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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Claudio Michelacci (CEMFI and CEPR, Spain and The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Italy); Josep Pijoan-Mas (CEMFI and CEPR, Spain) |
| Abstract: | We consider a labor market search model where, by working longer hours, individuals acquire greater skills and thereby obtain better jobs. We show that job inequality, which leads to within-skill wage differences, gives incentives to work longer hours. By contrast, a higher probability of losing jobs, a longer duration of unemployment, and in general a less tight labor market discourage working time. We show that the different evolution of labor market conditions in the US and in Continental Europe over the last three decades can quantitatively explain the diverging evolution of the number of hours worked per employee across the two sides of the Atlantic. It can also explain why the fraction of prime age male workers working very long hours has increased substantially in the US, after reverting a trend of secular decline. |
| Keywords: | working hours, wage inequality, unemployment, search, human capital filtering |
| JEL: | G31 J31 E24 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:28-08&r=lab |
| By: | Robert E. Hall; Alan B. Krueger |
| Abstract: | Some workers bargain with prospective employers before accepting a job. Others could bargain, but find it undesirable, because their right to bargain has induced a sufficiently favorable offer, which they accept. Yet others perceive that they cannot bargain over pay; they regard the posted wage as a take-it-or-leave-it opportunity. Theories of wage formation point to substantial differences in labor-market equilibrium between bargained and posted wages. The fraction of workers hired away from existing jobs is another key determinant of equilibrium, because a worker with an existing job has a better outside option in bargaining than does an unemployed worker. Our survey measures the incidences of wage posting, bargaining, and on-the-job search. We find that about a third of workers had precise information about pay when they first met with their employers, a sign of wage posting. We find that another third bargained over pay before accepting their current jobs. And about 40 percent of workers could have remained on their earlier jobs at the time they accepted their current jobs. |
| JEL: | E24 J3 J64 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14329&r=lab |
| By: | Francesco D'Amuri (Bank of Italy, Economics and International Relations and ISER, University of Essex); Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano (University of Bologna, Department of Economics and CEPR); Giovanni Peri (University of California, Davis and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We adopt a general equilibrium approach in order to measure the effects of recent immigration on the Western German labor market, looking at both wage and employment effects. Using the Regional File of the IAB Employment Subsample for the period 1987- 2001, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990's had no adverse effects on native wages and employment levels. It had instead adverse employment and wage effects on previous waves of immigrants. This stems from the fact that, after controlling for education and experience levels, native and migrant workers appear to be imperfect substitutes whereas new and old immigrants exhibit perfect substitutability. Our analysis suggests that if the German labor market were as “flexible” as the UK labor market, it would be more effcient in dealing with the effects of immigration. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Skill Complementarities, Employment, Wages. |
| JEL: | E24 F22 J61 J31 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_687_08&r=lab |
| By: | Steven F. Lehrer (School of Policy Studies and Department of Economics, Queen’s University); Nuno Sousa Pereira (CETE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | The United States has the distinction of being the only industrialized nation without universal health insurance. Health insurance may have impacts on the US labor market. We use data on displaced workers over a 25 year period to document how the role of health insurance on wages and worker sorting has evolved. We find that the provision of health insurance increasingly influences wage inequality. Our results indicate that the portion of the unadjusted wage gap due only to selection bias from unobserved (to the analyst) characteristics, such as ability or innate health status has grown rapidly since 2000. Further, while there have been substantial changes in how displaced workers sort to firms that offer health insurance benefits over the last 25 years, many of the patterns have reversed directions over the past six years. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our results. |
| Keywords: | Health insurance; Worker sorting; Displacement; Comparative advantage; Non-linear instrumental variables |
| JEL: | I11 J33 C23 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:0804&r=lab |
| By: | David Lee; Emmanuel Saez |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a theoretical analysis of optimal minimum wage policy in a perfectly competitive labor market. We show that a binding minimum wage -- while leading to unemployment -- is nevertheless desirable if the government values redistribution toward low wage workers and if unemployment induced by the minimum wage hits the lowest surplus workers first. This result remains true in the presence of optimal nonlinear taxes and transfers. In that context, a minimum wage effectively rations the low skilled labor that is subsidized by the optimal tax/transfer system, and improves upon the second-best tax/transfer optimum. When labor supply responses are along the extensive margin, a minimum wage and low skill work subsidies are complementary policies; therefore, the co-existence of a minimum wage with a positive tax rate for low skill work is always (second-best) Pareto inefficient. We derive formulas for the optimal minimum wage (with and without optimal taxes) as a function of labor supply and demand elasticities and the redistributive tastes of the government. We also present some illustrative numerical simulations. |
| JEL: | H21 J38 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14320&r=lab |
| By: | Bloemen, Hans (Free University of Amsterdam); Stancanelli, Elena (CNRS, Nice) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the time allocation of spouses and the impact of economic variables. We present a stylized model of the time allocation of spouses to illustrate the expected impact of wages and non-labour income. The empirical model simultaneously specifies three time-use choices – paid work, childcare, and housework – and wage and employment equations for each spouse, allowing for correlation across the errors of the ten equations. We exploit the rich information in the French time-use survey 1998-99 to estimate the model. The predictions of the theoretical model are mostly validated with the main exception of the standard hypothesis that performing housework does not bring utility. Parents' market time responds positively to changes in own wage. The own-wage elasticity of housework is negative while childcare does not react to changes in own wage. Women’s non-market time is independent of their husband’s wage; but both housework and childcare of fathers react positively to an increase in their wife's wage. Non-labour income reduces paid work by parents and increases their non-market time. Higher-educated and older parents spend more time with their children. There are significant and positive correlations across the errors of the spousal equations. |
| Keywords: | time use, work behaviour, household economics |
| JEL: | D1 D13 J21 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3679&r=lab |
| By: | Monojit Chatterji; Karen Mumford |
| Abstract: | Using new linked employee-employer data for Britain in 2004, this paper shows that, on average, full-time male public sector employees earn 11.7 log wage points more than their private sector counterparts. Decomposition analysis reveals that the majority of this pay premium is associated with public sector employees having individual characteristics associated with higher pay and to their working in higher paid occupations. Further focussing analysis on the highly skilled and unskilled occupations in both sectors, reveals evidence of workplace segregation positively impacting on earnings in the private sector for the highly skilled, and in the public sector for the unskilled. Substantial earnings gaps between the highly skilled and unskilled are found, and the unexplained components in these gaps are very similar regardless of sector. |
| Keywords: | public sector earnings, male, fixed effects, earnings-gap, decompositions, segregation |
| JEL: | J3 J7 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:209&r=lab |
| By: | Yolanda F. Rebollo (Universidad Pablo de Olavide); J. Ignacio Pérez (Centro de Estudios Andaluces) |
| Abstract: | This article evaluates the effectiveness of regional wage subsidies to foster permanent employment using information gathered from the “Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales”. This dataset, which is used here for the first time as a source for evaluating Spanish labour market policy, offers a complete employment history for each individual, with no aggregation bias. The policy analyzed consists of a one-time subsidy offered by some Spanish regions for new permanent contracts signed for certain fixed-term employees and unemployed workers. Because our policy variable presents individual, regional and temporal variation, we apply a triple difference estimator to identify the average treatment effect of this policy. We conclude that the outflow into permanent employment of eligible workers improves only minimally under this policy. Nevertheless, the incidence is relatively greater for temporary workers than for unemployed ones and is also larger for younger and middle-aged female workers. lassification-JEL: J38, J68 |
| Keywords: | Difference-in-difference-in-difference, Causal Evaluation Analysis, Regional Wage Subsidies |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cea:doctra:e2008_09&r=lab |
| By: | Jones, Melanie K. (University of Wales, Swansea); Jones, Richard J. (University of Wales, Swansea); Latreille, Paul L. (University of Wales, Swansea); Sloane, Peter J. (University of Wales, Swansea) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between training, job satisfaction and workplace performance using the British 2004 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS). Several measures of performance are analysed including absence, quits, financial performance, labour productivity and product quality. While there is clear evidence that training is positively associated with job satisfaction, and job satisfaction in turn is positively associated with most measures of performance, the relationship between training and performance is complex, depending on both the particular measures of training and of performance used in the analysis. |
| Keywords: | training, job satisfaction, absence, quits, financial performance, labour market, product quality |
| JEL: | J0 J2 J3 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3677&r=lab |
| By: | Yu-Fu Chen; Michael Funke |
| Abstract: | Labour market regulations aimed at enhancing job-security are dominant in several OECD countries. These regulations seek to reduce dismissals of workers and fluctuations in employment. The main theoretical contribution is to gauge the effects of such regulations on labour demand across establishment sizes. In order to achieve this, we investigate an optimising model of labour demand under uncertainty through the application of real option theory. We also consider other forms of employment which increase the flexibility of the labour market. In particular, we are modelling the contribution of temporary employment agencies (Zeitarbeit) allowing for quick personnel adjustments in client firms. The calibration results indicate that labour market rigidities may be crucial for understanding sluggishness in firms´ labour demand and the emergence and growth of temporary work. |
| Keywords: | Labour Demand, Dismissal Protection Legislation, Firing Costs, Real Options,Temporary Work Agencies, Temporary Employment |
| JEL: | J23 J58 D81 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:207&r=lab |
| By: | Jacob Wong (School of Economics, University of Adelaide); Matthew Doyle |
| Abstract: | Wage posting models of job search typically assume that firms can commit to paying workers the posted wage. This paper investigates the consequences of relaxing this assumption. Under ``downward'' commitment, ¯rms can commit only to paying at least their advertised wage. We show that wage posting is always an equilibrium, although in special cases other equilibria can exist. Surprisingly, the wage posting equilibrium in our economy is identical to the equilibrium when firms can commit to paying exactly their posted wage. When firms cannot even commit to paying at least their advertised wage, equilibrium exhibits job auctions with wage dispersion which generally is not constrained efficient. |
| JEL: | E24 J64 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:wpaper:2008-01&r=lab |
| By: | Kai Christoffel (DG-Research, European Central Bank, Kaiserstraße 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany); Keith Kuester (Monetary Policy Strategy Division, European Central Bank, Kaiserstraße 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.) |
| Abstract: | All else equal, higher wages translate into higher inflation. More rigid wages imply a weaker response of inflation to shocks. This view of the wage channel is deeply entrenched in central banks’ views and models of their economies. In this paper, we present a model with equilibrium unemployment which has three distinctive properties. First, using a search and matching model with right-to-manage wage bargaining, a proper wage channel obtains. Second, accounting for fixed costs associated with maintaining an existing job greatly magnifies profit fluctuations for any given degree of wage fluctuations, which allows the model to reproduce the fluctuations of unemployment over the business cycle. And third, the model implies a reasonable elasticity of steady state unemployment with respect to changes in benefits. The calibration of the model implies low profits, but does not require a small gap between the value of working and the value of unemployment for the worker. JEL Classification: E31, E32, E24, J64. |
| Keywords: | Bargaining, Unemployment, Business Cycle, Real Rigidities. |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20080923&r=lab |
| By: | Monojit Chatterji; Terhi Maczulskij; Jaakko Pehkonen |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the forces determining public and private sector pay in Finland. The data used is a 7 per cent sample taken from the Finnish 2001 census. It contains information on 42 680 male workers, of which 8 759 are employed in public and 33 921 in the private sector. The study documents and describes data by education, occupation and industry. We estimate earnings equations for the whole sample as well as for four industries (construction, real estate, transportation and health) that provide an adequate mix of both public and sector workers. The results suggest that the private-public sector pay gap of about one per cent can be accounted for by differences in observable characteristics between the sectors (3.4 per cent) and lower returns from these characteristics (-2.3 per cent). However, the industry-level analysis indicates that the earnings gaps vary across industries, and are negative in some cases. These inter-industry differences in public-private gaps persist even when the usual controls are introduced. This suggests that public sector wage setters need greater local flexibility, which should result in less uniform wages within the public sector. |
| Keywords: | earnings, public sector, private sector, earnings, wage gap |
| JEL: | J31 J45 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:213&r=lab |
| By: | Yu-Fu Chen; Gylfi Zoega |
| Abstract: | We model a firm’s choice as to the age composition of dismissed workers for different assumptions about the level of firing costs. We find that when the cost of firing is independent of age, a higher level of firing costs will induce firms to fire their younger workers while lower costs induce them to fire the older ones. A corresponding effect is not found in the age dimension of the hiring decision. It follows that job protection favours more senior workers even when the cost of firing is independent of age and seniority. |
| Keywords: | Age-structure, tenure, firing decisions, real options |
| JEL: | E32 J23 J24 J54 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:206&r=lab |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Yann Algan; Pierre Cahuc |
| Abstract: | Can public policy interfere with culture, such as beliefs and norms of cooperation? We investigate this question by evaluating the interactions between the State and the Civil Society, focusing on the labor market. International data shows a negative correlation between union density and the quality of labor relations on one hand, and state regulation of the minimum wage on the other hand. To explain this relation, we develop a model of learning of the quality of labor relations. State regulation crowds out the possibility for workers to experiment negotiation and learn about the true cooperative nature of participants in the labor market. This crowding out effect can give rise to multiple equilibria: a "good" equilibrium characterized by strong beliefs in cooperation, leading to high union density and low state regulation; and a "bad" equilibrium, characterized by distrustful labor relations, low union density and strong state regulation of the minimum wage. We then use surveys on social attitudes and unionization behavior to document the relation between minimum wage legislation and the beliefs about the scope of cooperation in the labor market. |
| JEL: | J01 J3 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14327&r=lab |
| By: | Sumon Kumar Bhaumik; Manisha Chakrabarty |
| Abstract: | Few researchers have examined the nature and determinants of earnings differentials among religious groups, and none has been undertaken in the context of conflict-prone multi-religious societies likethe one in India. We address this lacuna in the literature by examining the differences in the average (log) earnings of Hindu and Muslim wage earners in India, during the 1987-2005 period. Our results indicate that education differences between Hindu and Muslim wage earners, especially differences in the proportion of wage earners with tertiary education, are largely responsible for the differences in the average (log) earnings of the two religious groups across the years. By contrast, differences in the returns to education do not explain the aforementioned difference in average (log) earnings. Citing other evidence about persistence of educational achievements across generations, however, we argue that attempts to narrow this gap using quotas for Muslim households at educational institutions might be counterproductive from the point of view of conflict avoidance. |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edb:cedidp:08-02&r=lab |
| By: | Aghion, Philippe (Harvard University); Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Cahuc, Pierre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris) |
| Abstract: | Can public policy interfere with culture, such as beliefs and norms of cooperation? We investigate his question by evaluating the interactions between the State and the Civil Society, focusing on the labor market. International data shows a negative correlation between union density and the quality of labor relations on one hand, and state regulation of the minimum wage on the other hand. To explain this relation, we develop a model of learning of the quality of labor relations. State regulation crowds out the possibility for workers to experiment negotiation and learn about the true cooperative nature of participants in the labor market. This crowding out effect can give rise to multiple equilibria: a "good" equilibrium characterized by strong beliefs in cooperation, leading to high union density and low state regulation; and a "bad" equilibrium, characterized by distrustful labor relations, low union density and strong state regulation of the minimum wage. We then use surveys on social attitudes and unionization behavior to document the relation between minimum wage legislation and the beliefs about the scope of cooperation in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | social capital, quality of labor relations, trade unions, minimum wage |
| JEL: | J30 J50 K00 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3680&r=lab |
| By: | Sebastian Buhai (University of Aarhus, and Erasmus University Rotterdam); Elena Cottini (University of Aarhus, and Cath. University Milan); Niels Westergård-Nielsen (University of Aarhus) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of work environment health and safety practice on firm performance, and examines which firm-characteristic factors are associated with good work conditions. We use Danish longitudinal register matched employer-employee data, merged with firm business accounts and detailed cross-sectional survey data on workplace conditions. This enables us to address typical econometric problems such as omitted variables bias or endogeneity in estimating i) standard production functions augmented with work environment indicators and aggregate employee characteristics and ii) firm mean wage regressions on the same explanatory variables. Our findings suggest that improvement in some of the physical dimensions of the work health and safety environment (specifically, “internal climate” and “repetitive and strenuous activity”) strongly impacts the firm productivity, whereas “internal climate” problems are the only workplace hazards compensated for by higher mean wages. |
| Keywords: | occupational health and safety; work environment; production function estimation; firm performance; compensating wage differentials |
| JEL: | J28 J31 L23 |
| Date: | 2008–08–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20080077&r=lab |
| By: | Christian Schmitt |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of unemployment on the propensity to start a family. Unemployment is accompanied by bad occupational prospects and impending economic deprivation, placing the well-being of a future family at risk. I analyze unemployment at the intersection of state-dependence and the reduced opportunity costs of parenthood, distinguishing between men and women across a set of welfare states. Using micro-data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), I apply event history methods to analyze longitudinal samples of first-birth transitions in France, Finland, Germany, and the UK (1994-2001). The results highlight spurious negative effects of unemployment on family formation among men, which can be attributed to the lack of breadwinner capabilities in the inability to financially support a family. Women, in contrast, show positive effects of unemployment on the propensity to have a first child in all countries except France. These effects prevail even after controlling for labour market and income-related factors. The findings are pronounced in Germany and the UK where work-family conflicts are the cause of high opportunity costs of motherhood, and the gender-specific division of labour is still highly traditional. Particularly among women with a moderate and low level of education, unemployment clearly increases the likelihood to have a first child. |
| Keywords: | family formation, fertility, unemployment, cross-national comparison |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp127&r=lab |
| By: | Leslie S Stratton (Department of Economics, VCU School of Business); James N. Wetzel (Department of Economics, VCU School of Business) |
| Abstract: | Returns to college have increased, but graduation rates have changed relatively little. Modifying a human capital model of college enrollment to endogenize time-to-graduation, we predict that higher returns to education will both speed graduation and increase enrollment. Some of those new entrants may, however, take longer to graduate. Using the 1989 and 1995 Beginning Postsecondary Studies, we employ a multinomial logit to model the association between individual and family characteristics, and five-year college outcomes: graduation, continued enrollment, and non-enrollment. Between cohort differences arise either because the characteristics of those entering college are different or because the relations between characteristics and outcomes have changed. We utilize a Oaxaca-Blinder style decomposition to distinguish between these two alternatives, attributing differences in characteristics to newly attracted students and differences in the relations between characteristics and outcomes to historically attracted students behaving differently. It is changes in behavior that explain the increased progress we observe. |
| Keywords: | Higher Education, Graduation Rates, Persistence |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vcu:wpaper:0805&r=lab |
| By: | Hill, John; Halpin, Brendan |
| Abstract: | The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Irish labour market since approximately 1980 with a particular focus on the central role of active labour market programmes in public policy. Active labour market programmes (ALMP) is an umbrella term for all measures aimed at increasing either the supply of or demand for labour. We will outline the theoretical rationale for labour market programmes and discuss their implementation and development in the Irish context. Specifically we will outline the levels of expenditure and throughput on labour market programmes and attempt to place Ireland in a comparative international perspective. Briefly we will examine some of the attempts which have been made to evaluate the effectiveness of labour market programmes in terms of the employment and income outcomes of participants. We will pay particular attention to long-term unemployment which was such a key feature of the Irish labour market throughout the 1980s and 1990s. |
| Keywords: | Public Policy; Employment Policy; Active Labour Market Prorgammes; Active Labor Market Progams; ALMP; Ireland |
| JEL: | J60 J68 |
| Date: | 2008–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10498&r=lab |
| By: | Victor Lavy |
| Abstract: | Recent lab and field experiments suggest that women are less effective than men in a competitive environment. In this paper I examine how individual performance in a real work place is affected by a competitive environment and by its gender mix. The competition is among math, English and Language teachers who participated in a rank order tournament that rewarded teachers with large cash bonuses based on the test performance of their classes. The evidence suggest that the average ranking, winning rate and awarded prize did not differ by gender nor between teachers in competition groups with only female teachers or with both genders. I also find that the direct impact of the bonus program on students' outcomes did not vary by male and female teachers or by the type of competitive environment in terms of gender mix of the participants. As for mechanisms that can explain these results, I found no differences by either gender or by the gender mix of the competition group in teachers' awareness and familiarity with the program and its rules, and in effort and teaching methods. Women though were more pessimistic about the effectiveness of teachers' performance pay and more realistic than men about their likelihood of winning bonuses. |
| JEL: | I2 I21 J00 J16 J18 J33 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14338&r=lab |
| By: | Benjamin Artz (Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee) |
| Abstract: | Fringe benefits stand as an important part of compensation but confirming their role in determining job satisfaction has been mixed at best. The theory suggesting this role is ambiguous. Fringe benefits represent a desirable form of compensation but might result in decreased earnings and reduced job mobility. Using a pooled cross-section of five NLSY waves, fringe benefits are established as significant positive determinants of job satisfaction, even after controlling for individual fixed effects and testing for the endogeneity of fringe benefits. |
| JEL: | C23 J28 J32 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uww:wpaper:08-03&r=lab |
| By: | Böckerman, Petri; Laukkanen, Erkki |
| Abstract: | We examine the prevalence of sickness absenteeism and presenteeism, using survey data covering 725 Finnish union members in 2008. Controlling for worker characteristics, we find that sickness presenteeism is much more sensitive to working-time arrangements than sickness absenteeism. Permanent full-time work, mismatch between desired and actual working hours, shift or period work and overlong working weeks increase the prevalence of sickness presenteeism. We also find an interesting trade-off between two sickness categories: regular overtime decreases sickness absenteeism, but increases sickness presenteeism. Furthermore, the adoption of three days’ paid sickness absence without a sickness certificate and the easing of efficiency demands decrease sickness presenteeism. |
| Keywords: | absenteeism; presenteeism; working-time arrangements |
| JEL: | J28 I10 |
| Date: | 2008–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10556&r=lab |
| By: | Robert Dur (Erasmus University Rotterdam, and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | We develop a model of manager-employee relationships where employees care more for their manager when they are more convinced that their manager cares for them. Managers can signal their altruistic feelings towards their employees in two ways: by offering a generous wage and by giving attention. Contrary to the traditional gift-exchange hypothesis, we show that altruistic managers may offer lower wages and nevertheless build up better social-exchange relationships with their employees than egoistic managers do. In such equilibria, a low wage signals to employees that the manager has something else to offer -- namely, a lot of attention -- which will induce the employee to stay at the firm and work hard. Our predictions are well in line with some recent empirical findings about gift exchange in the field. |
| Keywords: | manager-employee relationships; wages; extra-role behavior; sabotage; gift exchange; social exchange; conditional altruism; reciprocity; signaling game |
| JEL: | D86 J41 M50 M54 M55 |
| Date: | 2008–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20080082&r=lab |
| By: | Shunfeng Song (Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Reno); Chengsi Wang (Department of Economics, University of New South Wales); Jianghuai Zheng (Department of Economics, Nanjing University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationships among industrial upgrading, mid-aged peasants’ non-farm employment, and land conversion systems. We prove that China’s efforts to upgrade its industries generate a negative employment shock on mid-aged peasant workers, forcing some of them to return to their home villages. The current lump-sum land acquisition system, however, will neither help peasant workers deal with the adverse employment shock nor promote land centralization for industrial and urban uses. On contrary, land cooperation, an emerging land centralization system, will help peasant workers mitigate the adverse employment shock and centralize rural land for nonagricultural purposes. |
| Keywords: | Peasant workers; Industrial upgrade; Employment; Land centralization |
| JEL: | Q15 J43 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unr:wpaper:08-006&r=lab |
| By: | Pierre Lefebvre; Philip Merrigan; Matthieu Verstraete |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that a temporary incentive to join the labor market or to work more can also produce substantial life-cycle labor supply effects. On September 1997, a new childcare policy was initiated by the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada. Licensed and regulated providers of childcare services began offering day care spaces at the subsidized fee of $5 per day per child for children aged 4. In successive years, the government reduced the age requirement, created new childcare facilities and spaces, and paid for the additional costs entailed by this low-fee policy. No such important policy changes for preschool (including kindergarten) children were enacted in the nine other Canadian provinces over the years 1997 to 2004. Using annual data drawn from Statistics Canada's Survey on Labour and Income Dynamic and a difference-in-differences quasi experimental methodology, the paper estimates the dynamic labor supply effects of the program. The results demonstrate that the policy had long-term labor supply effects on mothers who benefited from the program when their child was less than 6. A striking feature of the results is that they are driven by changes in the labor supply of less educated mothers. |
| Keywords: | Mother's labour supply, preschool and primary school children, childcare policy, treatment effects, natural experiment |
| JEL: | H42 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0824&r=lab |
| By: | Pierre Lefebvre; Philip Merrigan; Matthieu Verstraete |
| Abstract: | This paper tries to disentangle the relative importance of family and school inputs on a child's cognitive achievement as measured by her percentile score on a mathematics test. We replicate a study by Todd and Wolpin (2007) in the United States with Canadian data. In contrast to their work that uses state-level indicators of school quality, we estimate our model with data from Statistics Canada's National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) which provides micro-level information on the family and school history of the child. The sample used for the analysis is based on the 7- to 15-year-old longitudinal children who have completed at least two consecutive math tests. As in Todd and Wolpin, we conclude that cognitive outcomes are determined by current and past family inputs. Contrary to them, who find no impact of school inputs, we find that the quality of schools has a positive impact on achievement in mathematics. |
| Keywords: | Math scores, human capital, child development, school and family inputs, panel data |
| JEL: | I21 J13 C23 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0822&r=lab |
| By: | Schneider, Andrea (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | Education decisions determine a great part of future income. This paper argues that if education is financed by parents' current income a lump-sum tax reduces inequality if all parents have strict investment incentives. However, if some parents are indifferent there is a possible decrease in the wage gap via a contrary indirect tax effect which drops the returns of schooling. Under strict incentives social mobility is not affected, but it increases if skilled parents have weak incentives and decreases if unskilled parents are indifferent in their investment decision. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; Inequality; Redistribution; Lump- sum tax |
| JEL: | D31 D91 H23 H31 I21 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:vhsuwp:2007_068&r=lab |
| By: | Paul Bingley (Danish National Centre for Social Research, Herluf Trolles Gade 11, DK-1052 Copenhagen, Denmark); Ian Walker (Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK) |
| Abstract: | We estimate a model of labor supply and participation in multiple programs for UK lone mothers which exploits a reform of in-work transfers. Cash entitlements increased but eligibility to in-kind child nutrition programs was lost. We find that in-work cash and inwork in-kind transfers both have large positive labor supply effects. There is, however, a utility loss from program participation which is estimated to be larger for cash than for child nutrition. This implies that the partial cash out of the in-kind benefits reduced labor supply. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, program participation, in-kind transfers |
| JEL: | C31 C35 D12 J22 |
| Date: | 2008–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:200820&r=lab |
| By: | Barron, Manuel |
| Abstract: | According to the 2003 National Household Survey, mean labour income for an indigenous worker is only 56% of that for a non-indigenous worker. Studies of ethnic discrimination in Peru’s labour markets generally find that discrimination is too low to explain inequalities of this magnitude. However, Sigma Theory (Figueroa 2003) predicts that social exclusion is a source of inter-ethnic inequality, and that has not been empirically tested. The primary aim of this paper is to fill this gap by estimating the extent to which exclusion and discrimination contribute to income inequality. Hurdle models are used to tackle down econometric endogeneity of years of schooling and truncation-at-zero of incomes. The results imply that exclusion plays a stronger role on inequality than discrimination: without exclusion, the Gini of labour income would decrease from 0.64 to 0.45, and without discrimination it would be reduced to 0.50. |
| Keywords: | inter-ethnic inequality; exclusion; hurdle models |
| JEL: | J31 O15 C24 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10456&r=lab |
| By: | Tausch, Arno |
| Abstract: | With the ongoing debate in Austria on skilled workers from Eastern Europe for the Austrian labour market the question of immigration policy again is in the centre of the public debate. As the extension of transitional periods for the new MS in the field of migration from 2009 to 2011 is more and more unlikely because of the internal balance of power in the enlarged Union's Council, it must be assumed that on May 1st 2009 the transitional periods will finally end for the Austrian labour market. The author uses the latest data from the “Dublin Foundation” (EFILWC) on migration potential in Europe in conjunction with known migration destination preferences in the new MS for individual EU countries, including Austria, from earlier studies and comes to the conclusion that with an estimated 100,000 immigrants there is no reason for alarmism. |
| Keywords: | Labour Market; Migration; Integration |
| JEL: | F22 F15 J4 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10445&r=lab |
| By: | YOGO, Urbain Thierry |
| Abstract: | Abstract This paper provides a theoretical and empirical survey on the link between employment and growth in sub-Saharan Africa countries. Trough this study we shed the light on the majors works that have been done on the subject concerning sub-Saharan Africa and emphasize some stylized facts that could lead to a new path of research. Three main conclusions emerge from this study. First the employment issue in sub-Saharan Africa is mostly a matter of quality than quantity. Secondly the reason of weak employment performances could not be found in labor market rigidities. Third the observed increase of working poor could be explained by the weakness of growth and downward labor demand. |
| Keywords: | Growth; Employment; Working Poor; |
| JEL: | J08 J01 |
| Date: | 2008–09–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10474&r=lab |
| By: | Loren Brandt; Aloysius Siow; Carl Vogel |
| Abstract: | Between 1958 and 1961, China experienced one of its worst famines in history. Birth rates plummeted during these years, but recovered immediately afterwards. The famine-born cohorts were relatively scarce in the marriage and labor markets. The famine also adversely affected the health of these cohorts. This paper decomposes these two effects on the marital outcomes of the famine-born and adjacent cohorts in the rural areas of two hard hit provinces, Sichuan and Anhui. Individuals born pre and post-famine, who were in surplus relative to their customary spouses, were able to marry. Using the Choo Siow model of marriage matching, the paper shows that the famine substantially reduced the marital attractiveness of the famine born cohort. The modest decline in educational attainment of the famine born cohort does not explain the change in spousal quality of that cohort. Thus, the famine-born cohort, who were relatively scarce compared with their customary spouses, did not have significant above average marriage rates. |
| Keywords: | famine, marriage market, Choo Siow, China |
| JEL: | J1 O1 |
| Date: | 2008–09–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-334&r=lab |
| By: | David Neumark |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews evidence on age discrimination in U.S. labor markets and on the effects of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in combating this discrimination. It focuses on the challenge of population aging facing the U.S. economy in coming decades. Combating age discrimination is likely to help in meeting this challenge by encouraging employment of older individuals. But the paper also explores how rapid aging of the population protected by the ADEA might inhibit the ADEA's effectiveness, and raises questions about possible changes in age discrimination policies and enforcement that could enhance the ability of the ADEA to mitigate some of the adverse consequences of population aging. |
| JEL: | J14 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14317&r=lab |
| By: | Joao Miguel Ejarque; Oivind Anti Nilsen |
| Abstract: | A relatively unexplored question in dynamic labour demand regards the source of adjustment costs, whether they depend on net or gross changes in employment. We estimate a structural model of dynamic labour demand where the firm faces adjustment costs related to gross and net changes in its workforce. We focus on matching quarterly moments of hiring and of net changes in employment from a panel of establishments. The main component of adjustment costs in our panel is quadratic adjustment costs to gross changes in employment. We also estimate that adjustment costs have a large economic cost, roughly cutting the value of our establishments in half. |
| Date: | 2008–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esx:essedp:660&r=lab |
| By: | Robert Dur (Erasmus University Rotterdam, and CESifo); Arjan Non (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Hein Roelfsema (Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | We study optimal incentive contracts for workers who are reciprocal to management attention. When neither worker's effort nor manager's attention can be contracted, a double moral-hazard problem arises, implying that reciprocal workers should be given weak financial incentives. In a multiple-agent setting, this problem can be resolved using promotion incentives. We test these predictions using German Socio-Economic Panel data. We find that workers who are more reciprocal are significantly more likely to receive promotion incentives, while there is no such relation for individual bonus pay. |
| Keywords: | reciprocity; social exchange; incentive contracts; double moral hazard; GSOEP |
| JEL: | D86 J41 M51 M52 M54 M55 |
| Date: | 2008–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20080080&r=lab |
| By: | Catia Montagna; Antonella Nocco |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:212&r=lab |
| By: | Isaac Ehrlich; William A. Hamlen Jr.; Yong Yin |
| Abstract: | Risky-asset prices are conventionally modeled as "fully (information-) revealing". Much less work has been done on how prices get to reveal information. Following the "noisy-prices", rational-expectations approach, our answer focuses on the micro-foundations of information acquisition and the role of human capital in asset, or risk, management. We derive testable propositions on how education and other determinants of asset management affect its intensity, risky-asset demand, and portfolio returns. We derive related insights concerning determinants of the level and volatility of asset prices and equity premiums. Using micro-level data on portfolio choices, we find that education raises both the portfolio share of risky assets and overall portfolio returns, while a measure of the opportunity cost of asset management has the opposite effects. Our results indicate a non-trivial return to education in generating non-wage income. They suggest that educational attainments directly affect the distribution of income as well as earnings. |
| JEL: | G00 G11 G12 I0 I20 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14340&r=lab |
| By: | Kristian Behrens; Giordano Mion; Yasusada Murata; Jens Sudekum |
| Abstract: | We develop a new general equilibrium model of trade with heterogeneous firms, variable demand elasticities and endogenously determined wages. Trade integration favors wage convergence, intensifies competition, and forces the least efficient firms to leave the market, thereby affecting aggregate productivity. Since wage and productivity responses are endogenous, our model is well suited to study the impacts of trade integration on aggregate productivity and factor prices. Using Canada-U.S. interregional trade data, we first estimate a system of theory-based gravity equations under the general equilibrium constraints generated by the model. Doing so allows us to measure "border effects" and to decompose them into a "pure" border effect, relative and absolute wage effects, and a selection effect. Using the estimated parameter values, we then quantify the impacts of removing the Canada-U.S. border on wages, productivity, markups, the share of exporters, the mass of varieties produced and consumed, and welfare. We finally provide a similar quantification with respect to regional population changes. |
| Keywords: | Heterogeneous firms, gravity equations, general equilibrium, monopolistic competition, variable demand elasticities |
| JEL: | F12 F15 F17 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0826&r=lab |
| By: | Franke, Reiner; Flaschel, Peter |
| Abstract: | The paper is concerned with determinacy in a version of the New-Keynesian model that integrates imperfect competition and nominal price and wage setting on goods and labour markets. The model is reformulated with an explicit period of arbitrary length and shown to remain well-defined as the period shrinks to zero. The 4×4 constituent matrix of the model’s continuous-time counterpart is mathematically tractable and its determinacy results carry over to the period model at least if the period is sufficiently short. This being understood, it is proved that determinacy is (essentially) ensured if an extended Taylor principle requirement is met. |
| Keywords: | Determinacy, New-Keynesian wage and price Phillips curves, variable period length, continuous-time limit, Taylor principle |
| JEL: | E31 E32 E52 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cauewp:7367&r=lab |
| By: | Frederiksen, Anders (Aarhus School of Business); Poulsen, Odile (University of East Anglia) |
| Abstract: | In recent decades, most developed countries have experienced a simultaneous increase in income inequality and management compensation. In this paper, we study the relation between management compensation and firm-level income dynamics in a general equilibrium model. Empirical estimation, of the model’s key parameters show that the rising management premium is indeed the main driving force behind the observed increase in income inequality. This is the case even when other potential sources such as technological progress and skill-biased technological change are taken into account. We also show that a rising management premium produces income distribution dynamics at the firm level which are similar to those observed at the market level, i.e. rising income inequality overall as well as within and between education groups. |
| Keywords: | income inequality, two-sector search model, skill-biased technological change, personnel data |
| JEL: | J3 J6 M5 O3 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3676&r=lab |
| By: | Stefano Spalletti (Università di Macerata) |
| Abstract: | <p align="justify">The manpower forecasting approach (MFA) was one of the first attempts in educational planning purposes. Manpower planners attempted: 1) to calculate the demand for manpower classified by occupation; 2) to convert this classification of demand by occupation into demand by educational attainment; 3) to devise plans and policies aimed at equating projected demands and probable supplies. The paper recalls the basic principles of the MFA from the perspective of the history of the economic thought and attempts to clarify why there was a virtual failure in MFA during the 1960s.</p> |
| Keywords: | manpower planning,economic development,labour market |
| JEL: | O1 O11 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcr:wpaper:wpaper18&r=lab |
| By: | KimMarie McGoldrick; Gail Hoyt; Dave Colander |
| Abstract: | This paper provides insight into the skill development activities of graduate students at U.S. institutions providing graduate education in economics. It documents the extent of student participation in and preparation for research and teaching activities while in graduate school. Over fifty percent of students are involved in teaching related activities including grading, leading recitation sections, and teaching their own sections with and without guidance. Most were generally satisfied with their preparation. About fifty-five percent of graduate students attend economic conferences, twenty percent present papers, twenty-two percent submit papers and ten percent have published. Important differences by assistantship assignments, institutional rank, and gender in such activities are highlighted. Findings suggest that programs could do more to prepare students for participation in professional activities post graduation. |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0811&r=lab |
| By: | Yannis Georgellis; Elisabetta Iossa; Vurain Tabvuma |
| Abstract: | Employing workers with Public Service Motivation (PSM) has been proposed as a means of improving performance in the public sector. There is, however, no conclusive evidence showing PSM among individuals. In this paper we attempt to firstly find evidence of PSM by investigating why people change jobs from the private to the public sector. Secondly we attempt to identify factors that crowd out PSM and thus hinder individuals with PSM from joining the public sector. |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edb:cedidp:08-07&r=lab |
| By: | Yanez-Pagans, Monica (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a policy quasi-experiment created by the introduction of an old-age unconditional cash transfer program in Bolivia to study the intra-household income allocation process towards children's educational expenditure by ethnicity and gender of the recipient. Taking advantage of a sharp discontinuity created by the program assignment mechanism, I investigate the heterogeneity in the patterns of allocation within indigenous, multiethnic, and non-indigenous families, conditional on having one elder and one school-age child living in the household. I find that cultural factors (proxied by ethnicity) count in the decision making process of human capital investments. In particular, the allocation of resources within indigenous families follows rules closely related to patriarchal family structures (in which women have limited decision-making power) and is consistent with unitary, dictatorial, and common preferences theoretical household models. Conversely, non-indigenous families follow decision rules more closely related to collective and bargaining behavior models. |
| Keywords: | Bolivia, culture, Bolivida, educational expenditure |
| JEL: | H55 O15 I12 D12 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3678&r=lab |
| By: | Cynthia D Hill (Idaho State University); David Welsch (Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater) |
| Abstract: | The role of for-profit educational organizations in the predominantly public and not-for-profit K-12 U.S. schooling system is being fiercely debated across our nation. Little empirical research is available to help policy makers develop informed decisions regarding the educational value that for-profit schools provide to our students. This paper fills in part, for the first time in detail, this void. This paper uses a four year panel of charter schools from the state of Michigan and a random effects model that controls for student and district characteristics. Results indicate that for-profit charter schools have lower math test scores than not-for-profit charter schools. Interestingly, this result holds even when expenditure per pupil is controlled for. The analysis developed in this paper takes the debate one step further as well, and examines the role that the size of for-profit firms plays in the associated outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Profit, For-Profit, Not-For-Profit, Nonprofit, Charter Schools, Random Effects, Education |
| JEL: | H52 L30 H75 I21 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uww:wpaper:08-02&r=lab |
| By: | Orla Doyle (Geary Institute & School of Public Health and Population Science, University College Dublin); Lori Timmins (Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) |
| Abstract: | Objectives. To investigate the relationship between breastfeeding duration and cognitive development using longitudinal survey data. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend exclusive breastfeeding until six months post-partum and a combination of complementary foods and breast milk thereafter. This study estimates non-parametric regression models to test whether these recommendations also hold for cognitive ability. Design. Longitudinal cohort study with two waves of 18,819 children who were born in the UK between 2000-2002. We estimate several generalised additive regression models to examine the impact of exclusive and non-exclusive breastfeeding duration on cognitive ability, while controlling for a range of confounding family characteristics. Setting and Participants: Participants of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Main outcome measures: Cognitive development at age three as measured by the Bracken School Readiness Assessment. Results. The models identify a non-linear relationship between exclusive and non-exclusive breastfeeding and cognitive ability. There are high initial positive returns to exclusive breastfeeding which peak at six months, with the returns to non-exclusive breastfeeding continuing to increase until 10/12 months. These results suggest that the WHO/AAP guidelines recommending exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life also hold for optimal cognitive ability. The models also show that the optimal switching point from exclusive to nonexclusive breastfeeding occurs at six months, and that a combination of breast milk and solids should continue until thereafter, peaking at 10 months. Conclusion. While breastfeeding recommendations primarily target physical growth and development, our study confirms that such recommendations are also optimal for cognitive development. These results provide further evidence that recent UK policy initiatives to extend paid maternity leave is appropriate for the maximal development of the child’s cognitive ability. While this study controls for a range of confounding factors, there may still exist unobserved family characteristics which mediate this relationship. |
| Date: | 2008–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:200821&r=lab |
| By: | Edvard Johansson |
| Abstract: | ABSTRACT : This paper examines the trends in immigration to and emigration from Finland during the period 1987-2006. The focus is on the “human capital content” of the migration flows, the key question being : Is Finland losing out in the international competition for highly educated individuals? International comparisons presented by the OECD give the impression that Finland perform very weakly in the global competition for talent, as the share of highly-skilled immigrants is very low. However, these comparisons are distorted by the lack of information with regard to the level of education of immigrants into Finland. It would be desirable that the Central Statistical Office could provide better information on this issue. The results of this paper indicate that Finland’s emigrants are indeed better educated than its immigrants, and that brain-drain exists to a certain degree. However, the magnitude of the brain-drain phenomenon is not very large, and there is no statistical evidence of the well-educated to emigrate would have increased over time. Although Finland’s immigrants are more poorly educated than the Finnish population at large, they are apparently better educated than immigrants to, for instance, Sweden or Denmark, owing to the disproportionately large share of immigrants from Estonia and Russia to Finland. Nevertheless, the labour market performance of Finnish immigrants is as bad as for immigrants in most Western European countries, i.e. their unemployment rate is about twice as high as that of the native population. This amounts to a serious failure of assimilation policies. |
| Date: | 2008–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:dpaper:1153&r=lab |
| By: | Johansson, Maria (SISTER) |
| Abstract: | This study attempts to provide a new perspective on current shifts in knowledge production through analysing the relationship between research and education. The study, based on interviews and questionnaires, focus on the interaction within applied research centres with a close industry co-operation. The results suggests that the interaction between research and education benefits from a collaborative environment since: researchers hold positive attitudes toward integrating research, education and collaboration, and students are given the opportunity to work within applied research projects. The findings are discussed in terms of researchers’ ability to handle their scholarly tasks of research, teaching, and collaboration, and the importance for acknowledging research collaborations from both research and teaching perspectives. |
| Keywords: | Research and teaching links; collaboration; applied research; undergraduate education |
| JEL: | I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2008–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0138&r=lab |
| By: | Pierre Lefebvre; Philip Merrigan; Matthieu Verstraete |
| Abstract: | Effects of a low-fee universal childcare policy, initiated in Québec, the second most populous province in Canada, on the cognitive development of preschool children are estimated with a sample of 4- and 5-year-olds (N=8,875; N=17,154). In 1997, licensed and regulated providers of childcare services began offering daycare spaces at the reduced fee of $5 per day per child for children aged 4. By 2000, the low-fee policy applied to all children aged 0 to 59 months (not in kindergarten). The study uses 6 cycles of biennial data drawn from Statistics Canada's National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (1994-2004) and quasi-experimental estimation methods to provide evidence that the policy had substantial negative effects on preschool children's Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores. The negative effects are found to be stronger for children with mothers who have lower levels of education. |
| Keywords: | Preschool children, school readiness, childcare, kindergarten, treatment effects, natural experiment |
| JEL: | H42 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0823&r=lab |
| By: | Gustavo J Bobonis |
| Abstract: | Distinguishing the role of coercive labor and political institutions from the effects of economic inequality levels and populations’ ethno-linguistic compositions in explaining the diverging patterns of development across the Americas has remained a challenging task. This paper examines whether the incentives for elite groups to enforce coercive labor and political institutions, holding other factors constant, inhibited economic development by restricting the provision of public schooling. Using 19th-century micro data from municipalities in Puerto Rico, and exploiting variation in the suitability of coffee cultivation across regions and the timing of the nineteenth century coffee boom, we find that coffee-region local governments allocated more public resources to enforce coercive labor measures and repress revolutionary movements, as documented by greater expenditures targeted towards the enforcement of coercive contracts and the size of military and government-backed paramilitary forces. These local governments also allocated fewer resources towards the provision of primary schooling - a decline of 40 percent in the provision of public primary schools and a decline in literacy rates of 25 percent. These findings are consistent with models of factor price manipulation and political repression under elite-controlled non-democratic regimes, in which the returns to labor are depressed as a result of the extraction of rents from peasants’ wages and literacy-based voting rights are restricted through limited access to schooling. |
| Keywords: | labor coercion; political institutions; geography; schooling |
| JEL: | O11 N46 |
| Date: | 2008–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-335&r=lab |
| By: | Denis Cogneau; Remi Jedwab |
| Abstract: | We study the drastic cut of the administered cocoa producer price in 1990 Cote d'Ivoire and investigate the extent to which cocoa producers' children suffered from this severe income shock in terms of school enrollment, increased labor, height stature and sickness. Comparing pre-crisis (1986-1988) data and post-crisis (1993) data, we propose a difference-in-difference within-village strategy in order to identify the causal effect of family income on children outcomes. We find a strong impact of family income variation for the four variables we examine. |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edb:cedidp:08-13&r=lab |
| By: | Maristella Botticini; Aloysius Siow |
| Abstract: | The returns to scale of marriage markets have important behavioral and welfare consequences. It is quantitatively difficult to estimate the returns to scale because, due to endogenous migration, the marriage market size is endogenous. This paper addresses the endogeneity in two ways. First, it estimates the degree of returns to scale in U.S. marriage markets using the 2000 census. Given that in the United States people move to cities to find marriage partners and, therefore, the size of the marriage market is endogenous, we instrument the current size of a cohort in the marriage market with the size of that cohort twenty years earlier. Second, it estimates city scale effects in two societies---early Renaissance Tuscany and pre-reform China---where there was little internal mobility, and thus, the size of the marriage market can be considered exogenous. The main finding is that in all three societies, there is no evidence of increasing returns to scale in marriage markets, whereas the hypothesis of constant returns to scale cannot be rejected. This is true when looking at marriage odds ratios, total gains to marriage, and the quality of marital match. Given the different characteristics of the three societies in terms of population size, time period, economic structure, and social norms characterizing the marriage market, the similarity and precision of the estimates for returns to scale parameters is remarkable. |
| Keywords: | Increasing returns, marriage market, United States, China, Renaissance Tuscany |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2008–09–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-333&r=lab |
| By: | Waldo Tapia |
| Abstract: | The role of private pensions in the provision of retirement income has grown significantly in the past two decades, reflecting efforts by many countries to trim down unsustainable pay-as-you-go benefits. The role of private provision of retirement income is visible in countries with mature defined benefit private pension plans, as well as in countries that have introduced a mandatory private pillar as part of a systemic pension reform. This report seeks to develop a comparative study on the regulation of private pension systems across a range of countries, with a particular focus on the major systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as selected high income OECD countries. It contains individual country profiles that provide detailed information on each country‘s private pension system. Each country report includes information on members´ participation; contribution rates, asset management, investment regulations, asset valuation and investment return regulations. <P>Description des systèmes de pension privés <BR>Le rôle des pensions privées comme source de revenu au moment de la retraite s‘est beaucoup accru au cours des deux dernières décennies, reflétant en cela les efforts déployés par de nombreux pays pour réduire des prestations financièrement non tenables dans le cadre de la répartition. Le rôle des pensions privées à cet égard est visible tant dans les pays à plans de pension privés à prestations définies matures que dans les pays qui se sont dotés d‘un pilier privé obligatoire dans le cadre d‘une réforme systémique des pensions. Dans ce rapport, on tente de présenter une étude comparative de la réglementation des systèmes de pension privés dans différents pays, en particulier concernant les grands systèmes d‘Amérique latine et des Caraïbes, ainsi que l‘Europe centrale et orientale et un certain nombre de pays de l‘OCDE à haut revenu. Le rapport présente des profils par pays qui donnent des informations détaillées sur le système des pensions privées dans chaque pays. Chaque rapport par pays fournit des informations sur le nombre des adhérents, les taux de cotisation, la gestion des actifs, la réglementation des investissements, la valorisation des actifs et les règles en matière de rendement. |
| Keywords: | pension system, système de pensions, pension fund, fond de pension, pension plan, investment return , defined benefit, prestation définie, defined contribution, cotisations définie, contribution rate, investment regulation, asset valuation, plans de pension, taux de cotisation, réglementation des investissements, rendement des investissements, valorisation des actifs |
| JEL: | G23 G28 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:dafaab:22-en&r=lab |