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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Bergemann, Annette (Free University Amsterdam); van den Berg, Gerard (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evauation) |
| Abstract: | We survey the recent literature on the effects of active labor market policies on individual labor market outcomes like employment and income, for adult female individuals without work in European countries. We consider skill-training programs, monitoring and sanctions, job search assistance, and employment subsidies. The results are remarkably uniform across studies. We relate the results to the relevant level of female labor force participation. |
| Keywords: | Job search; female labor supply; wages; unemployment; schooling; training; monitoring; participation |
| JEL: | J64 |
| Date: | 2007–02–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2007_003&r=lab |
| By: | Zhang, Xuelin |
| Abstract: | Female workers are traditionally viewed as more likely to quit, to be absent and to take more days of absence than male workers, and this gender difference is widely used as an important explanation for the gender wage gap and other labour market differences between men and women. This study documents the gender differences in quits and absenteeism in Canada and attempts to assess whether the traditional view is still valid today. The study found that Canadian women's quitting behaviour changed dramatically over the past two decades. While women's permanent quit rate was greater than that of men in the 1980s, it converged with men's permanent quit rate since the early 1990s, and today there does not seem to be any significant difference in quitting behaviour between Canadian men and women. In terms of absenteeism, it was found that, other things being equal, Canadian men and women were somewhat different in paid sick leave, not in other paid and unpaid leaves, and their difference in paid sick leave was not large: women took only one day more than men. Taken together, these results imply that, in Canada, the current gender differences in quits and absenteeism are not significant factors to explain certain gender differences in labour market outcomes, such as the wage gap between men and women. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Labour mobility, turnover and work absences |
| Date: | 2007–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2007296e&r=lab |
| By: | Minas Vlassis (Department of Economics, University of Crete, Greece); Nick Drydakis (Department of Economics - University of Crete, Greece) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates whether low skilled male Albanians face unequal treatment in the Greek labour market, two years after the national adoption of the European anti-discrimination employment legislation. By means of a Correspondence Test we have estimated that Albanians face 43.5% net discrimination of access to occupations. Concentrating on the equal chance cases, we subsequently found that Albanians face 36.5% less chance of being registered with insurance coverage, while their potential wage contracts are on the average 8.8% below those of Greeks, and 5.3% below the legal minimum wage. As it comes to the reasons for wage discrimination, using an indirect approach we interestingly found that the employers themselves “put the blame” on profit strategies (84.4%), on statistical discrimination (9.6%), and on taste discrimination (7.8%). |
| Keywords: | Field Experiment, Ethnic Discrimination., Hiring Discrimination, Insurance Coverage, Wage Inequality |
| JEL: | J7 J16 J31 J42 J |
| Date: | 2007–02–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crt:wpaper:0715&r=lab |
| By: | Hyun H. Son (International Poverty Centre); Nanak Kakwani (International Poverty Centre) |
| Keywords: | Gender pay gap, Unpaid work, Poverty, Gender discrimination, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand |
| Date: | 2006–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:0020&r=lab |
| By: | Razzak, Weshah; Timmins, Jason |
| Abstract: | Qualification and occupation-based measures of skilled labour are constructed to explain the skill premium – the wage of skilled labour relative to unskilled labour in New Zealand. The data exhibit a more rapid growth in the supply of skilled labour than the skill premium, and a very large increase in the real minimum wage over the period from 1986 to 2005. We estimate the rate of increase in the relative demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution. The data are consistent with skill shortages and a skill-bias technical change. We examine the effects of the minimum wage, capital complementarity, and the exchange rate on the skill premium. We also test whether the demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution varied across industries and over time. |
| Keywords: | Skill-bias technical change; skill premium; the exchange rate |
| JEL: | J31 C23 O3 |
| Date: | 2007–02–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:1886&r=lab |
| By: | Blanchard, Olivier J; Tirole, Jean |
| Abstract: | Unemployment insurance and employment protection are typically discussed and studied in isolation. ln this paper, we argue that they are tightly linked, and we focus on their joint optimal design in a simple model, with risk averse workers, risk neutral firms, and random shocks to productivity. We show that, in the 'first best', unemployment insurance comes with employment protection - in the form of layoff taxes; indeed, optimality requires that layoff taxes be equal to unemployment benefits. We then explore the implications of four broad categories of deviations from first best: limits on insurance, limits on layoff taxes, ex-post wage bargaining, and ex-ante heterogeneity of firms or workers. We show how the design must be modified in each case. Finally, we draw out the implications of our analysis for current policy debates and reform proposals, from the financing of unemployment insurance, to the respective roles of severance payments and unemployment benefits. |
| Keywords: | employment protection; experience rating; layoff taxes; layoffs; severance payments; unemployment benefits; Unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | D60 E62 H21 J30 J32 J38 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6127&r=lab |
| By: | Lykke E. Andersen (Institute for Advanced Development Studies); Bent Jesper Christensen (University of Aarhus) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates structural parameters of both a simple and an extended job separation model with the purpose of understanding constraints in the labor market in Bolivia. The results confirm the hypothesis that skilled labor is a scarce commodity in Bolivia, while unskilled labor is abundantly available. This implies that skilled employees shop around for alternative employment opportunities and quit their jobs when a better opportunity arises. The quit rate among skilled employees in the private sector is much higher than the quit rate among skilled employees in the public sector. The reverse is true for the lay-off rate, and together this suggests that the private sector has difficulties maintaining its skilled labor. The estimates of the wage sensitivity of job search effort parameters presented in this paper suggest that it would be difficult for the private sector to improve its capacity to retain skilled employees by increasing wages – skilled employees in the private sector do not seem to reduce their on-the-job search in response to higher wages. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the public sector in Bolivia, inflated by high levels of foreign aid (about 10% of GDP), may be detracting scarce human resources from local productive sectors, potentially jeopardizing the opportunity for sustainable development. |
| Keywords: | Mobility, on-the-job search, labor markets, Bolivia |
| JEL: | J62 J63 J64 J31 |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adv:wpaper:200601&r=lab |
| By: | Oleksiy Kryvtsov; Alexander Ueberfeldt |
| Abstract: | This paper asks: What is the effect of government policy on output and inequality in an environment with education and labor-supply decisions? The answer is given in a general equilibrium model, consistent with the post 1960s facts on male wage inequality and labor supply in the U.S. In the model, education and labor-supply decisions depend on progressive income taxation, the education system, the social security system, and technology-driven wage differentials. Government policies affect output and inequality through two channels. First, a policy change leads to an asymmetric adjustment of working hours and savings of schooled and unschooled individuals. Second, there is a redistribution of the workforce between schooled and unschooled workers. Using a battery of proposed government policies, we demonstrate that skill redistribution dampens the response of wage inequality to a policy change and amplifies the response of output by an additional 1 to 2 percent. |
| Keywords: | Labour markets; Potential output; Productivity |
| JEL: | H52 J31 J38 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:07-12&r=lab |
| By: | Hernando Zuleta; Veneta Andonova |
| Abstract: | Firms’ compensation practices affect the protection of investors’ interests and the degree of economic inequality by changing the stakes of engaging in appropriation activities versus respecting the status quo. We use a general equilibrium model where workers can either work peacefully or join a guerrilla movement that expropriates entrepreneurs. If workers are peaceful, they receive a competitive wage. If they join a guerrilla movement, they receive a share of the appropriated wealth, which depends positively on the number of guerrilla members. In this framework, we find one low-income, low-wage equilibrium with guerrilla activity and one peaceful, high-income, high-wage equilibrium. The peaceful equilibrium can be reached through redistribution policies such as efficiency wages, which are also used to control agency problems. In essence, through their compensation policies entrepreneurs might be able to control the internal principal-agent issues and simultaneously protect their assets against expropriation, while alleviating economic inequality. |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:001070:002780&r=lab |
| By: | Nanak Kakwani (International Poverty Centre); Hyun H. Son (International Poverty Centre) |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Gender, Unpaid work |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:0019&r=lab |
| By: | M. Moretto; G. Rossini |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:582&r=lab |
| By: | Shigeru Fujita; Christopher J. Nekarda; Garey Ramey |
| Abstract: | Drawing on CPS data, the authors show that total monthly job loss and hiring among U.S. workers, as well as job loss hazard rates, are strongly countercyclical, while job finding hazard rates are strongly procyclical. They also find that total job loss and job loss hazard rates lead the business cycle, while total hiring and job finding rates trail the cycle. In the current paper the authors use information from the Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to reevaluate these findings. SIPP data are used to construct new longitudinally consistent gross flow series for U.S. workers, covering 1983-2003. The results strongly validate the authors' findings, with two important exceptions: (1) total hiring leads the cycle in the SIPP data, and (2) the job loss rate is substantially more volatile than the job finding rate at business cycle frequencies. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:07-5&r=lab |
| By: | David Clayton |
| Abstract: | The late 1960s was a ‘major watershed’ for the evolution of labour laws in Hong Kong because social disturbances during 1966 and 1967 caused a ‘crucial shift of establishment attitudes’. Employers, who were ‘severely jolted’ by the events, quickly accepted thereafter the need for ‘legislative reform’.1 Legal rights extended to workers before this watershed, but, because local bureaucrats had sought the consent of employers’ organisations before legislating, ‘labour legislation was slow to emerge and, when it did emerge, was often in an emasculated form’.2 In the pre-war period the state regulated industrial employment by women and children and policed ‘industrial safety’; and the Governor gained the power (never subsequently used) to set minimum wages.3 In 1959, an existing ordinance that regulated the hours of factory work undertaken by women and young persons was amended. 4 The maximum hours of industrial work by women was set at sixty per week (ten per day), and all women and young persons (aged between 14-16) gained the right to one rest day per week.5 From March 1962, industrial workers had the statutory right to six days paid holiday and twelve days paid sick leave each year. These entitlements were, however, limited in scope,6 and did not cover all industrial workers. Factories registered with the state and were subject to inspections, but small workshops did not register with, and were not regulated by, the state.7 By the end of the 1950s, statutory protections did not therefore extend to a large proportion of the industrial work force. From 1952-57 (a period for which estimates exist), factory employment grew by fifty per cent, from 100,000 to 150,000; employment in unregistered workshops, however, expanded by one hundred per cent, from 50,000 to 100,000.8 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:cherry:06/02&r=lab |
| By: | Alessandra Fogli; Laura Veldkamp |
| Abstract: | In the last century, the evolution of female labor force participation has been S-shaped: It rose slowly at first, then quickly, and has leveled off recently. Central to this dramatic rise has been the entry of women with young children. We argue that this S-shaped dynamic came from generations of women learning about the relative importance of nature (endowed ability) and nurture (time spent child-rearing) in determining children’s outcomes. Each generation updates the beliefs of their parents, by observing others’ outcomes. When few women participate in the labor force, most outcomes are uninformative about the effect of labor force participation and participation rises slowly. As information accumulates and the effects of labor force participation become less uncertain, more women participate, learning accelerates and labor force participation rises faster. As beliefs converge to the truth, participation flattens out. Learning offers a rational explanation for the differences in employment preferences that have been the focus of a large empirical literature. Survey data, wage data and participation data support our story and distinguish it from alternative explanations. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmsr:386&r=lab |
| By: | Betts, Julian; Ferrall, Christopher; Finnie, Ross |
| Abstract: | This paper models earnings of male and female Bachelor's graduates in Canada five years after graduation. Using a university fixed-effect approach, the research finds evidence of significant (fixed) variations in earnings among graduates from different universities. Within universities, changes over time in various characteristics are correlated with changes in graduates' earnings. Increases in undergraduate enrollment are associated with declines in subsequent earnings for graduates, suggesting crowding out. For men, but not women, increases in the professor - student ratio are associated with meaningful gains in students' subsequent earnings. Models that do not condition on a student's major show increased effects of changes in a university's characteristics, with estimated effects rising up to almost two-fold. For women in particular, changes in several university characteristics are strongly associated with changes in women's choice of major. Changes in university characteristics are not strongly related to the probability of employment five years after graduation. |
| Keywords: | Education, training and learning, Education finance, Outcomes of education |
| Date: | 2007–02–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2007292e&r=lab |