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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Matteo PICCHIO (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Economia) |
| Abstract: | The focus of this paper is to analyse the wage effects of temporary jobs using the 2000 and 2002 waves of the Survey of Italian Households' Income and Wealth (SHIW). Exploiting the short longitudinal dimension of the survey and taking into account of individual- and job-specific unobservable components results in an estimated wage penalty for temporary workers of about 12-13%. Furthermore, there is evidence of higher wage returns to seniority for temporary workers, generating a reduction in the wage gap by about 2.3 percentage points after one year of tenure. |
| Keywords: | individual effects, job effetcs, returns to seniority, temporary employment, wage differentials |
| JEL: | C23 J31 M51 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:268&r=lab |
| By: | Hunnes, Arngrim (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Møen, Jarle (Dept. of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | To what extent do different firms follow different wage policies? How do such policies affect worker mobility between firms, and what are the effects of different wage bargaining regimes? The empirical branch of personnel economics has long been hampered by a lack of representative data sets. Norway is one of a handful of countries that has produced rich linked employer–employee data suitable for such analysis. This paper has three parts. First, we describe the wage setting and employment protection institutions in Norway. Next, we describe the Norwegian data sets. Finally, we document a large number of stylized facts regarding wage structure and labor mobility within and between Norwegian firms. Our main data set covers white-collar workers in the manufacturing and private sectors for the period 1980–1997. We also have blue-collar data for the 1986–1997 period covering the core of the manufacturing sector. Information about occupations, monthly wages, hours worked and bonuses is available, as well as various worker and firm characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Wage Structure; Labor Mobility |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2005–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2005_003&r=lab |
| By: | William T. Dickens (The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.); Lorenz Goette (University of Zurich); Erica L. Groshen (Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn); Steinar Holden (University of Oslo; Research Fellow, Center for Economic Studies--Information and Forschung Institute (CESifo), Munich); Julian Messina (European Central Bank; Universitat de Girona, Italy; Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), Università di Salerno, Italy); Mark E. Schweitzer (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ohio); Jarkko Turunen (European Central Bank); Melanie E. Ward (European Central Bank; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn) |
| Abstract: | How do the complex institutions involved in wage setting affect wage changes? The International Wage Flexibility Project provides new microeconomic evidence on how wages change for continuing workers. We analyze individuals’ earnings in 31 different data sets from sixteen countries, from which we obtain a total of 360 wage change distributions. We find a remarkable amount of variation in wage changes across workers. Wage changes have a notably non-normal distribution; they are tightly clustered around the median and also have many extreme values. Furthermore, nearly all countries show asymmetry in their wage distributions below the median. Indeed, we find evidence of both downward nominal and real wage rigidities. We also find that the extent of both these rigidities varies substantially across countries. Our results suggest that variations in the extent of union presence in wage bargaining play a role in explaining differing degrees of rigidities among countries |
| Keywords: | Wage setting, Wage change distributions, Downward nominal wage rigidity, Downward real wage rigidity |
| JEL: | E3 J3 J5 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:200610-8&r=lab |
| By: | Pavlopoulos, Dimitris; Fouarge, Didier |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the wage and employment perspectives of low-wage labour market entrants, using panel data from the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany. We apply a competing risks hazard model of transitions from low pay to higher pay, to unemployment or to inactivity. Low pay is found to be a rather transitory experience. However, a significant amount of transitions between low pay and non-employment is indicated. Exits from low-pay seem to be determined by firm-specific skills in the UK and the Netherlands, while by formal educational and vocational training qualifications in Germany. |
| Keywords: | low pay; competing risks; panel data |
| JEL: | J3 C41 J31 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:226&r=lab |
| By: | Dorothea Alewell (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Chair for Business Administration, Human Resource Management and Organization); Andreas Nicklisch (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | Recent experimental literature in labor economics shows that fairness concerns make a substantial difference for working decisions. Our study systematically explores how the existence of multiple fairness foci influences wage setting and acceptance thresholds. Particularly, we focus on the effect of horizontal fairness concerns, i.e., the wage comparison among employees. For our experiment, we use an institutional design of wage negotiations among employers, employees and temporary agency workers. Working agencies hire these workers and rent them out to firms. Thereby, we create a heterogeneous background of the labour force. Although temporary agency workers do the same work, typically, they receive lower wages due to the intermediate agency. The results of our laboratory experiments indicate that the availability of information concerning co-employee’s wage offers strongly influences the wage set and participants’ acceptance of contracts. Whereas the relation of average wages is not influenced by the order of the decisions, the absolute level of wages is dependent on the decisions. We find that temporary agency workers who decide on a wage offer after permanent employees receive a premium in addition to their wages, while permanent employees take a cut in wages if they get their wage offer after temporary workers have decided on their offers. These results are more influenced by self-regarding social comparison preferences than by other-regarding horizontal fairness concerns. |
| Keywords: | Experimental economics, horizontal fairness norms, labour economics, social preferences, vertical fairness norms |
| JEL: | C92 J33 M12 M52 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2006_8&r=lab |
| By: | Robert Plasman (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Department of Applied Economics (DULBEA)); François Rycx (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Department of Applied Economics (DULBEA); IZA-Bonn); Ilan Tojerow (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Department of Applied Economics (DULBEA); IZA-Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering the period 1995-2002. Findings show the existence of large and persistent wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics and working conditions, employed in different sectors. The hypothesis that workers with better unmeasured abilities are over-represented in high-wage sectors may not be rejected on the basis of Martins’ (2004) methodology. However, the contribution of this explanation to the observed industry wage differentials appears to be limited. Further results show that ceteris paribus, workers earn significantly higher wages when employed in more profitable firms. Our instrumented wage-profit elasticity stands at 0.063 and Lester’s range of pay is about 41 per cent of the mean wage. This rent-sharing phenomenon accounts for a large fraction of the industry wage differentials. We find indeed that the magnitude, dispersion and significance of industry wage differentials decreases sharply when controlling for profits. |
| Keywords: | Industry wage differentials; Unobserved heterogeneity; Rent-sharing; Matched employer-employee data; Quantile regressions |
| JEL: | D31 J31 J41 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:200610-2&r=lab |
| By: | Virén , Matti (University of Turku and Bank of Finland) |
| Abstract: | An obvious answer to this question is the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis originally proposed by Zwi Griliches (1969). But the relatively poor performance of this hypothesis suggests that other explanations are needed. Here we consider the labour union behaviour in the wage bargaining process as such an alternative. The explanation is based on the observation that capital intensive companies are more vulnerable to strike threats and may thus more easily give in for union wage demand. Thus, the bargaining power of unions is related to the capital-labour ratio. This paper provides some tests for these hypotheses with panel data for Finnish companies. The results give support to the wage bargaining hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | wages; bargaining; wage distribution; panel data |
| JEL: | J31 J51 |
| Date: | 2005–02–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofrdp:2005_005&r=lab |
| By: | van Ours, Jan C.; Vodopivec, Milan |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the potential duration of unemployment benefits affects the quality of post-unemployment jobs. It takes advantage of a natural experiment introduced by a change in Slovenia ' s unemployment insurance law that substantially reduced the potential benefit duration. Although this reduction strongly increased job finding rates, the quality of the post-unemployment jobs remained unaffected. The paper finds that the law change had no effect on the type of contract (temporary versus permanent), the duration of the post-unemployment job, or the wage earned in the job. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Youth and Governance,Economic Theory & Research,Social Protections & Assistance,Social Risk Management |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4031&r=lab |
| By: | Domeij, David (Dept. of Economic Statistics, Stockholm School of Economics); Ljungqvist, Lars (Dept. of Economic Statistics, Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Swedish census data and tax records reveal an astonishing wage compression; the Swedish skill premium fell by more than 30 percent between 1970 and 1990 while the U.S. skill premium, after an initial decline in the 1970s, rose by 8--10 percent. Since then both skill premia have increased by around 10 percentage points in 2002. Theories that equalize wages with marginal products can rationalize these disparate outcomes when we replace commonly used measures of total labor supplies by private sector employment. Our analysis suggests that the dramatic decline of the skill premium in Sweden is the result of an expanding public sector that today comprises roughly one third of the labor force, and that expansion has largely taken the form of drawing low-skilled workers into local government jobs that service the welfare state. |
| Keywords: | Skill premium; employment; private sector; public sector; Sweden; United States. |
| JEL: | E24 J31 |
| Date: | 2006–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hastef:0638&r=lab |
| By: | Alberto Alesina; Joseph Zeira |
| Abstract: | Many low skilled jobs have been substituted away for machines in Europe, or eliminated, much more so than in the US, while technological progress at the "top," i.e., at the high-tech sector, is faster in the US than in Europe. This paper suggests that the main difference between Europe and the US in this respect is their different labor market policies. European countries reduce wage flexibility and inequality through a host of labor market regulations, like binding minimum-wage laws, permanent unemployment subsidies, firing costs, etc. Such policies create incentives to develop and adopt labor-saving capital intensive technologies at the low end of the skill distribution. At the same time technical progress in the US is more skill biased than in Europe, since American skilled wages are higher. |
| JEL: | O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12581&r=lab |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Marilena Locatelli |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present important empirical evidence regarding recent trends in women’s participation and fertility in European countries, and provide several interpretations of the differences across countries. Several recent analyses have considered labour supply and fertility as a joint decision and have explicitly taken into account the endogeneity of fertility in labour market participation decisions of women. We survey microeconomic analyses that explore the impact of social policies on the joint decisions of labor market participation and fertility. The results of most analyses indicate that social policies, taking into account several variables (family background, the allocation of time within the household, religion and culture), have a very relevant role in explaining different degrees of incompatibility between employment and child rearing across different countries. The incompatibilities between motherhood and careers find reconciliation in policies that enhance employment flexibility and diminish the potential opportunity costs of children. |
| Keywords: | Labor Market Decisions, Fertility, Child care, Family Policies |
| JEL: | J2 C3 D1 H31 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpc:wplist:wp15_06&r=lab |
| By: | Pavlopoulos, Dimitris; Muffels, Ruud; Vermunt, Jeroen-K. |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate cross-country differences in wage mobility in Europe using the European Community Household Panel. The paper is particularly focused on examining the impact of economic conditions, welfare state regimes and employment regulation on wage mobility. We apply a log-linear approach that is very much similar to a restricted multinomial logit model and much more flexible than the standard probit approach. It appears that regime, economic conditions and employment regulation explain a substantial part of the cross-country variation. The findings also confirm the existence of an inverse U-shape pattern of wage mobility, showing a great deal of low and high-wage persistence in all countries. |
| Keywords: | wages; wage mobility; wage dynamics; multinomial logit regression; loglinear models; welfare states |
| JEL: | J3 C19 J31 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:229&r=lab |
| By: | Bruno L. s. Falcão (Yale University); Rodrigo Reis Soares (Department of Economics PUC-Rio) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a theory where increases in female labor force participation and reductions in the gender wage-gap are generated as part of a single process of demographic transition, characterized by reductions in mortality and fertility. The paper suggests a link between changes in mortality and transformations in the role of women in society that has not been identified before in the literature. Mortality reductions affect the incentives of individuals to invest in human capital and to have children. Particularly, gains in adult longevity reduce fertility, increase investments in market human capital, increase female labor force participation, and reduce the wage differential between men and women. Child mortality reductions, though reducing fertility, do not generate this same pattern of changes. The model reconciles the increase in female labor market participation with the timing of age-specific mortality reductions observed during the demographic transition. It generates changes in fertility, labor market attachment, and the gender wage-gap as part of a single process of social transformation, triggered by reductions in mortality. |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rio:texdis:528&r=lab |
| By: | Berggren, Niclas (The Ratio Institute); Jordahl, Henrik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics); Poutvaara, Panu (University of Helsinki) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of beauty in politics. For the first time, focus is put on differences in how women and men evaluate female and male candidates and how different candidate traits relate to success in real and hypothetical elections. We have collected 16,218 assessments by 2,772 respondents of photos of 1,929 Finnish political candidates. Evaluations of beauty explain success in real elections better than evaluations of competence, intelligence, likability, or trustworthiness. The beauty premium is larger for female candidates, in contrast to findings in previous labor-market studies. |
| Keywords: | Beauty; Gender; Elections; Political candidates; Beauty premium |
| JEL: | D72 J45 J70 |
| Date: | 2006–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0671&r=lab |
| By: | Enriqueta Camps; Maria Camou; Silvana Maubrigades; Natalia Mora-Sitja |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse the reasons behind the evolution of the gender gap and wage inequality in South and East Asian and Latin American countries. Health human capital improvements, the exposure to free market openness and equal treatment enforcement laws seem to be the main exogenous variables affecting women’s economic condition. During the second globalization era (in the years 1975-2000) different combinations of these variables in South East Asian and Latin American countries have had as a result the diminution of the gender gap. The main exception to this rule according to our data is China where economic reforms have been simultaneous to the increase of gender differences and inequality between men and women. This result has further normative consequences for the measure of economic inequality. The improvement of women’s condition has as a result the diminution of the dispersion of wages. Therefore in most of the countries analysed the consequence of the diminution of the gender gapduring the second global era is the decrease of wage inequality both measured with Gini and Theil indexes. |
| Keywords: | Wage inequality, gender gap, market openness, human capital |
| JEL: | J22 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2006–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:970&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas F. Crossley; Jeremiah Hurley; Sung-Hee Jeon |
| Abstract: | This paper employs cohort analysis to examine the relative importance of different factors in explaining changes in the number of hours spent in direct patient care by Canadian general/ family practitioners (GP/FPs) over the period 1982 to 2002. Cohorts are defined by year of graduation from medical school. The results for male GP/FPs indicate that: there is little age effect on hours of direct patient care, especially among physicians aged 35 to 55; there is no strong cohort effect on hours of direct patient care; but there is a secular decline in hours of direct patient care over the period. The results for female GP/FPs indicate that: female physicians on average work fewer hours than male physicians; there is a clear age effect on hours of direct patient care; there is no strong cohort effect; there has been little secular change in average hours of direct patient care. The changing behaviour of male GP/FPs accounted for a greater proportion of the overall decline in hours of direct patient care from the 80’s through the mid 90’s than did the growing proportion of female GP/FPs in the physician stock. |
| Keywords: | physician, labour supply, hours, cohorts |
| JEL: | I11 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:sedapp:162&r=lab |
| By: | Michael Lechner; Conny Wunsch |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database coming from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that over a horizon of 2.5 years after programme start the programmes fail to increase the employment chances of their participants in the regular labour market. However, the programmes may have other effects for their participants that may be considered important in the especially difficult situation experienced in the East German labour market. |
| Keywords: | Matching estimation, causal effects, programme evaluation, panel data |
| JEL: | J |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2006:2006-24&r=lab |
| By: | Karen Jaehrling (IAT - Institut Arbeit und Technik - [Universität der Arbeit]); Philippe Méhaut (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - [CNRS : UMR6123] - [Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I][Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II]) |
| Abstract: | The paper is a very preliminary step to analyse and discuss theses questions in the specific field of the health care sector, in a comparative perspective between Germany and France. It is based on data and preliminary case studies gathered in the framework of the “Future of Low Wage Work in Europe” research, done in European countries for the Russell Sage Foundation. Focusing on the Hospital sector, and on low wage/low skilled occupations within the sector has advantages and difficulties. On the one hand, one can argue that the specificities of the sector (public activity, public regulations) are too high to arrive at conclusions on the process of change in the whole economy. But on the other hand, the health financing system and other recent developments exert similar pressures as in other industries and lead to similar reactions and changes in the competitive structures (section 1). And focusing on low level occupations allows us to escape (or to be at the margin) of the occupational and medical rules governing other occupations in the sector (such as doctors and nurses): it is the lowest segment of the hospitals labour force where hospitals compete on the labour market with other activities (cleaning, home personal care for example). A study of the low skill/low wage sector of the labour market also profits from the fact that this segment is often said to be more exposed to the change. Another advantage is that the high level of female employment in this industry is representative of one of the main changes within the employment structure, and of what is often regarded as the main deregulated (or at risk of deregulation) segment of the labour force. Section 2 will investigate the various institutional rules, which characterized the previous employment system within hospitals. Section 3 will present and discuss the main changes affecting the employment relationship and the way by which, in the two countries, institutional frameworks are transformed, bypassed and/or unchanging. We will particularly compare wage levels and structures and the proliferation of ‘atypical' employment. |
| Keywords: | Hôpital; Secteur public; Emploi; Condition de travail; Bas salaire; Relation professionnelle; Comparaison; France; Allemagne |
| Date: | 2006–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00096307_v1&r=lab |
| By: | Patrinos, Harry Anthony; Ridao-Cano, Cris; Sakellariou, Chris |
| Abstract: | Typically estimates of the benefits of education investments show average private rates of return for the average individual. The average may not be useful for policy. An examination of the distribution of the returns across individuals is needed. The few studies that have examined these patterns focus on high-income countries, showing investments to be more profitable at the top of the income distribution. The implication is that investments may increase inequality. Extending the analysis to 16 East Asian and Latin American countries the authors observe mixed evidence in middle-income countries and decreasing returns in low-income countries. Such differences between countries could be due to more job mobility in industrial countries, scarcity of skills, or differential exposure to market forces. |
| Keywords: | Access & Equity in Basic Education,Education For All,Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Education and Society |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4040&r=lab |
| By: | F. Daveri; M. Maliranta |
| Abstract: | Is the process of workforce aging a burden or a blessing for the firm? Our paper seeks to answer this question by providing evidence on the ageproductivity and age-earnings profiles for a sample of plants in three manufacturing industries (“forest”, “industrial machinery” and “electronics”) in Finland. Our main result is that exposure to rapid technological and managerial changes does make a difference for plant productivity, less so for wages. In electronics, the Finnish industry undergoing a major technological and managerial shock in the 1990s, the response of productivity to age-related variables is first sizably positive and then becomes sizably negative as one looks at plants with higher average seniority and experience. This declining part of the curve is not there either for the forest industry or for industrial machinery. It is not there either for wages in electronics. These conclusions survive when a host of other plausible productivity determinants (notably, education and plant vintage) are included in the analysis. We conclude that workforce aging may be a burden for firms in high-tech industries and less so in other industries. |
| Keywords: | Aging, technology, TFP, wage determination, Finland, new economy, growth |
| JEL: | D24 J24 J31 E60 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:par:dipeco:2006-ep07&r=lab |
| By: | Hvide, Hans K. (University of Aberdeen Business School); Kristiansen, Eirik G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | We study how complementarities and intellectual property rights affect the management of knowledge workers. The main results relay when a firm will wish to sue workers that leave with innovative ideas, and the effects of complementary assets on wages and on worker initiative. We argue that firms strongly protected by property rights may not sue leaving workers in order to motivate effort, while firms weakly protected by complementary assets must sue in order to obtain positive profits. Firms with more complementary assets pay higher wages (and have lower turnover), but such higher pay has a detrimental effect on worker initiative. Our analysis suggests that strengthened property rights protection reduces turnover costs but weakens worker initiative. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Innovation; IPP; Litigation; Personnel economics; R&D; Start-ups |
| JEL: | K41 M13 M50 O32 |
| Date: | 2006–08–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2006_007&r=lab |
| By: | Skoufias, Emmanuel; Shapiro, Joseph |
| Abstract: | The authors evaluate whether increasing school resources and decentralizing management decisions at the school level improves learning in a developing country. Mexico ' s Quality Schools Program (PEC), following many other countries and U.S. states, offers US$15,000 grants for public schools to implement five-year improvement plans that the school ' s staff and community design. Using a three-year panel of 74,700 schools, the authors estimate the impact of the PEC on dropout, repetition, and failure using two common nonexperimental methods-regression analysis and propensity score matching. The methods provide similar but nonidentical results. The preferred estimator, difference-in-differences with matching, reveals that participation in the PEC decreases dropout by 0.24 percentage points, failure by 0.24 percentage points, and repetition by 0.31 percentage points-an economically small but statistically significant impact. The PEC lacks measurable impact on outcomes in indigenous schools. The results suggest that a combination of increased resources and local management can produce small improvements in school outcomes, though perhaps not in the most troubled school systems. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Education For All,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Secondary Education |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4036&r=lab |
| By: | Jaag, Christian |
| Abstract: | This paper considers hidden teacher effort in educational production and discusses the implications of multiple teacher effort dimensions on optimum incentive contracts in a theoretical framework. The analysis of educational production in a multitask framework is a new and unique contribution of this paper to the economics of education. We first characterize the first-best and second-best outcomes. The model is extended to address specific questions concerning teacher incentive schemes: We compare input- to output-based accountability measures and study the implication of the level of aggregation in performance measures. Against the background of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of teacher incentives, we argue that performance measures should be as broad as possible. Further, we present the optimum contract for motivated teachers. Finally, if education is produced in teacher teams, we establish the conditions for optimum team-based and individual incentives: The larger the spillover effects across teacher efforts and the better the measurability of educational achievement, the stronger the case for team-based incentives. |
| JEL: | M52 I21 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:340&r=lab |
| By: | Kitty Stewart; Carmen Huerta; UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre |
| Abstract: | Economic collapse in the former Communist bloc led to soaring levels of child poverty in the 1990s. The effects of rising unemployment, underemployment and wage arrears were exacerbated by the erosion of state support for families with children as governments responded to a collapse in revenue. Since 1998, even the poorer countries of the bloc - those in South Eastern Europe and the CIS - have seen a return to economic growth. But have the benefits of growth been felt by children? Are child support policies being restored or restructured as economic conditions improve, and to what effect? This paper examines three aspects of government support for the youngest children – maternity leave policy, child and family allowances and pre-school/nursery provision. The paper calls for governments and donors to pay greater attention to the needs of very young children. It calls for a substantial increase in public spending on each of these policy areas, and it further recommends that governments (a) introduce proxy means tests to improve the targeting of family allowances; (b) make maternity benefit available on a social assistance as well as a social insurance basis; and (c) make a commitment to ensuring that all 3-5 year olds have free access to some early years education each week, albeit on a part-time basis. |
| Keywords: | Child Poverty; Family Income;; Baltic States; Russia; |
| JEL: | J12 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa06/34&r=lab |