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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Wallace, Michael T.; Jack, Claire G. |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates returns to education for a sample of farm operators in Northern Ireland. The analysis examines the relationship between education and on-farm and off-farm labour incomes. Human capital earnings functions are estimated to identify the marginal return to education measured as years of schooling as well as the qualification level attained. Extending to a structural model, the methodology controls for the endogeneity of education in the earnings function and potential selection bias associated with off-farm labour market participation. In off-farm employment, the analysis shows that returns to education are of the order of between 6% and 9% for each additional year of schooling. However, on-farm earnings were not found to be significantly related to years of education, although the analysis does identify a significant on-farm return to an agricultural qualification |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Time Allocation and Labor Supply, Agricultural Labor Markets, Wage Level, Labor and Human Capital, J24, J22, J43, J31, |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aesc11:108786&r=lab |
| By: | Claudia Trentini (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) |
| Abstract: | It is widely accepted that disparities in education contribute to the poor labor market outcomes experienced by ethnic minority groups and consequently to their poverty. However, incentives to invest in education are significantly diminished if individuals are discriminated in the labor market and precluded from access to employment. In this paper we analyze differential educational benefits in Bulgaria and compare Roma returns to education with the majority population and the Turkish minority. We show that both ethnic minority groups have lower educational levels and employment rates than the majority population and that they also have lower returns to education. However, the gap in returns to education is much wider for the Roma with respect to both employment and labour-market earnings. The evidence suggests that this group is more vulnerable to discrimination, with a high percentage of the employment gap unexplained by differences in observable skills or characteristics. |
| Keywords: | minorities, Roma, discrimination, returns to education, transition |
| JEL: | J15 J7 P36 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ece:dispap:2011_1&r=lab |
| By: | Kevin E. Cahill (Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College); Michael D. Giandrea (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics); Joseph F. Quinn (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | Is bridge job prevalence reduced significantly if a change in occupation is required in addition to the hours and tenure requirements that typically define bridge job employment? Prior research has shown that the majority of older Americans with career employment do not exit the labor force directly from their careers. Rather, most career individuals take on a “bridge job” later in life, that is, a job that follows full-time career (FTC) employment and precedes complete labor force withdrawal (i.e., retirement). One criticism of this finding is that bridge job prevalence may be overstated because the definition of a bridge job in the existing literature does not require a change in occupation. This paper investigates the extent to which bridge jobs involve a change in occupation or a switch to part-time status, both of which may signal retirement transitions as opposed to continued career employment, albeit with a different employer. We use the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset of older Americans that began in 1992 as the basis for our analysis. We find that, among HRS respondents who were on a FTC job at the time of the first interview and who changed jobs in subsequent waves, 48 percent of the men and 40 percent of the women also changed occupations, using 2-digit occupation codes. Further, when hours worked are also considered, we find that more than three quarters of FTC respondents who changed jobs later in life had either a change in occupation or a switch from full-time to part-time status. Finally, an examination of those career workers who changed jobs but not occupations and who remained working full time reveals that, as a whole, they resemble those who took bridge jobs rather than those who remained on their FTC job. We conclude that the vast majority of career workers who changed jobs later in life did in fact do so as part of a retirement transition. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Aging, Partial Retirement, Occupation Change, Gradual Retirement |
| JEL: | J26 J14 J32 H55 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bls:wpaper:ec110050&r=lab |
| By: | Seik Kim |
| Abstract: | Previous papers on testing for statistical discrimination require variables that employers do not observe directly, but are observed by researchers or data on employer-provided performance measures. This paper develops a test that does not rely on these specific variables. The proposed test can be performed with individual-level cross-section data on employment status, potential experience, and some variables on which discrimination is based, such as race, gender, and education. This paper shows that if employers statistically discriminate among unexperienced workers, but learn about their productivity over time, then the unemployment rates for discriminated groups will be higher than those for non-discriminated groups at the time of labor market entry and that the unemployment rates for discriminated groups will decline faster than those for non-discriminated groups with experience. Using the March CPS for 1977-2010, the preliminary results suggest that employers statistically discriminate on the basis of race and education, but not on the basis of gender. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udb:wpaper:uwec-2011-12&r=lab |
| By: | Blau, Francine D. (Cornell University); Kahn, Lawrence M. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use New Immigrant Survey data to investigate the impact of immigrant women's own labor supply prior to migrating and female labor supply in their source country to provide evidence on the role of human capital and culture in affecting their labor supply and wages in the United States. We find, as expected, that women who migrate from countries with relatively high levels of female labor supply work more in the United States. Moreover, most of this effect remains when we further control for each woman’s own labor supply prior to migrating, which itself also strongly affects labor supply in the United States. Importantly, we find a significantly negative interaction between pre-migration labor supply and source country female labor supply. We obtain broadly similar effects analyzing the determinants of hourly earnings among the employed in the United States, although the results are not always significant. These results suggest an important role for culture and norms in affecting immigrant women's labor supply, since the effect of source country female labor supply on immigrant women's US work hours is still strong even controlling for the immigrant’s own pre-migration labor supply. The negative interaction effects between previous work experience and source country female labor supply on women's US work hours and wages suggest that cultural capital and individual job-related human capital act as substitutes in affecting preparedness for work in the US. |
| Keywords: | gender, immigration, labor supply, human capital |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5890&r=lab |
| By: | Leandro Elia; Edoardo Di Porto (Dipartimento di Economia e Statistica, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study how undeclared work affects the wages of undeclared and declared workers and in particular the declared wage inequality. Using individual data on Italy in the years 2000-2004, we compute a cross and own labor demand elasticity for undeclared and declared work. We provide an identification strategy relying on Italian amnesty tax laws in 2002. Such laws have changed the shape of Italian undeclared sector causing a quick emersion of undeclared workers. Our results based on a set of 2SLS regressions suggest that undeclared work: 1) decreases declared wages, 2) adversely affects undeclared wages and 3) raises wage inequality in the declared sector. Undeclared work competes more with least skilled jobs, while do not affect high skilled jobs. We found complementarity between undeclared workers and medium skills jobs. As a consequence reducing undeclared work decreases wage inequality as well as it decreases the earnings in medium skill sectors. This result suggests that undertaking reducing undeclared labor-policy might encounter resistance because of welfare loss of the medium class of workers. |
| Keywords: | Elasticity of labor demand, Undeclared labor, Wage inequality |
| JEL: | H26 J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:201108&r=lab |
| By: | Nollenberger, Natalia (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Rodriguez-Planas, Nuria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Reconciling work and family is high on many governments' agenda, especially in countries, such as Spain, with record-low fertility and female labor force participation rates. This paper analyzes the effects of a large-scale provision of publicly subsidized child care in Spain in the early 1990s, addressing the impact on mothers’ short- and long-run employment outcomes (up to four years after the child was eligible to participate in the program). Exploiting the staggered timing and age-targeting of this child-care expansion, our estimates show that the policy led to a sizable increase in employment (8%), and hours worked (9%) of mothers with age-eligible (3-year-old) children, and that these effects persisted over time. Heterogeneity matters. While persistence is strong among mothers with a high-school degree, the effects of the program on maternal employment quickly fade away among those without a high-school degree. These findings are consistent with the program reducing the depreciation of human capital. The lack of any results among college educated mothers, which represent less than one tenth of mothers, is most likely due to the fact that they are able to pay day care (even when it is mainly privately supplied), and that most of them are already strongly attached to the labor force. |
| Keywords: | mother's labor supply, preschool children, childcare, quasi-natural experiment, differences-in-differences-in-differences |
| JEL: | H42 H52 I20 J13 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5888&r=lab |
| By: | Uschi Backes-Gellner (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Christian Rupietta (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Simone N. Tuor (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines spillover effects from education at the firm level, separating the effects for different levels and types of education and allowing for a curvilinear relationship. Modeling a Cobb-Douglas production function, we show that wages of tertiary-educated workers depend positively on the number of workers with an apprenticeship degree. These effects are the result of informational spillovers between differently educated workers. We estimate an aggregated Mincerian earnings equation using data from a large employer-employee survey and account for firm fixed effects as well as endogeneous workforce composition. Our results are highly significant and robust throughout our specifications and show that the number of workers with an apprenticeship degree has a positive impact on average wages of tertiary-educated workers but with a decreasing rate. |
| Keywords: | Education, Informational Spillovers, Wages |
| JEL: | I20 J24 J30 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0065&r=lab |
| By: | Francine D. Blau; Lawrence M. Kahn |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use New Immigrant Survey data to investigate the impact of immigrant women’s own labor supply prior to migrating and female labor supply in their source country to provide evidence on the role of human capital and culture in affecting their labor supply and wages in the United States. We find, as expected, that women who migrate from countries with relatively high levels of female labor supply work more in the United States. Moreover, most of this effect remains when we further control for each woman’s own labor supply prior to migrating, which itself also strongly affects labor supply in the United States. Importantly, we find a significantly negative interaction between pre-migration labor supply and source country female labor supply. We obtain broadly similar effects analyzing the determinants of hourly earnings among the employed in the United States, although the results are not always significant. These results suggest an important role for culture and norms in affecting immigrant women’s labor supply, since the effect of source country female labor supply on immigrant women’s US work hours is still strong even controlling for the immigrant’s own pre-migration labor supply. The negative interaction effects between previous work experience and source country female labor supply on women’s US work hours and wages suggest that cultural capital and individual job-related human capital act as substitutes in affecting preparedness for work in the US. |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17275&r=lab |
| By: | Jeremy Lise (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London) |
| Abstract: | <p>I develop and estimate a model of the labor market in which precautionary savings interacts with labour market frictions to produce substantial inequality in wealth among ex ante identical workers. I show that a model of on-the-job search,in which workers are risk averse and markets are incomplete, provides a direct and intuitive link between the empirical earnings and wealth distributions. The </p><p>mechanism that generates the high degree of wealth inequality in the model is the dynamic of the "wage ladder" resulting from the search process. There is an important asymmetry between the incremental wage increases generated by on-thejob search (climbing the ladder) and the drop in income associated with job loss (falling off the ladder). The behavior of workers in low paying jobs is primarily governed by the expectation of wage growth, while the behavior of workers near the top of the distribution is driven by the possibility of job loss.</p> |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:11/16&r=lab |
| By: | thomas.retzmann (Chair of Economics and Economic Education, University of Duisburg-Essen); Bernd Remmele (Wissenschaftliche Hochschule Lahr); Guenther Seeber (University of Koblenz-Landau); Hans-Carl Joengebloed (Kiel University) |
| Keywords: | economic education, educational standards, general-education schools, germany, competences, competence model |
| JEL: | A21 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:duj:wpaper:1002&r=lab |
| By: | Peri, Giovanni (Department of Economics, University of California, Davis); Sparber, Chad (Department of Economics, Colgate University) |
| Abstract: | Economic debate about the consequences of immigration in the US has largely focused on how influxes of foreign-born labor with little educational attainment have affected similarly-educated native-born workers. Fewer studies analyze the effect of immigration within the market for highly-educated labor. We use O*NET data on job characteristics to assess whether native-born workers with graduate degrees respond to an increased presence of highly-educated foreign-born workers by choosing new occupations with different skill content. We find that highly-educated native and foreign-born workers are imperfect substitutes. Immigrants with graduate degrees specialize in occupations demanding quantitative and analytical skills, whereas their native-born counterparts specialize in occupations requiring interactive and communication skills. When the foreign-born proportion of highly-educated employment within an occupation rises, native employees with graduate degrees choose new occupations with less analytical and more communicative content. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Occupational Choice, Highly-Educated Workers, Communication Skills, Mathematical Skills |
| JEL: | J61 J31 F22 |
| Date: | 2010–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2010-09&r=lab |
| By: | Kitty Stewart |
| Abstract: | Maternal employment formed a central plank in the former Labour Government's strategy to reduce child poverty. Even where potential jobs were low-skilled and low-paid, policy was explicitly work (rather than training) first, and lone parents in particular were given direct and indirect financial subsidies to enter employment of any kind. The explicit assumption was that a low-paid job would be a stepping-stone to better things. From 2008 a little more stick was introduced to what had been a largely carrot-based approach to encouraging employment, a shift that has continued under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government in power from May 2010. However, there is little evidence in practice that a low-paid job when one's child is young is a reliable route to improved future prospects. This paper uses the British Household Panel Survey to explore this issue further. It examines the employment trajectories of 929 women for the ten years after the birth of their youngest child, asking two main questions. Do mothers tend to remain in employment once they have taken a job? And do wages and other employment outcomes further down the line (when their youngest child is ten) reflect the employment pathway taken? In both cases the paper focuses in particular on differences between women with higher and lower levels of qualifications. The paper finds mothers following a variety of employment pathways, with instability much more common than steady work trajectories. One in three mothers moves in and out of work over the decade after the birth of their youngest child, and this is true for both lower-skilled and higher-skilled mothers. Stable work histories do appear to carry benefits in terms of wages when the youngest reaches ten, but the benefits are substantially higher for women with higher levels of qualifications, as might be predicted by human capital theory. More highly qualified women who moved in and out of work over the decade had an hourly wage at ten which was 33% lower than similar women with a stable work history; for women with few or no qualifications the corresponding figure was 14%. Levels of occupational progression as measured by change in NS-SEC status over the decade were encouraging, but for both higher and lower skilled women job satisfaction when the youngest is ten appears unrelated to the pathway taken. |
| Keywords: | maternal employment, employment trajectories, wage growth |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sticas:case144&r=lab |
| By: | Jesús Palomino Samaniego (Departamento de Economía - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) |
| Abstract: | Following the studies of Jaramillo (2004), Céspedes (2006) and Del Valle (2009), the present research evaluates the short term effects of the increase of the minimum wage on employment and labour income in Lima Metropolitana. The contribution of the paper consists in modeling the labour market in three sectors: formal employment, “competitive” informal employment and “subsistence” informal employment. This will allow us to identify the differentiated effects of the minimum wage in the labour market. We propose that the increase in the minimum wage imposes a higher barrier to the demand of low skilled labour, expulsing these workers to subsistence activities in the informal sector, while employment in the “competitive” informal sector remains unaffected. Consequently, we expect a higher labour income in the formal sector, a lower labour income in the “subsistence” informal sector due to the increased competence, and no significant changes in the “competitive” informal sector. We design a stratified propensity score matching methodology for the empirical identification of the “competitive” and “subsistence” informal sectors, and follow Neumark (1994) for the impact assessment of the minimum wage. The results confirm the hypothesis about the effects on employment, but fail to confirm those about the effects on labour income. |
| Keywords: | Salario mínimo / Empleo / Ingresos laborales / Economía laboral / Informalidad |
| JEL: | J31 J38 O54 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pcp:pucwps:wp00313&r=lab |
| By: | Kwon, O Hyun (Peking University); Fleisher, Belton M. (Ohio State University); Deng, Quheng (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Industry mean wages in China have exhibited sharply increased dispersion since the early 1990s. The upward trend in differences of average wages among major industry groups parallels increases in wage and income inequality not only between rural and urban sectors but within the urban economy as well. Research on the trend has focused on (1) how market forces have led to a better match between worker pay and worker skills; on (2a) how the growing share of employment in the private sector has “caused” growing wage inequality; and (2b) how residual government control in a few industrial sectors has contributed to wage inequality due monopoly rent sharing. We show that the industrial wage dispersion in China has evolved to match long-recognized international patterns of industrial wage dispersion and that an increasing proportion of industrial wage dispersion can be explained as returns to observed worker characteristics. |
| Keywords: | industry-wage structure, inequality, China |
| JEL: | J31 D33 L16 O53 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5880&r=lab |
| By: | Howard, Larry L. (California State University, Fullerton); Prakash, Nishith (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This article investigates the effects of a large-scale public sector employment quota policy for disadvantaged minorities (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) in India on their occupational choices, as defined by skill level, during the 1980s and 1990s. We find that, first, the employment quota policy significantly affects the occupational structure of both disadvantaged minority populations. In response to the employment quotas, individuals belonging to the Scheduled Caste group are more likely to choose high-skill occupations and less likely to choose low- and middle-skill occupations, while individuals belonging to the Scheduled Tribe group are less likely to choose high-skill occupations and more likely to choose low- and middle-skill occupations. Second, the impact of the employment quotas is significantly related with an individual's years of schooling. Overall, the results indicate that the employment quota policy changes the occupational choices of individuals within the targeted populations and contributes to their improved socio-economic standing. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice, employment quota, affirmative action, skill, caste, India |
| JEL: | J62 J61 J24 O10 O2 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5894&r=lab |
| By: | Chaaban, Jad; Cunningham, Wendy |
| Abstract: | Although girls are approximately half the youth population in developing countries, they contribute less than their potential to the economy. The objective of this paper is to quantify the opportunity cost of girls'exclusion from productive employment with the hope that stark figures will lead policymakers to reconsider the current underinvestment in girls. The paper explores the linkages between investing in girls and potential increases in national income by examining three widely prevalent aspects of adolescent girls'lives: early school dropout, teenage pregnancy and joblessness. The countries included in the analysis are: Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Paraguay, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The authors use secondary data to allow for some comparability across countries. They find that investing in girls so that they would complete the next level of education would lead to lifetime earnings of today's cohort of girls that is equivalent to up to 68 percent of annual gross domestic product. When adjusting for ability bias and labor demand elasticities, this figure falls to 54 percent, or 1.5 percent per year. Closing the inactivity rate between girls and boys would increase gross domestic product by up to 5.4 percent, but when accounting for students, male-female wage gaps and labor demand elasticities, the joblessness gap between girls and their male counterparts yields an increase in gross domestic product of up to 1.2 percent in a single year. The cost of adolescent pregnancy as a share of gross domestic could be as high as 30 percent or as low as 1 percent over a girl's lifetime, depending on the assumptions used to calculate the losses. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Adolescent Health,Gender and Development,Primary Education,Gender and Education |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5753&r=lab |
| By: | Lorraine Dearden; Emla Fitzsimons; Gill Wyness |
| Abstract: | Understanding how policy can affect university participation is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. In this paper, we estimate the separate impacts of tuition fees and maintenance grants on the decision to enter university in the UK. We use Labour Force Survey data covering 1992-2007, a period of important variation in higher education finance, which saw the introduction of up-front tuition fees and the abolition of maintenance grants in 1998, followed some eight years later by a shift to higher deferred fees and the reinstatement of maintenance grants. We create a pseudo-panel of university participation of cohorts defined by sex, region of residence and family background, and estimate a number of different specifications on these aggregated data. Our findings show that tuition fees have had a significant negative effect on participation, with a £1,000 increase in fees resulting in a decrease in participation of 3.9 percentage points, which equates to an elasticity of -0.14. Non-repayable support in the form of maintenance grants has had a positive effect on participation, with a £1,000 increase in grants resulting in a 2.6 percentage point increase in participation, which equates to an elasticity of 0.18. These findings are comparable to, but of a slightly lower magnitude than, those in the related US literature. |
| Keywords: | university participation, higher education funding policies, tuition fees, maintenance grants, pseudo-panel |
| JEL: | I21 I22 I28 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0126&r=lab |
| By: | Macunovich, Diane (University of Redlands) |
| Abstract: | This study tests the effect of relative income – younger people's earning potential relative to their aspirations, as approximated by older families' income – on the proportions married, by sex, in the first fifteen years out of school. It finds that relative income has become a better measure to use, than relative cohort size, because of a disconnect that has developed between the two as a result of rising female labor force participation among older women that has inflated older families’ income faster than older men's earnings. The results are highly supportive of the Easterlin relative income hypothesis, finding a dominant negative effect of older family income that extends due to postponement effects even into groups 11-15 years out of school. But in addition it finds a strong but changing effect of the female wage: positive among women 0-5 years out of school, although slowly declining over time, but negative among the older women with a dominant positive time trend that has produced a positive effect in the last decade. The elasticity with respect to older family income suggests that it was responsible for 16% of the observed decline in the proportion of women 0-5 years out of school who were married, and 23% of the proportion for the men in the same group. There is in addition, however, a very strong negative time trend. |
| Keywords: | marriage, relative income, relative cohort size, Easterlin hypothesis, marriage squeeze |
| JEL: | J12 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5886&r=lab |
| By: | Vera Brusentsev (Department of Economics,University of Delaware); Jeffrey Miller (Department of Economics,University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | The College Fed Challenge, a competition between undergraduate students from different colleges and universities, is designed to enhance the development of research, critical thinking, and presentation skills. This paper analyzes the value of the competition as an instrument for improving undergraduate economics education. We present results from surveys of (a) students who participated in one district in November 2010 and (b) graduates from the University of Delaware who participated in past years. The results reflect the impressive effect on student learning outcomes. We conclude that the visibility of the College Fed Challenge can be an important factor in determining its impact and that the competition could conceivably have a significant and positive impact on economics education in the United States. |
| Keywords: | economic education, undergraduate economics, education environment, experienced based education |
| JEL: | A20 A22 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:11-07.&r=lab |
| By: | Lorraine Dearden (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Bedford Group, Institute of Education, University of London); Emla Fitzsimons (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Gill Wyness (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | <p>Understanding how policy can affect university participation is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. In this paper, we estimate the separate impacts of tuition fees and maintenance grants on the decision to enter university in the UK. We use Labour Force Survey data covering 1992-2007, a period of important variation in higher education finance, which saw the introduction of up-front tuition fees and the abolition of maintenance grants in 1998, followed some eight years later by a shift to higher deferred fees and the reinstatement of maintenance grants. We create a pseudo-panel of university participation of cohorts defined by sex, region of residence and family background, and estimate a number of different specifications on these aggregated data. Our findings show that tuition fees have had a significant negative effect on participation, with a £1,000 increase in fees resulting in a decrease in participation of 3.9 percentage points, which equates to an elasticity of -0.14. Non-repayable support in the form of maintenance grants has had a positive effect on participation, with a £1,000 increase in grants resulting in a 2.6 percentage point increase in participation, which equates to an elasticity of 0.18. These findings are comparable to, but of a slightly lower magnitude than, those in the related US literature. </p> |
| Keywords: | university participation, higher education funding policies, tuition fees, maintenance grants, pseudo-panel |
| JEL: | I21 I22 I28 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:11/17&r=lab |
| By: | Aaron George Grech |
| Abstract: | Spurred by the ageing transition, many governments have made wide-ranging reforms, dramatically changing Europe's pensions landscape. Nevertheless there remain concerns about future costs, while unease about adequacy is growing. This study develops a comprehensive framework to assess pension system sustainability. It captures the effects of reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, while setting out how reforms change future costs and relative entitlements for different generations. This framework differs from others, which just look at generosity at the point of retirement, as it uses pension wealth - the value of all transfers during retirement. This captures the impact of both longevity and changes in the value of pensions during retirement. Moreover, rather than focusing only on average earners with full careers, this framework examines individuals at different wage levels, taking account of actual labour market participation. The countries analysed cover 70% of the EU's population and include examples of all system types. Our estimates indicate that while reforms have decreased generosity significantly, in most, but not all, countries the poverty alleviation function remains strong, particularly where minimum pensions have improved. However, moves to link benefits to contributions have made some systems less progressive, raising adequacy concerns for women and those on low incomes. The consumption smoothing function of state pensions has declined noticeably, suggesting the need for longer working lives or additional private saving for individuals to maintain pre-reform living standards. Despite the reforms, the size of entitlements of future generations should remain similar to that of current generations, in most cases, as the effect of lower annual benefits should be offset by longer retirement. Though reforms have helped address the financial challenge faced by pension systems, in many countries pressures remain strong and further reforms are likely. |
| Keywords: | Social Security and Public Pensions, Retirement, Poverty, Retirement Policies |
| JEL: | H55 I38 J26 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sticas:case140&r=lab |
| By: | Kirdar, Murat G. (Middle East Technical University); Tayfur, Meltem Dayioglu (Middle East Technical University); Koc, Ismet (Hacettepe University) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of the extension of compulsory schooling in Turkey from 5 to 8 years on the marriage and fertility behavior of teenage women in Turkey using the 2008 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey. We find that the new education policy reduces the probability of marriage and giving birth for teenage women substantially: the probability of marriage by age 16 is reduced by 44 percent and the probability of giving birth by age 17 falls by 36 percent. The effects of the education policy on the time until marriage and first-birth persist beyond the completion of compulsory schooling. In addition, we find that the delay in the time until first-birth is driven by the delay in the time until marriage. After a woman is married, the rise in compulsory schooling years does not have an effect on the duration until her first-birth. Finally, we find that the education policy was more effective in reducing early marriage than a change in the Civil Code aimed for this purpose. |
| Keywords: | age at marriage, fertility, education, compulsory schooling |
| JEL: | J12 J13 I20 D10 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5887&r=lab |
| By: | Macunovich, Diane (University of Redlands) |
| Abstract: | This study tests the effect of relative income – younger people's earning potential relative to their aspirations, as approximated by older families' income – on two measures of fertility: the proportion of women with an own child under one year of age, and the proportion of women with at least one own child under eighteen. The results are highly supportive of the Easterlin relative income hypothesis, finding a dominant negative effect of older family income that extends due to postponement effects even into groups 11-15 years out of school. Increases in older family income are found to account for 42% of the decline in the proportion of women with a newborn, and 37% of the decline in the proportion with at least one own child, among women 0-5 years out of school. In addition, the study finds a strong but changing effect of the female wage: positive among women 0-5 years out of school, although slowly declining over time, but negative among the older women with a dominant positive time trend that has produced a positive effect in the last decade. It is hypothesized that the observed pattern of increases in fertility among women with higher levels of education over the last decade has been a function of this emerging positive effect of the female wage, among older more educated women. |
| Keywords: | fertility, relative income, relative cohort size, Easterlin hypothesis |
| JEL: | J13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5885&r=lab |
| By: | Ebenstein, Avraham; Harrison, Ann; McMillan, Margaret; Phillips, Shannon |
| Abstract: | The authors link industry-level data on trade and offshoring with individual-level worker data from the Current Population Surveys. They find that occupational exposure to globalization is associated with larger wage effects than industry exposure. This effect has been overlooked because it operates between rather than within sectors of the economy. The authors also find that globalization is associated with a reallocation of workers across sectors and occupations. They estimate wage losses of 2 to 4 percent among workers leaving manufacturing and 4 to 11 percent among workers who also switch occupations. These effects are most pronounced for workers who perform routine tasks. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,E-Business |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5750&r=lab |
| By: | Nadine Riedel (Centre for Business Taxation, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates corporate taxation under separate accounting (SA) and formula apportionment (FA) in a model with union wage bargaining and multinational firms. Under SA, we find that increases in the corporate tax rate raise the wage level of domestic workers, while they lower the remuneration of foreign workers. The main insight emerging from a tax competition game is that the endogenous wage level gives rise to an ambiguous fiscal externality, which may dampen the race-to-the-bottom in corporate tax rates. A switch to a tax system with FA principles reverses the impact of corporate taxes on negotiated wages. While increases in the corporate tax rate reduce domestic wages, they raise the wage level of foreign workers. In a tax competition game, the endogenous wage level gives rise to a positive fiscal externality that enforces the race-to-the-bottom in corporate tax rates. |
| Keywords: | corporate taxation, multinational firm, union wage bargaining |
| JEL: | H3 H5 J7 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:btx:wpaper:1106&r=lab |
| By: | Khaleque, Abdul |
| Abstract: | The present study is based on 5208 observations, which is comprised of participant households of microcredit programs, non-participant households of program villages as well as non-participant households from control villages. We found that among the participant households 37% depend on wage as well as self employment activity and 20% is solely dependent on self-employment activity and the remaining depends on dual activity (self-employment as well as wage employment), but among the non-participant households 60% is solely dependent on day labor activity. To find the link between occupation selection and microfinance participation, we use simple as well as multiple regression models like logit, multinomial logit, seemingly unrelated regression, etc. The regression results based on earnings from the elective occupations or number of days worked in that occupation suggests that the surveyed participant households have higher likelihood of being self-employed or to maintain self-employment as well as wage employment at a time to increase their welfare. The shifters due to relaxation of credit constraint or proliferation of access to credit moves toward sole self-employment activity with higher likelihood than the dual activity – to be employed in self-employment as well as wage employment within a given time span. In compendium, we can lucidly claim from this paper that beyond the asset structure of the households such as landholdings, savings, education, etc., the microfinance directly induces self-employment activity or transfer available working days from the day labor activity to self-employment activity and maximize their economic gain such as higher income, savings etc. |
| Keywords: | Credit; Self-employment; Logit; Multinomial logit; Seemingly Unrelated Model |
| JEL: | E24 J22 J24 J23 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32637&r=lab |
| By: | Woodward, Jonathan (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Economic factors such as wages may have different influences on meal production and consumption times. Previous research has typically investigated only production or consumption time, and has produced mixed results. After developing a stylized model that illustrates how higher wages may reduce meal production time but have ambiguous effects on meal consumption time, I examine these relationships using time diary information from the ATUS supplemented with wage information from the CPS. Using standard and censored regression models, I find that for meal production time, women experience a negative effect from wages on weekdays, as expected, and no effect on weekends. However, men show no weekday effect and a surprising positive effect of wages on weekends, suggesting that men with a high value of weekday time may substitute weekend meal production time for weekday time. Higher wages are associated with more meal consumption time for both men and women on weekdays and weekends, indicating that consumption time is a normal good. |
| Keywords: | Time use; Meal time; Meal production; Meal consumption; Wage imputation |
| JEL: | J22 |
| Date: | 2011–08–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2011_012&r=lab |
| By: | Giovanni Russo (VU University Amsterdam); Federico Tedeschi (University of Bologna); Aura Reggiani (University of Bologna); Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers an exploratory investigation of the effects of inbound commuter flows on employment in regional labour markets in Germany. For this purpose, we distinguish three main channels that may transmit the effects concerned: a crowding-out mechanism, and two labour demand effects, namely, an aggregate demand effect and a positive externality on vacancy creation. To this end, we develop a stepwise commuting impact model. Our results bring to light that, on the whole, commuter flows have a positive and robust effect on both employment and the number of jobs in the receiving labour market districts, but a distinctly negative effect on the share of jobs filled by resident workers. We then interpret the implications of our results, and, finally, we suggest ways in which the analysis could be improved and expanded. |
| Keywords: | commuter flows; lacal labour markets |
| JEL: | J21 |
| Date: | 2011–08–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20110114&r=lab |
| By: | Richard V. Burkhauser; Sean Lyons; Kosali I. Simon |
| Abstract: | This working paper highlights the practical importance of two critical but under-explored assumptions behind existing estimates of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s potential impact on the mix of employees and families who may have employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) in the future or may receive subsidies in the new health insurance exchanges. The first assumption is whether ACA’s affordable coverage rule will be interpreted to mean that employers must provide affordable single coverage or that they must provide affordable family coverage policies to workers with families to avoid paying a fine. The second assumption is how much employers and employees will cooperatively agree in the future to designing new compensation contracts to take advantage of the way “affordability” is determined. We show that depending on these assumptions, the ACA could lead to far more lower to moderate income families gaining access to affordable coverage through exchanges or, conversely, to far fewer of these families being covered by ESI, even if no employers drop their health insurance plans as a result of the new law. Using our stylized models, we find at one extreme that the share of private sector workers covered by ESI would fall by as much as 12.7 percentage points, relative to a case of full compliance with the law, if the ACA affordability coverage rule is interpreted to apply to family coverage and employees directly pay 100 percent of the cost of the ESI in premiums, with compensating higher wages making them no worse off. At the other extreme, we find no changes in the share of private sector workers covered by ESI along this margin if employee contribution shares do not change in the future and affordability is interpreted to refer to single coverage. What constitutes a realistic point between these two extremes depends on exactly how the affordability coverage rule will be interpreted and the degree that employers and employees will actually be able to make these adjustments because of labor market rigidities. This working paper’s contribution is to point out the importance of these hitherto unexplored factors for future consideration in research that uses more sophisticated micro simulation models. In our stylized model, most of the effect of the movement onto the subsidized exchanges occurs when employees directly pay less than 50 percent of the ESI family premium. We conclude by discussing the limitations of stylized calculations relative to full simulation models, and directions for future research. |
| JEL: | I0 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17279&r=lab |
| By: | Wasmer, Etienne (Centre de recherche en économie de Sciences Po); Janiak, Alexandre (Departamento de Ingenieria Industrial (DII)); David, Quentin (Département de Droit de l'UL) |
| Abstract: | In the North of Europe, club membership is higher than in the South, but the frequency of contacts with friends, relatives and neighbors is lower. We link this fact to another one: the low geographical mobility rates in the South of Europe relative to the North. To interpret these facts, we build a model of local social capital and mobility. Investing in local ties is rational when workers do not expect to move to another region. We find that observationally close individuals may take different paths characterized by high local social capital, low mobility and high unemployment, vs. low social capital, high propensity to move and higher employment probability. Employment protection reinforces the accumulation of local social capital and thus reduces mobility. European data supports the theory: within a country and at the individual level, more social capital is associated with lower mobility. |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:sciepo:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h482kc28p&r=lab |
| By: | Martine Mariotti; Juergen Meinecke |
| Abstract: | We estimate the average return to education and the ability bias applying a parametric model of intra-household correlation suggested by Card (1999, 2001) to the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. Using the subsample of dual-earner households, we obtain an average return to education of 5.5% and an ability bias of 19%. Our paper is also the first to provide informative inference results on ability bias. We extrapolate the ability bias estimate from dual-earner households to the whole sample. Using Manski's (1989) nonparametric no assumptions bounds to partially identify the ability bias for the whole sample, we find that ability bias lies between 9% and 63%. This implies an average return to education of between 3.0% and 7.4% for the whole sample. Our estimates are conservative and compare well to other estimates of the average return to education which typically lie to the right of that interval. |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-551&r=lab |
| By: | Tobias Boehm (Department of Economics, University of Muenster); Nadine Riedel (Centre for Business Taxation, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the institution of life time tenure for public sector employees affects the selection of workers into private and public sector occupation. Precisely, we argue that more generous employment protection for public sector employees may induce risk averse individuals to select into civil service employment even if they have a low intrinsic motivation and talent for this type of occupation. To empirically test for this effect, we exploit the natural experiment of the German reunification in 1990. While occupational choices in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) before 1990 may be affected by the described security motive, workers in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) enjoyed an employment guarantee irrespective of their occupation. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we employ a difference-in-difference approach that takes absenteeism as a proxy for intrinsic worker motivation and productivity. The results suggest a significant selection effect: public sector employees who made their occupational choice in the FRG report more days of absence than the control group of civil servants who chose their occupation in the former GDR. This effect turns out to be robust against controlling for potential socio-economic and cultural differences between the groups. |
| Keywords: | public sector, employment protection, occupational choice |
| JEL: | J45 J5 H8 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:btx:wpaper:1109&r=lab |
| By: | Mohamad Fahmi (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University); Achmad maulana (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University); Arief Anshory Yusuf (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | In 2006, Indonesia started implementing a nation-wide program of teacher certification with the aim to certify as many as 2.3 million teachers in 2015 with the budgetary cost of as much as US$460 million. Despite the magnitude and the importance of this program, there has been no quantitative study to evaluate the impact of such program on student’s achievement. In this study, we conducted a teacher survey in the Greater Bandung Area and collected the information on average national exam scores of the students of certified and not-certified teachers. We use two different impact evaluation techniques namely Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Difference-in-Difference (DD) to evaluate the impact of certification. Both methods suggest that teacher certification has no impact on student’s achievement. The certification program may have improved teacher’s living standard as remuneration increase is an elemental part of it, yet its formally-stated goal to improve the quality of education as should be indicated in better students’ performance may not have been achieved. This program, being the largest in the nation’s history, may have confused means and ends. |
| Keywords: | teacher certification, propensity score matching, impact evaluation, Indonesia |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:201107&r=lab |
| By: | Strzelecki, Paweł; Wyszynski, Robert |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study is to present the characteristic of present-day migrants and the potential for possible migration after the opening of the labour markets in Austria and Germany. The econometric analysis shows that differences in unemployment rates between sending and receiving countries were the most important for changes in the emigration from Poland in the period 2002-2009. Mostly due to persistence of these differences the intruduction of the open-door policy by two last EU countries in the spring of 2011 can intensify the further emigration flows from Poland. Data concerning the structure of the present emigration in Germany indicate that emigrants from Poland are mainly persons with vocational and secondary education, working primarily in the sections of services (e.g. health care and social assistance, accommodation and catering). There is also a relatively high percentage of persons employed in agriculture and the construction sector. These sectors will probably continue to be the most frequent workplace for emigrants, where the internal supply of work seems insufficient to meet the needs of this part of the German economy. The current limitations push better educated emigrants from Poland to work mainly as specialists in the sectors of economy preferred by Germany or as self-employed persons. The caps applied by German authorities concerning the number of Polish employees on secondment under the framework of the cross-border provision of services remain underused. Moreover, German data (which do not cover persons holding dual nationality) indicate that for the time being emigration from Poland is, to a large extent, circulatory by nature. Examples of other EU countries which already opened their labour markets indicate that the removal of barriers to access may increase emigration in the first year, but the differences and changes in unemployment rates among countries are a much more important factor for migratory flows, particularly at a later stage. The opening of labour markets in Germany and Austria may contribute to a change in the nature of the present short-term to a more permanent migration from Poland. The first part of the study presents information on the existing work limitations for Poles in Germany and the characteristics of the present emigrants from Poland to Germany and Austria. The second part discusses determinants of emigration in 2002-2009, putting a special emphasis on those countries which already managed to open their labour markets for the ‘new’ EU members. The third part delivers the estimates of possible emigration changes from Poland to Germany and Austria that are going to happen after 1 May 2011. |
| Keywords: | labour migration; open-door policy; Poland; Germany; determinants of migration |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32586&r=lab |
| By: | Mano, Yukichi; Iddrisu,, Alhassan; Yoshino, Yutaka; Sonobe, Tetsushi |
| Abstract: | The vast majority of micro and small enterprises in developing countries are located in industrial clusters, and the majority of such clusters have yet to see their growth take off. The performance of micro and small enterprise clusters is especially low in Sub-Saharan Africa. While existing studies often attribute the poor performance to factors outside firms, problems within firms are seldom scrutinized. Entrepreneurs in these clusters are unfamiliar with standard business practices. Based on a randomized experiment in Ghana, this study demonstrates that basic-level management training improves business practices and performance, although the extent of improvement varies considerably among entrepreneurs. |
| Keywords: | Labor Policies,Primary Education,Access&Equity in Basic Education,Education For All,E-Business |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5755&r=lab |
| By: | Fu, Dahai; Wu, Yanrui |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether exporting firms pay average higher wages than non-exporting firms by analyzing a large sample of Chinese manufacturing firms in 2004. Through rigorous exercises involving robust regressions, quantile regressions and nonparametric matching estimators, we find that the wage premium of exporting activities is not a prevailing phenomenon in China. It is unevenly distributed among firms with different ownerships, export-orientations and locations. Overall, exporters located in coastal regions but Guangdong province are more likely to pay higher average wages than nonexporters, while those producing in Guangdong offer a lower pay. |
| Keywords: | Exporters; Wage premium; Manufacturing; China |
| JEL: | F16 J31 L6 |
| Date: | 2011–06–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32721&r=lab |
| By: | Laurence M. Ball; Nicolás De Roux; Marc Hofstetter |
| Abstract: | This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government regulations are generally weak. We also examine large, persistent increases in unemployment over time, finding that they are caused by contractions in aggregate demand. These demand contractions result from either disinflationary monetary policy or the defense of an exchange-rate peg in the face of capital flight. Our evidence supports hysteresis theories in which short-run changes in unemployment influence the natural rate. |
| JEL: | E24 E52 F41 J60 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17274&r=lab |
| By: | Matt Dickson (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin CMPO, University of Bristol); Colm Harmon (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin Research School of Economics, Australian National University IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | The estimation of the economic return to education has perhaps been one of the predominant areas of analysis in applied economics for over 50 years. In this short note we consider some of the recent directions taken by the literature, and also some of the blockages faced by both science and policymakers in pushing forward some key issues. This serves by way of introduction to a set of papers for a special issue of the Economics of Education Review. |
| Keywords: | Returns to education, education policy |
| JEL: | J08 J30 J38 C21 |
| Date: | 2011–08–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201115&r=lab |
| By: | Sinning, Mathias (Australian National University); Vorell, Matthias (RWI) |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the effects of immigration flows on economic outcomes and crime levels to the public opinion about these effects using individual and regional data for Australia. We employ an instrumental variables strategy to account for non-random location choices of immigrants and find that immigration has no adverse effects on regional unemployment rates, median incomes, or crime levels. This result is in line with the economic effects that people typically expect but does not confirm the public opinion about the contribution of immigration to higher crime levels, suggesting that Australians overestimate the effect of immigration on crime. |
| Keywords: | effects of immigration, attitudes towards immigrants, international migration |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5883&r=lab |
| By: | Kerwin Kofi Charles; Melvin Stephens Jr. |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that, since activities that provide political information are complementary with leisure, increased labor market activity should lower turnout, but should do so least in prominent elections where information is ubiquitous. Using official county-level voting data and a variety of OLS and TSLS models, we find that increases in wages and employment: reduce voter turnout in gubernatorial elections by a significant amount; have no effect on Presidential turnout; and raise the share of persons voting in a Presidential election who do not vote on a House of Representative election on the same ballot. We argue that this pattern (which contradicts some previous findings in the literature) can be fully accounted for by an information argument, and is either inconsistent with or not fully explicable by arguments based on citizens’ psychological motivations to vote in good or bad times; changes in logistical voting costs; or transitory migration. Using individual-level panel data methods and multiple years’ data from the American National Election Study (ANES) we confirm that increases in employment lead to less use of the media and reduced political knowledge, and present associational individual evidence that corroborates our main argument. |
| JEL: | D72 D80 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17270&r=lab |
| By: | Sunde, Uwe; Vischer, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests that the weak empirical effect of human capital on growth in existing cross-country studies is partly the result of an inappropriate specification that does not account for the different channels through which human capital aspects growth. A systematic replication of earlier results from the literature shows that both, initial levels and changes in human capital, have positive growth effects, while in isolation, each channel often appears insignificant. Studies that do not account for both channels might underestimate the effect of human capital due to convergence in human capital, in particular when measuring human capital in log average years of schooling. This study therefore complements alternative explanations for the weak growth effects of human capital based on outlier observations and measurement issues. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Growth Regressions, Specification. |
| JEL: | O47 O11 O15 E24 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2011:31&r=lab |
| By: | Wen-Jen Tsay (Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan); C. Y. Cyrus Chu (Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan) |
| Abstract: | Treating female labor force participation (LFP) and coresidence with the hus-band's parents as two endogenous decisions, we estimate the duration of first birth using data on Taiwanese married women. Technically, we propose a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimator for a duration model with endogenous binary switching variables, which solves the problem mentioned by Schultz (1997, p. 375). Our first result shows that female LFP significantly delays the timing of first birth and is in line with that found in Heckman et al. (1985) where the status of female LFP is assumed to be exogenous. Our second result is completely opposite to the finding of previous literature in that coresiding with the husband's parents postpones the timing of first birth after controlling the endogeneity of coresidence status. We explain why this is so. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sin:wpaper:11-a005&r=lab |
| By: | Jaret Treber (Department of Economics, Kenyon College); Rachel Levy (Bessemer Trust); Victor Matheson (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross) |
| Abstract: | This paper adds to the literature on competitive balance in college sports by comparing men's and women's NCAA basketball. Using data from the Division I National Championships, we find evidence consistent with the idea that women’s college basketball is less competitively balanced than men’s college basketball. We argue that this difference may be explained by a theory of player ability borrowed from evolutionary biology first promulgated by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and subsequently utilized in Berri (2004). An implication of this idea is that competitive balance in women’s NCCA basketball will naturally improve over time. This is good news for those who are concerned with the long term success of the sport to the extent that competitive balance in women’s college basketball impacts fan demand. Nevertheless, we discuss why there may be reason to believe that women’s college basketball may not reach the same level of balance as men’s college basketball. |
| Keywords: | College sports, competitive balance, women’s sports, basketball |
| JEL: | L83 J16 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1106&r=lab |
| By: | Sa, Filipa (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | This article studies the effect of immigration on house prices in the UK. It finds that immigration has a negative effect on house prices and presents evidence that this negative effect is due to the mobility response of the native population. Natives respond to immigration by moving to different areas and those who leave are at the top of the wage distribution. This generates a negative income effect on housing demand and pushes down house prices. The negative effect of immigration on house prices is driven by local areas where immigrants have lower education. |
| Keywords: | immigration, house prices |
| JEL: | J61 R21 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5893&r=lab |
| By: | Domenico Buccella |
| Abstract: | Key aspects in economic integrated areas like the EU are both the internationalization of productive activities, which usually occurs in unionized countries, and the ongoing process of labor market integration. In a symmetric two-country duopoly model with integrated product markets, this paper investigates the incentives for unions to coordinate wage demands in the presence of transaction costs. It shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, under certain conditions wage coordination could lead from a social point of view to a Pareto superior outcome respect to separate wage settings. |
| Keywords: | international production, wage coordination, labor unions |
| JEL: | F21 F23 J50 J51 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wsr:wpaper:y:2011:i:025&r=lab |
| By: | Joshua Congdon-Hohman (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross); Victor Matheson (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross) |
| Abstract: | A number of authors have identified the determinants of success in international sporting competitions such as the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup. This paper serves to update past work on international women’s soccer performance given the rapid development of the game over the past decade. We compare the determinants of men’s international soccer team performance with that of their female counterparts and find that a different set of variables are important in explaining success for the two genders. While economic and demographic influences hold for both, the impacts of specific political and cultural factors diverge. In particular, Latin heritage predicts men’s success but not women’s, Muslim religious affiliation reduces women’s success but not men’s, and communist political systems tend to improve women’s performance but reduce men’s performance. Several measures of gender equality improve soccer performance for both men’s and women’s soccer suggesting these indicators of gender equality reflect overall levels of development while other measures of equality, particularly those related to women’s access to education, improve women’s soccer performance without enhancing men’s performance. |
| Keywords: | soccer, football, gender inequality, FIFA World Ranking |
| JEL: | I00 J16 L83 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1107&r=lab |
| By: | Fordjour, R.; Badu, E.E.; Adjei, E. |
| Abstract: | The poor performance of students in the various universities has been attributed to the inability of students to effectively retrieve information for academic work. The purpose of the study was to investigate the prospects and challenges of information retrieval among university students. The survey research method was used to investigate the awareness and use of information retrieval systems, document retrieved and its relevance to studentâs information need, challenges of information retrieval among students and future expectation of information retrieving skills by students. Three student faculties in the University of Ghana, Legon participated in the study. A questionnaire consisting of 29 items was used as an instrument for collecting data. The findings reveal that students from all the faculties considered are highly aware of the information retrieval systems. However, there was no relationship between awareness of information retrieval systems and faculties. The study also shows that the use of information retrieval tools to retrieve relevant information depends on the information needs of the student. The study recommends that information retrieval skills training programme should be embedded in the curriculum and undertaken at an appropriate time and supported by academic staff of the University. In addition, the University administrators should ensure students studying subjects without an emphasis upon technology receive sufficient information retrieval skills training so that they are not prejudiced against due to subject chosen. Also, ensure that information retrieval skills training are pitched at a level which is appropriate to the individual needs of the student. |
| Keywords: | Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaae10:96831&r=lab |