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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Maida Agata (University of Turin); Devicienti Francesco; Sestito Paolo |
| Abstract: | We estimate the degree of downward wage rigidity in ItaIy using a micro-econometric model in which wages may be subject to both nominal and real downward rigidities. We lise the recently released Worker History Italian Panel (WHIP), an administrative individual-level data set covering both the high-inflation and automatic-indexation regime prevailing before the 1990s, and the regime that emerged after the indexation system was dismantled. Overall, we fmd a sizable amount of downward rigidities, downward real wage rigidity being much more relevant than downward nominal wage rigidity. aver time, downward rigidities bave become less important, with the reduction in real rigidities more than offsetting the rise in nominaI rigidities. This pattern is consistent with the labour market reforms Italy experienced and specifically with the abolition of the automatic price-indexation clause. In arder to verify the robustness of these results we aIso explore an identification strategy in which the reaI rigidity threshold, instead of being centred around price inflation far aII workers, is centred around the wage rise specificaIly dictated far each worker by the relevant industry-wide national collective contract. Our main results afe broadly confmned. Equipped with these more precisely identified measures of downward rigidities, we further explore their relationship with severaI labour market outcomes. We fmd that downward wage rigidities afe positively related to fmn turnover - which we interpret in terms of employment adjustments substituting far wage adjustments - and local unemployment rates - which hints at the macroeconomic relevance of our micro-based rigidity measures. |
| Date: | 2005–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:200503&r=lab |
| By: | Budria, Santiago |
| Abstract: | International evidence shows that returns to education are increasing when moving up along the wage distribution. While researchers have focused on the inequality implications of this finding, little attention has been paid to its causes. This paper asks whether the over-education phenomenon is responsible for the observed pattern. To that purpose, recent data from the European Community Household Panel and several measures of over-education based on the worker’s self-assessment are used. The results show that over-education is not a convincing explanation. |
| Keywords: | Returns to education; over-education; quantile regression |
| JEL: | C29 D31 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:92&r=lab |
| By: | Al-Samarrai, Samer; Reilly, Barry |
| Abstract: | The empirical evidence on the earnings of educated groups in Tanzania is limited. This study uses a recently completed tracer survey of secondary school completers to analyse the impact of educational qualifications on labour market earnings. Our findings suggest that the rates of return to the highest educational qualifications for wage employees are not negligible and, at the margin, provide an investment incentive. However, we find little evidence of human capital effects in the earnings determination process for the self-employment sector. Information contained in the tracer survey allowed the introduction of controls for father’s educational background and a set of school fixed effects designed to proxy for school quality and potential labour market network effects. Our analysis reveals that the inclusion of these controls in the earnings determination process is important and tends to reduce the estimated rates of return to educational qualifications. A comparison of our results with the available evidence from other countries in the region suggest that despite an extremely small secondary and university education system the private rates of return to education in the Tanzanian wage employment sector are comparatively low. |
| Keywords: | education; labour markets; school leavers |
| JEL: | J31 I2 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129&r=lab |
| By: | Maida Agata (University of Turin); Devicienti Francesco; Pacelli Lia |
| Abstract: | We show that the Italian wage curve, inexistent in the eighties and early nineties, has reemerged after the 1993 Income Policy Agreements, owing to the greater mIe granted to fiexible and Iocally bargained top-up wage components. |
| Date: | 2005–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:200502&r=lab |
| By: | Joyce P. Jacobsen (Economics Department, Wesleyan University) |
| Abstract: | The “tipping” phenomenon, whereby an occupation switches from dominance by one demographic group to dominance by another, has occurred in various occupations. Multiple causes have been suggested for such switches, including several related to technological change, both through effects on the performance of the work and through the effect of changing demand for different occupations. The court reporting occupation provides a novel setting for testing the relevance of various proposed causes for the increased feminization of many occupations. In this case, many of the general correlates, including declining wages, are not found; rather the phenomenon is related to the earlier feminization of the clerical workforce and the increased identification of court reporting with clerical work. |
| Keywords: | occupational segregation, court reporting, gender wage differentials |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wes:weswpa:2005-005&r=lab |
| By: | Jorge Galán Camacho; Miguel Sarmiento Paipilla |
| Abstract: | During the period 2000-2004 central banks sustained a generalized reduction in their staff, which was accompanied, in most cases, with significant increases in staff costs. This could obey to an enhanced interest of central banks in focusing on their core functions. In fact, central banks have changed the ways they perform their operative functions (e.g. currency operations, payment systems operation, printing notes, etc.) through different strategies aimed at gathering the participation of third parties. These strategies differ according to the relationship that central banks have with the financial sector and the government, as well as to their historical tradition and modernization trend. To explain the effect of these changes on the staff, we estimated a short-term labor demand function for 66 central banks using a panel data model with random effects. Results indicate that central banks’ labor demand is strongly determined by the country’s population, economic development level and changes in operative functions, as well as by staff costs. In addition, we found a low employment-wage elasticity suggesting the presence of a flexible budgetary constrain in central banks. |
| Keywords: | Central Banking, Labor Demand, Modernization, Functions, Staff Costs, Panel Data, Random Effects. Classification JEL: E50; J23; J30; C33 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:419&r=lab |
| By: | Wong, Poh Kam; Lee, Lena; Leung, Aegean |
| Abstract: | Prior studies have found that job dissatisfaction and self-efficacy are significant factors influencing individuals’ entrepreneurial propensity. Existing literature on entrepreneurship often regards job dissatisfaction as an entrepreneurial push factor and self-efficacy as an entrepreneurial pull factor. The argument is that individuals who are dissatisfied with their jobs are more likely to seek alternative mode of employment such as self-employment. In other words, poor job circumstances may push individuals to leave their paid employment to start their own businesses. On the other hand, personal abilities such as self-efficacy may pull individuals toward starting their own businesses in areas where they are confident and competent in. Despite the importance of job dissatisfaction and self-efficacy for new venture creation, few if any studies have examined the entrepreneurial phenomena from a holistic perspective. Utilizing concepts from the P-E fit and self-efficacy literatures, this paper argues that the path to entrepreneurship is a multi-faceted interactive process between individuals’ personal attributes and their work environment. We specifically examined how IT professional’s personal attributes such as innovation orientation and self-efficacy condition individuals for an entrepreneurial career in unsatisfactory work environments. |
| JEL: | M2 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:596&r=lab |
| By: | Carone, Giuseppe; Denis, Cécile; Mc Morrow, Kieran; Mourre, Gilles; Röger, Werner |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the results of long run labour productivity and GDP growth rate projections (until 2050) for each of the 25 EU Member States and provides a detailed overview of the forecast methodology used. These projections were undertaken in order to provide an internationally comparable macroeconomic framework against which to assess the potential economic and fiscal effects of ageing populations. The projections presented in this paper, using a common production function methodology for all 25 countries, show the GDP growth rate effects of an assumptions-driven extrapolation of recent trends in employment and labour productivity. These base case projections reflect the working assumption of “no policy change”.Various sensitivity tests are carried out to check the GDP per capita impact of some factors which have been excluded from the baseline scenario for reasons of simplicity or because of a lack of consensus in the academic literature. Some of the interesting conclusions that emerge from these sensitivity tests include : • Firstly, the GDP per capita impact of changes in the participation rate assumption used in the projections is much greater than for assumed changes in the share of part-time employment (i.e. in average hours worked per worker). • Secondly, the negative effect of a change in the age-structure of the population is fairly limited, although it is accepted that the labour productivity of an individual is likely to decline after the age of 55. A very strong fall in the productivity of older workers compared with that of prime-age workers would be required to significantly depress total labour productivity. Such an outcome, on the basis of current evidence, appears rather unlikely. • Thirdly, changing the TFP growth rate targets (e.g. use of the 1990’s average instead of the long-term 1970-2004 average) could strongly affect the projections. • Finally, an assumption of productivity convergence in levels substantially alters the projections for most EU10 countries but leaves the EU15 almost unchanged. JEL classific |
| Keywords: | Productivity; ageing; long-term projections; production function; labour productivity; older workers |
| JEL: | J1 O47 J21 H55 J26 D24 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:744&r=lab |
| By: | Mário Centeno; Márcio Corrêa |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2006:159&r=lab |
| By: | Al-Samarrai, Samer; Zaman, Hassan |
| Abstract: | In 1994, the newly elected Government in Malawi abolished primary school fees. Using household survey data from 1990/91 and 1997/98 this paper assesses the impact this major policy change, combined with increased Government spending on education, has had on access to schooling by the poor. This paper shows that enrolment rates have increased dramatically over the 1990s, at both the primary and secondary levels, and that crucially these gains have been greatest for the poor. In order to sustain and build-on these gains the paper suggests cutting back on the informal ‘contributions’ that are widely prevalent in primary school and improving the allocation of secondary school funding. Furthermore, the focus of policy reform, particularly at primary, should shift towards raising the quality of education. Finally the paper argues that careful advance planning and piloting of the reform in selected areas are useful strategies that other countries considering abolishing primary school fees could take to cope with the associated surge in enrolments. |
| Keywords: | Malawi; education; fee abolition; incidence analyis |
| JEL: | I22 I38 H52 |
| Date: | 2000 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:130&r=lab |
| By: | Márcio Corrêa; Mário Centeno |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2006:166&r=lab |
| By: | Feng, Li |
| Abstract: | Increases in the school-age population, maximum class size requirements in various states and the No Child Left Behind Act’s mandate of a “highly qualified teacher” in every classroom collectively will increase the demand for teachers. However, public school teachers are exiting the profession in large numbers. This poses a serious challenge for policymakers. In this paper I analyze the determinants of teacher attrition using matched teacher-student class-level information for all Florida public school teachers. In addition to teacher demographics and school characteristics employed in previous studies, I include a number of variables measuring the characteristics of the specific students assigned to each teacher. The results indicate that classroom characteristics, such as students’ performance on standardized tests and the average number of disciplinary incidents, play a larger role than school average student characteristics in determining teacher attrition. Teacher pay has a positive influence on retention, while the results for class size are mixed. There is also some evidence that more able teachers are more likely to exit the teaching profession. These findings suggest that in addition to salary, classroom assignment is an important factor when considering policies to promote teacher retention and teacher quality. |
| Keywords: | Teacher Turnover; Classroom Environment; Students' Test Scores |
| JEL: | J63 J45 I21 |
| Date: | 2005–11–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:589&r=lab |