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on Labour Economics |
| By: | J. Ignacio Garcia-Perez; Fernando Muñoz Bullon |
| Abstract: | We analyze the Spanish temporary workers’ transitions into permanent employment and to what extent those who become unemployed are able to achieve a permanent job. Our focus is placed on the role of the individual’s sequence of temporary contracts on the probability of moving from temporary into permanent employment. We apply multiplespell duration techniques to a longitudinal dataset of temporary workers obtained from Social Security records for the period 1996-2003. We basically find that even though transitions into permanent employment increase with tenure, temporary jobs do not constitute stepping stones towards permanent employment, since the probability of obtaining a permanent job decreases with repeated temporary jobs. Results also show that individuals with high duration of unemployment flow into permanent work less frequently. |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:wbrepe:wb073808&r=lab |
| By: | Simon D. Woodcock (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | We consider the problem of estimating and decomposing wage differentials in the presence of unobserved worker, firm, and match heterogeneity. Controlling for these unobservables corrects omitted variable bias in previous studies. It also allows us to measure the contribution of unmeasured characteristics of workers, firms, and worker-firm matches to observed wage differentials. An application to linked employer-employee data shows that decompositions of inter-industry earnings differentials and the male-female differential are misleading when unobserved heterogeneity is ignored. |
| Keywords: | wage differentials, unobserved heterogeneity, employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J31 C23 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp07-10&r=lab |
| By: | Stähler, Nikolai |
| Abstract: | In theoretical literature, the effects of employment protection on unemployment are ambiguous. Higher employment protection decreases job creation as well as job destruction. However, in most models, wages are bargained individually between workers and firms. Using a conventional matching model in which a monopoly union sets wages, I show that employment protection can unambiguously increase unemployment. Interestingly, I find that tightening the restrictions on redundancies and dismissals may even increase the probability of dismissal. |
| Keywords: | employment protection, search and matching models, unemployment, unions |
| JEL: | J41 J64 J65 J68 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:5558&r=lab |
| By: | Packard, Truman G. |
| Abstract: | The degree to which a labor market is segmented and jobs in the formal sector of the economy are rationed is critical to the analysis of coverage of social insurance and pensions. Using unique panel data spanning the 1998-99 contraction in Chile, the author finds little evidence that self-employment is the residual sector of a dualistic labor market, as is often depicted in the literature. Data on transitions between sectors show that self-employment is not a free-entry sector, and that entrepreneu rs can be " pushed " out of self-employment just as others are pushed out of formal employment during economic downturns. But employment without a contract does exhibit many of the features of the free-entry, employment safety net depicted in the dualistic literature. An annex to this paper presents supportive evidence from static analysis of selection-corrected wage differentials and a comment on the drawbacks of this approach. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Standards,Work & Working Conditions,Labor Management and Relations,Educational Policy and Planning |
| Date: | 2007–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4232&r=lab |
| By: | Marco Leonardi; Giovanni Pica |
| Abstract: | In a perfect labor market severance payments can have no real effects as they can be undone by a properly designed labor contract (Lazear 1990). We give empirical content to this proposition by estimating the effects of EPL on entry wages and on the tenure-wage profile in a quasi-experimental setting. We consider a reform that introduced unjust-dismissal costs in Italy for firms below 15 employees, leaving firing costs unchanged for bigger firms. Estimates which account for the endogeneity of the treatment status due to workers and firms sorting around the 15 employees threshold show no effect of the reform on entry wages and a decrease of the returns to tenure by around 20% in the first year and by 8% over the first two years. We interpret these findings as broadly consistent with Lazear’s (1990) prediction that firms make workers prepay the severance cost. |
| Keywords: | Costs of Unjust Dismissals, Severance Payments, Regression |
| JEL: | E24 J63 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:0701&r=lab |
| By: | Natália Pimenta Monteiro (Universidade do Minho - NIPE) |
| Abstract: | this study exemines changes union contracts and wage structure during and after the introduction of regukatory reforms (deregulation and privatisation) in the Portuguese banking sector. The main finding is that, despite a relative wage erosion detected in the contract dada, banking workers were able to enjoy an increasing wage premium in the period 1985-2000, probably reflecting the increasing profitability of the industry and the rise in labour productivity. The evidence also shows that some specific groups benefited relatively more than others: the least skilled and educated workforce and male workers gained more from the regulatory reforms. However, this unequal sharing of the wage premium did not raise wage inequality across ownership groups in the industry. |
| Keywords: | Deregulation, privatisation, wage structure, Portuguese banking industry |
| JEL: | J31 J45 L33 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:7/2007&r=lab |
| By: | Ioana Marinescu |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the fact that firing costs are tenure dependent to analyze their effect on turnover and productivity. I exploit a 1999 British reform that lowered from two to one year the tenure necessary for a worker to be able to sue their employer for unfair dismissal. Empirical results show a roughly 30% decrease in the firing hazard for workers with zero to two years of tenure relative to workers with higher tenure. Training increased after the reform, unemployment duration decreased, and wages were unaffected. Theory suggests that the decrease in firing for low tenure workers is mainly due to a sizeable increase in the quality of recruitment. |
| Keywords: | Firing Costs, Separation Hazard Rate, Learning, Job Tenure |
| JEL: | J24 J41 J63 J64 J65 J83 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:0704&r=lab |
| By: | Casey Warman (Queen's University) |
| Abstract: | The research on immigration has found falling labor market outcomes of immigrants in many Western countries. In Canada, one of the major causes has been the decline in the returns to foreign work experience. Using the 1991, 1996 and 2001 Canadian Census Master Datafiles and applying both parametric and semiparametric techniques, it is found that unlike recently landed male immigrants, temporary foreign workers have no difficulty transferring their human capital to the Canadian labor market and in particular, they obtain very high returns to their foreign work experience. This is even true for temporary foreign workers from non-traditional backgrounds, a group that has had particular difficulty receiving returns to their foreign work experience for recent immigrant cohorts and now composes the majority of Canada’s immigration. It is likely that this premium can be partially attributed to the different selection process that temporary foreign workers and immigrants enter Canada under. While immigrants for the most part are selected by the government, the selection process for temporary foreign workers is driven by employers and employers may be better able to assess the transferability of the worker’s foreign human capital. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, Earnings, Temporary Foreign Workers, Partial linear models, Nonparametric regressions, Canada, Nonpermanent residents, semiparametric |
| JEL: | J7 J15 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1125&r=lab |
| By: | Chen, Natalie (University of Warwick and CEPR); Conconi, Paola (Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES) and CEPR); Perroni, Carlo (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Bargaining theory predicts that married women who experience a relative improvement in their labor market position should experience a comparative gain within their marriage. However, if renegotiation possibilities are limited by institutional mechanisms that achieve long-term commitment, the opposite may be true, particularly if women are specialized in household activities and the labor market allows comparatively more flexibility in their labor supply responses. Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel indeed shows that, as long as renegotiation opportunities are limited, comparatively better wages for women exacerbate their “double burden” of market and household work. |
| Keywords: | Marriage ; Bargaining ; Renegotiation |
| JEL: | D1 J2 J3 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:800&r=lab |
| By: | Winfried Koeniger; Julien Prat |
| Abstract: | Why are firm and job turnover rates so similar across OECD countries? We argue that this may be due to the joint regulation of product and labor markets. For our analysis, we build a stochastic equilibrium model with search frictions and heterogeneous multiple-worker firms. This allows us to distinguish firm entry and exit from hiring and firing in a model with equilibrium unemployment. We show that firing costs, sunk entry costs and bureaucratic flow costs have countervailing effects on firm and job turnover as different types of firms select to operate in the market. |
| Keywords: | Firing Cost, Product Market Regulation, Firm Selection, Firm Turnover, Job Turnover, Unemployment |
| JEL: | E24 J63 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:0703&r=lab |
| By: | Dan Bernhardt (University of Illinois); Steeve Mongrain (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how discretionary investments in general and specific human capital are affected by the possibility of layoffs. After investments are made, firms may have to lay off workers, and will do so in inverse order of the profit that each worker generates. Greater skill investments, especially in specific human capital contribute more to a firm's bottom line, so that workers who make those investments will be laid off last. We show that, as long as workers' bargaining positions are not too weak, to reduce layoff probabilities, workers invest in specific human capital. Indeed, workers over-invest in skill acquisition from a social perspective whenever their bargaining power is strong enough, even though they only receive a share of any investment. More generally, we characterize how equilibrium skill investments are affected by the distribution of worker abilities within firms, the probability that a firm downsizes, and the distribution of employment opportunities in the economy. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital; Layoffs; Unemployment; Specific Skills; Bargaining |
| JEL: | J41 J63 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp07-06&r=lab |
| By: | Alena Bicakova; Jiri Slacalek; Michal Slavik |
| Abstract: | We investigate the fiscal implications of the changes in personal income tax implemented in the Czech Republic in January 2006. In addition to evaluating the direct effect of this tax reform, our analysis takes into account its employment effect on the government budget due to individuals entering or leaving employment. We first estimate the probability of working (labor supply) as a function of the effective net wage and then simulate the impact of the changes in paid taxes and received benefits on employment. We find that a 10 percent rise in the net wage increases the probability of working by 0.55 and 0.18 percentage points for women and men respectively. These estimates suggest that the employment effect is unlikely to substantially alleviate the fall in net budget revenues. We predict that, for the sub-population of prime age employees, net government revenues decline by roughly 8 billion Czech korunas (CZK) as a consequence of the implemented income tax cuts. The employment effect counteracts the decline by only CZK 0.4 billion. The stimulating effect of the tax reform on employment is reduced by the current benefit system: the incentive to work due to the higher after-tax wage is partially offset by the fall in social benefits once people start working. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal effects, labor supply, personal income tax, tax reforms. |
| JEL: | E62 J31 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnb:wpaper:2006/7&r=lab |
| By: | Conny Wunsch; Michael Lechner |
| Abstract: | We provide new evidence on the effectiveness of West German labour market programmes by evaluating training and employment programmes that have been conducted 2000 - 2002 after the first large reform of German labour market policy in 1998. We employ exceptionally rich administrative data that allow us to use microeconometric matching methods and to estimate interesting effects for different types of programmes and participants at a rather disaggregated level. We find that, on average, all programmes fail to improve their participants' chances of finding regular, unsubsidised employment. Rather, participants accumulate 2 - 13 more months of unemployment than nonparticipants over the 2.5 years following programme start, which, in addition to direct programme costs, induces net costs in terms of benefit payments and wage subsidies amounting to, on average, 1500- 7000 EUR per participant. However, we show that there is some scope for improvements in mean employment rates as well as potential for considerable cost savings by a reallocation of participants to the different programmes. |
| Keywords: | Matching estimation, causal effects, programme evaluation, panel data |
| JEL: | J68 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2007:2007-19&r=lab |
| By: | Böckerman, Petri; Ilmakunnas, Pekka |
| Abstract: | We analyze the potential role of adverse working conditions at the workplace in the determination of employees’ quit behavior. Our data contain both detailed information on perceived job disamenities, job satisfaction, and quit intentions from a cross-section survey and information on employees’ actual job switches from longitudinal register data that can be linked to the survey. Reduced-form models show that employees facing adverse working conditions tend to have greater intentions to switch jobs and search for new matches more frequently. Multivariate probit models point out that job dissatisfaction that arises in adverse working conditions is related to job search and this in turn is related to actual job switches. |
| Keywords: | working conditions; job satisfaction; on-the-job search; job separation; quits |
| JEL: | J64 J28 |
| Date: | 2007–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3245&r=lab |
| By: | Christine Eibner; Alice Zawacki; Elaine Zimmerman |
| Abstract: | Using a multivariate framework, we analyze recent trends in employer provision of retiree health insurance (RHI), eligibility for new retirees, and retiree contribution requirements. We also explore whether local labor market characteristics such as the unemployment rate influence RHI provision. Finally, we examine whether the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) was associated with diverging trends in RHI access for Medicare-eligible and early retirees. Data come for the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey—Insurance Component (MEPS-IC). We find that, while RHI provision to existing retirees remained stable, eligibility for new retirees declined, and contribution requirements increased between 2000 and 2004. The local labor market had no effect on RHI provision. While early retiree coverage was more common than coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees, we did not find a divergence subsequent to MMA. These results suggest growing financial instability for retirees, both because RHI contribution requirements increased, and because businesses dropped coverage for new retirees. |
| Keywords: | retiree health insurance, employers, Medicare, aging |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:07-12&r=lab |
| By: | Eren Inci (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the quality of entrepreneurs when individuals, who differ in terms of entrepreneurial ability and wealth, choose between entrepreneurship and wage-earning. A loan is required to become an entrepreneur. Four wealth classes form endogenously. Banks' inability to identify the ability of individuals leads them to offer pooling contracts to the poor and the lower-middle classes. Regardless of ability, all poor class individuals become workers and all lower-middle class individuals become entrepreneurs. Banks are able to offer separating contracts to the upper-middle and the rich classes. High-ability individuals in these wealth classes become entrepreneurs and their low-ability counterparts become workers. Equilibrium contracts may entail cross-subsidies within or between occupations. In some economies, a small success tax on entrepreneurs used to subsidize workers can increase the average quality of entrepreneurs and welfare by changing the thresholds of the wealth classes. In some others a reverse policy is required. Since the aggregate level of investment is fixed, the reason for these policies is not under- or overinvestment by entrepreneurs, as it often is in previous literature. |
| Keywords: | adverse selection; entrepreneurship; general equilibrium contract theory; moral hazard; occupational choice; success tax; wage subsidy |
| JEL: | D43 D82 H25 L26 |
| Date: | 2007–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:666&r=lab |
| By: | Michael P. Keane (Department of Economics, Arizona State University); Antonio Merlo (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we assess the impact of a variety of policies that may influence the career decisions of members of the U.S. Congress, using the empirical framework of Diermeier, Keane and Merlo (2005). These policies alter incentives to run for re-election, run for higher office or leave Congress, by altering wages, nonpecuniary rewards and career prospects (both in and out of Congress). We find that reducing the relative wage of politicians would substantially reduce the duration of congressional careers. Notably, however, the effect varies considerably across different types of politicians. A reduction in the congressional wage would disproportionately induce exit from Congress by “skilled” politicians, Democrats, politicians who were relatively young when first elected, and those without pre-congressional political experience. Interestingly, however, it would not cause the type of politicians who most value legislative accomplishments (“achievers”) to disproportionately exit Congress. Thus, wage reductions would not reduce the “quality” composition of Congress in this sense. Term limits also have similar effects on achievers and non-achievers. However, we find that term limits would disproportionately induce members of the majority party to exit Congress. This has the interesting implication that term limits make it more difficult to sustain substantial congressional majorities over time. We do find three types of policies that disproportionately induce nonachievers to leave Congress: (i) elimination of seniority as a determinant of key committee assignments, (ii) restricting private sector employment after leaving Congress, and (iii) reducing the seniority advantage in elections. |
| Keywords: | politicians, political careers, monetary and non-monetary incentives, U.S. Congress |
| JEL: | D72 J44 J45 |
| Date: | 2007–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:07-016&r=lab |
| By: | Boegenhold, Dieter; Fachinger, Uwe |
| Abstract: | The paper deals with margins of entrepreneurship where small business owners are almost working on their own having no or just a few employees and where one can find also people working with low returns and having firms without stability or prosperous dynamics. However, even the area of entrepreneurship at the margins seems to be a wide field. It highlights not only the broad margins of entrepreneurship but also the fluent boarders between entrepreneurship and the informal sector on the one side and the system of the labour market on the other. New firms – even those which are very successful at a later point of career – are almost created in an experimental period of testing market and product ideas in which business founders are still employed or registered as unemployed people. The practical starting-point of an entrepreneurial existence falls into a fluent continuum of different activities being closely connected to spheres of dependent work as employees or periods of seeking a new job during unemployment. With growing solo self-employment a new social phenomenon in the structure of the labour market and the division of occupations has emerged in which different social developments are overlapping each other. The question for the landscape of solo self-employment and related driving forces of their emergence is of crucial research interest: Must they be regarded primarily as a result of pushes by labour market deficiencies or are they a response to new life-styles and working demands which act as pulling factors into self-employment? In other words, does solo self-employment serve as a valve of a pressing labour market or must it be regarded more positively as a new option of the classic division of labour by which an increasing number of people find new self-reliant and also stable jobs? The idea of the paper is to discuss this particular issue of margins of entrepreneurship not only within the conventional scope of entrepreneurship discussion but within an integrated framework which combines entrepreneurship analysis with labour market research and studies on social stratification and social mobility. The paper will not come about with definite last answers but hopes to contribute to that debate by presenting better information. |
| Keywords: | Self-employment; entrepreneurship; labour market; empirical analysis |
| JEL: | J23 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3186&r=lab |
| By: | Ellen M. Gee; Karen M. Kobayashi; Steven Prus |
| Abstract: | This study examines ethnic based differences in economic and health status. We combine existing literature with our analysis of data from the Canadian Census and National Population Health Survey. If a given sub-topic is well researched, we summarize the findings; if, on the other hand, less is known, we present data placing them in the context of whatever literature does exist. Our findings are consistent with existing literature on ethnic inequalities in Canada. Recent immigrants with a mother tongue other than English or French are among the most economically disadvantaged in Canadian society, though the results vary depending on gender and ethnic background. In fact economic inequality according to type of occupation can be attributed to gender rather than ethnicity; that is, the Canadian labour force continues to be more gender- than ethnically-differentiated. Yet recent immigrants, especially from Asia, are advantaged in health outcomes compared to Canadian-born persons – the “healthy immigrant” effect. Interestingly they are less likely to report having a physical check-up and, for women (especially Asian-born women), a mammogram within the last year compared to their Canadian-born counterparts. Given the significance of both gender and ethnicity as predictors of well-being, future research should examine the intersection between the two identity markers and their relationship to social inequality. |
| Keywords: | ethnicity, immigration, language, gender, income, occupation, health |
| JEL: | I18 J15 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:sedapp:182&r=lab |
| By: | Núria Rodríguez Planas; Jacob Benus |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the presence of effects from joining one of four active labour market programs in Romania in the late 1990s compared to the no-program state. Using rich follow-up survey data and propensity score matching, we find that three programs (training and retraining, self-employment assistance, and employment and relocation services) had success in improving participants' economic outcomes and were cost-beneficial from society?s perspective. In contrast, public employment was found detrimental for the employment prospects of its participants. |
| Keywords: | Active labour market programs, propensity score matching, transition economies, and net social benefits |
| JEL: | J24 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2007–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:699.07&r=lab |
| By: | Barry R Chiswick (Department of Economics, The University of Illinois at Chicago and The IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor); Paul W Miller (UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with the English language requirements (both level and importance) of occupations in the United States, as measured by the O*NET database. These scores are linked to microdata on employed adult (aged 25 to 64) males, both native born and foreign born, as reported in the 2000 Census, one percent sample. Working in an occupation that requires greater English language skills, whether measured by the level of these skills or the importance of English for performing the job, has a large effect on earnings among the native born, and an even larger effect among the foreign born. This effect is reduced by 50 percent, but is still large, when worker characteristics, including their own English language skills, are held constant. Earnings increase with the respondent’s own proficiency in English, with the English proficiency required for the occupation, and when those with high levels of proficiency work in jobs requiring English language skills (interaction effect). There is, therefore, a strong economic incentive for the matching of worker’s English skills and the occupation’s requirements, and this matching does tend to occur in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | English Language, Earnings, Occupation, Immigrants, Schooling |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J62 F22 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:07-06&r=lab |
| By: | M A B Siddique (UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | During the past two decades, the Australian economy has experienced fundamental changes influenced by the increasing propagation of globalisation. Globalising forces have reduced barriers to labour mobility across countries and economies. Concurrently there has been an increase in the importance of the ‘knowledge economy’ and thus the demand for highly skilled workers. The combination of these factors has increased the competition for highly skilled workers across national economies and in particular among Pacific Island countries (such as New Zealand and Fiji) in which the domestic demand for highly skilled labour outstrips the available domestic supply. The primary objective of this article is to analyse the impact of globalisation on the Australian labour market with a focus on shortages of skilled labour in Australia. The paper also examines the implications of shortages of skilled labour for other Pacific Island countries and suggests policy initiatives in this area. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:07-02&r=lab |
| By: | Dan-Olof Rooth (Kalmar University, CReAM and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This study presents evidence of recruitment discrimination against obese individuals in Sweden by sending fictitious applications to real job openings. Otherwise identical applications were randomly assigned a portrait photograph of an obese or a normalweight job applicant. Applications with an obese applicant receive twenty percent fewer callbacks for an interview. It is also found that discrimination is the same against men and women and that it varies across occupations in a systematic way in that firms hiring employees in occupations with more customer contact discriminate more. The tentative conclusion is that customer discrimination and/or statistical discrimination based on the correlation between job performance and being obese is the explanation. Also, opposite to what is expected, register data show that the share of obese employees is higher in occupations were discrimination is found to be higher. |
| Keywords: | obesity, discrimination, correspondence testing |
| JEL: | J64 J71 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2775&r=lab |
| By: | Giulio Fella |
| Abstract: | This paper uses an equilibrium matching framework to study jointly the optimal private provision of severance pay and the allocational and welfare consequences of government intervention in excess of private arrangements. Firms insure riskaverse workers by means of simple explicit employment contracts. Contracts can be renegotiated ex post by mutual consent. It is shown that the lower bound on the privately optimal severance payment equals the fall in lifetime wealth associated with job loss. Simulations show that, despite contract incompleteness, legislated dismissal costs largely in excess of such private optimum are effectively undone by renegotiation and have only a small allocational effect. Welfare falls. Yet, for deviations from laissez faire in line with those observed for most OECD countries, the welfare loss is small. |
| Keywords: | Severance Pay, Contracts, Renegotiation |
| JEL: | J23 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:0702&r=lab |
| By: | Bardhan, Ashok; Tang, John |
| Abstract: | Are occupations that are well diversified across sectors less volatile, and less susceptible to external shocks? Most external shocks (e.g. manufacturing offshoring, oil shocks) impact the labor market along sectoral lines, i.e. they impact product and output markets; consequently, they affect employment in various occupations. Some shocks, however, like services offshoring, affect horizontals or occupations. We find that an occupation spread across many industrial sectors is less volatile in terms of numbers employed and the average wage. A dummy variable for offshoreable occupations does not affect the results; however, geographically clustered occupations seem more “at-risk,” after accounting for sectoral diversification. |
| Keywords: | offshoring; external shocks; labor market volatility; occupations; diversification; geographic clusters |
| JEL: | J2 J6 F2 |
| Date: | 2006–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:3168&r=lab |
| By: | Heisz, Andrew |
| Abstract: | Using data from the 1976-to-1997 Survey of Consumer Finances and the 1993-to-2004 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, we examine developments in family income inequality, income polarization, relative low income, and income redistribution through the tax-transfer system. We conclude that family after-tax-income inequality was stable across the 1980s, but rose during the 1989-to-2004 period. Growth in family after-tax-income inequality can be due to an increase in family market-income inequality (pre-tax, pre-transfer), or to a reduction in income redistribution through the tax-transfer system. We conclude that the increase in inequality was associated with a rise in family market-income inequality. Redistribution was at least as high in 2004 as it was at earlier cyclical peaks, but it failed to keep up with rapid growth in family market-income inequality in the 1990s. We present income inequality, polarization, and low-income statistics for several well-known measures, and use data preparations identical to those used in the Luxembourg Income Study in order to facilitate international comparisons. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Income, pensions, spending and wealth, Wages, salaries and other earnings, Employment insurance, social assistance and other transfers, Low income and inequality |
| Date: | 2007–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2007298e&r=lab |
| By: | Barry R Chiswick (Department of Economics, The University of Illinois at Chicago and The IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor); Paul W Miller (UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the determinants of occupational attainment and the impact of occupation on earnings. Results for both the native born and foreign born are presented, and these provide insights as to the earnings penalties associated with the lessthan- perfect international transferability of human capital skills. It shows that around 50 percent of the earnings gains associated with years of schooling derives from interoccupational mobility. When occupation is held constant, there is a large increase in the effect on earnings of pre-immigration labor market experience for the foreign born, but little change in either the payoff to labor market experience for the native born, or in the premium for post-arrival labor market experience for the foreign born. The estimates of the models of occupational attainment show that years of schooling, and, among the foreign born, proficiency in English, are the key factors determining access to high-paying occupations. Labor market experience has little effect on occupational outcomes among the native born. However, evaluated at 10 years, foreign labor market experience has a modest negative impact on current occupational status. Examination of this negative effect using quantile regression shows that it is concentrated among those in high status jobs. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, Occupation, Earnings |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J F22 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:07-08&r=lab |
| By: | Barry R Chiswick (Department of Economics, The University of Illinois at Chicago and The IZA-Institute for the Study of Labor); Paul W Miller (UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the effect on earnings of the matching of English language skills to occupational requirements. It uses data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database and a “Realized Matches” procedure to quantify expected levels of English skills in each of over 500 occupations in the US Census. Earnings data from the 2000 US Census for foreign-born adult male workers are then examined in relation to these occupational English requirements. The analyses show that earnings are related to correct matching of an individual’s language skills and that of his occupation. Moreover, the findings are robust with respect to a range of measurement and specification issues. Immigrant settlement policy may have a role to play in matching immigrants to jobs that use their language skills most effectively. |
| Keywords: | English Language, Earnings, Immigrants, Schooling |
| JEL: | J24 J31 F22 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwa:wpaper:07-07&r=lab |