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on Labour Economics |
| By: | John Haltiwanger; Henry Hyatt; Lisa B. Kahn; Erika McEntarfer |
| Abstract: | We study whether workers progress up firm wage and size job ladders, and the cyclicality of this movement. Search theory predicts that workers should flow towards larger, higher paying firms. However, we see little evidence of a firm size ladder, partly because small, young firms poach workers from all other businesses. In contrast, we find strong evidence of a firm wage ladder that is highly procyclical. During the Great Recession, this firm wage ladder collapsed, with net worker reallocation to higher wage firms falling to zero. The earnings consequences from this lack of upward progression are sizable. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J63 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23485&r=lab |
| By: | Bergemann, Annette (University of Bristol, IFAU Uppsala Sweden, IZA); Pohlan, Laura (University of Mannheim, ZEW); Uhlendorff, Arne (CREST, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, IAB, IZA, DIW) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of participation in job creation schemes (JCSs) on job search outcomes in the context of the turbulent East German labor market in the aftermath of the German reunification. High job destruction characterized the economic environment. JCSs were heavily used in order to cushion this development. Using data from 1990–1999 and building upon the timing-of-events approach, we estimate multivariate discrete time duration models taking selection based on both observed and unobserved heterogeneity into account. Our results indicate that after initial negative effects during the typical program duration of twelve months, probably driven by reduced job search effort during participation resulting in a rearrangement of the job queue, the impact on the job finding probability becomes insignificantly positive. Additional results, however, suggest that female and highly skilled participants leave unemployment quicker than other groups, which results in highly skilled women benefiting from participation. In general, we find no significant impact on postunemployment employment stability. Our results are robust to allowing for random treatment effects. Also taking into account endogenous participation in training programs, endogenous censoring, or multiple treatment effects do not change the results. |
| Keywords: | Active labor market policy; job Creation schemes; unemployment duration; employment stability; timing-of-events model; East Germany; transition economy; structural change |
| JEL: | C41 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2017–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2017_007&r=lab |
| By: | Rucker C. Johnson; C. Kirabo Jackson |
| Abstract: | We explore whether early childhood human-capital investments are complementary to those made later in life. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts who were differentially exposed to policy-induced changes in pre-school (Head Start) spending and school-finance-reform-induced changes in public K12 school spending during childhood, depending on place and year of birth. Difference-in-difference instrumental variables and sibling- difference estimates indicate that, for poor children, increases in Head Start spending and increases in public K12 spending each individually increased educational attainment and earnings, and reduced the likelihood of both poverty and incarceration in adulthood. The benefits of Head Start spending were larger when followed by access to better-funded public K12 schools, and the increases in K12 spending were more efficacious for poor children who were exposed to higher levels of Head Start spending during their preschool years. The findings suggest that early investments in the skills of disadvantaged children that are followed by sustained educational investments over time can effectively break the cycle of poverty. |
| JEL: | I20 I24 I28 J20 J68 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23489&r=lab |
| By: | William N. Evans; Daniel Fitzgerald |
| Abstract: | Using data from the 2010-2014 American Community Survey, we use a procedure suggested by Capps et al. (2015) to identify refugees from the larger group of immigrants to examine the outcomes of refugees relocated to the U.S. Among young adults, we show that refugees that enter the U.S. before age 14 graduate high school and enter college at the same rate as natives. Refugees that enter as older teenagers have lower attainment with much of the difference attributable to language barriers and because many in this group are not accompanied by a parent to the U.S. Among refugees that entered the U.S. at ages 18-45, we follow respondents’ outcomes over a 20-year period in a synthetic cohort. Refugees have much lower levels of education and poorer language skills than natives and outcomes are initially poor with low employment, high welfare use and low earnings. Outcomes improve considerably as refugees age. After 6 years in the country, these refugees work at higher rates than natives but they never attain the earning levels of U.S.-born respondents. Using the NBER TAXSIM program, we estimate that refugees pay $21,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits over their first 20 years in the U.S. |
| JEL: | J1 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23498&r=lab |
| By: | Rothe, Thomas (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Wälde, Klaus |
| Abstract: | "The number of unemployed workers in Germany decreased dramatically from its peak in February 2005 at over 5.2 million to 3.6 million by 2008. At the same time, employment increased by 1.2 million. Most theoretical and empirical analyses of this episode assume that a worker leaving unemployment moves into full employment. We ask where the unemployed actually went. Using and merging two large micro data sets, we account for the decrease of unemployment by computing inflows and outflows between unemployment and 16 other labour market states. Direct flows between unemployment and full employment contributed for only less than 9 percent to the decline in unemployment. By contrast, more than 37 percent of the unemployed workers ended up in non-standard work. About 13 percent participated in labour market policy programmes and 28 percent retired. Following the unemployment cohort of February 2005 over time confirms the order of magnitude of our findings." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Arbeitslose, beruflicher Verbleib, atypische Beschäftigung, Abgänger, Beschäftigungsform, berufliche Reintegration, Vollzeitarbeit, arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahme, Rente, Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien, Sozioökonomisches Panel |
| JEL: | J21 J62 J64 |
| Date: | 2017–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201718&r=lab |
| By: | Bramucci, Alessandro; Cirillo, Valeria; Evangelista, Rinaldo; Guarascio, Dario |
| Abstract: | Economies and production systems are subject to incessant processes of structural change fuelled by the dynamics of demand, technology and international competition. The increasing international fragmentation of production, also known as "offshoring", is an important element of such a (global in scale) process of structural change having important implications for employment and on the way employment gains and losses are distributed across firms, industries, national economies and components of the labour force. This paper assesses the employment impact of offshoring, in five European countries (Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom), distinguishing between different types of inputs/tasks offshored, different types of offshoring industries and types of professional groups affected by offshoring. Results provide a rather heterogeneous picture of both offshoring patterns and their effects on labour, and the presence of significant differences across industries. Along with this variety of employment outcomes, the empirical evidence suggests that offshoring activities are mainly driven by a cost reduction (labour saving) rationale. This is particularly the case for the manufacturing industry where offshoring is found to exert a negative impact among the less qualified (manual) or more routinized (clerks) types of jobs, while the main difference between high- and low-technology industries has to do with the type of labour tasks that are offshored and the types of domestic jobs that are affected. In hightech industries the negative effects of offshoring on employment are concentrated among the most qualified professional groups (managers and clerks). A specular pattern is found in the case of the low-tech industries where job losses are associated to the offshoring of the least innovative stages of production and manual workers are those most penalised. |
| Keywords: | Offshoring,Technological change,Employment |
| JEL: | F16 O33 F11 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:882017&r=lab |
| By: | Caroline Freund (Peterson Institute for International Economics); Dario Sidhu (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | Much of the public discourse and media analysis of the surprise outcome of the 2016 US presidential election has emphasized the role of manufacturing workers. This paper examines the importance of manufacturing jobs and job loss as determinants of voting patterns using county-level voting data from recent presidential elections. The share of employment in the manufacturing sector and long-run manufacturing job loss at the county level are not statistically significant in explaining the change in Republican vote shares from 2012 to 2016, when controlling for standard voting determinants. However, the change in the Republican vote share is positively correlated with manufacturing in predominantly white counties and negatively correlated with manufacturing in ethnically diverse counties, with these effects roughly offsetting each other. The paper further shows that this polarization between white and nonwhite manufacturing counties is more closely associated with polarizing candidates than a polarized electorate. |
| Keywords: | identity politics, job loss, voting |
| JEL: | D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp17-7&r=lab |
| By: | Vellore Arthi; Brian Beach; W. Walker Hanlon |
| Abstract: | A large literature following Ruhm (2000) suggests that mortality falls during recessions and rises during booms. The panel-data approach used to generate these results assumes that either there is no substantial migration response to temporary changes in local economic conditions, or that any such response is accurately captured by intercensal population estimates. To assess the importance of these assumptions, we examine two natural experiments: the recession in cotton textile-producing districts of Britain during the U.S. Civil War, and the coal boom in Appalachian counties of the U.S. that followed the OPEC oil embargo in the 1970s. In both settings, we find evidence of a substantial migratory response. Moreover, we show that estimates of the relationship between business cycles and mortality are highly sensitive to assumptions related to migration. After adjusting for migration, we find that mortality increased during the cotton recession, but was largely unaffected by the coal boom. Overall, our results suggest that migration can meaningfully bias estimates of the impact of business-cycle fluctuations on mortality. |
| JEL: | I1 J60 N32 N33 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23507&r=lab |
| By: | Margaryta Klymak (Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the provision of information regarding what foreign goods might be produced with child and forced labor affects imports to the United States. I use three different measures of information revelation: inclusion on the U.S. government's list of goods produced with child or forced labor, a media coverage index and an index composed from reports of the International Labor Organisation. Across all specifications I find no evidence that information provision decreased imports of these goods to the United States. The key policy implication of this finding is that public information strategies without more concrete measures will not act as a large disincentive for countries that export goods made with child and forced labor. |
| Keywords: | international trade, child labor, forced labor, social labelling |
| JEL: | O11 J81 F14 G14 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep1517&r=lab |