percent of the women born between 1954 and 1958 started their first union outside of a formal marriage. The figure increases to 67:9 percent for the cohort 1964 -1968 (Le Goff, 2002). These demographic trends challenge the microeconomic literature in which couples living in consensual unions are implicitly assumed to act exactly as married couples. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:5587&r=lab |
| By: | von Greiff, Camilo (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new market failure in the decision on educational type in higher education. Individuals choose types of education with different degrees of specialization. Labor market transformation makes some individuals opt for a non-specialized education type that broadens the future career possibilities in an uncertain labor market. However, the growth rate in the economy is assumed to positively depend on the amount of specialized workers that get a job within their specialized field. Imposing a tax and transfer scheme in favor of specialized education types may correct for the market failure and Pareto improve the economy if the transfer attracts a sufficiently large amount of new students to a specialized education type and if their effect on the growth rate is substantial. |
| Keywords: | Educational Choice; Growth |
| JEL: | H23 I22 |
| Date: | 2007–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2007_0013&r=lab |
| By: | Florian Hagn; Wolfgang Maennig (University of Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | This study demonstrates that the Football World Cup 1974 in Germany was not able to generate any short to long-term employment effects that were significantly different from zero. It is the first work to examine long-term employment effects of Football World Cup tournaments. It is also one of the first work to undertake a multivariate analysis of the employment effects of a major sporting event outside of the USA. In addition, this study does not arbitrarily determine the time period for the potential positive effects of a major sporting event but instead examines several alternative periods. Furthermore, the study tests for method sensitivity by analysing the data set in parallel with the approaches used in the studies of sporting events in the USA as well as in a fourth modifying estimation approach. In contrast to the conclusions reached in comparable studies, the results are not regarded as a clear refutation of the positive effects of major sporting events. |
| Keywords: | Labour market, regional economics, sports economics, World Cup, Stadium Impact |
| JEL: | L83 R53 R58 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spe:wpaper:0721&r=lab |
| By: | Paserman, Marco Daniele |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data from nine tennis Grand Slam tournaments played between 2005 and 2007 to assess whether men and women respond differently to competitive pressure in a setting with large monetary rewards. In particular, it asks whether the quality of the game deteriorates as the stakes become higher. The paper conducts two parallel analyses, one based on aggregate set-level data, and one based on detailed point-by-point data, which is available for a selected subsample of matches in four of the nine tournaments under examination. The set-level analysis indicates that both men and women perform less well in the final and decisive set of the match. This result is robust to controls for the length of the match and to the inclusion of match and player-specific fixed effects. The drop in performance of women in the decisive set is slightly larger than that of men, but the difference is not statistically significant at conventional levels. On the other hand, the detailed point-by-point analysis reveals that, relative to men, women are substantially more likely to make unforced errors at crucial junctures of the match. Data on serve speed, on first serve percentages and on rally length suggest that women play a more conservative and less aggressive strategy as points become more important. I present a simple game-theoretic model that shows that a less aggressive strategy may be a player’s best response to an increase in the intrinsic probability of making unforced errors. |
| Keywords: | Gender differences; performance under pressure; tennis |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J71 L83 M50 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6335&r=lab |
| By: | Friel Martha; Santagata Walter (University of Turin) |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:eblawp:200710&r=lab |
| By: | Berta Esteve-Volart; Manuel F. Bagüés |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether the gender composition of recruiting committees matters. We make use of the exceptional evidence provided by Spanish public examinations, where the allocation of candidates to evaluating committees is random. We analyze how the chances of success of 150,000 male and female candidates to the four main Corps of the Spanish Judiciary over 1987-2005 were affected by the gender of their evaluators. We find that a female (male) candidate is significantly less likely to pass the exam whenever she is randomly assigned to a committee where the share of female (male) evaluators is relatively greater. Evidence from multiple choice tests reveals that both male dominated committees and female dominated committees are gender biased. Interestingly, this bias has not changed significantly over time and does not depend on the degree of feminization of the position. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2007-15&r=lab |
| By: | Nathalie Le Bouteillec; Loïc Charles |
| Abstract: | Historians of Economics use two main types of approaches. The first one interprets history of economic thought in terms of doctrines – mercantilism, socialism, liberalism, to name a few. Since the publication of Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis, this axiomatic has lost importance to an approach that focused on theoretical analysis as the main agency in the history of economics. There are however episodes of history of economics that stand in-between these two types of axiomatic, and neither one nor the other seem to offer an appropriate frame to un-derstand them. The debate on labour market legislation for women that spread across European countries at the end of the 19th century fits into this category. Because it concerned a major as-pect of labour market, it was in the core of the main economic theories (classical political econ-omy, marxism, marginalism) and doctrines (liberalism VS socialism) from mid-19th century on. However, the frontier between partisans of legal restrictions for women access to labour market and free market contenders did not correspond with those of historians of economic thought. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2007-6&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Zwick |
| Abstract: | The German dual apprenticeship system came under pressure in recent years because enterprises were not willing to offer a sufficient number of apprenticeship positions. A frequently made argument is that the gap could be closed if more firms would be willing to incur net costs during the training period. This paper investigates for the first time whether German enterprises on average indeed incur net costs during the apprenticeship period, i.e. if the impact of an increase in the share of apprentices on contemporary profits is negative. The paper uses the representative linked employer-employee panel data of the IAB (LIAB) and takes into account possible endogeneity of training intensity and unobserved heterogeneity in the profit estimation by employing panel system GMM methods. An increase in the share of apprentices has no effect on profits. This can be interpreted as a first indication that most establishments in Germany do not invest more in apprentices than their productivity effects during the apprenticeship period. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:5586&r=lab |
| By: | von Greiff, Camilo (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | The paper combines optimal taxation theory with human capital theory and develops a theoretical model with endogenous wages and education decision, in which redistributive policy experiments are carried out and assessed. It is argued that general equilibrium effects of labor income taxation on wages may counteract fiscal redistribution. It is also shown that education subsidies may only benefit skilled workers, suggesting that this subsidy can merely be viewed as a redistribution from unskilled to skilled individuals. Therefore, optimal policy involves a lump-sum education tax in the form of a negative education subsidy. |
| Keywords: | Income Redistribution; Education Subsidies |
| JEL: | H21 H23 |
| Date: | 2007–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2007_0012&r=lab |
| By: | Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact that technology shocks have in a trivariate VAR that includes productivity, hours worked per person and the employment ratio. These last two variables have trends that make them non-stationary. There are three results of interest. First, a technology shock reduces both hours and employment if those two variables are specified in first differences, with the response of employment being stronger than the response of hours. Second, a technology shock increases both hours and employment, when those two variables are specified in levels, although in this case the response of hours worked per person is stronger. Third, considering the possibility of changes in the trend growth rate of productivity reverses the results for the VARs with data in levels only. We also present a real business cycle model capable of replicating some of the results for hours and employment. |
| Keywords: | Business cycles, Employment, Hours worked, Technology shocks |
| JEL: | E32 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2007-02&r=lab |
| By: | Kevin Mellet |
| Abstract: | Two factors play a decisive role in the structuring of Internet based markets for infomediation (informational intermediation) : network externalities and information processing. First, these are examined separately. The two-sided markets literature focuses on the impact of network externalities in a context of competition among 2-sided platforms. It explains the level of concentrationfragmentation of those markets, and explores its welfare implications. We shall call this model the "horizontal" model of structuring. Symetrically, a "vertical" process of division of labour among the infomediaries' value chain is observed. It results of the complexification of intermediation in a context of strong quality uncertainty and high codification investments. Intermediaries specialize and develop cooperative relationships with each others. Secondly, the paper examines the implications of the simultaneous co-existence of H and D dynamics on the structuring of the market for infomediation. This co-existence generates frictions. Two levels of frictions are distinguished : i) market governance (standards and certifications) ; ii) commercial interactions (the so-called 'coopetition'). Empirical illustrations are taken from the analysis of Internet based labour market intermediaries. |
| Keywords: | Two-sided markets; competition; vertical specialization; regulation; coopetition; labour market intermediaries. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2007-13&r=lab |
| By: | O'Rourke, Kevin H; Rosés, Joan R.; Williamson, Jeffrey G |
| Abstract: | The endogenous growth literature has explored the transition from a Malthusian world where real wages, living standards and labour productivity are all linked to factor endowments, to one where (endogenous) productivity change embedded in modern industrial growth breaks that link. Recently, economic historians have presented evidence from England showing that the dramatic reversal in distributional trends – from a steep secular fall in wage-land rent ratios before 1800 to a steep secular rise thereafter – must be explained both by industrial revolutionary growth forces and by global forces that opened up the English economy to international trade. This paper explores whether and how the relationship was different for Spain, a country which had relatively poor productivity growth in agriculture and low living standards prior to 1800, was a late-comer to industrialization afterwards, and adopted very restrictive policies towards imports for much of the 19th century. The failure of Spanish wage-rental ratios to undergo a sustained rise after 1840 can be attributed to the delayed fall in relative agricultural prices (due to those protective policies) and to the decline in Spanish manufacturing productivity after 1898. |
| Keywords: | distribution; globalization; growth; Spain |
| JEL: | F1 N7 O4 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6356&r=lab |
| By: | Michaels, Guy |
| Abstract: | Since Adam Smith's time, the division of labour in production has increased significantly, while information processing has become an important part of work. This paper examines whether the need to coordinate an increasingly complex division of labour has raised the demand for clerical office workers, who process information that is used to coordinate production. In order to examine this question empirically, I introduce a measure of the complexity of an industry's division of labour that uses the Herfindahl index of occupations it employs, excluding clerks and managers. Using US data I find that throughout the 20th century more complex industries employed relatively more clerks, and recent Mexican data shows a similar relationship. The relative complexity of industries is persistent over time and correlated across these two countries. I further document the relationship between complexity and the employment of clerks using an early information technology (IT) revolution that took place around 1900, when telephones, typewriters, and improved filing techniques were introduced. This IT revolution raised the demand for clerks in all manufacturing industries, but significantly more so in industries with a more complex division of labour. Interestingly, recent reductions in the price of IT have enabled firms to substitute computers for clerks, and I find that more complex industries have substituted clerks more rapidly. |
| Keywords: | Division of Labour; Information Processing; Organization of Production.; Technological Change |
| JEL: | D73 J44 M54 O33 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6358&r=lab |
| By: | Dora M. Iakova |
| Abstract: | The United Kingdom allowed workers from the ten new European Union member countries immediate access to its labor market after the accession in 2004. This paper uses a general equilibrium framework to explore the dynamic adjustment of the UK economy to the postaccession surge in immigration. Simulations show that immigration is likely to have positive effects on economic growth, capital accumulation, consumption, and the public finances. |
| Keywords: | Immigration , new EU member states , globalization , free labor movement , Immigration , United Kingdom , European Union , Globalization , Labor mobility , Economic models , |
| Date: | 2007–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:07/61&r=lab |
| By: | Sudipta Sarangi; Gautam Hararika |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of household access to microcredit upon work by seven to eleven year old children in rural Malawi. Given that microcredit organizations foster household enterprises wherein much child labor is engaged, this paper aims to discover whether access to microcredit might increase work by children. It is found that, in the peak harvest season, household access to microcredit, measured in a novel manner as self-assessed credit limits at microcredit organizations, raises the probability of child work in households with sample means of owned land and number of retail sales enterprises. It appears this is due to children having to take up more domestic chores as adults are busied in household enterprises following improved access to microcredit. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2007-09&r=lab |
| By: | John M Maheu; Thomas H McCurdy |
| Abstract: | We provide an approach to forecasting the long-run (unconditional) distribution of equity returns making optimal use of historical data in the presence of structural breaks. Our focus is on learning about breaks in real time and assessing their impact on out-of-sample density forecasts. Forecasts use a probability-weighted average of submodels, each of which is estimated over a different history of data. The paper illustrates the importance of uncertainty about structural breaks and the value of modeling higher-order moments of excess returns when forecasting the return distribution and its moments. The shape of the long-run distribution and the dynamics of the higher-order moments are quite different from those generated by forecasts which cannot capture structural breaks. The empirical results strongly reject ignoring structural change in favor of our forecasts which weight historical data to accommodate uncertainty about structural breaks. We also strongly reject the common practice of using a fixed-length moving window. These differences in long-run forecasts have implications for many financial decisions, particularly for risk management and long-run investment decisions. |
| Keywords: | density forecasts, structural change, model risk, parameter uncertainty, Bayesian learning, market returns |
| JEL: | C51 C53 C11 |
| Date: | 2007–06–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-293&r=lab |
| By: | Gebremariam Woldemicael (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | The importance of women’s decision-making autonomy has recently emerged as a key factor in influencing reproductive preferences and demand for family planning in developing countries. In this study, the effect of direct indicators of women’s decision-making autonomy on fertility preferences and ever-use of modern contraception is examined using logistic regression models with and without proxy indicators. The results provide evidence that different dimensions of women’s autonomy influence the outcome variables differently in terms of magnitude and statistical significance. Particularly, women’s final say in decisions regarding day-to-day household purchases and spousal communication about family planning are influential predictors of fertility preferences and ever-use of modern family planning methods. At the same time, results show that the effects of women’s education on fertility preferences are not always significant although it has significant roles in affecting women’s decision-making autonomy. Women’s household economic situation has always significant effects on women’s autonomy as well as on fertility preferences and ever use of contraception. Thus, a complete explanation of the relationship between women’s autonomy and reproductive preferences must recognize the effects of both proxy and direct indicators of women’s autonomy. Interventions are needed to improve women’s decision-making autonomy and strengthen their negotiating capacity for family planning use if an increased desire to limit fertility is to be attained. |
| Keywords: | Eritrea, family planning, fertility, women's status |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2007-023&r=lab |
| By: | Mishra Sushanta Kumar |
| Abstract: | In service interactions the management of service employee’s emotion through emotional labor has gained prominence and is becoming an active method to affect consumer’s behavior. Several researches have indicated that self-concept of the consumer affects their buying behavior. However there is not much research to evaluate the effect of emotional labor of the service employee on the self-concept of the consumer. Based on review of literature, this paper tries to answer whether emotional labor of the service employee affects the self-concept of the consumer. |
| Date: | 2006–12–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2006-12-02&r=lab |
| By: | Lucia Coppola (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Mariachiara Di Cesare |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the interrelationships between fertility decisions and union dissolution in Italy and Spain. We argue that there might exist a spurious relationship between these two life trajectories. The analysis is based on the 1996 Fertility and Family Survey data for Italy and Spain. Results show that there is a spurious relationship between fertility and union dissolution in Italy but not in Spain. Nevertheless, in both countries, there is an evident direct effect of each process on the other: union dissolution decreases the risk of further childbearing, while childbirth decreases the risk of union dissolution. |
| Keywords: | Italy, Spain, divorce rate, fertility |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2007-024&r=lab |
| By: | Marika Karanassou; Hector Sala; Dennis Snower |
| Abstract: | This paper takes a new look at the long-run dynamics of inflation and unemployment in response to permanent changes in the growth rate of the money supply. We examine the Phillips curve from the perspective of what we call “frictional growth,” i.e. the interaction between money growth and nominal frictions. After presenting a theoretical model of this phenomenon, we construct an empirical model of the Spanish economy and, in this context, we evaluate the long-run inflation-unemployment tradeoff for Spain and examine how recent policy changes have affected it. |
| Keywords: | Inflation-unemployment tradeoff, Phillips curve, staggered wage contracts, nominal inertia, forward-looking expectations, monetary policy |
| JEL: | E2 E3 E4 E5 J3 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1326&r=lab |
| By: | Mishra Sushanta Kumar |
| Abstract: | The dominance of customer over the production/service employee, and as a result of this, increasing use of emotional labor in the workplace furthers the need to understand what emotional labor is. In this regard, the present paper reviews the literature to explain the concept ‘emotional labor’. In explaining emotional labor and its nomological network, the paper discusses the factors that affect and are affected by it. This paper contributes to the existing literature by assimilating different works done in this domain and providing a comprehensive understanding of emotional labor. This paper focuses on some of the critical issues, about which, the existing literature on emotional labor is silent and thus, providing a platform for further research. |
| Date: | 2006–12–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2006-12-05&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen P. Jenkins (ISER, University of Essex, DIW Berlin and IZA); John Micklewright (S3RI, University of Southampton and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Over the last four decades, academic and wider public interest in inequality and poverty has grown substantially. In this paper we address the question: what have been the major new directions in the analysis of inequality and poverty over the last thirty to forty years? We draw attention to developments under seven headings: changes in the extent of inequality and poverty, changes in the policy environment, increased scrutiny of the concepts of ‘poverty’ and inequality’ and the rise of multidimensional approaches, the use of longitudinal perspectives, an increase in availability of and access to data, developments in analytical methods of measurement, and developments in modelling. |
| Keywords: | inequality, poverty, distribution of income |
| JEL: | D31 I32 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2814&r=lab |