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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Bruno, VAN DER LINDEN (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates counselling programmes in an equilibrium matching model where workers are heterogeneous in skill levels. Job search effort, labour demand and wages are endogenous. When wages are bargained over, raising the effectiveness of or the access to counselling programmes pushes wages upwards and leads to lower search effort among nonparticipants. The effects of increasing the access of the low-skilled are evaluated numerically by enlarging sucessively the set of endogenous behaviours. Induced effects outweigh substantial positive micro effects on low-skilled employment when all ‘margins’ are taken into account. The inter-temporal utility of the low-skilled nevertheless increases because search effort declines. On the contrary, when the net wage of the low-skilled is a fixed proportion of the one bargained by the high-skilled, raising the access to counselling programmes has small positive effects on all criteria. |
| Keywords: | Active programmes; labour market policies; evaluation; policy complementarities; wage bargaining; equilibrum unemployment; equilibrium search |
| JEL: | J63 J64 J65 J68 |
| Date: | 2005–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvec:2005007&r=lab |
| By: | Maresa, SPRIETSMA (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics); Fabio, WALTENBERG |
| Abstract: | In this paper we estimate the effect of teachers’ wages on students’ achievement in a developing country. We use test scores of pupils enrolled in the 8th grade of primary school, surveyed in 2001 in Brazil. We regress individual student test scores on gross monthly teacher wages allowing for nonlinearities. Given the strong heterogeneity of Brazilian pupils and teachers, we estimate quantile regressions (QR), which provide, instead of a constant mean coefficient, a detailed characterization of the effect of teachers’ wages on conditional pupils’s scores. For the same reason, we also run separate regressions for private and public schools. We then account for potential endogeneity of teachers’ wages through the estimation of instrumental variables models (IV). Finally, we estimate two-stage least absolute deviation models (2SLAD), that allow us to cope simultaneously with the heterogeneity of the student-teacher relationship and with the endogeneity of teachers’s wages. Our results show that wages of language teachers have a small, but positive and significant effect, on student test scores in private schools, controlling for endogeneity, but that they are insignificant, or even negative, in public schools. We also observe that teacher wages show a decreasing effect as we move along the conditional distribution of scores. The same effects are found for mathematics teachers, but the results are less robust and the coefficients are smaller. |
| Keywords: | economics of education; human capital; resource allocation; eduction production functions; instrumental variables; two-stage least-squares; quatile regression; two-stage least absolute deviation |
| JEL: | I2 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2005–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvec:2005008&r=lab |
| By: | Ana Carolina Ortega Masagué |
| Abstract: | Over the last years, the immigration phenomenon has acquired a notable importance in Spain. Immigrants` insertion in the labor market has become one of the main factors, which will contribute to their social integration. For this reason, it is important to study the labor situation of the immigrant population in Spain, which is the aim of this paper. The data used in the present analysis are drawn from the labor register of the Social Security system and the demands for employment registered in the National Institute of Employment. These sources have some limitations, that are widely compensated for their covery of the immigrant population. When studying the characteristics of the individuals (gender, age, level of studies, nationality) and their employments (sector of activity, occupation), we observe that there are important differences between the immigrants, as well as between them and the Spanish workers. Moreover, there are also significant differences from the geographical distribution point of view. Within the next years, it will be neccesary to continue to look at the foreign workers´s labor reality, easing their integration in the production system in benefit of the society as a whole. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2005-08&r=lab |
| By: | Javier Herrera (DIAL, Paris); Gerardo David Rosas Shady (DIAL, Paris) |
| Abstract: | Traditional labor market analysis based solely on the net unemployment rate fails to explain the apparent paradox between a relatively moderate unemployment rate in Peru (around 10%, with a weak sensibility to wide macroeconomic fluctuations), and the fact that unemployment is one of the major issues in Peru. One possible explanation is that this static indicator of cross section net unemployment balance is compatible with high flows in and out of employment states. To address these issues we needed to conduct a dynamic analysis using panel data. Using the Peruvian national household survey (ENAHO), we constructed a panel of working age individuals at the national level for the period 1997-1999. Like previous work in developing countries, we found that there is an important degree of job mobility in Peru. We also found that most of the transitions occur between employment and inactivity instead of between employment and unemployment. We also showed that the rate of permanent unemployment is very low so that unemployment would be essentially a frictional phenomenon. Further, considering the different transition states, we elaborated an unconditional transition profile, including individual and household characteristics, like gender, age and education levels for example, associated with each transition status. Finally, after examining these labor market transitions and the possible sample selection bias, we estimated a multinomial logit model. This model allowed us to appreciate the (conditional) incidence of individual and household characteristics as well as the effects of different shocks on the labor transition states. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:109&r=lab |
| By: | Due-Andresen, Kari (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | A Box-Cox structural utility model is estimated on tax evasion survey data and it is shown that this model gives a better representation of individual utility maximizing behavior than a flexible model, represented by a polynomial of degree 3. It is found that an overall wage increase has a positive impact on hours worked in the regular part of the economy and a negative impact on hours work in the irregular part. |
| Keywords: | Labor Supply; Tax Evasion; Survey Data; Microeconometrics |
| JEL: | C25 D12 D81 H26 J22 |
| Date: | 2005–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:osloec:2005_011&r=lab |
| By: | Conny Wunsch |
| Abstract: | Almost 15 years after Unification in 1990, Germany is still struggling with the economic consequences of this event. Although the East German economy has made considerable progress since its near-collapse after the German monetary, economic and social union in July 1990, the East German labour market has not yet recovered. Western Germany, which had to bear a substantial part of the fiscal cost of German Unification, is also faced with high unemployment though the rate is considerably lower than in the Eastern part. Expenditure for activation measures and income support during unemployment is substantial and one of the highest among OECD countries. In response to exploding cost of unemployment and continuing public pressure to solve the unemployment problem, the German Federal Government has started the largest social policy reform in the history of the Federal Republic. This paper reconstructs the development of the German labour market and the stepwise reform of German labour market policy since German Unification in 1990. It provides a detailed description of the instruments of German active labour market policy and reviews the existing econometric evidence on their effectiveness. |
| JEL: | J68 |
| Date: | 2005–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2005:2005-06&r=lab |
| By: | W.D. McCausland (University of Aberdeen); K. Pouliakas (University of Aberdeen); I. Theodossiou (University of Aberdeen) |
| Abstract: | Using an econometric procedure that corrects for both self-selection of individuals into their preferred compensation scheme and wage endogeneity, this study investigates whether significant differences exist in the job satisfaction of individuals receiving performance- related pay (PRP) compared to those on alternative compensation plans. Using data from four waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), it is found that PRP exerts a positive effect on the mean job satisfaction of (very) high-paid workers only. A potential explanation for this pattern could be that for lower-paid employees PRP is perceived to be controlling, whereas higher-paid workers derive a utility benefit from what they regard as supportive reward schemes. Using PRP as an incentive device in the UK could therefore be counterproductive in the long run for certain low-paid occupations. |
| Keywords: | Performance-related pay, job satisfaction, self-selection |
| JEL: | J28 J33 |
| Date: | 2005–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0505019&r=lab |
| By: | Olga Alonso-Villar (Dpto. de Economia Aplicada. Universidad de Vigo) |
| Abstract: | There is no doubt that people like to migrate to large cities because they can acquire a wider range of products and jobs, but also because they can exchange information and ideas in an easier way. In this respect, we will attempt to explain the formation of metropolitan areas through a general equilibrium model in which concentration emerges not only from the interaction between increasing returns to scale at the rm level, transport costs and the mobility of labor, but also from human capital externalities. Our aim is to underline the role of human capital as a factor that fosters both the agglomeration of the economic activity and cities' growth. The paper shows that there is new scope for government activities. |
| Keywords: | Monopolistic Competition; Agglomeration; Human Capital; Education |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0008&r=lab |