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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Luca Flabbi and Andrea Moro (Department of Economics, Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we develop a search model of the labor market in which jobs are characterized by work-hours flexibility. Workers value flexibility, which is costly for employers to provide. We estimate the model on a sample of women extracted from the CPS. The model parameters are empirically identified because the accepted wage distributions of flexible and non-flexible jobs are directly related to the preference for flexibility parameters. Results show that more than one-third of women place a small, positive value on flexibility. Women with a college degree value flexibility more than women with only a high school degree. Counterfactual experiments show that flexibility has a substantial impact on the wage distribution but a negligible impact on the unemployment rate. These results suggest that wage and schooling differences between males and females may be importantly related to flexibility. |
| Date: | 2011–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~11-11-04&r=lab |
| By: | Marco PECORARO (SFM, Université de Neuchâtel and UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | Using longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel, this analysis suggests that the cross-sectional estimates of the returns to educational mismatch are significantly biased when unobserved heterogeneity is omitted in the wage equation. The results of the standard fixed effects model indeed demonstrate that the wage returns to education are independent of the job requirements. Hence, this empirical analysis supports the human capital interpretation of the Swiss labour market. |
| Keywords: | Educational mismatch, wages, panel data analysis, human capital |
| Date: | 2011–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2011036&r=lab |
| By: | Fernández, Raquel; Wong, Joyce Cheng |
| Abstract: | Women born in 1935 went to college significantly less than their male counterparts and married women's labor force participation (LFP) averaged 40% between the ages of thirty and forty. The cohort born twenty years later behaved very dierently. The education gender gap was eliminated and married women's LFP averaged 70% over the same ages. In order to evaluate the quantitative contributions of the many signifiant changes in the economic environment, family structure, and social norms that occurred over this period, this paper develops a dynamic life-cycle model calibrated to data relevant to the 1935 cohort. We find that the higher probability of divorce and the changes in wage structure faced by the 1955 cohort are each able to explain, in isolation, a large proportion (about 60%) of the observed changes in female LFP. After combining all economic and family structure changes, we find that a simple change in preferences towards work can account for the remaining change in LFP. To eliminate the education gender gap requires, on the other hand, for the psychic cost of obtaining higher education to change asymmetrically for women versus men. |
| Keywords: | divorce; education; gender gap; labour force participation; skill premium |
| JEL: | D91 E21 J12 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8627&r=lab |
| By: | Carroll, David (Macquarie University, Sydney); Tani, Massimiliano (Macquarie University, Sydney) |
| Abstract: | Recent research into the Australian labour market has reported that a substantial proportion of the tertiary-educated labour force is under-utilised relative to their level of education, echoing findings from an expanding international literature. This paper uses recent panel data from the 2010 Beyond Graduation Survey to analyse the incidence of labour force under-utilisation amongst recent Australian graduates and its effect on their wages, with an under-utilised graduate defined as a one who is in a job for which a sub-degree qualification would suffice. We find that 26% of graduates were under-utilised immediately after course completion and 15% were under-utilised three years later, although this varied considerably between subgroups. Recent graduates were much more likely to remain under-utilised than become under-utilised later in their careers. Being under-utilised appears to affect the earnings of different graduate age groups in different ways. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, we find that younger graduates tend to earn the same mean wages regardless of whether or not they are under-utilised, while older under-utilised bachelor degree graduates are at a significant wage disadvantage relative to their peers. This is suggestive of a graduate skills surplus and, by extension, inefficient public and individual investment in human capital. |
| Keywords: | graduate labour market, human capital, panel data |
| JEL: | I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6047&r=lab |
| By: | Shutao Cao; Enchuan Shao; Pedro Silos |
| Abstract: | This paper constructs a theory of the coexistence of fixed-term and permanent employment contracts in an environment with ex-ante identical workers and employers. Workers under fixed-term contracts can be dismissed at no cost while permanent employees enjoy labor protection. In a labor market characterized by search and matching frictions, firms find it optimal to discriminate by offering some workers a fixedterm contract while offering other workers a permanent contract. Match-specific quality between a worker and a firm determines the type of contract offered. We analytically characterize the firm’s hiring and firing rules. Using matched employer-employee data from Canada, we estimate the model’s parameters. Increasing the level of firing costs increases wage inequality and decreases the unemployment rate. The increase in inequality results from a larger fraction of temporary workers and not from an increase in the wage premium earned by permanent workers. |
| Keywords: | Labour markets; Potential output; Productivity |
| JEL: | H29 J23 J38 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:11-21&r=lab |
| By: | Joanne Lindley; Stephen Machin |
| Abstract: | Growing numbers of university students in Britain and the United States are staying on after their first degrees to invest in a postgraduate qualification. Joanne Lindley and Stephen Machin document this trend and assess the impact on wage inequality - among graduates and across the labour force as a whole. |
| Keywords: | postgraduate education, computers |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:351&r=lab |
| By: | Riddell, W. Craig; Song, Xueda |
| Abstract: | Adoption of innovations by firms and workers is an important part of the process of technological change. Many prior studies find that highly educated workers tend to adopt new technologies faster than those with less education. Such positive correlations between the level of education and the rate of technology adoption, however, do not necessarily reflect the true causal effect of education on technology adoption. Relying on data from the Workplace and Employee Survey, this study assesses the causal effects of education on technology use and adoption by using instrumental variables for schooling derived from Canadian compulsory school attendance laws. We find that education increases the probability of using computers in the job and that employees with more education have longer work experiences in using computers than those with less education. However, education does not influence the use of computer-controlled and computer-assisted devices or other technological devices such as cash registers and sales terminals. Our estimates are consistent with the view that formal education increases the use of technologies that require or enable workers to carry out higher order tasks, but not those that routinize workplace tasks. |
| Keywords: | Technology use and adoption, education, causal effects, compulsory schooling laws, heterogeneity in technology |
| JEL: | I20 O33 |
| Date: | 2011–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-26&r=lab |
| By: | Fernández, Raquel (New York University); Wong, Joyce Cheng (New York University) |
| Abstract: | Women born in 1935 went to college significantly less than their male counterparts and married women's labor force participation (LFP) averaged 40% between the ages of thirty and forty. The cohort born twenty years later behaved very differently. The education gender gap was eliminated and married women's LFP averaged 70% over the same ages. In order to evaluate the quantitative contributions of the many significant changes in the economic environment, family structure, and social norms that occurred over this period, this paper develops a dynamic life-cycle model calibrated to data relevant to the 1935 cohort. We find that the higher probability of divorce and the changes in wage structure faced by the 1955 cohort are each able to explain, in isolation, a large proportion (about 60%) of the observed changes in female LFP. After combining all economic and family structure changes, we find that a simple change in preferences towards work can account for the remaining change in LFP. To eliminate the education gender gap requires, on the other hand, for the psychic cost of obtaining higher education to change asymmetrically for women versus men. |
| Keywords: | divorce, labor force participation, gender gap, education and skill premium |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J22 E21 D91 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6046&r=lab |
| By: | Hilary Steedman |
| Abstract: | England's most widely used indicator of young people's education and labour market status is the NEET category - 'not in education, employment or training'. Making comparisons with how France and Germany measure school leavers' progression and achievement, Hilary Steedman argues that NEET is no longer good enough. |
| Keywords: | Apprenticeships, education, policy making, youth unemployment |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:349&r=lab |
| By: | Lopes, Margarida; Fernandes, Graca |
| Abstract: | Unemployment rates among Portuguese Higher Education (HE) graduates have been rising. This trend becomes quite obvious when we compare Portugal and other European Member States whose labor markets have been facing similar difficulties. In fact, Portuguese graduates are not only more prone to facing unemployment but they are also enduring long term unemployment as a result of the current unemployment crisis. Among the main reasons for this situation is the mismatch between the supply and demand for qualifications due to the inability of the Portuguese labor market to absorb higher skills (chimney effect). Nevertheless, competition in demand and the need to overcome labor productivity’s weaknesses create the need for actions (education, training policies and labor market interventions) to improve the match between supply and demand for HE qualifications in order to prevent social disinvestment and to foster inclusion and economic development. In the short and medium term, given the economic and social development strategy, adjustments will consider the need to redefine the HE graduates’ skills and profiles throughout education and training. In this paper we are concerned with the effects on HE unemployed graduates’ reemployment of additional education programs compared to informal and non-formal learning activities. We take life cycle theories and Willis (1986) as our main theoretical reference. We use the database of the Adult Education Survey (AES 2007) developed by the Statistics Portugal, following methodological guidelines issued by EUROSTAT and adopted in all European Union Member States. The survey covers adult participation in formal and Non-Formal Education and informal activities and comprises 11289 cases (individuals). When assessing the main influences of education, non-formal and Informal Learning activities on (re)employment, we use AES data on labor market transitions between two consecutive periods. We control for parents’ education and occupation, individual’s previous schooling, gender and age. Our research methodology is quantitative. We use chi-square independence tests, correlation analysis and tests for equality of proportions. We expect to highlight the ability displayed by non-formal and Informal Learning to redesign educational formal skills, with a special insight into HE skills. The Portuguese HE system tends to be theoretically focused and practical internship is rare even in this post-Bologna phase. Accordingly Non-Formal Education - especially vocational training tailored to labor market occupations - could prove to be a most useful resource in reshaping graduates’ profiles and promoting their employment/reemployment. Informal Learning is also expected to play a major role in the processes of skills acquisition and mobilization related to practical knowledge, thereby enhancing social networking and employability. We aim to assess how much HE programs and non-formal and Informal Learning contribute to enhance graduates’ employment opportunities and to identify pivotal areas for change in HE and non-formal programs. |
| Keywords: | Formal; non formal and informal learning; higher education graduates; employability |
| JEL: | A23 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34445&r=lab |
| By: | Erling Barth (Institute for Social Research, Oslo); Bernt Bratsberg (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Oddbjørn Raaum (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Life cycle wages of immigrants from developing countries fall short of catching up with wages of natives. This disparity reflects both lower wages at entry and lower wage growth. Using linked employer-employee data, we show that 40 percent of the native-immigrant wage gap is explained by differential sorting across establishments. Our findings point to differences in job mobility and intermittent spells of unemployment as major sources of the discrepancy in lifetime wages. The inferior wage growth of immigrants primarily results from failure to advance to higher paying establishments over time. This pattern is consistent with statistical discrimination in hiring but not with monopsonistic discrimination due to informational frictions. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2011019&r=lab |
| By: | Charlene Marie Kalenkoski (Ohio University); Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) |
| Abstract: | We use detailed time-diary information on high school students’ daily activities from the 2003–2008 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) to investigate the effects of employment on the time a student spends on homework and other major activities. Time-diary data are more detailed and accurate than data derived from responses to “usual activity” survey questions underlying other analyses and capture the immediate effects of working that may well accumulate over time to affect future outcomes. Our results suggest that employment decreases the time that high school students spend on homework, which is human-capital building, on all days, but also decreases screen time on non-school days, which may be considered unproductive time. Employed teens get more than the recommended amount of sleep on school days, and only slightly less on non-school days. |
| Keywords: | teenagers, employment, high school, time allocation |
| JEL: | J13 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bls:wpaper:ec110080&r=lab |
| By: | Whelan, Kenneth T. (Cornell University); Ehrenberg, Ronald G. (Cornell University); Hallock, Kevin F. (Cornell University); Seeber, Ronald L. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate potential determinants of enrollment in an early retirement incentive program for non-tenure-track employees at a large university. Using administrative records on the eligible population of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, historical employee count and layoff data by budget units, and public information on unit budgets, we find dips in per-employee finances in a budget unit during the application year and higher recent per employee layoffs were associated with increased probabilities of eligible employee program enrollment. Our results also suggest that, on average, employees whose salaries are lower than we would predict given their personal characteristics and job titles were more likely to enroll in the early retirement program. To the extent that employees' compensation reflect their productivity, as it should under a pay system in which annual salary increases are based on merit, this finding suggests that adverse selection was not a problem with the program. That is, we find no evidence that on average the "most productive" employees took the incentive. |
| Keywords: | retirement incentive program, adverse selection, layoff threat, university |
| JEL: | I23 J26 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6055&r=lab |
| By: | Dissanayake, Kumudinei |
| Abstract: | Sri Lanka as a developing economy that achieved gender equity in education and a higher literacy rate (both adult and youth) in the South Asian region still records a low labor force participation and high unemployment rate of females when compared to their male counterparts. With the suggestion of existing literature on the non-conventional models of careers those adopted by young and female populations at the working age, this paper discusses the role of work organizations in absorbing more females (and even minority groups) into the workforce. It mainly focuses on the need of designing appropriate human resource strategies and reforming the existing organizational structures in order for contributing to the national development in the post-war Sri Lanka economy. |
| Keywords: | Sri Lanka, Female labor, Labor market, Labor policy, Work force, Female, Educated, Work organization, Role, Non-conventional models of career |
| JEL: | J21 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper307&r=lab |
| By: | George-Levi Gayle (Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University); Limor Golan (Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University); Robert Miller (Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University) |
| Abstract: | Fewer women than men become executive managers. They earn less over their careers, hold more junior positions, and exit the occupation at a faster rate. We compiled a large panel data set on executives and formed a career hierarchy to analyze mobility and compensation rates. We .nd that, controlling for executive rank and background, women earn higher compensation than men, experience more income uncertainty, and are promoted more quickly. Amongst survivors, being female increases the chance of becoming CEO. Hence, the unconditional gender pay gap and job-rank differences are primarily attributable to female executives exiting at higher rates than men in an occupation where survival is rewarded with promotion and higher compensation. |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-013&r=lab |
| By: | Fairlie, Robert W.; Hoffmann, Florian; Oreopoulos, Philip |
| Abstract: | This paper uses detailed administrative data from one of the largest community colleges in the United States to quantify the extent to which academic performance depends on students being of similar race or ethnicity to their instructors. To address the concern of endogenous sorting, we use both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on those with limited course enrolment options. We also compare sensitivity in the results from using within versus across section instructor type variation. Given the computational complexity of the 2-way fixed effects model with a large set of fixed effects we rely on numerical algorithms that exploit the particular structure of the model’s normal equations. We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout and pass rates between white and minority students falls by roughly half when taught by a minority instructor. In models that allow for a full set of ethnic and racial interactions between students and instructors, we find African-American students perform particularly better when taught by African-American instructors. |
| Keywords: | Higher Education, Student Outcomes and Skills, Teacher and Student Interactions, Economics of Minorities and Races, Discrimination, 2-way Fixed Effect |
| JEL: | I20 I23 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-27&r=lab |
| By: | Blundell, Richard W (University College London); Francesconi, Marco (University of Essex); van der Klaauw, Wilbert (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| Abstract: | This paper formulates a simple model of female labor force decisions which embeds an in-work benefit reform and explicitly allows for announcement and implementation effects. We explore several mechanisms through which women can respond to the announcement of a reform that increases in-work benefits, including sources of intertemporal substitution, human capital accumulation, and labor market frictions. Using the model's insights and information of the precise timing of the announcement and implementation of a major UK in-work benefit reform, we estimate its effects on single mothers' behavior. We find important announcement effects on employment decisions. We show that this finding is consistent with the presence of short-run frictions in the labor market. Evaluations of this reform which ignore such effects produce impact effect estimates that are biased downwards by 15 to 35 percent. |
| Keywords: | policy evaluation, in-work benefit, anticipation effects, labor market frictions, intertemporal substitution |
| JEL: | D10 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6050&r=lab |
| By: | Pierre-André Chiappori (Columbia University); Sonia Oreffice (Universitat d'Alacant and IZA); Climent Quintana-Domeque (Universitat d'Alacant) |
| Abstract: | We develop a matching model on the marriage market, where individuals have preferences over the smoking status of potential mates, and over their socioeconomic quality. Spousal smoking is bad for non-smokers, but it is neutral for smokers, while individuals always prefer high socioeconomic quality. Furthermore, there is a gender difference in smoking prevalence, there being more smoking men than smoking women for all education levels, so that smoking women and non-smoking men are in short supply. The model generates clear cut conditions regarding matching patterns. Using CPS data and its Tobacco Use Supplements for the years 1996 to 2007, and proxying socioeconomic status by educational attainment, we find that these conditions are satisfied. There are fewer "mixed" couples where the wife smokes than vice-versa, and matching is assortative on education within smoking types of couples. Among non-smoking wives those with smoking husbands have on average 0.14 fewer years of completed education than those with non-smoking husbands. Finally, and somewhat counterintuitively, we find that, as theory predicts, among smoking husbands, those who marry smoking wives have on average 0.16 more years of completed education than those with non-smoking wives. |
| Keywords: | Smoking, education, matching, marriage market.; Smoking, education, matching, marriage market |
| JEL: | D1 J1 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-017&r=lab |
| By: | Jorge Friedman; Nanno Mulder; Sebastián Faúndez; Esteban Pérez Caldentey; Carlos Yévenes; Mario Velásquez; Fernando Baizán; Gerhard Reinecke |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between wages and levels of trade and FDI openness in twenty-nine sectors of the Chilean economy. Over the last four decades, this country almost fully liberalized its trade and foreign direct investment, which accelerated growth of flows in both areas and contributed to important changes in the labour market. Using cluster analysis, we divide 29 sectors into three groups of high, medium and low levels of trade and foreign direct investment penetration in 2003 and 2008. Subsequently, an average wage equation is estimated for salaried workers in each group based on their characteristics (gender, education, work experience and union membership) using microdata of the Supplementary Income Survey (SIS) database. Differences between average wages of the three groups are decomposed with the Oaxaca-Blinder method. The results confirm that the group of most open sectors pays a “wage premium” to its workers. It is also shown that most of this premium is accounted for by higher levels of labour unionisation compared to other sectors. An alternative grouping of sectors into two categories of tradable and non-tradable sectors based on export intensity only yields similar results. |
| Keywords: | trade, employment, wages, Chile, inclusive growth, openness, unionisation, wage gap, Oaxaca-Blinder method |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:134-en&r=lab |
| By: | Shonchoy, Abu S; Ito, Seiro |
| Abstract: | In 2000, Ramadan school vacation coincided with the original annual exam period of December in Bangladesh. This forced schools to pre-pone their final exam schedules in November, which was the month before the harvest begins. 'Ramadan 2000' is a natural experiment that reduced the labor demand for children during the exam period. Using household level panel data of 2000 and 2003, and after controlling for various unobservable variations including individual fixed effects, aggregate year effects, and subdistrict-level year effects, this paper finds evidence of statistically significant impact of seasonal labor demand on school dropout in Bangladesh among the children from agricultural households. |
| Keywords: | Bangladesh, Child labor, Schools, Labor market, Drop out, Seasonal labor demand, School calendar |
| JEL: | I28 J24 O13 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper295&r=lab |
| By: | Paul W. Glewwe; Eric A. Hanushek; Sarah D. Humpage; Renato Ravina |
| Abstract: | Developing countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on schools, educational materials and teachers, but relatively little is known about how effective these expenditures are at increasing students’ years of completed schooling and, more importantly, the skills that they learn while in school. This paper examines studies published between 1990 and 2010, in both the education literature and the economics literature, to investigate which specific school and teacher characteristics, if any, appear to have strong positive impacts on learning and time in school. Starting with over 9,000 studies, 79 are selected as being of sufficient quality. Then an even higher bar is set in terms of econometric methods used, leaving 43 “high quality” studies. Finally, results are also shown separately for 13 randomized trials. The estimated impacts on time in school and learning of most school and teacher characteristics are statistically insignificant, especially when the evidence is limited to the “high quality” studies. The few variables that do have significant effects – e.g. availability of desks, teacher knowledge of the subjects they teach, and teacher absence – are not particularly surprising and thus provide little guidance for future policies and programs. |
| JEL: | H4 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17554&r=lab |
| By: | Christopher Pissarides |
| Abstract: | Employment in the European Union is still falling short of the objectives set by the continent's leaders more than 10 years ago. Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides explains why Europe remains behind the United States in job creation, particularly in business services and the health and education sectors. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:354&r=lab |
| By: | PAULO AGUIAR DO MONTE (UFPB) |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2010:135&r=lab |
| By: | Blundell, Richard W (University College London); Bozio, Antoine (Institute for Fiscal Studies, London); Laroque, Guy (CREST-INSEE) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the key stylised facts underlying the evolution of labour supply at the extensive and intensive margins in the last forty years in three countries: United-States, United-Kingdom and France. We develop a statistical decomposition that provides bounds on changes at the extensive and intensive margins. This decomposition is also shown to be coherent with the analysis of labour supply elasticities at these margins. We use detailed representative micro-datasets to examine the relative importance of the extensive and intensive margins in explaining the overall changes in total hours worked. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, employment, hours of work |
| JEL: | J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6051&r=lab |
| By: | Fabrizio Colonna (Banca d'Italia); Stefania Marcassa (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Italy has the lowest labor force participation of women among OECD countries. Moreover, the participation rate of married women is positively correlated to their husbands' income. We show that a high tax schedule together with tax credits and transfers raise the burden of two-earner households, generating disincentives to work. We estimate a structural labor supply model for women, and use the estimated parameters to simulate the effects of alternative revenue-neutral tax systems. We find that joint taxation implies a drop in the participation rate. Conversely, working tax credit and gender-based taxation boost it, with the effects of the former concentrated on low educated women. |
| Keywords: | female labor force participation, Italian tax system, marginal tax rate, joint taxation, gender-based taxation, working tax credit |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-021&r=lab |
| By: | Dionissi Aliprantis |
| Abstract: | Our understanding of effects from kindergarten entrance age is complicated by at least two facts: a child’s age relative to their classmates may be just as important as their entrance age, and the choice of parents or schools to delay a child’s enrollment> is likely to be correlated with entrance age effects. This paper addresses both of these issues by presenting a novel identification strategy for separately estimating effects from entrance and relative age at school entry that addresses the issue of essential heterogeneity. After first selecting a sample of children from the ECLS-K data set with quasi-random variation in entrance and relative ages, this paper then specifi es and estimates education production functions for achievement. Entrance age parameters are positive, large, and persist until the spring of third grade. Relative age parameters are smaller, tend to be negative, and fade out for math achievement by third grade. The estimated parameters have the following implications for the average child in our sample: both an earlier entrance cutoff date and an earlier birth date will increase achievement if the child remains eligible. There is evidence of extreme heterogeneity in effects by gender and home environment, and these are likely to be the results most relevant for policy. |
| Keywords: | Education ; Early childhood education |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1126&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Dolton; Oscar Marcenaro Gutierrez |
| Abstract: | If you pay peanuts, do you get monkeys? If teachers were better paid and higher up the national income distribution, would there be an improvement in pupil performance? Peter Dolton and Oscar Marcenaro-Gutierrez examine the enormous variation in teachers' pay across OECD countries and its significance for educational outcomes. |
| Keywords: | incentive systems, merit pay, education, teacher salaries, pupil outcome |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:352&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel Martin; Olivier Pierrard |
| Abstract: | We incorporate on-the-job search (OTJS) into a real business cycle model in order to study whether OTJS increases the cyclical volatility of unemployment and vacancies. The increased search of employed workers during expansions has two effects on the unemployed: it induces firms to openmore vacancies, but employedworkers also crowd out unemployed workers in the job search. The overall effect of OTJS on unemployment volatility is thus ambiguous. We showanalytically and numerically that the difference between the (employer?s share of the) surplus ofmatchwith a previously employed versus a previously unemployed job seeker determines the degree to which OTJS increases unemployment volatility. We use this result to re-consider some related papers of OTJS and explain the amplification of volatility they obtain. |
| Keywords: | on-the-job search, cyclical properties |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bcl:bclwop:bclwp064&r=lab |
| By: | Kenneth T. Whelan; Ronald G. Ehrenberg; Kevin F. Hallock; Ronald L. Seeber |
| Abstract: | We evaluate potential determinants of enrollment in an early retirement incentive program for non-tenure-track employees of a large university. Using administrative record on the eligible population of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, historical employee count and layoff data by budget units, and public information on unit budgets, we find dips in per-employee finance in a budget unit during the application year and higher recent per employee layoffs were associated with increased probabiliites of eligible employee program enrollment. Our results also suggest, on average, that employees whose salaries are lower than we would predict given their personal characteristics and job titles were more likely to enroll in the early retirement program. To the extent that employees' compensation reflects their productivity, as it should under a pay system in which annual salary increases are based on merit, this finidng suggests that adverse selection was not a problem with the program. That is, we find no evidence that on average the "most productive" employees took the incentive. |
| JEL: | I23 J26 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17538&r=lab |
| By: | Inés Macho-Stadler (Department of Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); David Pérez-Castrillo (Department of Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Nicolás Porteiro (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide) |
| Abstract: | We consider a market where firms hire workers to run their projects and such projects differ in profitability. At any period, each firm needs two workers to successfully run its project: a junior agent, with no specific skills, and a senior worker, whose effort is not verifiable. Senior workers differ in ability and their competence is revealed after they have worked as juniors in the market. We study the length of the contractual relationships between firms and workers in an environment where the matching between firms and workers is the result of market interaction. We show that, despite in a one-firm-one-worker set-up long-term contracts are the optimal choice for firms, market forces often induce firms to use short-term contracts. Unless the market only consists of firms with very profitable projects, firms operating highly profitable projects offer short-term contracts to ensure the service of high-ability workers and those with less lucrative projects also use short-term contracts to save on the junior workers' wage. Intermediate firms may (or may not) hire workers through long-term contracts. |
| Keywords: | Labor contracts, short-term, long-term, matching, incentives. |
| JEL: | D86 C78 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:1108&r=lab |
| By: | Geishecker, Ingo; Görg, Holger |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of services offshoring on wages using individual-level data combined with industry information on offshoring for the United Kingdom. Our results show that services offshoring affects the real wage of low- and medium-skilled individuals negatively. By contrast, skilled workers may benefit from services offshoring in terms of higher real wages. Hence, offshoring has contributed to a widening of the wage gap between skilled and less skilled workers. This result is obtained while controlling for individual and sectoral observed and unobserved heterogeneity. In particular, our empirical model also controls for the impact of technological change and offshoring of materials. |
| Keywords: | individual level; services offshoring; wages |
| JEL: | C23 F16 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8628&r=lab |
| By: | Salvador Ortigueira; Nawid Siassi |
| Abstract: | While it is recognized that the family is primarily an institution for risk sharing, little is known about the quantitative effects of this informal source of insurance on savings and labor supply. In this paper, we present a model where workers (females and males) are subject to idiosyncratic employment risk and where capital markets are incomplete. A household is formed by a female and a male, who make collective decisions on consumption, savings and labor supplies. We find that intra-household risk sharing has its largest impact among wealthpoor households. While the wealth-rich use mainly savings to smooth consumption across unemployment spells, wealth-poor households rely on spousal labor supply. For instance, for low-wealth households, average hours worked by wives of unemployed husbands are 8% higher than those worked by wives of employed husbands. This response in wives’ hours makes up 9% of lost family income. We also study the crowding out effects of public unemployment insurance on other sources of private insurance, and consumption losses upon an unemployment spell |
| Keywords: | Intra-household risk sharing, Collective household model, Idiosyncratic unemployment risk, Incomplete markets, Precautionary motive |
| JEL: | D13 D91 E21 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we1132&r=lab |
| By: | Pedro Gete and Paolo Porchia (Department of Economics, Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | We study the optimal hiring and firing decisions of a firm under two different firing costs regulations: 1) Dual labor markets characterized by high firing costs for workers workers". 2) The Single Labor Contract, a policy proposal to make firing costs increasing in seniority at the job. We focus on the option value implied by the regulations and obtain some new results: the optimal firing rule is a constant function of worker’s productivity only for permanent workers. For temporary workers it varies with seniority at the job because the firm tries to keep alive the option to fire at low cost. In the Dual regulation the workers more likely to be fired are those close to become permanent. On the contrary, the Single Contract transfers that maximum firing to the new hires. Thus, fired workers are fired sooner under the Single Contract. However, if both regulations have the same average firing cost for workers who become permanent, temporary workers are less likely to be fired in the Single Contract. Moreover, this new regulation increases hiring and average employment duration. It also reduces turnover among temporary workers, but at the expense of higher turnover among permanent workers who are more often replaced by temporary workers. |
| Date: | 2011–01–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~11-11-02&r=lab |
| By: | Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Cahuc, Pierre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris); Shleifer, Andrei (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | We use several data sets to consider the effect of teaching practices on student beliefs, as well as on organization of firms and institutions. In cross-country data, we show that teaching practices (such as copying from the board versus working on projects together) are strongly related to various dimensions of social capital, from beliefs in cooperation to institutional outcomes. We then use micro-data to investigate the influence of teaching practices on student beliefs about cooperation and students' involvement in civic life. A two-stage least square strategy provides evidence that teaching practices have an independent sizeable effect on student social capital. The relationship between teaching practices and student test performance is nonlinear. The evidence supports the idea that progressive education promotes social capital. |
| Keywords: | education, social capital, institutions |
| JEL: | I2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6052&r=lab |
| By: | Mawuli Gaddah; Alistair Munro (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the incidence of public education subsidies in Ghana. Since the late 1990s, Ghana’s government has increasingly recognised human capital as a cornerstone to alleviating poverty and income inequality, causing dramatic increases of government expenditures to the education sector. At the same time user fees have been introduced in higher education while basic education is being made progressively free. The question then is, whether these spending increases have been effective in reaching the poor and to what extent? What factors influence the poor’s participation in the public school system? We attempt to address these issues, employing the standard benefit incidence methods and the willingness-to-pay method using a nested multinomial logit model. The results give a clear evidence of progressivity with consistent ordering: pre- schooling and primary schooling are the most progressive, followed by secondary, and then tertiary. The poorest quintile gains 14.8% of total education benefts in 2005 compared to the richest quintile benefit of 26.3%. Own price and income elasticities are higher for private schools than public schools and for secondary than basic schools. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ngi:dpaper:11-12&r=lab |
| By: | Juan Carlos Cordoba (Iowa State University); Marla Ripoll (University of Pittsburgh) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a theory that explains the cross-country distribution of average years of schooling, as well as the so called human capital premium puzzle. In our theory, credit frictions as well as differences in access to public education, fertility and mortality turn out to be the key reasons why schooling differs across countries. Differences in growth rates and in wages are second order. |
| Keywords: | human capital, per capita income differences, life expectancy, public education spending, life cycle model |
| JEL: | I22 J24 O11 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-028&r=lab |
| By: | Kurosaki, Takashi |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the function of various modes of wage payment, focusing on the role of in-kind wages in enhancing household food security when markets are underdeveloped. Historical records from Asian countries, including pre-war Japan and colonial India, demonstrate the importance of in-kind wage payment in the initial phase of economic development. However, there is a paucity of theoretical explanations of in-kind wages in terms of their function and rationale in existing literature. This paper therefore develops a theoretical model that explains labor supply under different labor contracts, by incorporating considerations of food security as the main explanation for in-kind wages. The model predicts that when food security considerations are important for workers, owing to poverty and thin food markets, they tend to work more under contracts where wages are paid in kind (food) than under contracts where wages are paid in cash. This prediction is supported by empirical evidence from rural Myanmar. Estimation results of the reduced-form determinants of labor supply show that workers supply more labor for work paid in kind when the share of staple food in the workers’ household budget is higher and the farmlands on which they produce food themselves are smaller. |
| Keywords: | agrarian contract, in-kind wages, incentive, food security, Myanmar |
| JEL: | J33 Q12 O12 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:primdp:11&r=lab |
| By: | Raymundo Miguel Campos-Vázquez; José Antonio Rodríguez-López |
| Abstract: | We analyze the effects of trade liberalization on Mexican employment at an occupational level for the period from 1992 to 2009, ranking occupations by skill level. We find that the reduction in trade costs associated with Mexico's entry to NAFTA is related to larger employment expansions in low-skill occupations. This evidence runs counter to a story of skilled-biased technological change in Mexico, and in favour of a heterogeneous-firm model of trade in tasks where the offshoring cost of an occupation is positively related to its skill level. After NAFTA, labour demand for unskilled workers has increased and labour demand for skilled workers has been stagnant, even though supply of skilled workers has increased in the last 20 years. We provide intuitive evidence to identify a number of relevant bottlenecks in the Mexican economy that may be associated with these developments. |
| Keywords: | trade, employment, wages, inclusive growth |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:129-en&r=lab |
| By: | Marius R. Busemeyer (Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany); Maria Alejandra Cattaneo (Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SKBF-CSRE), Aarau, Switzerland); Stefan C. Wolter (University of Bern, Centre for Research in Economics of Education and Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SKBF-CSRE), Aarau, Switzerland, and CESifo & IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses an original dataset from a survey conducted in Switzerland in 2007 to explore the dynamics of education policy preferences. This issue has largely been neglected in that most studies on welfare state attitudes do not look at preferences for education. We argue that education policy preferences vary along two dimensions: the distribution of resources across different sectors of the education system (that is, vocational training versus academic education) and the level of investment in education both from public and private sources. With regard to the former, the findings suggest that individual educational experience matters most, that is, individuals prefer to concentrate resources on those educational sectors that are closest to their own educational background. With regard to the latter, we find that affiliation to partisan ideologies matters much more than other variables. Proponents of the left demand more investment both from the state as well as from the private sector and oppose individual tuition fees. |
| Keywords: | academic education, vocational training, individual policy preferences, Switzerland |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0068&r=lab |
| By: | Astghik Mavisakalyan |
| Abstract: | Women lag behind men in many domains. Feminists have proposed that sex-based grammatical gender systems in languages reinforce traditional conceptions of gender roles, which in turn contribute to disadvantaging women. This article evaluates the empirical plausibility of this claim in the context of the labour market outcomes of women. Based on a sample of over 100 countries, the analysis shows that places where the majority language is gender-intensive have lower participation rates of women in the labour force. Individual level estimates further underscore this finding and indicate a higher prevalence of genderdiscriminatory attitudes among speakers of gender-intensive languages. |
| JEL: | J16 J21 Z10 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-563&r=lab |
| By: | Torben Kuhlenkasper (Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI)); Max Friedrich Steinhardt (Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) Hamburg, Germany & Centro Studi Luca d‘Agliano, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper makes use of data from the German socio-economic panel to gain new insights into the determinants of unemployment duration in Germany. Due to substantial differences with respect to labour market outcomes we follow a stratified approach with respect to gender and ethnicity. To analyze unemployment duration comprehensively, dynamic duration time models are used in which covariate e.ects are allowed to vary smoothly with unemployment duration and others enter the model in an a-priori unspecified functional form. We control for unobserved heterogeneity by following a modern frailty approach. As fitting routine we employ penalized spline smoothing effects using available software in R. We demonstrate with state-of-the-art regression models how effects of covariables change, either over duration time or within their domain and reveal substantial differences across gender and ethnicities for the German labour market. Among others we find large effects of family characteristics for women and a minor importance of formal qualifications for immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment, Duration Time Models, Dynamic Effets, Penalized Splines, German Socio-Economic Panel, Ethnic Labour Market Segmentation |
| JEL: | C14 C23 C41 F22 J16 J64 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2011018&r=lab |
| By: | John William Hatfield (Graduate School of Business, Stanford University); Fuhito Kojima (Department of Economics, Stanford University); Yusuke Narita (Department of Economics, MIT) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of different school choice mechanisms on schools' incentives for quality improvement. To do so, we introduce the following criterion: A mechanism respects improvements of school quality if each school becomes weakly better off whenever that school becomes more preferred by students. We first show that no stable mechanism, or mechanism that is Pareto efficient for students (such as the Boston and top trading cycles mechanisms), respects improvements of school quality. Nevertheless, for large school districts, we demonstrate that any stable mechanism approximately respects improvements of school quality; by contrast, the Boston and top trading cycles mechanisms fail to do so. Thus a stable mechanism may provide better incentives for schools to improve themselves than the Boston and top trading cycles mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Matching; School Choice; School Competition; Stability; Efficiency |
| JEL: | C78 D78 H75 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-018&r=lab |
| By: | Alessandro Bonatti (MIT, Sloan School of Management); Johannes Horner (Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a model of career concerns. The worker's skill is revealed through output, and wage is based on expected output, and so on assessed ability. Specifically, work increases the probability that a skilled worker achieves a one-time breakthrough. Effort levels at different times are strategic substitutes. Effort (and, if marginal cost is convex, wage) is single-peaked with seniority. The agent works too little, too late. Both delay and underprovision of effort worsen if effort is observable. If the firm commits to wages but faces competition, the optimal contract features piecewise constant wages as well as severance pay. |
| Keywords: | Career concerns, Experimentation, Career paths, Up-or-out, Reputation |
| JEL: | D82 D83 M52 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1831&r=lab |
| By: | Jain, Tarun |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of language on economic performance. I use the 1956 reorganization of Indian states on linguistic lines as a natural experiment to estimate the impact of speaking the majority language on educational and occupational outcomes. I find that districts that spoke the majority language of the state during colonial times enjoy persistent economic benefits, as evidenced by higher educational achievement and employment in communication intensive sectors. After reorganization, historically minority language districts experience greater growth in educational achievement, indicating that reassignment could reverse the impact of history. |
| Keywords: | Language; Communication costs; Education; Occupational choice; Reorganization of Indian states |
| JEL: | I20 O43 O15 N95 |
| Date: | 2011–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34423&r=lab |
| By: | Henry Sauermann; Michael Roach |
| Abstract: | A growing body of research on firms’ “open science” strategies rests on the notion that scientists have a strong preference for publishing and that firms are able to extract a wage discount if they allow scientists to publish. Drawing on a survey of 1,400 life scientists about to enter the job market, we suggest an alternative view. First, we show significant heterogeneity in the price scientists assign to the opportunity to publish in firms, and those scientists who seek industry careers have particularly low preferences for publishing. Thus, many job applicants are not willing to accept lower wages for jobs that let them publish and firms pursuing open science strategies may instead have to pay publishing incentives that fulfill both sorting and incentive functions. Second, we show that scientists with higher ability have a higher price of publishing but also expect to be paid higher wages regardless of the publishing regime. Thus, they are not cheaper to hire than other scientists if allowed to publish, but they are more expensive if publishing is restricted. Finally, we show that scientists publish not simply for “peer recognition” but also for more specific reasons, including the opportunity to advance science or to move to higher-paying jobs. Different reasons predict what price a scientist assigns to the opportunity to publish and may also have very different implications for the sustainability of competitive advantages derived from open science strategies. |
| Keywords: | Scientists; publishing; competitive advantage |
| JEL: | O31 L82 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:11-03&r=lab |
| By: | Roy Mill (Department of Economics, Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data from the online employer-freelancer matching platform freelancer.com to study the determinants of a match between an employer and a freelancer. Having to rely on a relatively small number of characteristics, employers use the freelancer's country of origin and reputation scores to infer the expected service quality. I find that freelancers from developing countries are less likely to be hired when they have no individual reputation, and as individual reputation becomes better this country effect disappears. This setting also allows me to study how employers' experience in past hires affects their behavior in current hires. I show that following a good match with a freelancer, employers are more likely to hire freelancers from the good match's country. I discuss how these findings contribute to our understanding of matching, learning, and discrimination in online settings. |
| Keywords: | International outsourcing, Online labor market, Information acquisition, Quality reputations, Country-of-origin effect, Statistical discrimination |
| JEL: | D83 F15 F23 J23 J71 L24 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:1117&r=lab |
| By: | Shawn Fremstad |
| Abstract: | Millions of American workers are poorly compensated for the work they do. This is not because they do not work hard or deserve adequate compensation. Rather, it is due to a political failure to ensure that increases in economic growth and productivity over the last several decades have been fairly distributed. One consequence of this failure is that many working-class Americans do not enjoy the living standards they deserve either during their working years or when they retire. Without the earned benefits provided by Social Security, along with Medicare and related health insurance benefits for the elderly, these workers would see their already modest living standards in old age fall even further below typical ones. The federal government should strengthen Social Security in ways that increase the retirement security of middle- and working-class Americans. Particular attention should be paid to improving the living standards in retirement of workers in poorly compensated jobs, who typically have little or no retirement savings outside of Social Security. Some recent proposals to cut Social Security would put the retirement security of workers in poorly compensated jobs at further risk. While it would be wise to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security, this can be done without cutting benefits for working- and middle-class retirees. Finally, it is important to remember that Social Security by itself cannot be the sole vehicle for addressing an economy that is out of balance. We need to do much more improve job quality in the United States by ensuring that poorly compensated workers get a better deal. This report examines the essential role that Social Security plays in bolstering the retirement security of poorly compensated workers. |
| Keywords: | social security, retirement, COLA, CPI |
| JEL: | H H5 H55 J J1 J14 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2011-23&r=lab |
| By: | TATIANE ALMEIDA DE MENEZES (PIMES/UFPE); ISABEL RAPOSO (FUNDAJ) |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2010:236&r=lab |
| By: | Alan L. Gustman; Thomas L. Steinmeier; Nahid Tabatabai |
| Abstract: | This paper uses asset and labor market data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate how the recent "Great Recession" has affected the wealth and retirement of those in the population who were just approaching retirement age at the beginning of the recession, a potentially vulnerable segment of the working age population. The retirement wealth held by those ages 53 to 58 before the onset of the recession in 2006 declined by a relatively modest 2.8 percentage points by 2010. In more normal times, their wealth would have increased over these four years. Members of older cohorts accumulated an additional 5 percent of wealth over the same age span. To be sure, a part of their accumulation was the result of the upside of the housing bubble. The wealth holdings of poorer households were least affected by the recession. Relative losses are greatest for those who initially had the highest wealth when the recession began. The adverse labor market effects of the Great Recession are more modest. Although there is an increase in unemployment, that increase is not mirrored in the rate of flow out of full-time work or partial retirement. All told, the retirement behavior of the Early Boomer cohort looks similar, at least so far, to the behavior observed for members of older cohorts at comparable ages. Very few in the population nearing retirement age have experienced multiple adverse events. Although most of the loss in wealth is due to a fall in the net value of housing, because very few in this cohort have found their housing wealth under water, and housing is the one asset this cohort is not likely to cash in for another decade or two, there is time for their losses in housing wealth to recover. |
| JEL: | D31 D91 E21 H55 I3 J14 J26 J32 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17547&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Kuhn (Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2127 North Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9210); Marie-Claire Villeval (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France) |
| Abstract: | Are women disproportionately attracted to work environments where cooperation rather than competition is rewarded ? This paper reports the results of a real-effort experiment in which participants choose between an individual compensation scheme and a team-based payment scheme. We find that women are more likely than men to select team-based compensation in our baseline treatment, but women and men join teams with equal frequency when we add an efficiency advantage to team production. Using a simple structural discrete choice framework to reconcile these facts, we show that three elements can account for the observed patterns in the team-entry gender gap : (1) a gender gap in confidence in others (i.e. women are less pessimistic about their prospective teammates’ relative ability), (2) a greater responsiveness among men to instrumental reasons for joining teams, and (3) a greater “pure” preference for working in a team environment among women. |
| Keywords: | gender, cooperation, self-selection, confidence, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 J16 J24 J31 M5 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1127&r=lab |
| By: | Jonathan James |
| Abstract: | This paper develops and estimates an individual model of occupational choice and learning that allows for correlated learning across occupation-specific abilities. As an individual learns about their occupation-specific ability in one occupation, this experience will be broadly informative about their abilities in all occupations. Workers continually process their entire history of information, which they use to determine when to change careers, as well as which new career to go to. Endogenizing information in this manner has been computationally prohibitive in the past. I estimate the model in an innovative way using the Expectation and Maximization (EM) algorithm. The model is estimated on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. The estimates suggest that both direct and indirect learning play an important role in early career wage growth, with those with the lowest levels of education achieving the largest increases. |
| Keywords: | Occupational training |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1125&r=lab |
| By: | Gabrielle Fack; Julien Grenet |
| Abstract: | It is now widely understood that the quality of state schools in a neighbourhood has an impact on local house prices. Analysing data for Paris, Gabrielle Fack and Julien Grenet have looked deeper into this link by exploring how the presence of private schools influences parents' willingness to pay to live near good state schools. |
| Keywords: | School catchment areas, France, private education, public education, housing, house prices |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:350&r=lab |
| By: | Sarah Widmaier; Jean-Christophe Dumont |
| Abstract: | Increasing international migration and changing immigrant populations in OECD countries make international comparable data on migrant populations essential. These data should be updated regularly to capture a detailed picture of migrant populations. This document presents the first results of the update of the Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) for the years 2005/06. It describes immigrant and emigrant populations by socio-demographic characteristics and labour market outcomes in the OECD, as well as updated “brain drain” figures.<p> In 2005/06, 10.8% of the population in the OECD was foreign-born, representing 91 million persons. Latin American and African migrant populations increased by more than 30% between 2000 and 2005/06, slightly more than that of Asian migrants (27%). Labour market outcomes of immigrants vary by region and country of origin, but they improved significantly since 2000. In many OECD countries, low-educated foreign-born fare better on the labour market than their native-born counterparts, but high-educated migrants tend to have lower employment rates and higher unemployment rates than their native-born counterparts... |
| Keywords: | education, skills, immigrants, international migration, database, DIOC, migrant stocks, emigration rates, emigrants |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J24 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:126-en&r=lab |
| By: | Rafael Terra de Menezes; Fabiana de Felício; Ana CarolinaZoghbi |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2009:207&r=lab |
| By: | Katharina Wrohlich |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an empirical framework for the analysis of mothers' labor supply and child care choices, explicitly taking into account access restrictions to subsidized child care. This is particularly important for countries such as Germany, where subsidized child care is rationed and private child care is only available at considerably higher cost. I use a discrete choice panel data model controlling for unobserved heterogeneity to simultaneously estimate labor supply and the demand for child care of German mothers with at least one child under the age of seven years. The model can be used to evaluate different kinds of policy reforms, such as changes in the availability or costs of child care. Results from the illustrating policy simulations show that targeting public expenditures at an extension of child care slots has greater effects on maternal employment than a reduction of parents' fees to existing slots. |
| Keywords: | Child care, labor supply, discrete choice, panel study, Germany |
| JEL: | J22 J13 C35 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1169&r=lab |
| By: | Chin Hee Hahn; Chang-Gyun Park |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of exports in skill upgrading in the Korean manufacturing sector during the 1990s utilizing a unique plant-level panel data set. The empirical results indicate the important role of exports on relative employment on skilled versus unskilled workers. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, this paper documents the significant degree of skill upgrading that occurred during the 1990s in the Korean manufacturing sector. Secondly, a large part of the increase in the aggregate non-production employment share was due to the \within. effect, rather than the \between. effect. This tendency becomes stronger when we use plant-level, rather than industry-level data. Thirdly, most of the \within. changes were accounted for by the skill-upgrading of exporters, especially those exporters that were either R&D active or large. This is suggestive of the positive interactive effects between exporting and R&D expenditure in skill upgrading. Fourthly, regression analysis shows that both the \within. and \between. components of skill composition changes at plant level are strongly and positively correlated with exporting activities, while R&D expenditure is correlated only with the \within. components. |
| Keywords: | trade, employment, wages, inclusive growth |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:128-en&r=lab |
| By: | Maria Carolina da Silva Leme; Andre Portela; Vladimir Ponczek; PaulaLouzano |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2009:202&r=lab |
| By: | Ron Sandrey; Cecilia Punt; Hans Grinsted Jensen; Nick Vink |
| Abstract: | This report provides an overview of policy changes in South African agriculture over the past three decades, and of some of the associated impacts on output, trade patterns and employment. In agriculture, the story is one of widespread substitution of labour for capital. While the sector has shed more than a million jobs over the past four decades, the paper highlights its continuing role as an employment creator in rural areas, albeit mainly in low-wage occupations. As for its principal analytical contribution, this paper considers future trade liberalisation in the agricultural sector. Using two different economic models, we find a remarkably consistent pattern whereby agricultural trade liberalisation in the region is predicted to increase agricultural employment. |
| Keywords: | trade, employment, wages, inclusive growth |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:130-en&r=lab |
| By: | Lance Lochner (University of Western Ontario); Alexander Monge-Naranjo (University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints are increasingly important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, since their response largely determines the impact of credit constraints on the overall lifetime acquisition of human capital. We also review the intergenerational literature and examine the macroeconomic impacts of credit constraints on social mobility and the income distribution. A common limitation across all areas of the human capital literature is the imposition of ad hoc constraints on credit. We propose a more careful treatment of the structure of government student loan programs as well as the incentive problems underlying private credit. We show that endogenizing constraints on credit for human capital helps explain observed borrowing, schooling, and default patterns and offers new insights about the design of government policy. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Incentive Problems, Government Loans, Early Investments, Social Mobility |
| JEL: | D14 H52 I22 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-036&r=lab |
| By: | Bert Brys |
| Abstract: | The tax burden on labour and its evolution over time are issues that feature prominently in the political debate. Averaged across the OECD, personal income taxes, social security contributions and payroll taxes together account for more than 51% of total government revenues in 2008 (OECD, 2010). With tax burdens differentiated by earnings level and family situation, they serve a central role as redistribution policies. Importantly, by shaping both work incentives and the cost of labour, the level and structure of these taxes are major influences on the functioning of labour markets... |
| Date: | 2011–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ctpaaa:10-en&r=lab |
| By: | Catarina Cardoso (School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, UK); Eric J. Pentecost (School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, UK) |
| Abstract: | Potentially one of the most important determinants of regional economic growth and convergence is human capital, although due to a lack of data this factor is frequently omitted from econometric studies. In contrast, this paper constructs three measures of human capital at the NUTS III regional level for Portugal for the period 1991-2008 and then includes these variables in regional growth regressions. The results show that both secondary and higher levels of education have a significant positive effect on regional growth rates which may be regarded as supportive of Portuguese education policy, which over the last three decades has attempted to raise the regional human capital by locating higher education institutions across the country. |
| Keywords: | Human capital, Regional convergence, GMM |
| JEL: | C23 I21 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lbo:lbowps:2011_03&r=lab |
| By: | Ondrej Rydval (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena) |
| Abstract: | We extend evidence on the interaction between financial incentives and cognitive abilities by focusing on the effect of task-specific abilities. In a memory-intensive task situated in an accounting context, the effect of accounting education on performance is stronger under financial incentives as compared to flat rate pay. Subjects with more accounting education respond stronger to financial incentives. Hence using incentives efficiently may involve targeting them at high-ability individuals. More generally, taking into account the incentive-ability interaction seems important when interpreting observed behavior in cognitively demanding lab and field economic environments. |
| Keywords: | Financial incentives, Cognitive ability, Performance, Experiment |
| JEL: | C81 C91 C93 D83 |
| Date: | 2011–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-050&r=lab |
| By: | Rodolfo Manuelli (Department of Economics, Washington University in St. Louis and Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a model of human capital accumulation that allows for feedback effects between the consequences and the likelihood of suffering from particular diseases and the decisions to invest in knowledge, both in the form of schooling and on-the-job training. I use a calibrated version of the model to estimate the long run impact of eradicating HIV/AIDS and malaria for a number of Sub- Saharan African countries. I find that the effect on output per worker can be substantial. |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-008&r=lab |
| By: | Fidel Picos-Sánchez |
| Abstract: | The OECD’s Taxing Wages (TW) Report1 provides details of taxes paid on wages in the 34 OECD member countries. In particular, it covers the personal income tax and social security contributions paid by employees and their employers, as well as cash benefits received by families. The Report calculates the average and marginal tax burden on labour income for taxpayers at different income levels and with different family characteristics (single taxpayers and married couples with or without children). The aim of this paper is to explore the possible consequences of broadening the TW model by introducing consumption taxes, and so include the taxes that workers pay when they spend their wages in addition to the taxes that are paid when they earn them. This has been done by using micro data from Household Budget Surveys provided by several OECD countries and Eurostat, to simulate consumption taxes for families with similar characteristics to the eight types defined in Taxing Wages. |
| Date: | 2011–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ctpaaa:7-en&r=lab |
| By: | ADRIANA FONTES ROCHA EXPÓSITO DA SILVA (IETS); VALÉRIA LÚCIA PERO (UFRJ) |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2010:140&r=lab |
| By: | Godo, Yoshihisa |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new dataset of education stock for Japan, Korea and the US. This dataset has three major advantages over exiting ones such as Barro and Lee (2000), Kim and Lau (1995) and Nehru, Swanson and Dubey (1995). First, this paper's dataset covers nearly one hundred years while all the existing dataset do several decades in the postwar period. Second, this paper provides more detailed information such as average years of schooling by gender, age and levels of education. Third, more accuracy is guaranteed by exhaustive study on original dataset and careful treatments.The author hopes that future researchers use this paper's dataset as a 'public good' to analyze the macroeconomic role of education. |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:primdp:9&r=lab |
| By: | Michel-Pierre Chelini; Georges Prat |
| Abstract: | From a macroeconomic perspective, this paper aims to represent the dynamics of the unemployment rate and of the variations of wages in France over the period of 1950-2008. On a theoretical level, the unemployment equation distinguishes a chronic factor characterized by an excess of real wages compared to the labor productivity gains, a conjunctural factor characterized by the difference between the growth rate of the production and its long term value, and a structural factor including frictional, technological and voluntary components of the unemployment. The wages' variations are classically supposed to depend on productivity gains and inflation. On the empirical level, estimations are made simultaneously for the unemployment and wages with a Space-State model based on the Kalman filter methodology. This econometric approach allows for the introduction of time varying parameters. In accordance with these hypotheses, the unemployment rate is shown to depend on the excess of the real hourly labor cost over the marginal productivity of labor (with a time varying sensibility), on the growth rate of the real GDP and on a structural component, which is about 4%. The chronic unemployment rate appeared in the beginning of the 1970s; at this time, it progressively increases to reach a maximum of 7.8% in 1994, then decreases to fall below 2% in 2008. The conjunctural component is in conformity with the Okun's law since it links negatively the unemployment rate with the production growth rate, this factor seeming to develop particularly after the 1973 oil shock. In addition, the results indicate a delayed influence of the above-mentioned factors on the unemployment, with an average period of influence of 3.3 years. Concerning wages, as expected, the rate of change in nominal wages is shown to be determined by the growth rate in productivity and by the inflation rate as well. The wages' elasticity with respect to price level appears to be time -varying, with a value close to the unit at the beginning of the period and ending up with a value close to zero by the end. This result must be connected with deflation, price/wage de-indexation, and labor unions' decreasing influence that are observed during the period. |
| Keywords: | rate of unemployment, wages, French Economy |
| JEL: | E24 J2 J30 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2011-29&r=lab |
| By: | Gang Liu |
| Abstract: | This paper summarizes the outcomes of the first phase of the OECD human capital project. In so doing, it shows the feasibility of applying the lifetime income approach to measuring human capital for comparative analysis, both across countries and over time. It also highlights the feasibility of applying the methodology to the categorical data (i.e. by 5-year or 10-year age group) that are typically available within the OECD statistics system, rather than to data by single year of age required by the original Jorgenson- Fraumeni methodology. The results in this paper indicate that the estimated value of human capital is substantially larger than that of traditional physical capital. Ratios of human capital to GDP are in a range from around eight to over ten across countries, broadly in line with those reported in a number of national studies. The distributions of human capital by age, gender, and education show that men dominate women in terms of their human capital holdings. In addition, people with higher education are better off than those with lower education, and the same is true for younger people compared to their older counterparts, although the detailed patterns vary across countries. Decomposition analysis of changes in the volume of human capital demonstrates that changes in population structure between men and women had little effect on the change of human capital per capita. While in all countries higher educational attainment contributed positively to the change of human capital per capita, this is not always sufficient to offset the negative effect of population ageing; as a result, the volume of human capital per capita appeared to have declined in some countries over the observed period. Finally, sensitivity analysis confirms that estimates of the value of human capital depend on the choice of the two key parameters, i.e. annual real income growth rate and discount rate, while within-country distribution of human capital and trends of the volume of human capital are less sensitive to these assumptions.<BR>Ce document de travail fait la synthèse des résultats de la première phase du projet de l’OCDE consacré au capital humain. Il démontre notamment qu’il est possible d’appliquer l’approche en terme de revenus actualisés le long du cycle de vie à la mesure du capital humain à des fins d’analyse comparative, à la fois entre les pays et dans le temps. Le document souligne également que cette méthodologie peut aussi être appliquée à des données catégoriels (c’est-à-dire par classe d’âge de 5 ou 10 ans), généralement disponibles dans le système statistique de l’OCDE, plutôt qu’aux données continues par âge, requises par la méthode Jorgenson-Fraumeni. Les résultats présentés dans ce rapport montrent que la valeur estimée du capital humain est bien plus importante que celle du capital physique traditionnel. Le rapport capital humain/sur PIB s’inscrit dans une fourchette comprise entre huit et dix dans les différents pays, ce qui est globalement conforme aux chiffres rapportés par un certain nombre d’études nationales. La répartition du capital humain en fonction de l’âge, du sexe et du niveau d’instruction montre que les hommes surpassent les femmes en termes de stock de capital humain. Par ailleurs, les individus les plus instruits tirent davantage leur épingle du jeu que les personnes moins qualifiées et les jeunes ont un capital humain supérieur à celui des personnes plus âgées, bien que dans le détail les schémas varient d’un pays à l’autre. L’évolution des volumes de capital humain montre que l’évolution démographique entre hommes et femmes n’a eu finalement qu’un impact limité sur la variation du capital humain par habitant. Si, dans tous les pays, l’amélioration du niveau d’instruction a contribué à l’augmentation du capital humain par habitant, cela n’a pas toujours été suffisant pour compenser les conséquences du vieillissement de la population, entraînant une baisse des volumes de capital humain par habitant dans certains pays. Enfin, l’analyse de sensibilité confirme que les estimations des valeurs du capital humain dépendent du choix de deux paramètres, à savoir le taux de croissance annuel du revenu réel et le taux d’actualisation. Mais la répartition du capital humain et l’évolution des volumes de capital humain dans chaque pays sont moins sensibles à ces paramètres. |
| Date: | 2011–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stdaaa:2011/6-en&r=lab |
| By: | Dulam, T.; Franses, Ph.H.B.F. |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine two hypotheses concerning emigration. The first hypothesis is that emigration is positively correlated with wage differentials. The second hypothesis concerns a positive correlation between emigration and higher education in the sending country (the so-called brain gain hypothesis). We analyze unique time series data for Suriname for 1972-2009, for which we fit error correction models to disentangle short-run from long-run effects. We document moderate support for the first hypothesis, but we find strong support for the brain drain (and not brain gain) hypothesis. We conclude with implications of our findings for Suriname. |
| Keywords: | education;migration;brain drain |
| Date: | 2011–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureir:1765026710&r=lab |
| By: | Bert Brys |
| Abstract: | In 23 of the 34 OECD member countries, it is compulsory for employers and/ or employees to make additional payments, in addition to taxes and social security contributions, which increase the overall burden on labour income. These non-tax compulsory payments, which are typically paid to privatelymanaged funds, will either increase the employer’s labour costs or reduce the employee’s net take-home pay in a similar way to taxes, although they do not necessarily have the same behavioural impact. This paper discusses the different non-tax compulsory payments levied in OECD member countries and calculates “compulsory payment indicators”, which combine non-tax compulsory payments and taxes into an overall indicator of the burden of compulsory government regulation on labour income. The analysis shows that especially employers have to pay non-tax compulsory payments and that they have a considerable impact on the “tax wedge” rankings that are published in the OECD’s Taxing Wages Report.<P>Les prélèvements obligatoires non fiscaux comme charge additionnelle sur les revenus du travail<BR>Dans 23 des 34 pays membres de l’OCDE, les employeurs et/ou leurs salariés sont tenus d’effectuer des paiements qui ne sont pas définis comme des impôts et cotisations de sécurité sociale et qui alourdissent la charge globale qui pèse sur les revenus du travail. Ces « prélèvements obligatoires non fiscaux », généralement effectués au profit de fonds à gestion privée, ont pour effet d’accroître les coûts de main-d’oeuvre de l’employeur ou de réduire le revenu net disponible du salarié de la même manière que des impôts, bien qu’ils n’aient pas nécessairement les mêmes effets en termes de comportement. Ce document examine les différents prélèvements obligatoires non fiscaux en vigueur dans les pays membres de l’OCDE et calcule des « indicateurs de prélèvements obligatoires », qui combinent les impôts et les prélèvements obligatoires non fiscaux dans un indicateur d’ensemble de la charge sur les revenus du travail induite par la réglementation publique. L’analyse montre que ce sont surtout les employeurs qui sont soumis à des prélèvements obligatoires non fiscaux qui ont des répercussions très sensibles sur le classement du « coin fiscal » publié dans le rapport de l’OCDE intitulé « Les impôts sur les salaires ». |
| Keywords: | taxes, non-tax compulsory payments, labour income, effective tax rates, impôt, prélèvements obligatoires non fiscaux, revenus du travail, taux effectifs d’imposition |
| Date: | 2011–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ctpaaa:8-en&r=lab |
| By: | Henrik Hansen (Institute of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen); John Rand (Institute of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | Using firm level data from eight Sub-Saharan Africa countries we examine credit constraint differentials between male and female manufacturing entrepreneurs. Enterprises owned by female entrepreneurs are less likely to be credit constrained compared to their male counterparts. The magnitude of this credit constraint gap varies with constraint and ownership definitions but the direction of the gap does not. Using a generalized Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, we investigate if the gap is due to differences in observable characteristics or to unexplained variations in the returns to these characteristics. We find the gap to be associated with the unexplained component. We argue that the finding is mainly due to female gender favoritism in loans to micro and small firms because (i) the gap is reversed for medium size enterprises and, (ii) we find no sign of superior female entrepreneurial performance in terms of capacity utilization, labor productivity or firm size growth. |
| Keywords: | Credit, Entrepreneurship, Gender, Private Sector, SMEs |
| JEL: | G21 J16 L25 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:foi:wpaper:2011_14&r=lab |
| By: | Laura Munro |
| Abstract: | This report provides a summary of the literature on the relationship between trade and informality in developing countries, with an emphasis on the BRIICS. While main conclusions of the ILO and WTO (2009) literature review are highlighted, the report focuses on additional and more recent literature. The report investigates four key issues in the literature on trade and informal labour markets: (1) theoretical predictions for trade and informality; (2) how trade liberalisation affects informal labour markets; (3) how trade flows affect the informal economy; and (4) what implications informality has for trade and growth. The main conclusion from this review is that empirical evidence on the relationship between trade and informality is complex and context-specific. Several of the empirical analyses reviewed in this report suggest that this variation is due to country-specific characteristics (in particular, labour market rigidity, capital mobility, level of economic development and heterogeneity of the informal workforce). Variation can also be partly explained by the fact that different methodologies are used and different measures of informality are employed across studies. |
| Keywords: | trade, employment, wages, inclusive growth |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:132-en&r=lab |
| By: | Beleva, Iskra |
| Abstract: | The article studies the crisis’ effects on the development of the labour markets in Europe and in Bulgaria, in particular. It outlines the strong decrease in labour demand and high unemployment in a considerable part of the member-countries as well as the decrease in households’ income and the standard of living dynamics. The increasing pressure on public finances under crisis conditions encounters their restricted opportunities, additionally limited by the strict fiscal consideration carried out. The active labour market policies, carried out manage partially and temporary to compensate for the negative effects of the crisis. All this gives rise to challenges facing the European Strategy 2020 goals and calls for reviewing the managerial and financial mechanisms, triggering for its achievement. |
| Keywords: | Europe 2020 strategy; European labour market; unemployment; active labour market policy; public expenditures |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J23 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34347&r=lab |
| By: | Bratberg, Espen (University of Bergen); Rieck, Karsten Marshall Elseth (University of Bergen); Vaage, Kjell (University of Bergen) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the potential effect of marital disruption on intergenerational earnings mobility.We observe the earnings of children born in 1960 and 1970 along with their biological fathers and mothers. The earnings mobility between sons and daughters relative to the earnings of their mothers and fathers is estimated. Our results suggest that divorce is associated with increased mobility, except between mothers‘ and daughters‘ earnings. Transition matrices reveal that the direction of the mobility is negative; children of divorced parents tend to move downward in the earnings distribution compared to children from intact families. Finally, we utilize information on the earnings mobility of siblings in dissolved families who grew up when the family was intact. The difference between pre- and postdivorce siblings is in turn compared with sibling differences in intact families. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational earnings mobility; divorce; gender differences |
| JEL: | C23 J12 J62 |
| Date: | 2011–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2011_009&r=lab |
| By: | Mark Huggett (Georgetown University); Gustavo Ventura (University of Iowa); Amir Yaron (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | Is lifetime inequality mainly due to differences across people established early in life or to differences in luck experienced over the working lifetime? We answer this question within a model that features idiosyncratic shocks to human capital, estimated directly from data, as well as heterogeneity in ability to learn, initial human capital, and initial wealth. We find that, as of age 23, differences in initial conditions account for more of the variation in lifetime earnings, lifetime wealth and lifetime utility than do differences in shocks received over the working lifetime. |
| Keywords: | Lifetime Inequality, Human Capital, Idiosyncratic Risk |
| JEL: | E21 D3 D91 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-020&r=lab |
| By: | Alicia H. Munnell; Jean-Pierre Aubry; Josh Hurwitz; Laura Quinby |
| Abstract: | A widespread perception is that state-local government workers receive high pension benefits which, combined with Social Security, provide more than adequate retirement income. The perception is consistent with multiplying the 2-percent benefit factor in most plan formulae by a 35- to 40- year career and adding a Social Security benefit. But this calculation assumes that individuals spend enough of their career in the public sector to produce such a retirement outcome. This brief summarizes the results of a paper that uses Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and actuarial reports published by state and local pension systems to test the hypothesis that state-local workers have more than enough money for retirement. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:issbrf:ibslp22&r=lab |
| By: | Berardi, Nicoletta; Seabright, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how networks of professional contacts contribute to the development of the careers of executives of European and US companies. We build a dynamic model of career progression in which career moves both depend upon existing networks and contribute to the development of future networks. We test the theory on an original dataset of nearly 7000 executives in over 3000 firms. We find evidence that professional networks are relevant both because valuable for the employer and because they facilitate job mobility. Our estimates of the elasticity of executives’ salaries with respect to the size of their professional networks vary between around 5% and around 20% depending on the specification, with a point estimate under our preferred specification of 6.7%. |
| Keywords: | executive compensation; labor mobility; social capital; social networks |
| JEL: | D85 J31 J62 M12 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8632&r=lab |
| By: | Antoine Bonleu (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - CNRS : UMR6579); Gilbert Cette (Banque de France - Banque de France); Guillaume Horny (Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France) |
| Abstract: | This empirical analysis aims at assessing the effect of the economic climate and the intensity of capital utilisation on companies' capital retirement behaviour. It is conducted using individual company data, as well as original data on the degree of utilisation of production factors. The sample includes 6,998 observations over the period 1996-2008. This database is, to our knowledge, unique for the empirical analysis of the intensity of capital utilisation on firms' capital retirement behaviour. We adjust for endogeneity biases by means of instrumental variables. The main results obtained from the estimation of capital retirement models may be summarised as follows: i) The retirement rate decreases with the variations in cyclical pressures measured by the changes in output and the workweek of capital; this relation corresponds to a countercyclical decelerator effect on capital retirement; ii) The capital retirement rate increases with the structural intensity of capital utilisation; this effect, which corresponds to a wear and tear one, is nevertheless small compared to the decelerator one; iii) The profit rate does not have a significant impact on the retirement rate. Compared with the existing literature, here mainly Mairesse and Dormont (1985), the contribution of these results is to show, through the use of unique survey data, that the effect of the intensity of capital utilisation on capital retirement is structurally positive, via a wear and tear effect, and cyclically negative, via a decelerator effect which completes that already taken into account via the effect of changes in value added. |
| Keywords: | Capital; Capital measure; Capital retirement; Capital utilisation |
| Date: | 2011–10–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00635477&r=lab |
| By: | Olivier Donni (THEMA, IZA and Université de Cergy-Pontoise); Eleonora Matteazzi (INED) |
| Abstract: | The present paper develops a theoretical model of labor supply with domestic production. It is shown that the structural components of the model can be identified without using a distribution factor, thereby generalizing the initial results of Apps and Rees (1997) and Chiappori (1997). The theoretical model is then estimated using the ATUS data. The empirical results are compared to those obtained from a similar model without domestic production. |
| Keywords: | collective model, market labor supply, domestic labor supply, household production, identification, ATUS |
| JEL: | D13 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-032&r=lab |
| By: | Francis Kramarz |
| Abstract: | This paper examines, in France, the relationship between imports – and trade more generally – and employment. It builds on the burgeoning literature relating trade and labour markets, taking into account theories of firm-level trade and previous empirical work. The analysis in the paper draws on three data sources to establish a matched firm-level data set covering trade, economic variables and employment for the time period from 1995 to 2004. The data set covers manufacturing firms. The paper develops estimates of the relationship between employment and trade activity at the firm level, first on an aggregate basis and then at industry level. Additional assessments are made with respect to the firms’ experience with changes in imports of finished goods and intermediates. The conclusion sums up the results and relates these to previous work on the relationship of trade and employment in France, pointing to some possible explanations and areas for further research. |
| Keywords: | trade, employment, wages, inclusive growth |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:124-en&r=lab |
| By: | Asoni, Andrea (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | I investigate the effect of human capital on entrepreneurship using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth - 1979. I find that individuals with higher measured intelligence and self-confidence are more likely to be entrepreneurs. Furthermore I present evidence suggesting that intelligence and self-confidence affect business ownership through two different channels: intelligence increases business survival while self-confidence increases business creation. Finally, once we control for intelligence and self-confidence the effect of formal college education almost completely vanishes. These results are robust to controlling for selection into entrepreneurship and selection into college. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; College Education; Intelligence; Self-confidence |
| JEL: | C41 J24 L26 |
| Date: | 2011–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0887&r=lab |
| By: | Marianne Bertrand; Jessica Pan |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the importance of the home and school environments in explaining the gender gap in disruptive behavior. We document large differences in the gender gap across key features of the home environment – boys do especially poorly in broken families. In contrast, we find little impact of the early school environment on non-cognitive gaps. Differences in endowments explain a small part of boys’ non-cognitive deficit in single-mother families. More importantly, non-cognitive returns to parental inputs differ markedly by gender. Broken families are associated with worse parental inputs and boys’ non-cognitive development, unlike girls’, appears extremely responsive to such inputs. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17541&r=lab |
| By: | Silke Anger (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | This study examines cognitive and non-cognitive skills and their transmission from parents to children as one potential candidate to explain the intergenerational link of socio-economic status. Using representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we contrast the impact of parental cognitive abilities (fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence) and personality traits (Big Five, locus of control) on their adolescent and young adult children’s traits with the effects of parental background and childhood environment. While for both age groups intelligence and personal traits were found to be transmitted from parents to their children, there are large discrepancies with respect to the age group and the type of skill. The intergenerational transmission effect was found to be relatively small for adolescent children, with correlations between 0.12 and 0.24, whereas the parent-child correlation in the sample of adult children was between 0.19 and 0.27 for non-cognitive skills, and up to 0.56 for cognitive skills. Thus, the skill gradient increases with the age of the child. Furthermore, the skill transmission effects are virtually unchanged by controlling for childhood environment or parental education, suggesting that the socio-economic status of the family does not play a mediating role in the intergenerational transmission of intelligence and personality traits. The finding that non-cognitive skills are not as strongly transmitted as cognitive skills, suggests that there is more room for external (non-parental) influences in the formation of personal traits. Hence, it is more promising for policy makers to focus on shaping children’s noncognitive skills to promote intergenerational mobility. Intergenerational correlations of cognitive skills in Germany are roughly the same or slightly stronger than those found by previous studies for other countries with different institutional settings. Intergenerational correlations of non-cognitive skills revealed for Germany seem to be considerably higher than the ones found for the U.S. Hence, skill transmission does not seem to be able to explain cross-country differences in socio-economic mobility. |
| Keywords: | cognitive abilities, personality, intergenerational transmission, skill formation |
| JEL: | J10 J24 I20 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-023&r=lab |
| By: | Ji, Yueqing; Zhong, Funing; Yu, Xiaohua |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the linkages between farmers' machinery investment decision and off-farm employment in China. Both the theoretical model and the empirical results based on a survey of 453 households in Anhui Province indicate that agricultural labor input and small-size machinery investment are gross complements rahter tha substitutes when machinery service is available in the market. Consequently, farmers with small machinery are more likely to reduce their off-time employment time. -- |
| Keywords: | Small-size Machinery,Off-Farm employment,Complements,China |
| JEL: | Q12 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iamo11:5&r=lab |
| By: | Frédéric Docquier (IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain, and FNRS); Hillel Rapoport (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University, EQUIPPE, University of Lille, and Center for International Development, Harvard University); Sara Salomone (IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain, and Tor Vergata University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the relationship between remittances and migrants' education both theoretically and empirically, using original bilateral remittance data. At a theoretical level we lay out a model of remittances interacting migrants' human capital with two dimensions of immigration policy: restrictiveness, and selectivity. The model predicts that the relationship between remittances and migrants' education is ambiguous and depends on the immigration policy conducted at destination. The effect of education is more likely to be positive when the immigration policy is more restrictive and less skill-selective. These predictions are then tested empirically using bilateral remittance and migration data and proxy measures for the restrictiveness and selectivity of immigration policies at destination. The results strongly support the theoretical analysis, suggesting that immigration policies determine the sign and magnitude of the relationship between remittances and migrants' education. |
| Keywords: | Remittances, Migration, Brain Drain, Immigration Policy |
| JEL: | F24 F22 O15 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1119&r=lab |
| By: | Lalanne, Marie; Seabright, Paul |
| JEL: | A14 J16 J31 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:25165&r=lab |