|
on Labour Economics |
| By: | Aitor Lacuesta (Banco de España); Sergio Puente (Banco de España); Ernesto Villanueva (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | The response of human capital accumulation to changes in the anticipated returns to schooling determines the type of skills supplied to the labor market, the productivity of future cohorts, and the evolution of inequality. Unlike the US, the UK or Germany, Spain has experienced since 1995 a drop in the returns to medium and tertiary education and, with a lag, a drop in schooling attainment of recent cohorts, providing the opportunity to estimate the response of different forms of human capital acquisition to relative increases in low-skill wages. We measure the expected returns to schooling using skill-specifi c wages bargained in collective agreements at the province-industry level. We argue that those wages are easily observable by youths and relatively insensitive to shifts in the supply of workers. Our preferred estimates suggest that a 10% increase in the ratio of wages of unskilled workers to the wages of mid-skill workers increases the fraction of males completing at most compulsory schooling by between 2 and 5 percentage points. The response is driven by males from less educated parents and comes at the expense of students from the academic high school track rather than the vocational training track. |
| Keywords: | Collective bargaining, human capital |
| JEL: | J52 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:1208&r=lab |
| By: | Guido Menzio; Irina A. Telykova; Ludo Visschers |
| Abstract: | We develop a life-cycle model of the labor market in which different worker-firm matches have different quality and the assignment of the right workers to the right firms is time consuming because of search and learning frictions. The rate at which workers move between unemployment, employment and across different firms is endogenous because search is directed and, hence, workers can choose whether to seek low-wage jobs that are easy to find or high-wage jobs that are hard to find. We calibrate our theory using data on labor market transitions aggregated across workers of different ages. We validate our theory by showing that it correctly predicts the pattern of labor market transitions for workers of different ages. Finally, we use our theory to decompose the age profiles of transition rates, wages and productivity into the effects of age variation in work-life expectancy, human capital and match quality. |
| Keywords: | Directed search, Labor reallocation, Lifecycle |
| JEL: | E24 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we1210&r=lab |
| By: | Cruces, Guillermo; Gasparini, Leonardo |
| Abstract: | This paper provides original empirical evidence on the evolution of education inequality for the Latin American countries over the decades of 1990 and 2000. The analysis covers a wide range of issues on the differences in educational outcomes and opportunities across the population, including inequality in years of education, gaps in school enrolment, wage skill differentials and public social expenditure. The evidence indicates a significant difference between the 1990s and the 2000s in terms of both the assessment of the equity of the education expansion and its impact on the income distribution. In particular, changes in the 2000s seem to have had an equalizing impact on earnings, given the more pro-poor pattern of the education upgrading and a more stable or even increasing relative demand for low-skill labour. |
| Keywords: | education, inequality, enrolment, wage premium, Latin America |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2011-93&r=lab |
| By: | Alma Espino (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Alina Machado (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Guillermo Alves (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía) |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes changes in male and female participation in the Uruguayan labor market during 1991 to 2009. We estimate labor market participation probability, the uncompensated wage elasticity of market work hours and determinants changes and its inciedence through time, both for participation decisions and working hours. The results show a diminishing in the incidence of factors wich inhibits women participation. On the other hand, they allow verifying the higher sensitivity of female labor supply to changes in wages, as well as the differences in significance and incidence of sociodemographic variables among women and men. These differences are relevant for designing labor policies taking into account gender differences. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, wages, salaries, uncompensated wage elasticity |
| JEL: | J13 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-06-11&r=lab |
| By: | Bonhomme, Stéphane; Jolivet, Grégory; Leuven, Edwin |
| Abstract: | Abstract Job characteristics can affect worker turnover through their effect on utility and through their effect on outside job opportunities. We separately identify and estimate the roles of these two channels. Our method exploits information on job changes and relies on an augmented sample selection correction. Taking our approach to an exhaustive register of Dutch primary school teachers, and using arguably plausible exclusion restrictions, we show a detailed picture of preferences for school characteristics. We also study how preference estimates may be biased when ignoring information on job opportunities and discuss the implications for the analysis of teacher turnover. |
| Keywords: | compensating differentials; labour turnover; sample selection; teaching labour markets |
| JEL: | C34 C36 J40 J62 J63 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8841&r=lab |
| By: | Geraint Johnes; R Freguglia; G Spricigo; A Aggarwal |
| Abstract: | The effect of education on labour market outcomes is analysed using both survey and administrative data from The Brazilian PNAD and RAIS-MIGRA series, respectively. Occupational destination is examined using both multinomial logit analyses and structural dynamic discrete choice modelling. The latter approach is particularly useful as a means of evaluating policy impacts over time. We find that policy to expand educational provision leads initially to an increased take-up of education, and in the longer term leads to an increased propensity for workers to enter non-manual employment. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:4297&r=lab |
| By: | Reva, Anna |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a broad overview of labor market indicators for men and women in Serbia with a focus on employment patterns, entrepreneurship and career advancement as well as earnings differentials. The analysis relies primarily on the results of the Labor Force Surveys conducted in Serbia in April 2008 and October 2009. The findings show that although the overall labor market situation in Serbia is difficult, women are in a much more disadvantageous position than men. Women are much less likely to be employed, start a business or advance in the political arena. Furthermore, there is a significant wage gap between men and women in a number of sectors and occupational groups with low educated women being particularly disadvantaged. The results of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition demonstrate that the wage gap is indicative of discrimination of women in the labor market as earnings differentials cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics of male and female employees. Based on the obtained results, the paper outlines four broad areas that require the attention of policy-makers: employment generation; enhancement of education outcomes; improvement of the regulatory environment and support to women's business and political careers; and promotion of transparent performance setting mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Population Policies,Gender and Development,Population&Development,Gender and Law |
| Date: | 2012–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6008&r=lab |
| By: | Meghir, Costas (Yale University); Palme, Mårten (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University); Simeonova, Emilia (Tufts University and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of a compulsory education reform in Sweden on adult health and mortality. The reform was implemented by municipalities between 1949 and 1962 as a social experiment and implied an extension of compulsory schooling from 7 or 8 years depending on municipality to 9 years nationally. We use detailed individual data on education, hospitalizations, labor force participation and mortality for Swedes born between 1946 and 1957. Individual level data allow us to study the effect of the education reform on three main groups of outcomes: (i) mortality until age 60 for different causes of death; (ii) hospitalization by cause and (iii) exit from the labor force primarily through the disability insurance program. The results show reduced male mortality up to age fifty for those assigned to the reform, but these gains were erased by increased mortality later on. We find similar patterns in the probability of being hospitalized and the average costs of inpatient care. Men who acquired more education due to the reform are less likely to retire early. |
| Keywords: | Causal effects of education; Compulsory schooling laws; Comprehensive school reforms; Education reform; Returns to schooling; |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I21 |
| Date: | 2012–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2012_0004&r=lab |
| By: | Stüber, Heiko (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "So far little empirical evidence exists on how real wages of newly hired workers react to business cycle conditions. This paper aims at filling this gap for Germany by analyzing the cyclical behavior of real wages of newly hired workers while controlling for 'cyclical upgrading' and 'cyclical downgrading' in employee/employer matches over the cycle. The analysis is undertaken for the 1977 to 2009 period using administrative longitudinal matched employer-employee wage data. I find that an increase in the unemployment rate of one percentage point decreases the real wages of job entries within given firm-jobs by about 1.27 percent. In light of the magnitude of the entry-wage cyclicality it seems that introducing wage rigidity in the Mortensen- Pissarides model in order to amplify realistic volatility of unemployment is not supported by the data. Further I show that the procyclicality of the employment/ population ratio is identical to the procyclicality of real entry wages. This counters the view of many macroeconomists that wages are much less cyclical than employment and unemployment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Reallohn, Lohntheorie, Lohnelastizität, Konjunkturzyklus, Arbeitslosigkeit, Lohnstarrheit |
| JEL: | E24 J31 E32 |
| Date: | 2012–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201206&r=lab |
| By: | Kan, Mari |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the short-term and long-term effects of maternal employment on adolescent children’s outcomes, namely, on behavior and grades at school and on total years of education. Because a mother’s decision to work depends heavily on her husband’s socioeconomic characteristics in Japan, IV methods were employed to deal with this self-selection problem. The results show that maternal full-time employment itself does not hinder adolescents’ human capital development. Rather, maternal full-time work prevents sons from smoking at school, although the path of this phenomenon should be carefully examined with more detailed data. Effects of maternal employment are not observed for sons’ or daughters’ educational attainment after controlling for family and school characteristics. |
| Keywords: | human capital, maternal employment, adolescent, academic achievement, smoking |
| JEL: | J13 J22 J24 I12 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:cisdps:541&r=lab |
| By: | Tobal, Martin |
| Abstract: | On the one hand, empiricists debate on which and how many labor dimensions are relevant for understanding the employment effects of the 1990's service offshoring boom. On the other hand, theorists pursue trade theory's traditional goal: to explain wage-responses to the shock. This paper rationalizes recent evidence on employment and reconciles theory with a current empirical debate. To this purpose, the article derives employment responses that are continous in occupations' off shoring costs and depend on two labor dimensions: skill-intensities and tradeability characteristics. Furthermore, the paper yields intutitive wage-respsonses and addresses theorists' traditional concern. In particular, under the assumption that knowledge is occupation-specific, the article derives wage- responses that are not fully explained by skill-levels. More precisely, service offshoring deteriorates the wage of "many" skilled workers whose tasks have relatively low offshoring costs. |
| Keywords: | labor; wages, Labor Economics |
| Date: | 2011–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:qt5s4056z6&r=lab |
| By: | Gonul Sengul |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes rates of inflow to and outflow from unemployment for Turkey since 2006. The average rate of exiting unemployment (outflow) within a month is 9.4 percent, while the average rate of transiting from employment to unemployment (inflow) is 1.3 percent. Moreover, the analysis of flow rates for different age and education groups show that these rates change significantly across groups. The paper decomposes changes in unemployment into contributions from inflow and outflow rates and finds that the volatility of inflow rates is the main driving force of the change in the unemployment rate in Turkey. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment,Worker Flows, Job Finding Rate, Separation Rate |
| JEL: | E24 J6 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:1210&r=lab |
| By: | Geraint Johnes; A Aggarwal; R Freguglia; G Spricigo |
| Abstract: | The impact of education on labour market outcomes is analysed using data from various rounds of the National Sample Survey of India. Occupational destination is examined using both multinomial logit analyses and structural dynamic discrete choice modelling. The latter approach involves the use of a novel approach to constructing a pseudo-panel from repeated cross-section data, and is particularly useful as a means of evaluating policy impacts over time. We find that policy to expand educational provision leads initially to an increased takeup of education, and in the longer term leads to an increased propensity for workers to enter non-manual employment. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:4298&r=lab |
| By: | Dube, Arindrajit; Lester, T. William; Reich, Michael |
| Abstract: | We measure labor market frictions using a strategy that bridges design-based and structural approaches: estimating an equilibrium search model using reduced-form minimum wage elasticities identified from border discontinuities and fitted with Bayesian and LIML methods. We begin by providing the first test of U.S. minimum wage effects on labor market flows and find negative effects on employment flows, but not levels. Separations and accessions fall among restaurants and teens, especially those with low tenure. Our estimated parameters of a search model with wage posting and heterogeneous workers and firms imply that frictions help explain minimum wage effects. |
| Keywords: | J23, J32, J48, J63, Labor Economics |
| Date: | 2011–06–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt4t3342nd&r=lab |
| By: | Rothstein, Jesse |
| Abstract: | Nearly two years after the official end of the "Great Recession," the labor marketremains historically weak. One candidate explanation is supply-side effects driven bydramatic expansions of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefit durations, to as many as 99 weeks. This paper investigates the effect of these UI extensions on job search and reemployment. I use the longitudinal structure of the Current Population Survey toconstruct unemployment exit hazards that vary across states, over time, and betweenindividuals with differing unemployment durations. I then use these hazards to explore a variety of comparisons intended to distinguish the effects of UI extensions from other determinants of employment outcomes. The various specifications yield quite similar results. UI extensions had significantbut small negative effects on the probability that the eligible unemployed would exitunemployment, concentrated among the long-term unemployed. The estimates implythat UI benefit extensions raised the unemployment rate in early 2011 by only about 0.1–0.5 percentage points, much less than is implied by previous analyses, with at least half of this effect attributable to reduced labor force exit among the unemployed rather than to the changes in reemployment rates that are of greater policy concern. |
| Keywords: | Hospitality Administration/Management, Economics, Other, Unemployment Insurance, Great Recession |
| Date: | 2011–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt5611t356&r=lab |
| By: | Henry Hyatt; Erika McEntarfer |
| Abstract: | Job-to-job flows represent one of the most significant opportunities for the development of new economic statistics, having been made possible by the increased availability of matched employer-employee datasets for statistical tabulation. In this paper, we analyze a new database of job-to-job flows from 1999 to 2010 in the United States. This analysis provides definitive benchmarks on gross employment flows, origin and destination industries, nonemployment, and associated earnings. To demonstrate the usefulness of these statistics, we evaluate them in the context of the recessions of 2001 and 2007, as well as the economic expansion between the two. We find a sharp drop in job mobility in the Great Recession, much sharper than the previous recession, and higher earnings penalties for job transitions with an intervening nonemployment spell. This fall in job mobility is found within all age groups but is largest among younger workers. We also examine outcomes for displaced workers and examine labor market adjustment in several specific industries. Generally, we find higher rates of nonemployment upon job separation, increasing rates of industry change and higher earnings penalties from job change in the Great Recession. |
| Keywords: | job flows, matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:12-04&r=lab |
| By: | Diego Restuccia; Guillaume Vandenbroucke |
| Abstract: | An average person born in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century completed 7 years of schooling and spent 58 hours a week working in the market. By contrast, an average person born at the end of the twentieth century completed 14 years of schooling and spent 40 hours a week working. In the span of 100 years, completed years of schooling doubled and working hours decreased by 30 percent. What explains these trends? We consider a model of human capital and labor supply to quantitatively assess the contribution of exogenous variations in productivity (wage) and life expectancy in accounting for the secular trends in educational attainment and hours of work. We find that the observed increase in wages and life expectancy account for 80 percent of the increase in years of schooling and 88 percent of the reduction in hours of work. Rising wages alone account for 75 percent of the increase in schooling and almost all the decrease in hours in the model, whereas rising life expectancy alone accounts for 25 percent of the increase in schooling and almost none of the decrease in hours of work. |
| Keywords: | Schooling, hours of work, productivity, life expectancy, trends, United States |
| JEL: | E1 I25 J11 O4 |
| Date: | 2012–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-450&r=lab |
| By: | Alvarado, Rafael |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates and decomposes wage differentials in Ecuador. Is corrected by self-selection bias with the two-step methodology proposed by Heckman (1979) and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition (1973) is checked whether the differences found are due to the initial endowment of human capital or potential discrimination. On the other hand, examines the influence of geography and ethnicity in the level of wages. The data used are from the Survey of Income and Expenses of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC, 2009). Through decomposition is verified that the gender wage gap for men, job security for those with contract labor and marital status for married people are due to unobserved factors. While the ethnic wage gap by geographical area, natural areas and by economic sector are due to differences in the initial endowment of human capital. |
| Keywords: | Wages differentials. Returns to human capital |
| JEL: | I2 J31 J2 |
| Date: | 2012–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:37470&r=lab |
| By: | Marius Brülhart; Céline Carrère; Frederico Trionfetti |
| Abstract: | We study the response of regional employment and nominal wages to trade liberalization, exploiting the natural experiment provided by the opening of Central and Eastern European markets after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990. Using data for Austrian municipalities, we examine differential pre- and post-1990 wage and employment growth rates between regions bordering the formerly communist economies and interior regions. If the ‘border regions’ are defined narrowly, within a band of less than 50 kilometers, we can identify statistically significant liberalization effects on both employment and wages. While wages responded earlier than employment, the employment effect over the entire adjustment period is estimated to be around three times as large as the wage effect. The implied slope of the regional labor supply curve can be replicated in an economic geography model that features obstacles to labor migration due to immobile housing and to heterogeneous locational preferences. |
| Keywords: | trade liberalization, spatial adjustment, regional labor supply, natural experiment |
| JEL: | F15 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2012_02&r=lab |
| By: | Hazan, Moshe; Zoabi, Hosny |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a new explanation for the narrowing and reversal of the gender education gap. It highlights the indirect effect of returns to human capital on parents' preferences for sons and the resulting demand for children and education. We assume that parents maximize the full income of their children and that males have an additional income, independently of their level of education. This additional income has two effects. First, it biases parental preferences towards sons. Second, it implies that females have relative advantage in producing income through education. We show that when the relative returns to human capital are sufficiently low, the bias in parents' preferences towards sons is relatively high, so that parents who have daughters first have more children. Daughters are born to larger families and hence receive less education. As returns to human capital increase, gender differences in producing income diminish, parents' bias towards sons declines, variation in family size falls and the positive correlation between family size and the number of daughters is weakened. When returns to human capital are sufficiently high, the relative advantage of females in education dominates differences in family size, triggering the reversal in gender education gap. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Gender Gender Educational Gap; Returns to Human Capital |
| JEL: | I21 J13 O11 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8885&r=lab |
| By: | Charlotte Geay; Sandra McNally; Shqiponja Telhaj |
| Abstract: | In recent years there has been an increase in the number of children going to school in England who do not speak English as a first language. We investigate whether this has an impact on the educational outcomes of native English speakers at the end of primary school. We show that the negative correlation observed in the raw data is mainly an artefact of selection: non-native speakers are more likely to attend school with disadvantaged native speakers. We attempt to identify a causal impact of changes in the percentage of non-native speakers within the year group. In general, our results suggest zero effect and rule out negative effects. |
| Keywords: | language, immigration, education |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0137&r=lab |
| By: | Dolado, Juan J.; Ortigueira, Salvador; Stucchi, Rodolfo |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the effect of having a large gap in firing costs between permanent and temporary workers in a dual labour market on TFP development at the firm level. We propose a simple model showing that, under plausible conditions, both temporary workers' effort and firms' temp-to-perm conversion rates decrease when that gap increases. We test this implication by means of a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms from 1991 to 2005, using as natural experiments some labour market reforms entailing substantial changes in this gap. Our main empirical finding is that reforms leading to a lower gap enhanced conversion rates, which in turn increased firms' TFP, and conversely for reforms that increased the gap. |
| Keywords: | firing costs; Firms' TFP; temporary workers; worker's effort |
| JEL: | C14 C52 D24 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8763&r=lab |
| By: | Ornelas, Emanuel |
| Abstract: | Labor market consequences are at the forefront of most debates on the merits of trade liberalization. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have become the primary form of trade liberalization in most countries, and several studies have shown that discriminatory and non-discriminatory trade liberalization can lead to very different outcomes. Yet to date there has not been any attempt to study the specific labor market implications of preferential liberalization. In this article I argue that the labor market consequences of unilateral or multilateral non-discriminatory trade liberalization and those stemming from integration in the context of PTAs can indeed be quite distinct, and therefore the latter must be given closer scrutiny. I provide a short summary of both the theoretical literature on trade and the labor market and the literature on preferential liberalization. Relying on the insights from those two—largely independent—lines of research, I then discuss why liberalization through PTAs can have consequences for the labor market that are considerably different from the effects of lowering trade barriers in a non-discriminatory fashion. Examples of areas where those differences are likely to be meaningful include the nature of labor market adjustment costs, the incentives for firms to start exporting, and the effects on “job rents.” |
| Keywords: | labor frictions; trade diversion; trade liberalization; unemployment |
| JEL: | F13 F15 F16 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8805&r=lab |
| By: | He, Goujun; Perloff, Jeffrey M. |
| Abstract: | Auditing by downstream firms has limited effects on Chinese firms’ adherence to labor standards and other measures of blue collar workers well-being. Auditing does not affect the suppliers’ blue-collar employees’ wages, probability of belonging to a union, or likelihood of working overtime. However, audited firms are more likely to provide rural migrant workers pensions, business medical insurance, and unemployment insurance. |
| Keywords: | Applied Economics, Chinese Workers, Customer Auditing |
| Date: | 2012–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt7bb518tz&r=lab |
| By: | Wagner, Robert; Zwick, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper jointly analyses the consequences of adverse selection and signalling on entry wages of skilled employees. It uses German linked employer employee panel data (LIAB) and introduces a measure for relative productivity of skilled job applicants based on apprenticeship wages. It shows that post-apprenticeship employer changers are a negative selection from the training firms' point of view. Negative selection leads to lower average wages of employer changersin the first skilled job in comparison to stayers. Entry wages of employer changers are specifically reduced by high occupation and training firm retention rates. Additional training firm signals are high apprenticeship wages that signal a positive selection of apprenticeship applicants, works councils and establishment size. Finally, positive individual signals such as schooling background affect the skilled entry wages of employer changers positively. -- |
| Keywords: | entry wages,employer change,adverse selection,signalling |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J62 J63 M52 M53 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:12014&r=lab |
| By: | Guner, Nezih; Kaygusuz, Remzi; Ventura, Gustavo |
| Abstract: | Based on well-known evidence on labor supply elasticities, several authors have concluded that women should be taxed at lower rates than men. We evaluate the quantitative implications and merits of this proposition. Relative to the current system of taxation, setting a proportional tax rate on married females equal to 4% (8%) increases output and married female labor force participation by about 3.9% (3.4%) and 6.9% (4.0%), respectively. Gender-based taxes improve welfare and are preferred by a majority of households. Nevertheless, welfare gains are higher when the U.S. tax system is replaced by a proportional, gender-neutral income tax. |
| Keywords: | Labour Force Participation; Taxation; Two-earner Households |
| JEL: | E62 H31 J12 J22 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8735&r=lab |
| By: | Smith, Sandra Susan; Broege, Nora C. R. |
| Abstract: | To date, researchers have been very attentive to how the stigma of criminality informs employers’ hiring decisions, and, in the process, diminishes the employment opportunities afforded to jobseekers so stigmatized. Few researchers, however, have investigated the extent to which criminal records also shape jobseekers’ search strategies in ways that either attenuate or amplify the effects of their negative credentials. We fill this gap in the literature by investigating how arrest, conviction, and incarceration affect the scope of jobseekers’ search efforts as well as the specific methods they deploy. We then examine the extent to which gaps in job search success can be attributed to stigmatized jobseekers’ search strategies. Analysis of the NLSY97 reveals that arrestees and former prisoners (but not ex-convicts) are disadvantaged both by the scope of their search efforts and by the specific methods they use. Arrestees are less likely than non-offenders to find work during the search process because they use fewer search methods, and because they over-invest in ineffective methods while under-investing in more effective methods. Although former prisoners are also disadvantaged by over- and under-investing, we primarily attribute their lower odds of search success to the differential impacts of their search strategies. Even when the scope and nature of their searches mirror those of non-offenders, their searches are less likely to end successfully. By bringing “search†into debates on punishment and inequality, we provide a new and complementary way to understand how a criminal record negatively affects jobseekers’ chances of finding work. |
| Keywords: | Sociology, Sociology and Anthropology, Urban Studies/Affairs, Criminal record, job search methods, job search scope, job search success, employment, network search, labor market intermediaries, going-it-alone, race and gender |
| Date: | 2012–03–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt7d56c799&r=lab |
| By: | Sebastian Braun, Nadja Dwenger, Dorothea Kübler, Alexander Westkamp |
| Abstract: | Quotas for special groups of students often apply in school or university admission procedures. This paper studies the performance of two mechanisms to implement such quotas in a lab experiment. The first mechanism is a simplified version of the mechanism currently employed by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions, which first allocates seats in the quota for top-grade students before allocating all other seats among remaining applicants. The second is a modified version of the student-proposing deferred acceptance (SDA) algorithm, which simultaneously allocates seats in all quotas. Our main result is that the current procedure, designed to give top-grade students an advantage, actually harms them, as students often fail to grasp the strategic issues involved. The modified SDA algorithm significantly improves the matching for top-grade students and could thus be a valuable tool for redesigning university admissions in Germany |
| Keywords: | College admissions, experiment, quotas, matching, Gale-Shapley mechanism, Boston mechanism |
| JEL: | C78 C92 D78 I20 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1761&r=lab |
| By: | Patricia Kenny (CHERE, University of Technology, Sydney); Denise Doiron; Jane Hall (CHERE, University of Technology, Sydney); Deborah J Street (University of Technology, Sydney); Kathleen Milton-Wildey; Glenda Parmenter |
| Abstract: | Understanding the employment choices and preferences of new entrants to the nursing profession is an important element in the formulation of policies for ensuring an adequate supply of nurses to meet population healthcare needs in the coming decades. A longitudinal cohort study to investigate the job preferences of nursing students and new graduates commenced in New South Wales in 2008. The study aimed to identify the relative importance of job attributes as well as factors such as age, family structure, education and health in nursesÂ’ employment choices. In addition to studying actual choices, it uses repeated discrete choice experiments (DCE) to measure preferences for job attributes and how these change after graduation and throughout the early career years. Data collection by annual online surveys commenced in September 2009 and, after one year, 530 participants had completed the first survey. This paper describes the characteristics of this cohort; it also provides an outline of the study and its methods. |
| Keywords: | Discrete choice experiments, nursing workforce, employment |
| JEL: | I1 I19 J2 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:her:chewps:2012/02&r=lab |
| By: | Gielen, Anne; van Ours, Jan C |
| Abstract: | It is puzzling that people feel quite unhappy when they become unemployed, while at the same time active labor market policies are needed to bring unemployed back to work more quickly. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigate whether there is indeed such a puzzle. First, we find that nearly half of the unemployed do not experience a drop in happiness, which might explain why at least some workers need to be activated. In addition to that, we find that even though unemployed who experience a drop in happiness search more actively for a job, it does not speed up their job finding. Apparently, there is no link between unhappiness and the speed of job finding. Hence, there is no contradiction between unemployed being unhappy and the need for activation policies. |
| Keywords: | Happiness; Unemployment duration |
| JEL: | I31 J64 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8842&r=lab |
| By: | Bekkers, Eddy; Francois, Joseph |
| Abstract: | We study the labor market effects of bilateral exchange rate realignment. We place emphasis on the composition of trade, the role of in- termediates, and the underlying conditions of the labor market. Employment effects hinge on the fraction exported to and imported from the trading partner. A larger fraction exported to and a smaller fraction imported from the trading partner make it more likely that appreciation has beneficial effects. Furthermore, more sticky price expectations in wage formation, a smaller fraction of intermediates in the production process, and a lower rate of importer pass through make it more likely that appreciation of the exchange rate of the trade partner has positive employment effects. At a more technical level, the scope for substitution away from higher priced inputs, either toward other sources of supply, or toward value added, is also important to the direction and magnitude of changes in employment. |
| Keywords: | bilateral exchange rates; devaluation; exchange rates and trade; trade and employment |
| JEL: | F32 F41 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8906&r=lab |
| By: | Cahuc, Pierre; Charlot, Olivier; Malherbet, Franck |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a simple model which explains the choice between permanent and temporary jobs. This model, which incorporates important features of actual employment protection legislations neglected by the economic literature so far, reproduces the main stylized facts about entries into permanent and temporary jobs observed in Continental European countries. We show that the stringency of legal constraints on the termination of permanent jobs has a strong positive impact on the turnover of temporary jobs. We also find that job protection has very small effects on total employment but induces large substitution of temporary jobs for permanent jobs which significantly reduces aggregate production. |
| Keywords: | Employment protection legislation; Temporary jobs |
| JEL: | J63 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8864&r=lab |
| By: | Frías, Judith A; Kaplan, David; Verhoogen, Eric A |
| Abstract: | This short paper examines the effect of exporting on within-plant wage distributions in employer-employee data on Mexican manufacturing plants. Using the late-1994 peso devaluation interacted with initial plant size as a source of exogenous variation in exporting and focusing on wages at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles within each plant, we document three patterns: (1) there is no evidence of an effect of exporting on wages at the 10th percentile; (2) the wage effects of exporting are larger at higher percentiles, up to the 75th; and (3) there is no evidence of an increase in dispersion within the top quartile. |
| Keywords: | exports; wage distribution |
| JEL: | F16 J31 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8835&r=lab |
| By: | S Bradley; Jim Taylor |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the extent to which exam performance at the end of compulsory education has been affected by three major education reforms: the introduction of a quasi-market following the Education Reform Act (1988); the specialist schools initiative introduced in 1994; and the Excellence in Cities programme introduced in 1999. We use data for all state-funded secondary schools in England over the period 1992-2006. The empirical analysis, which is based on the application of panel data methods, indicates that the government and its agencies have substantially overestimated the benefits flowing from these three major reforms. Only about one-third of the improvement in GCSE exam scores during 1992-2006 is directly attributable to the combined effect of the education reforms. The distributional consequences of the policy, however, are estimated to have been favourable, with the greatest gains being achieved by schools with the highest proportion of pupils from poor families. But there is evidence that resources have not been allocated efficiently. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lan:wpaper:974&r=lab |
| By: | Strulik, Holger; Werner, Katharina |
| Abstract: | We set up a three-period overlapping generation model in which young individuals allocate their time to schooling and work, healthy middle aged individuals allocate their time to leisure and work and their income to consumption and savings for retirement, and old age individuals live off their savings. The three period setup allows us to distinguish between longevity and active life expectancy (i.e. the expected length of period 1 and 2). We show that individuals optimally respond to a longer active life by educating more and, if the labor supply elasticity is high enough, by supplying less labor. We calibrate the model to US data and show that the historical evolution of increasing education and declining labor supply can be explained as an optimal response to increasing active life expectancy. We integrate the theory into a unified growth model and reestablish increasing life expectancy as an engine of long-run economic development. |
| Keywords: | longevity, active life expectancy, education, hours worked, economic growth |
| JEL: | E20 I25 J22 O10 O40 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-497&r=lab |
| By: | Clément Imbert (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS : UMR8545 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris - INRA); John Papp (Princeton University - Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence on the equilibrium labor market impacts of a large rural workfare program in India. We use the gradual roll out of the program to estimate changes in districts that received the program earlier relative to those that received it later. Our estimates reveal that following the introduction of the program, public employment increased by .3 days per prime-aged person per month (1.3% of private sector employment) more in early districts than in the rest of India. Casual wages increased by 4.5%, and private sector work for low-skill workers fell by 1.6%. These effects are concentrated in the dry season, during which the majority of public works employment is provided. Our results suggest that public sector hiring crowds out private sector work and increases private sector wages. We use these estimates to compute the implied welfare gains of the program by consumption quintile. Our calculations show that the welfare gains to the poor from the equilibrium increase in private sector wages are large in absolute terms and large relative to the gains received solely by program participants. We conclude that the equilibrium labor market impacts are a first order concern when comparing workfare programs with other anti-poverty programs such as a cash transfer. |
| Keywords: | Workfare ; Rural labor markets ; Icome redistribution |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00680451&r=lab |
| By: | K.V. Ramaswamy (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research); Tushar Agrawal (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research) |
| Abstract: | This is a study of employment growth, structure, and job quality outcomes in manufacturing and service-sector in urban India spanning the period 1999-2000 to 2009-10. The context is that of dynamic growth of service-sector in India beginning in the 1990s. This has raised the question whether India will skip the traditional sequence of agriculture to manufacturing with services taking up the leading sector role in India's growth path. We studied employment growth and related aspects of employment structure using the NSS surveys of employment and unemployment carried out in 1999-2000 and 2009-10 with a view to throw more light on the future role of manufacturing and services as providers of employment to large numbers joining the labour force. We did not find any acceleration in the service-sector employment growth relative to manufacturing in the urban areas of India. The good news is that young males have increased their share of regular employment both in manufacturing and services. However, we find greater duality in services sector in terms of the incidence of informality and wage inequality. In the service-sector those with more skills have received higher increases in real wage. The service-sector is relatively more skill demanding than manufacturing. We showed that skill composition of the workforce is markedly different between the two sectors with services clearly skill biased. Social security conditions are not found to be relatively much superior in services. Our results strongly suggest that service-sector is an unlikely destination for the millions of low skilled job seekers. India needs to focus on manufacturing sector to provide large scale employment. |
| Keywords: | Employment; Job quality; Services; Structural change; Wage inequality |
| JEL: | E24 O11 O14 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2012-007&r=lab |
| By: | Ahrens, Steffen; Snower, Dennis J. |
| Abstract: | We incorporate inequity aversion into an otherwise standard New Keynesian dynamic equilibrium model with Calvo wage contracts and positive inflation. Workers with relatively low incomes experience envy, whereas those with relatively high incomes experience guilt. The former seek to raise their income, and latter seek to reduce it. The greater the inflation rate, the greater the degree of wage dispersion under Calvo wage contracts, and thus the greater the degree of envy and guilt experienced by the workers. Since the envy effect is stronger than the guilt effect, according to the available empirical evidence, a rise in the inflation rate leads workers to supply more labor over the contract period, generating a significant positive long-run relation between inflation and output (and employment), for low inflation rates. This Phillips curve relation, together with an inefficient zero-inflation steady state, provides a rationale for a positive long-run inflation rate. Given standard calibrations, optimal monetary policy is associated with a long-run inflation rate around 2 percent. |
| Keywords: | fairness; inequity aversion; inflation; long-run Phillips curve |
| JEL: | D03 E20 E31 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8796&r=lab |
| By: | Auriol, Emmanuelle; Friebel, Guido; Lammers, Frauke |
| Abstract: | We suggest a parsimonious dynamic agency model in which workers have status concerns. A firm is a promotion hierarchy in which a worker’s status depends on past performance. We investigate the optimality of two types of promotion hierarchies: (i) internal labor markets, in which agents have a job guarantee, and (ii) 'up-or-out', in which agents are fired when unsuccessful. We show that up-or-out is optimal if success is difficult to achieve. When success is less hard to achieve, an internal labor market is optimal provided the payoffs associated with success are moderate. Otherwise, up-or-out is, again, optimal. These results are in line with observations from academia, law firms, investment banks and top consulting firms. Here, up-or-out dominates, while internal labor markets dominate where work is less demanding or payoffs are more compressed, for instance, because the environment is less competitive. We present some supporting evidence from academia, comparing US with French economics departments. |
| Keywords: | Incentives; Promotion hierarchies; Sorting; Status |
| JEL: | J3 L2 M5 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8831&r=lab |
| By: | Roger Brown |
| Abstract: | From 2012 English universities and colleges will be operating in a more demanding market environment. There will be competition on tuition fees for undergraduate (Baccalaureate) programs for the first time. New private, including “for profitâ€, providers will be entering the market. There will be much more information about what institutions will be offering to existing and potential students. The Government believes that this will raise quality as well as providing a sustainable basis for the future. However there is little evidence to support these beliefs and considerable grounds for supposing that these policies will create a more stratified, and potentially more wasteful, system. |
| Keywords: | Education |
| Date: | 2011–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt9569q5n5&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel Guinea Martin; Ricardo Mora; Javier Ruiz Castillo |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study occupational segregation by gender and ethnic group in England and Wales using data from the 2001 Census. We assess in an integrated framework the relative importance of each source of segregation and whether they combine into a double disadvantage effect or are independent processes. The analysis exploits the decomposability properties of the Mutual Information segregation index. These same properties allow measuring the effect on segregation of the distinctions between (i) Manual vs. Non-manual occupations; (ii) Full- vs. Part-time jobs, and (iii) human capital categories. Finally, we extend the usual notion of occupational segregation among the employed population to include the segregation of the entire non-student population of working age due to differences in the distribution of demographic groups over labor market participation categories. Among the main conclusions, the following three are emphasized. (1) The role of gender is much greater than the role of ethnic group in accounting for occupational segregation, and both constitute independent processes. (2) All the distinctions mentioned above with the exception of human capital have a substantial effect on segregation by gender. However, the Manual vs. Non-manual and the Fullvs. Part-time distinctions have a negligible effect on segregation by ethnic group. (3) The segregation induced by labor market participation decisions in England and Wales is about 20 per cent greater than the usual occupational segregation |
| Keywords: | Segregation, Ethnic and gender, Labor market, Occupations, Great Britain |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we1140&r=lab |
| By: | Criscuolo, Chiara; Martin, Ralf; Overman, Henry G; Van Reenen, John |
| Abstract: | Business support policies designed to raise productivity and employment are common worldwide, but rigorous micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effects is rare. We exploit multiple changes in the area-specific eligibility criteria for a major program to support manufacturing jobs ('Regional Selective Assistance'). Area eligibility is governed by pan-European state aid rules which change every seven years and we use these rule changes to construct instrumental variables for program participation. We match two decades of UK panel data on the population of firms to all program participants. IV estimates find positive program treatment effect on employment, investment and net entry but not on TFP. OLS underestimates program effects because the policy targets underperforming plants and areas. The treatment effect is confined to smaller firms with no effect for larger firms (e.g. over 150 employees). We also find the policy raises area level manufacturing employment mainly through significantly reducing unemployment. The positive program effect is not due to substitution between plants in the same area or between eligible and ineligible areas nearby. We estimate that 'cost per job' of the program was only $6,300 suggesting that in some respects investment subsidies can be cost effective. |
| Keywords: | employment; industrial policy; investment; productivity; regional policy |
| JEL: | H25 L52 L53 O47 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8818&r=lab |
| By: | Fairlie, Robert W; Karlan, Dean S.; Zinman, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | We use randomized program offers and multiple follow-up survey waves to examine the effects of entrepreneurship training on a broad set of outcomes. Training increases short run business ownership and employment, but there is no evidence of broader or longer run effects. We also test whether training mitigates market frictions by estimating heterogeneous treatment effects. Training does not have strong effects (in either relative or absolute terms) on those most likely to face credit or human capital constraints, or labor market discrimination. Training does have a relatively strong short-run effect on business ownership for those unemployed at baseline, but not at other horizons or for other outcomes. |
| Keywords: | climate coalitions; climate policy; free riding; game theory |
| JEL: | C68 C72 D58 Q54 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8823&r=lab |
| By: | Carlos Gradín |
| Abstract: | The goal of this study was to use census information to measure the level of occupational segregation of workers of African descent compared to whites in various Latin American countries. I further investigated the extent to which segregation levels can be accounted for by different factors, such as the impact of black-white inequalities on years of schooling or different age structures of the racial groups that are unevenly distributed across the countries. The results show that Afro-Latinos are generally highly segregated across occupations. However, while a large proportion of this segregation would not exist in Brazil and Ecuador if Afro-Latinos had attained the same education as whites, the proportion of occupational segregation explained by educational inequalities is much lower in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. Further, occupational segregation would be even higher in most cases if the geographical distribution of black and white populations were similar across these countries. |
| Keywords: | conditional occupational segregation, education, race and ethnicity, Afro-Latinos. |
| JEL: | D63 J15 J16 J71 J82 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vig:wpaper:1105&r=lab |
| By: | Felbermayr, Gabriel; Hauptmann, Andreas (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Schmerer, Hans-Jörg (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "In theoretical trade models with variable markups and collective wage bargaining, export exposure may reduce the exporter wage premium. We test this prediction using linked German employer-employee data from 1996 to 2007. To separate the rent-sharing mechanism from assortative matching, we exploit individual worker information to construct profitability measures that are free of skill composition. We find that rent-sharing is less pronounced in more export intensive firms or in more open industries. The exporter wage premium is highest for low productivity firms. In line with theory, these findings are unique to the subsample of plants covered by collective bargaining." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | F16 J51 E24 J3 |
| Date: | 2012–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201207&r=lab |
| By: | Paul Ryan (University of Cambridge); Uschi Backes-Gellner (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Silvia Teuber (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Karin Wagner (Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Although trainee pay is central to the economics of work-based training, institutionalists have paid it little attention, while economists typically assume that it is set by market clearing. We document large differences in the pay of metalworking apprentices in three countries: relative to the pay of skilled employees, it is high in Britain, middling in Germany, and low in Switzerland. Combining fieldwork evidence with national survey data, we associate apprentice pay with both institutional attributes and market forces: specifically, with trade union presence and goals, employer organisation, the contractual status of apprentices, the supply of eligible and interested young people, and public subsidies. Apprentice pay appears to have fallen in Britain and Germany as bargaining coverage has declined. |
| Keywords: | Apprenticeship training, pay structure, trade unions, employers’ associations, collective bargaining, training contracts, young workers, public subsidy |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J41 J42 J51 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0075&r=lab |
| By: | Dutta, Puja; Murgai, Rinku; Ravallion., Martin; van de Walle, Dominique |
| Abstract: | In 2005 India introduced an ambitious national anti-poverty program, now called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The program offers up to 100 days of unskilled manual labor per year on public works projects for any rural household member who wants such work at the stipulated minimum wage rate. The aim is to dramatically reduce poverty by providing extra earnings for poor families, as well as empowerment and insurance. If the program worked in practice the way it is designed, then anyone who wanted work on the scheme would get it. However, analysis of data from India's National Sample Survey for 2009/10 reveals considerable un-met demand for work in all states. The authors confirm expectations that poorer families tend to have more demand for work on the scheme, and that (despite the un-met demand) the self-targeting mechanism allows it to reach relatively poor families and backward castes. The extent of the un-met demand is greater in the poorest states -- ironically where the scheme is needed most. Labor-market responses to the scheme are likely to be weak. The scheme is attracting poor women into the workforce, although the local-level rationing processes favor men. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Labor Markets,Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis |
| Date: | 2012–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6003&r=lab |
| By: | Fitzsimons, Emla; Mesnard, Alice |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the permanent departure of the father from the household affects children’s school enrolment and work participation in rural Colombia. Our results show that departure of the father decreases children’s school enrolment by around 4 percentage points, and increases child labour by 3 percentage points. After using household fixed effects to deal with time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, and providing evidence suggesting strongly that estimates are not biased by time varying unobserved heterogeneity, we also exploit an interesting feature of our setting, a conditional cash transfer programme in place, and show that it counteracts the adverse effects. This, and other pieces of evidence we give, strongly suggests that the channel through which departure affects children is through reducing income. It also highlights the important safety net role played by such welfare programmes, in particular for very disadvantaged households, who are unlikely to find formal or informal ways of insuring themselves against such vagaries. |
| Keywords: | child labour; conditional cash transfer; credit and insurance market failures; income loss; permanent departure; safety net; schooling |
| JEL: | I20 J12 J22 O16 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8886&r=lab |
| By: | Alessandro Bucciol (Department of Economics (University of Verona)); Marco Piovesan (Harvard Business School) |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:12/2012&r=lab |
| By: | Abbi M Kedir; Nor Yasmin Mhd Bani |
| Abstract: | The investigation of the growth-volatility link is an important one in empirical macroeconomics. There is no empirical evidence supporting the predictions of recent theoretical models that incorporate and explicitly recognize the role of human capital in this link. Using a panel data, we show empirically how the detrimental effect of output volatility on growth is diluted by education. We provide robustness checks and policy implications of our finding. |
| Keywords: | Growth; volatility; education; dynamic system (GMM). |
| JEL: | E32 F43 O40 O49 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:12/04&r=lab |
| By: | John, Katrin; Thomsen, Stephan L. and |
| Abstract: | We analyze the role of personality in occupational choice and wages using data from Germany for the years 1992 to 2009. Characterizing personality by use of seven complementary measures, the empirical findings show that it is an important determinant of occupational choice. Associated with that, identical personality traits are differently rewarded across occupations. By evaluating different personality profiles, we estimate the influence of personality as a whole. The estimates establish occupation-specific patterns of significant returns to particular personality profiles. These findings underline the importance to consider the occupational distribution when analyzing returns to personality due to its heterogeneous valuation. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice, wage differentials, Big Five personality traits, locus of control, measures of reciprocity, SOEP |
| JEL: | J24 J31 C35 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-495&r=lab |
| By: | Eckel, Carsten; Egger, Hartmut |
| Abstract: | Multinational enterprises are able to improve their disagreement profits by setting up foreign production facilities, with adverse consequences for negotiated wages and union utilities. In this paper, we take a new angle at this issue and analyze whether unions can improve their situation by cooperating internationally. By shifting the focus from firms to unions as the active players, we aim at explaining why unions find it hard to respond to the detrimental shift in bargaining position as a result of globalization and why there is so little evidence for union cooperation within multinational production networks. Our results show that cooperation is clearly beneficial for unions if their preferences regarding wages and employment are similar across countries. If these preferences differ, however, potential production relocations by multinationals create winners and losers among unions, and these distributional effects may impede cooperation. |
| Keywords: | International Cooperation; Labor Unions; Multinational Enterprise; Union Objectives |
| JEL: | F23 J51 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8784&r=lab |
| By: | Francisco López Segrera |
| Abstract: | Universities in Latin America and in the Caribbean (LAC), and throughout the world, are facing one of the most challenging eras in their history. Globalization presents many important opportunities for higher education, but also poses serious problems and raises questions about how best to serve the common good. The traditional values of universities are still valid (autonomy, academic freedom, research, students´ work, assessment), but they should be viewed within the context of new global norms. Until the decade of the 80s, public HE with institutional and academic autonomy, had predominance in the region over the private education. At the end of the 80s and beginnings of the 90s, globalization meant neoliberal strategies. This implied replacing the typical policies of the “Welfare Stateâ€, for others of reducing funds to public services and privatization of them. These market strategies had an impact in the increasing privatization of HE and in the deterioration of public universities, due to the lack of appropriate financing among other factors. In spite of this, during the 90s HE grew a great deal. HE reforms in LAC in the last two decades, have been oriented towards the satisfaction of an increasing demand according to World Bank policies and in much lesser degree to the policies recommended by UNESCO in the WCHE (1998). Because of it, these transformations are mainly counter-reforms and not the needed reform of the national public university. This essay provides an outline of the major challenges facing universities throughout the world, This then give context to a discussion on current policy reforms and the future of higher education in Latin and Caribbean nations where enrollment and program growth is robust. This includes: cooperation in networks as an alternative to competition; open content and open knowledge versus privatization and marketing visions of new providers of for-profit higher education; new participative instruments of management, evaluation and accreditation; research aimed at global and local needs simultaneously; a sustainable development vision in order to achieve the millennium goals should be incorporated to curriculum as well as studies on multiculturalism and diversity. |
| Keywords: | Education |
| Date: | 2010–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:cshedu:qt5505n8m3&r=lab |
| By: | Fitzenberger, Bernd; Leuschner, Ute |
| Abstract: | Academic careers in Germany have been under debate for a while. We conduct a survey among postdocs in Germany, to analyze the perceptions and attitudes of postdocs regarding their research incentives, their working conditions, and their career prospects. We conceptualize the career prospects of a postdoc in a life-cycle perspective of transitions from academic training to academic or non-academic jobs. Only about half of the postdocs sees strong incentives for academic research, but there is quite a strong confidence to succeed in an academic career. Furthermore, postdocs who attended a PhD program show better career prospects and higher research incentives compared to others. Academic career prospects and motivation are strongest for assistant professors. Apart from this small group, however, postdocs report only a small impact of the university reforms of the last decade. Female postdocs show significantly higher research incentives but otherwise we find little gender differences. Finally, good prospects in non-academic jobs are not associated with a reduction in the motivation for research. -- |
| Keywords: | Postdocs,Academic Career Prospects,Research Incentives,University Reforms |
| JEL: | A11 A29 I21 I23 J24 J49 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:12020&r=lab |
| By: | Bandiera, Oriana; Barankay, Iwan; Rasul, Imran |
| Abstract: | Many organizations rely on teamwork, and yet field evidence on the impacts of team-based incentives remains scarce. Compared to individual incentives, team incentives can affect productivity by changing both workers’ effort and team composition. We present evidence from a field experiment designed to evaluate the impact of rank incentives and tournaments on the productivity and composition of teams. Strengthening incentives, either through rankings or tournaments, makes workers more likely to form teams with others of similar ability instead of with their friends. Introducing rank incentives however reduces average productivity by 14%, whereas introducing a tournament increases it by 24%. Both effects are heterogeneous: rank incentives only reduce the productivity of teams at the bottom of the productivity distribution, and monetary prize tournaments only increase the productivity of teams at the top. We interpret these results through a theoretical framework that makes precise when the provision of team-based incentives crowds out the productivity enhancing effect of social connections under team production. |
| Keywords: | rank incentives; team-based incentives; teams; tournaments |
| JEL: | D23 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8776&r=lab |