|
on Labour Economics |
| By: | Morris M. Kleiner; Alan B. Krueger |
| Abstract: | This study provides the first nation-wide analysis of the labor market implications of occupational licensing for the U.S. labor market, using data from a specially designed Gallup survey. We find that in 2006, 29 percent of the workforce was required to hold an occupational license from a government agency, which is a higher percentage than that found in studies that rely on state-level occupational licensing data. Workers who have higher levels of education are more likely to work in jobs that require a license. Union workers and government employees are more likely to have a license requirement than are nonunion or private sector employees. Our multivariate estimates suggest that licensing has about the same quantitative impact on wages as do unions -- that is about 15 percent, but unlike unions which reduce variance in wages, licensing does not significantly reduce wage dispersion for individuals in licensed jobs. |
| JEL: | J08 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14308&r=lab |
| By: | Tomi Kyyrä |
| Abstract: | In Finland, unemployed workers who are looking for a full-time job but take up a part-time or very short full-time job may qualify for partial unemployment benefits. In exchange for partial benefits, these applicants must continue their search of regular full-time work. We analyze the implications of the experiences of partial unemployment for subsequent transitions to regular employment. We apply the "timing of events" approach to distinguish between causal and selectivity effects associated with the receipt of partial benefits. Our findings suggest that partial unemployment associated with short full-time jobs facilitates transitions to regular employment. Also part-time working on partial benefits may help in finding a regular job afterwards. |
| Keywords: | Partial unemployment benefits, temporary work, duration analysis, treatment effect |
| Date: | 2008–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:dpaper:440&r=lab |
| By: | Krueger, Alan B. (Princeton University); Mueller, Andreas (IIES, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on job search intensity of the unemployed in the U.S., modeling job search intensity as time allocated to job search activities. The main findings are: 1) the average unemployed worker in the U.S. devotes about 41 minutes to job search on weekdays, which is substantially more than his or her European counterpart; 2) workers who expect to be recalled by their previous employer search substantially less than the average unemployed worker; 3) across the 50 states and D.C., job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits, with an elasticity between -1.6 and -2.2; 4) the predicted wage is a strong predictor of time devoted to job search, with an elasticity in excess of 2.5; 5) job search intensity for those eligible for Unemployment Insurance (UI) increases prior to benefit exhaustion; 6) time devoted to job search is fairly constant regardless of unemployment duration for those who are ineligible for UI. A nonparametric Monte Carlo technique suggests that the relationship between job search effort and the duration of unemployment for a cross-section of job seekers is only slightly biased by length-based sampling. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, unemployment insurance, job search, time use, unemployment benefits, inequality |
| JEL: | J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3667&r=lab |
| By: | Fox, Louise; Oviedo, Ana Maria |
| Abstract: | Using recent matched employer-employee data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills and legal origin of the country affect the wage setting process. The wage analysis yields three main findings. First, increasing returns to education, especially for older workers, suggest that the expansion of education in Africa has reduced returns to education for entrants in the labor market. Second, age effects matter not just for returns to education, but also for the wage setting process more generally. In particular, in civil-law countries, returns to seniority are rewarded only after a certain age. Third, workers exercise some power in the wage setting process but their influence varies by linguistic group. In common-law countries, union presence benefits all workers equally, not just members, whereas in civil-law countries, only older members enjoy higher wages. The authors also contrast wage premia with relative marginal productivities for different age, occupation, and education categories. The findings show that in general, older, highly educated, and highly ranked workers receive wage premia that do not reflect a higher relative marginal productivity. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,,Labor Policies,Access&Equity in Basic Education,Banks&Banking Reform |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4688&r=lab |
| By: | Tattara, Giuseppe; Valentini, Marco |
| Abstract: | The CFL (On-the-job Training) programme was introduced in Italy in 1985 with the aim of reducing youth unemployment. The new programme offered employers two main advantages: it exempted them almost completely from payment of payroll taxes and it provided them with virtually the only opportunity to employ people on a basis of fixed term contracts. The paper looks at the employment impact of the programme among a subgroup of eligible workers and finds that firms taking part increased employment more than non-participating firms by almost 5%. Employers had a strong positive reaction to the tax subsidies and to the softening of the rigid employment code. The overall effect of the programme on youth employment was however limited, registering only a 1% increase, mainly because about 80% of firms never participated. |
| Keywords: | Labour Policy Evaluation; Youth Unemployment; Occupation and Intergenerational Mobility; Unemployment |
| JEL: | J63 J41 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10370&r=lab |
| By: | Amelie Constant |
| Abstract: | In this paper I assert that the entrepreneurial spirit can also exist in salaried jobs. I study the determinants of wages and the labor market success of two kinds of entrepreneurial women in Germany - self-employed and salaried businesswomen - and investigate whether ethnicity is important in these challenging jobs. Employing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel I estimate selection adjusted wage regressions for both types of businesswomen by country of origin. I find that self-employment offers businesswomen a lucrative avenue with higher monetary rewards, albeit for a shorter spell. If salaried businesswomen went into self-employment, they would receive considerably higher wages and for at least 30 years. However, if self-employed businesswomen went into salaried jobs, their wages would decline, suggesting that it is the self-employment sector that offers better opportunities and monetary success. Self-employed women in Germany fare well and most importantly, success does not depend on their ethnicity. |
| Keywords: | Businesswomen; Entrepreneurship; Self-employment; Economics of Minorities; Immigrants wage differentials |
| JEL: | M13 J23 J15 J61 J31 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp815&r=lab |
| By: | Zhang, Xuelin |
| Abstract: | Using the 1983-to-2004 Longitudinal Worker File, this study examines the post-childbirth employment, job mobility and earnings trajectories of Canadian mothers. We found that both the long- and the short-term post-childbirth employment rates of early 2000s cohorts of Canadian mothers were higher than their mid-1980s counterparts, and, relative to childless women, Canadian mothers became less likely to quit over time. Our data also allow us to examine the earnings impact of childbirth for a group of Canadian mothers who had strong labour market attachment. For them, earnings dropped by 40% and 30% in the year of childbirth and the year after, respectively. Under both the fixed-effects and the fixed-trend models, the earnings impact of childbirth declined over the other post-childbirth years. Results from the fixed-trend model further suggest that, from the second to the seventh post-childbirth years, the negative effects varied between 8% and 3% and became negligible thereafter. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Wages, salaries and other earnings |
| Date: | 2008–08–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2008314e&r=lab |
| By: | Tattara, Giuseppe; Valentini, Marco |
| Abstract: | Since the late 1970s, inequality has been on the rise in a number of OECD countries. One of the main causes of economic inequality, in Italy as in many other European countries, is rooted in the segmentation of the labour market. The Italian labour market is currently described as deeply segmented between an insider ad an outsider market. In the Italian manufacturing sector the quota of stable workers has declined through time and the number of unstable workers, low qualified and low paid, has increased and represents a non-marginal quota of total employment. Frequently a young worker experiments a succession of temporary contracts at the beginning of his career and develop into a more permanent position But temporary workers have, several times, a different destiny: the situation of precariousness extends to the workers’ entire career and are to be considered as an extreme case of outsiders, who operate in bad working conditions and receive low wages compared to workers hired with an open-end contract. In this research workers in manufacturing are divided between movers and stayers. Both categories show signs of instability. The quota of tenure workers over total workers decreases and movers increase through time in a significant way. Among these are permanent movers whose work histories, fragmented and chaotic, are identified and are compared with those of workers having more stable careers. |
| Keywords: | Labor precariousness; youth unemployment; fragmented workers' careers |
| JEL: | J08 J63 J81 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10353&r=lab |
| By: | Kaplan, David S. |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of labor-regulation reform using data for 10,396 firms from 14 Latin American countries. Firms are asked both how many permanent workers they would have hired and how many they would have terminated if labor regulations were made more flexible. I find that making labor regulations more flexible would lead to an average net increase of 2.08 percent in total employment. Firms with fewer than 20 employees would benefit the most, with average gains in net employment of 4.27 percent. Countries with more regulated labor markets would experience larger gains in total employment. These larger gains in total employment, however, would be achieved through higher rates of hiring and higher rates of termination. These results may explain why there is substantial opposition to labor reforms despite the predicted gains in efficiency and total employment. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Labor Management and Relations,Labor Standards,Work&Working Conditions |
| Date: | 2008–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4708&r=lab |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A.; Montenegro, Claudio E.; Pritchett, Lant |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the wages of workers inside the United States to the wages of observably identical workers outside the United States-controlling for country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural-urban residence. This is made possible by new and uniquely rich microdata on the wages of over two million individual formal-sector wage-earners in 43 countries. The paper then uses five independent methods to correct these estimates for unobserved differences and introduces a selection model to estimate how migrants'wage gains depend on their position in the distribution of unobserved wage determinants. Following all adjustments for selectivity and compensating differentials, the authors estimate that the wages of a Bolivian worker of equal intrinsic productivity, willing to move, would be higher by a factor of 2.7 solely by working in the United States. While this is the median, this ratio is as high as 8.4 (for Nigeria). The paper documents that (1) for many countries, the wage gaps caused by barriers to movement across international borders are among the largest known forms of wage discrimination; (2) these gaps represent one of the largest remaining price distortions in any global market; and (3) these gaps imply that simply allowing labor mobility can reduce a given household's poverty to a much greater degree than most known in situ antipoverty interventions. |
| Keywords: | ,Population Policies,Income,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Markets |
| Date: | 2008–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4671&r=lab |
| By: | Adriana Kugler; Mutlu Yuksel |
| Abstract: | In the 1980s the composition of immigrants to the U.S. shifted towards less-skilled workers. Around this time, real wages and employment of younger and less-educated U.S. workers fell. Some blame recent immigration shifts for the misfortunes of unskilled workers in the U.S. OLS estimates using Census data show instead that native wages are positively related to the recent influx of Latin Americans. However, these estimates are biased if demand shocks are positively related to immigration. An IV strategy, which deals with the endogeneity of immigration by exploiting a large influx of Central American immigrants towards U.S. Southern ports of entry after Hurricane Mitch, also generates positive wage effects but only for more educated native men. Yet, ignoring the flows of native and earlier immigrants in response to this exogeneous immigration is likely to generate upward biases in these estimates too. Native wage effects disappear and less-skilled employment of previous Latin American immigrants falls when controlling for out-migration. This highlights the importance of controlling for out-migration not only of natives but also of previous immigrants in regional studies of immigration. |
| JEL: | J11 J21 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14293&r=lab |
| By: | Jordahl, Henrik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Poutvaara, Panu (University of Helsinki); Tuomala, Juha (Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT)) |
| Abstract: | In a recent paper, García-Mainar and Montuenga-Gómez (2005) apply the generalized IV model of Hausman and Taylor to estimate education returns of wage earners and the self-employed in Portugal and in Spain. Our examination reveals several problems which relate to the validity and documentation of the instrumental variables, as well as the robustness of the results. |
| Keywords: | Education; Entrepreneurship; Human capital; EGIV estimator |
| JEL: | C23 I21 J31 |
| Date: | 2008–08–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0762&r=lab |
| By: | Kugler, Adriana (University of Houston); Yuksel, Mutlu (IZA) |
| Abstract: | In the 1980s the composition of immigrants to the U.S. shifted towards less-skilled workers. Around this time, real wages and employment of younger and less-educated U.S. workers fell. Some blame recent immigration shifts for the misfortunes of unskilled workers in the U.S. OLS estimates using Census data show instead that native wages are positively related to the recent influx of Latin Americans. However, these estimates are biased if demand shocks are positively related to immigration. An IV strategy, which deals with the endogeneity of immigration by exploiting a large influx of Central American immigrants towards U.S. Southern ports of entry after Hurricane Mitch, also generates positive wage effects but only for more educated native men. Yet, ignoring the flows of native and earlier immigrants in response to this exogeneous immigration is likely to generate upward biases in these estimates too. Native wage effects disappear and less-skilled employment of previous Latin American immigrants falls when controlling for out-migration. This highlights the importance of controlling for out-migration not only of natives but also of previous immigrants in regional studies of immigration. |
| Keywords: | outmigration, natural experiments, disemployment effects, imperfect substitution, immigration |
| JEL: | J11 J21 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3670&r=lab |
| By: | Piero Casadio (Bank of Italy); Martina Lo Conte (Istat); Andrea Neri (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Compared with other European countries, the Italian labour market stands out for the low level of both female participation and fertility. In this paper we focus on the employment patterns of Italian mothers around the time of childbirth. Our hypothesis is that the difficulties involved in reconciling work and family when there are children are among the leading causes of the low female employment rate in Italy. Data from the 2002 Italian Birth Sample Survey show that about 20 per cent of mothers who were working before childbirth, stop working one and a half years after delivery and that about 14 per cent voluntarily decide to resign. The paper analyses the factors that most influence new mothersÂ’ unemployment risk after childbirth. |
| Keywords: | female employment, childbirth, childcare |
| JEL: | C2 E24 J13 J22 J23 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_684_08&r=lab |
| By: | Lucie Davoine (Ecole d'économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, CEE - Centre d'études de l'emploi - Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique); Christine Erhel (Ecole d'économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, CEE - Centre d'études de l'emploi - Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I); Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière (Ecole d'économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, CEE - Centre d'études de l'emploi - Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | The report proposes a critical approach of European job quality indicators. It relies on both theoreti-cal and empirical analysis, and shows the necessity to introduce complementary variables, such as wages, working conditions and training duration. Comparative results for the EU 27 confirm the heterogeneity of job quality across Europe. Besides, time series analysis shows an upward trend of job quality in Europe since 1994, with a few exceptions. On the whole empirical investigations do not reveal any trade off between quantitative performances and job quality levels. |
| Keywords: | Labour market comparisons, job quality, European Employment Strategy, training and education policies, working conditions, gender |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00317280_v1&r=lab |
| By: | Demombynes, Gabriel; Metzler, Johannes |
| Abstract: | There are several possible explanations for the observed changes in inequality, the returns to education, and the gap between the wages of informal and formal salaried workers in Argentina over the period 1980-2002. Largely due to the lack of evidence for competing explanations, skill-biased technical change is the most likely explanation for the increases in the returns to education that occurred in the 1990s. Using a semi-parametric re-weighting variance decomposition technique and data from the Permanent Household Survey, the authors show that during the same period there was an increase in the returns to unobserved skill. This finding lends support to the hypothesis that skill-biased technical change has been a main driver of increases in inequality in Argentina. The pattern of changes suggests that the growth in returns to unobserved skill may have been partly responsible for the relative deterioration of informal salaried wages during the 1990s. |
| Keywords: | ,Labor Markets,Access&Equity in Basic Education,Primary Education,Education For All |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4624&r=lab |
| By: | Das, Maitreyi Bordia |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data from the 61st Round of the National Sample Survey to understand the employment outcomes of Dalit and Muslim men in India. It uses a conceptual framework developed for the US labor market that states that ethnic minorities skirt discrimination in the primary labor market to build successful self-employed ventures in the form of ethnic enclaves or ethnic labor markets. The paper uses entry into self-employment for educated minority groups as a proxy for minority enclaves. Based on multinomial logistic regression, the analysis finds that the minority enclave hypothesis does not hold for Dalits but it does overwhelmingly for Muslims. The interaction of Dalit and Muslim status with post-primary education in urban areas demonstrates that post-primary education confers almost a disadvantage for minority men: it does not seem to affect their allocation either to salaried work or to non-farm self-employment but does increase their likelihood of opting out of the labor force - and if they cannot afford to drop out, they join the casual labor market. Due to the complexity of these results and the fact that there are no earnings data for self-employment, it is difficult to say whether self-employment is a choice or compulsion and whether builders of minority enclaves fare better than those in the primary market. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Population Policies,Educational Policy and Planning,Access to Finance |
| Date: | 2008–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4653&r=lab |
| By: | Marek Góra; Oleksandr Rohozynsky |
| Keywords: | Gender earnings gap, personnel data, internal labor market, Russia |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwesc:diwesc7&r=lab |
| By: | Matthew Doyle (Department of Economics, University of Waterloo); Jacob Wong (School of Economics, The University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Wage posting models of job search typically assume that firms can commit to paying workers the posted wage. This paper investigates the consequences of relaxing this assumption. Under "downward" commitment firms can commit only to paying at least their advertised wage. We show that wage posting is always an equilibrium, although in special cases other equilibria can exist. Surprisingly, the wage posting equilibrium in our economy is identical to the equilibrium when firms can commit to paying exactly their posted wage. When firms cannot even commit to paying at least their advertised wage, equilibrium exhibits job auctions with wage dispersion which generally are not constrained efficient. |
| Keywords: | directed search, wage posting, job auctions, commitment |
| JEL: | C78 D40 J64 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wat:wpaper:08004&r=lab |
| By: | Alisher Aldashev (centre for European Economic Research (ZEW)); Johannes Gernandt (centre for European Economic Research (ZEW)); Stephan L. Thomsen (Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg) |
| Abstract: | Immigrants consist of foreigners and citizens with migration background. We analyze the wage gap between natives and these two groups in Germany. The estimates show a substantial gap for both groups with respect to natives. Discarding immigrants who completed education abroad reduces much of the immigrants’ wage gap. This implies educational attainment in Germany is an important component of economic integration and degrees obtained abroad are valued less. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, wage gap, decomposition, Germany |
| JEL: | J61 J31 J15 |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mag:wpaper:08019&r=lab |
| By: | Sara Lemos; Jonathan Portes |
| Abstract: | The UK was one of only three countries that granted free movement of workers to accession nationals following the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004. The resulting large, rapid and concentrated migration inflow can be seen as a natural experiment that arguably corresponds closely to an exogenous supply shock. We evaluate the impact of this migration inflow – one of the largest in British history – on the UK labour market. We use new monthly micro level data and an empirical approach that ascertains which particular labour markets in the UK – with varying degrees of native's mobility and migrants' self-selection – might have been affected. Our results suggest modest effects throughout the labour market. Despite anecdotal evidence, we found little hard evidence that the inflow of accession migrants contributed to a fall in wages or a rise in claimant unemployment in the UK between 2004 and 2006. |
| Keywords: | migration; employment; wages; Central and Eastern Europe; UK |
| JEL: | J22 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:08/29&r=lab |
| By: | Eugene Choo; Shannon Seitz; Aloysius Siow |
| Abstract: | This paper develops the collective marriage matching model, a behavioral and empirically flexible framework that incorporates both marriage matching and intrahousehold allocations. The model shows how marriage market equilibrium and bargaining power within the family are simultaneously determined. The framework provides a solution to the problem of incorporating substitute sex ratios in empirical models of spousal labor supplies. Using data from the US 2000 census, the empirical results show that changes in marriage market tightness, the ratio of unmarried men to unmarried women, have large estimated effects on spousal labor force participation rates, and smaller effects on hours of work and hours in home production. Controlling for variation in labor market conditions across marriage markets has substantive implications for the parameter estimates. |
| Keywords: | marriage matching, intrahousehold allocations, spousal labor supplies, collective model, Choo Siow |
| JEL: | J0 |
| Date: | 2008–09–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-332&r=lab |
| By: | de Mel, Suresh; McKenzie, David; Woodruff, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Is the vast army of the self-employed in low income countries a source of employment generation? This paper uses data from surveys in Sri Lanka to compare the characteristics of own account workers (non-employers) with wage workers and with owners of larger firms. The authors use a rich set of measures of background, ability, and attitudes, including lottery experiments measuring risk attitudes. Consistent with the International Labor Organization's views of the self employed (represented by Tokman), the analysis finds that two-thirds to three-quarters of the own account workers have characteristics which are more like wage workers than larger firm owners. This suggests the majority of the own account workers are unlikely to become employers. Using a two and a half year panel of enterprises, the authors show that the minority of own account workers who are more like larger firm owners are more likely to expand by adding paid employees. The results suggest that finance is not the sole constraint to growth of microenterprises, and provides an explanation for the low rates of growth of enterprises supported by microlending. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Tertiary Education,Work&Working Conditions,,Microfinance |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4635&r=lab |
| By: | Halpin, Brendan; Hill, John |
| Abstract: | Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which provide training and subsidised employment to the unemployed, are an important part of Ireland’s welfare state. While a good deal of existing research is concerned with the effect of these policies on employment chances and on wage rates, none addresses the connection between poverty and ALMPs. Do these policies have an effect on poverty? That is, first, to what extent do these policies serve the low-income population, as a consequence of and in addition to their focus on those in precarious labour market situations? Second, to what extent do these policies function to lift people out of poverty in the medium term? To address these issues we use longitudinal data from the Living in Ireland Survey (1994–2001) and examine how the respondents’ situation in one year predicts participation in employment and training schemes in the next year, and then how participation in these schemes affects poverty status in the following year. Participants on both sorts of schemes are much poorer than the population average, and those on employment schemes (but not training schemes) are even poorer than one would expect given their observed characteristics. Employment schemes and training schemes serve different purposes and different populations. A conventional logistic regression analysis seems to suggest that employment schemes (but not training schemes) positively increase the risk of poverty in the following year. This finding is not considered reliable, but rather it reflects the selection processes whereby those on employment schemes are in particularly vulnerable situations, in respects that are not picked up in the data set. A more rigorous analysis, using propensity score matching, reveals that employment schemes are neutral on poverty risk. Training schemes have a weak but insignificant protective effect. Considering the risk of poverty approximately one year after participation begins, employment schemes (and to a lesser extent, training schemes) do not provide a mechanism for immediately exiting poverty. We add the caveat that it may be desirable to consider outcomes two or more years into the future, were data available, and that other outcome measures of quality of life should also be taken into account. Ultimately, with regard to both labour market and poverty outcomes, we find no evidence that participants of training schemes or employment schemes have either raised their employment chances or reduced their risk of poverty in the year following their participation. |
| Keywords: | active labour market programmes; ALMP; propensity score matching; employment policy |
| JEL: | J08 C14 C33 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10335&r=lab |
| By: | Steven J. Davis; R. Jason Faberman; John Haltiwanger; Ron Jarmin; Javier Miranda |
| Abstract: | Unemployment inflows fell from 4 percent of employment per month in the early 1980s to 2 percent or less by the mid 1990s and thereafter. U.S. data also show a secular decline in the job destruction rate and the volatility of firm-level employment growth rates. We interpret this decline as a decrease in the intensity of idiosyncratic labor demand shocks, a key parameter in search and matching models of unemployment. According to these models, a lower intensity of idiosyncratic shocks produces less job destruction, fewer workers flowing through the unemployment pool and less frictional unemployment. To evaluate the importance of this theoretical mechanism, we relate industry-level unemployment flows from 1977 to 2005 to industry-level indicators for the intensity of idiosyncratic shocks. Unlike previous research, we focus on the lower frequency relationship of job destruction and business volatility to unemployment flows. We find strong evidence that declines in the intensity of idiosyncratic labor demand shocks drove big declines in the incidence and rate of unemployment. This evidence implies that the unemployment rate has become much less sensitive to cyclical movements in the job-finding rate. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J60 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14300&r=lab |
| By: | Catia Batista |
| Abstract: | Joining the EU is a natural experiment that drastically opens the borders of richer European countries to immigration. However, migration flows from southern Europe responded little to free migration after 1986, despite substantial differentials in real GDP per worker. The simple explanation we propose for this puzzle is migration costs. We explore the implications of our costly migration model by combining individual information from two household survey datasets (Luxembourg Income Study and European Community Household Panel). In estimating wage differentials, we account for observable characteristics, unobservable heterogeneity, and assimilation of immigrants. Based on our theoretical framework, we identify individual migration costs: they seem to be smaller for the young and educated. Nevertheless, we find a negative pattern of self-selection: less able workers appear to be more likely to leave. Our results point to the importance of micro characteristics of potential migrants in determining the effectiveness of free migration policies. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Economic Integration, Free Migration Policy, Wage Differentials, Migrant Self-Selection, Migration Costs, European Union |
| JEL: | F15 F22 J31 J61 O15 O24 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:402&r=lab |
| By: | Mamiko Takeuchi (Research Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science); Hisakazu Matsushige (Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | On the basis of a survey performed at Japanese pharmaceutical companies, we analyze the processes and the influence that family-friendly policies exert on the promotion of women employees and corporate performance through womenfs activities. In particular, Structural Equation Modeling is used to clarify complex causality between the promotion of women employees and personnel policies. The results of our analysis indicate that even if complex relations between the variables are taken into account, productive improvements due to family-friendly policies are not observed. Although family-friendly policies do not have a direct effect on the promotions or wages of women, they have an indirect effect on womenfs promotions and wage increases through the length of their tenure. |
| Keywords: | Structural Equation Modeling, Family-friendly Policy, Career Advancement of Women, Corporate Performance, Pharmaceutical Company |
| JEL: | J16 J17 J24 J31 J81 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osp:wpaper:08e009&r=lab |
| By: | Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Rohorua, Halahingano |
| Abstract: | Temporary migration programs for unskilled workers are increasingly being proposed as a way to both relieve labor shortages in developed countries and aid development in sending countries without entailing many of the costs associated with permanent migration. New Zealand's new Recognized Seasonal Employer program is designed to enable unskilled workers from the Pacific Islands to work in horticulture and viticulture in New Zealand for a period of up to seven months. However, the development impact on a sending country will depend not only on how many workers participate, but also on who participates. This paper uses new survey data from Tonga to examine the process of selecting workers for the Recognized Seasonal Employer program, and to analyze how pro-poor the recruitment process has been to date. The findings show that recruited workers come from largely agricultural backgrounds, and have lower average incomes and schooling levels than Tongans not participating in the program. Comparing the characteristics of program workers with those of Tongans applying to permanently migrate to New Zealand through the Pacific Access Category, the program workers are more rural and less educated. The program therefore seems to have succeeded in creating new opportunities for relatively poor and unskilled Tongans to work in New Zealand. |
| Keywords: | Access to Finance,Labor Markets,Work&Working Conditions,,Tertiary Education |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4698&r=lab |
| By: | Monika Engler; Stefan Staubli |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use time-use surveys to examine trends in the allocation of time in five industrialized countries over the last thirty years. Adjusting for changing demographics, we find that leisure time across countries has converged over this period. Specifically, leisure time has declined five to eight hours in countries with high leisure levels thirty years ago and has increased around one hour in the other countries. For men the reduction in leisure was driven by an increase in nonmarket work, while women dramatically increased time allocated to market work and decreased nonmarket work time. Lastly, we show that like in the USA leisure inequality increased in all countries of our sample. |
| Keywords: | Time Use, Leisure Inequality, Cross-Country Comparison, MTUS |
| JEL: | D12 D13 J22 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2008:2008-14&r=lab |
| By: | Bosch, Mariano; Maloney, William |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the cyclical properties of worker flows in Brazil and Mexico, two important developing countries with large unregulated or “informal” sectors. It generates three stylized facts that are critical to the accurate modeling of the sector and which suggest the need to rethink the approaches to date. First, the unemployment rate is countercyclical essentially because job separations of informal workers increase dramatically in recessions. Second, the share of formal employment is countercyclical because of the difficulty of finding formal jobs from inactivity, unemployment and other informal jobs during recessions rather than because of increased separation from formal jobs. Third, flows from formality into informality are not countercyclical, but, if anything, pro-cyclical. Together, these challenge the conventional wisdom that has guided the modeling the sector that informal workers are primarily those rationed out of the formal labor market. They also offer a new synthesis of the mechanics of the cyclical adjustment process. Finally, the paper offers estimates of the moments of worker flows series that are needed for calibration. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Population Policies,,Labor Standards |
| Date: | 2008–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4648&r=lab |
| By: | Patrinos, Harry Anthony |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits unique information on cognitive ability to examine the importance of schooling and non-schooling cognitive skills for heterogeneous individuals using instrumental variables estimation. Using a binary instrument based on the 1981 reform in Chile, the authors find that the main beneficiaries of the reform were those who at the time were pupils in basic schooling (ages 6-13). For this treated group of pupils, only a negligible part of the estimated return to schooling is due to classical ability bias. The labor market reward to an additional year of schooling is a measure of the"true"non-cognitive return to schooling. However, once the treated group is expanded to include secondary school students, the pure return to schooling decreases dramatically, while the return to schooling cognitive and non-schooling cognitive skills increases accordingly, suggesting that a large part of the estimated return in an earnings function is due to classical ability bias. For this treated group (mixture of basic school and secondary school age students), the labor market rewarded cognitive skills (especially those acquired through schooling) significantly. |
| Keywords: | Education For All,Primary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning,Access&Equity in Basic Education |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4617&r=lab |
| By: | Beegle, Kathleen; Dehejia, Rajeev H.; Gatti, Roberta; Krutikova, Sofya |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits a unique longitudinal data set from Tanzania to examine the consequences of child labor on education, employment choices, and marital status over a 10-year horizon. Shocks to crop production and rainfall are used as instrumental variables for child labor. For boys, the findings show that a one-standard-deviation (5.7 hour) increase in child labor leads 10 years later to a loss of approximately one year of schooling and to a substantial increase in the likelihood of farming and of marrying at a younger age. Strikingly, there are no significant effects on education for girls, but there is a significant increase in the likelihood of marrying young. The findings also show that crop shocks lead to an increase in agricultural work for boys and instead lead to an increase in chore hours for girls. The results are consistent with education being a lower priority for girls and/or with chores causing less disruption for education than agricultural work. The increased chore hours could also account for the results on marriage for girls. |
| Keywords: | Street Children,Youth and Governance,Labor Policies,Labor Markets,Children and Youth |
| Date: | 2008–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4677&r=lab |
| By: | Shinichiro Iwata (Faculty of Economics, University of Toyama); Keiko Tamada (Faculty of Economics, Fukuoka University) |
| Abstract: | Though the existing literature provides evidence that married women choose short commutes because of low wages and household responsibilities, this theoretical paper shows that wives employed in highly paid positions also undertake short commutes and endogenously choose longer times for housework. In contrast, middle-class wives choose long commutes and undertake limited household chores. The results suggest that the commute times of wives follow a backward-bending pattern and there is a tradeo? between commute time and the hours devoted to housework in terms of wage rates. Using a sample of married women working full time from the 1993 Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers, we obtain empirical evidence supporting these predictions. |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2008cf582&r=lab |
| By: | Ahmed Tritah |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2006 U.S. micro censuses data to document the magnitude and nature of European human capital outflow to the United States. I found that while emigration is about a small number of individuals, the share of Europeans who are leaving is increasing as one moves along the educational distribution and ladder of occupations that matter the most in the knowledge economy. Next, using productivity based brain drain indices it is found that aggregate human capital conveyed by emigrants has increased since the 1990s. Finally, as a better understanding on the nature of human capital embodied in European emigrants, I show that the Europeans earn a positive wage premium relative to the US natives. Moreover, this premium is higher for the most recent expatriates cohorts, providing further evidence that the quality of European emigrants has increased. |
| Keywords: | Emigration; brain-drain; human capital; knowledge economy; Europe-US |
| JEL: | F22 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2008-08&r=lab |
| By: | Deichmann, Uwe; Shilpi, Forhad; Vakis, Renos |
| Abstract: | Using individual level employment data from Bangladesh, this paper presents empirical evidence on the relative importance of farm and urban linkages for rural nonfarm employment. The econometric results indicate that high return wage work and self-employment in nonfarm activities cluster around major urban centers. The negative effects of isolation on high return wage work and on self-employment are magnified in locations with higher agricultural potential. The low return nonfarm activities respond primarily to local demand displaying no significant spatial variation. The empirical results highlight the need for improved connectivity of regions with higher agricultural potential to urban centers for nonfarm development in Bangladesh. |
| Keywords: | Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Rural Poverty Reduction,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2008–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4611&r=lab |
| By: | Chyi, Hau; Ozturk, Orgul |
| Abstract: | Using PIAT Math test score as a measure of attainment, we find that both single mothers' work and welfare use in the first five years of their children's lives have a positive effect on children's outcomes, but this effect declines with initial ability. The higher the initial ability of a child, the lower the positive impact work and welfare have. In fact, in the case of welfare the effect is negative if a child has more than median initial ability. Furthermore, we find that the work requirement reduces a single mother's use of welfare. However, the net effect of the work requirement on a child's test score depends on whether the mother's work brings in enough labor income to compensate for the loss of welfare benefits. We also look at the implications of the welfare eligibility time limit and maternal leave policies on children's outcomes. |
| JEL: | I38 J22 J18 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10341&r=lab |
| By: | Barrera-Osorio, Felipe; Bertrand, Marianne; L. Linden, Leigh; Perez-Calle, Francisco |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an evaluation of multiple variants of a commonly used intervention to boost education in developing countries - the conditional cash transfer - with a student level randomization that allows the authors to generate intra-family and peer-network variation. The analysis tests three treatments: a basic conditional cash transfer treatment based on school attendance, a savings treatment that postpones a bulk of the cash transfer due to good attendance to just before children have to re-enroll, and a tertiary treatment where some of the transfers are conditional on students'graduation and tertiary enrollment rather than attendance. On average, the combined incentives increase attendance, pass rates, enrollment, graduation rates, and matriculation to tertiary institutions. Changing the timing of the payments does not change attendance rates relative to the basic treatment but does significantly increase enrollment rates at both the secondary and tertiary levels. Incentives for graduation and matriculation are particularly effective, increasing attendance and enrollment at secondary and tertiary levels more than the basic treatment. There is some evidence that the subsidies can cause a reallocation of responsibilities within the household. Siblings (particularly sisters) of treated students work more and attend school less than students in families that received no treatment. In addition, indirect peer influences are relatively strong in attendance decisions with the average magnitude similar to that of the direct effect. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Access to Finance,Primary Education,Secondary Education, |
| Date: | 2008–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4580&r=lab |
| By: | Andrea Bassanini (ERMES - Equipe de recherche sur les marches, l'emploi et la simulation - CNRS : UMR7017 - Université Panthéon-Assas - Paris II, DELSA - OCDE); Anne Saint-Martin (DELSA - OCDE) |
| Abstract: | Despite some progress, there is still evidence of discrimination on the grounds of gender and ethnic or racial origins in OECD labour markets. Field experiments show pervasive ethnic discrimination in many countries. We show indirect cross-country/time-series evidence that, using product market regulation as an instrument, suggests that on average at least 8% of the gender employment gap and a larger proportion of the gender wage gap can be attributed to discrimination. Virtually all OECD countries have enacted anti-discrimination laws in recent decades, and evaluations as well as cross-country analysis suggest that, if well-designed, these laws can be effective in reducing disparities in labour market outcomes. However, enforcement of anti-discrimination legislation is essentially based on victims’ willingness to claim their rights. Thus, public awareness of legal rules and their expected consequences (notably, victims’ costs and benefits of lodging complaints) is a crucial element of an effective policy strategy to establish a culture of equal treatment. However, legal rules are likely to have more impact if the enforcement is not exclusively dependent on individuals. In this respect, specific agencies may play a key role. |
| Keywords: | field experiments; employment gaps; gender gaps; anti-discrimination laws |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00312794_v1&r=lab |
| By: | Verner, Dorte |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses labor markets in Haiti, including farm and nonfarm employment and income generation. The analyses are based on the first Living Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole country and representative at the regional level. The findings suggest that four key determinants of employment and productivity in nonfarm activities are education, gender, location, and migration status. This is emphasized when nonfarm activities are divided into low-return and high-return activities. The wage and producer income analyses reveal that education is key to earning higher wages and incomes. Moreover, producer incomes increase with farm size, land title, and access to tools, electricity, roads, irrigation, and other farm inputs. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Population Policies,,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems |
| Date: | 2008–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4574&r=lab |
| By: | Edmonds, Eric V.; Schady, Norbert |
| Abstract: | Does child labor decrease as household income rises? This question has important implications for the design of policy on child labor. This paper focuses on a program of unconditional cash transfers in Ecuador. It argues that the effect of a small increase in household income on child labor should be concentrated among children most vulnerable to transitioning from schooling to work. The paper finds support for this hypothesis. Cash transfers have small effects on child time allocation at peak school attendance ages and among children already out of school at baseline, but have large impacts at ages and in groups most likely to leave school and start work. Additional income is associated with a decline in paid work that takes place away from the child's home. Declines in work for pay are associated with increases in school enrollment, especially for girls. Increases in schooling are matched by an increase in education expenditures that appears to absorb most of the cash transfer. However, total household expenditures do not increase with the transfer and appear to fall in households most impacted by the transfer because of the decline in child labor. |
| Keywords: | Street Children,Youth and Governance,Gender and Law,Labor Policies,Primary Education |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4702&r=lab |
| By: | Docquier, Frederic; Lowell, B. Lindsay; Marfouk, Abdeslam |
| Abstract: | This paper updates and extends the Docquier-Marfouk data set on inter-national migration by educational attainment. The authors use new sources, homogenize definitions of what a migrant is, and compute gender-disaggregated indicators of the brain drain. Emigration stocks and rates are provided by level of schooling and gender for 195 source countries in 1990 and 2000. The data set can be used to capture the recent trend in women's skilled migration and to analyze its causes and consequences for developing countries. The .findings show that women represent an increasing share of the OECD immigration stock and exhibit relatively higher rates of brain drain than men. The gender gap in skilled migration is strongly correlated with the gender gap in educational attainment at origin. Equating women's and men's access to education would probably reduce gender differences in the brain drain. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Gender and Development,Access to Finance,International Migration,Anthropology |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4613&r=lab |
| By: | Patrinos, Harry Anthony; Shafiq, M. Najeeb |
| Abstract: | The authors introduce a simple empirical model that assumes a positive stigma (or norm) toward child labor that is common in some developing countries. They illustrate the positive stigma model using data from Guatemala. Controlling for several child and household-level characteristics, the analysis uses two instruments for measuring stigma: a child's indigenous background and the household head's childhood work experience. |
| Keywords: | Street Children,Youth and Governance,Children and Youth,Labor Policies,Primary Education |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4697&r=lab |
| By: | Bengtsson, Tommy (Lund University); Scott, Kirk (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This study charts the differences between the sickness absence of immigrants and Swedes during a period when a flourishing labour market in the beginning of the 1990s turned into a tense and problematic one. We consider not only human capital factors for various immigrant groups and natives, but also workplace conditions and macro level factors. Using register based information on 100,000 individuals for the period 1992-2001, we find large differences in sickness absence between natives and several immigrant groups and that these differences persist after controlling for human capital, workplace factors, and macro economic factors. |
| Keywords: | immigration, health, sickness benefits, labour market, integration |
| JEL: | J15 J21 J32 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3672&r=lab |
| By: | Elisabetta Trevisan (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of the Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) on the hiring behaviour of the firms when the level of EPL is differentiated by firms size. In this respect, Italy represents an interesting case because workers hired by bigger firms enjoy a stronger protection than workers hired by small firms; the threshold size is fixed by law at 15 employees. A model derives the conditions under which firms decide whether to upsize or not and, in case of upsizing, whether to hire temporary (i.e. workers who are not counted in the threshold, as apprentices in Italy) or permanent workers. The model has been tested using data drawn from the VWH (Veneto Workers History) registered data for firms and workers, from 1982 to 1997, for a large Italian region (i.e. Veneto). Firms close to the threshold are not scared to growth but they are more likely to hire apprentices than permanent workers. |
| Keywords: | Employment Protection, Hiring, Random Effects, Regression Discontinuity Design. |
| JEL: | C21 C23 J21 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2008_25&r=lab |
| By: | Del Carpio, Ximena V. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship of household income with child labor. The analysis uses a rich dataset obtained in the context of a conditional cash transfer program in a poor region of Nicaragua in 2005 and 2006. The program has a strong productive emphasis and seeks to diversify the work portfolio of beneficiaries while imposing conditionalities on the household. The author develops a simple model that relates child labor to household income, preferences, and production technology. It turns out that child labor does not always decrease with income; the relationship is complex and exhibits an inverted-U shape. Applying the data to the model confirms that the relationship is concave when all children (8-15 years of age) are included in the sample. Expanding the analysis by stratifying the sample by age and gender shows that the relationship holds only for older children, both genders. The author investigates the effect of the conditional cash transfer program on child labor. The results show that the program has a decreasing effect on total hours of work for the full sample of children. Disentangling labor into two types - physically demanding labor and non-physical labor - reveals that the program has opposite effects on each type; it decreases physically demanding labor while increasing participation in non-physical (more intellectually oriented) tasks for children. |
| Keywords: | Street Children,Youth and Governance,Labor Policies,Children and Youth,Labor Markets |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4694&r=lab |
| By: | Akresh, Richard; de Walque, Damien |
| Abstract: | Civil war, and genocide in particular, are among the most destructive of social phenomena, especially for children of school-going age. In Rwanda school enrollment trends suggest that the school system recovered quickly after 1994, but these numbers do not tell the full story. Two cross-sectional household surveys collected before and after the genocide are used to compare children in the same age group who were and were not exposed to the genocide - and their educational outcomes are substantially different. Children exposed to the genocide experienced a drop in educational achievement of almost one-half year of completed schooling, and are 15 percentage points less likely to complete third or fourth grade. Sustained effort is needed to reinforce educational institutions and offer a"second chance"to those youth most affected by the conflict. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Youth and Governance,Primary Education,Post Conflict Reconstruction,Education For All |
| Date: | 2008–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4606&r=lab |
| By: | David, Quentin (ECARES, Free University of Brussels); Janiak, Alexandre (University of Chile); Wasmer, Etienne (Sciences Po, Paris) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we attempt to understand the determinants of mobility by introducing the concept of local social capital. Investing in local ties is rational when workers anticipate that they will not move to another region. Reciprocally, once local social capital is accumulated, incentives to move are reduced. Our model illustrates several types of complementarity leading to multiple equilibria (a world of local social capital and low mobility vs. a world of low social capital and high propensity to move). It also shows that local social capital is systematically negative for mobility, and can be negative for employment, but some other types of social capital can actually raise employment. |
| Keywords: | European unemployment, geographical mobility, social capital |
| JEL: | J2 J61 Z1 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3668&r=lab |
| By: | Donald Boyd; Pamela Grossman; Hamilton Lankford; Susanna Loeb; James Wyckoff |
| Abstract: | There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, while others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare teachers. This paper is one of the first to estimate the effects of features of teachers' preparation on teachers' value-added to student test score performance in math and English Language Arts. Our results indicate variation across preparation programs in the average effectiveness of the teachers they are supplying to New York City schools. In particular, preparation directly linked to practice appears to benefit teachers in their first year. |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 J24 J45 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14314&r=lab |
| By: | Vincent Delbecque; Isabelle Mejean; Lise Patureau |
| Abstract: | The paper evaluates the empirical effect of labor market institutions on foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions. To that aim, a firm-level dataset is used, that describes French firms’ expansion strategies abroad over the 1992-2002 period. Following Head and Mayer (2004b), the determinants of individual FDI decisions are estimated by implementing a discrete choice model on all possible foreign locations. The estimated equation is derived from a partialequilibrium model combining elements of the new economic geography literature and the labor market literature. We find that labor market institutions do impact French firms’ location decisions. Our overall results suggest that labor market rigidity puts a brake on the host country’s attractiveness. More detailed analysis shows that the estimated effects depend on the sample of countries considered as potential locations. French firms are found to be much more sensitive to the design of labor market institutions when FDI decisions take place within the set of industrialized OECD countries. |
| Keywords: | Labor market institutions; foreign direct investment determinants; firm-level data |
| JEL: | F16 F21 J3 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2008-12&r=lab |
| By: | Ana Laura Mancini (Child - Collegio Carlo Alberto and University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Minimum income policies are policies aimed at guarantee all citizens with a minimum level of income and at fighting social exclusion typically associated with extreme poverty. Theoretically, their main shortcoming is the disincentive effect on labour market participation they could generate in the bottom part of income distribution, due to the high effective marginal tax rate they impose around the threshold level. This paper employs a structural labor supply model under discrete choices to test the existence and the magnitude of this disincentive effect on Italian female labor supply. Our empirical results show that family structure is crucial in determining the existence of a disincentive effect: only married women experience it, while single women participation rates increase under all possible minimum income schemes. The magnitude of both the positive and the negative effect depend on the policy design |
| Keywords: | Labor supply, welfare transfers, tax-benefit system, microsimulation. |
| JEL: | J22 C25 H31 C25 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2008-94&r=lab |
| By: | Lindbeck, Assar (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University); Persson, Mats (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We develop a simple yet realistic model of income insurance, where the individual’s ability and willingness to work is treated as a continuous variable. In this framework, income insurance not only provides income smoothing, it also relieves the individual from particularly burdensome work. As a result, the individual adjusts his labor supply in a continuous fashion to the implicit tax wedge of the insurance system. Moral hazard, in the sense that an individual receives insurance benefits without actually being fully qualified, also becomes a matter of degree. Moreover, our continuous framework makes it easy to analyze both the role of administrative rejection of claims, and the role of social norms, for the utilization of insurance. |
| Keywords: | Moral hazard; disability insurance; work absence; administrative rejection; asymmetric information; social norms |
| JEL: | G22 H53 I38 J21 |
| Date: | 2008–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iiessp:0756&r=lab |
| By: | Satish Chand and Michael A. Clemens |
| Abstract: | Does the emigration of highly-skilled workers deplete local human capital? The answer is not obvious if migration prospects induce human capital formation. We analyze a unique natural quasi-experiment in the Republic of the Fiji Islands, where political shocks have provoked one of the largest recorded exoduses of skilled workers from a developing country. Mass emigration began unexpectedly and has occurred only in a well-defined subset of the population, creating a treatment group that foresaw likely emigration and two different quasi-control groups that did not. We use rich census and administrative microdata to address a range of concerns about experimental validity. This allows plausible causal attribution of post-shock changes in human capital accumulation to changes in emigration patterns. We show that high rates of emigration by tertiary-educated Fiji Islanders not only raised investment in tertiary education in Fiji; they moreover raised the stock of tertiary educated people in Fiji—net of departures. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idc:wpaper:idec08-05&r=lab |
| By: | Alan Barrett (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)); Elish Kelly (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)) |
| Abstract: | Much research has been conducted on immigration into Ireland in recent years using data from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS), the official source for labour market data in Ireland. As it is known that the QNHS undercounts immigrants in Ireland, a concern exists over whether the profile of immigrants being provided is accurate. For example, QNHS-based research has shown that immigrants in Ireland are a highly-educated group. However, if it is the case that those who are missed by the QNHS are more heavily drawn from among low-skilled immigrants, then the profile being reported and used in other research may be inaccurate. In this paper, we use the Irish Census of 2006 to assess the reliability of the profile of immigrants provided by the QNHS by comparing the characteristics of immigrants in both datasets. In general, we find that the QNHS does indeed provide a reliable picture and that earlier findings on the education levels of immigrants in Ireland hold. |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp253&r=lab |
| By: | Friedrich Breyer; Stefan Hupfeld |
| Abstract: | In several OECD countries, public pay-as-you-go financed pension systems have undergone major reforms in which future retirement benefit promises have been scaled down. A consequence of these reforms is that especially in countries with a tight tax-benefit linkage, the retirement benefit claims of low-income workers might not even exceed the minimum income guarantee which the government provides the aged. Recently, some German politicians have criticized this likely development because it was unjust that persons who have paid contributions over a long working life end up with no higher benefits than people who have never worked or paid any contributions. However, the government defended the current retirement benefit formula with the argument that every Euro paid as contributions had exactly the same value in generating future retirement benefits. But this logic has been questioned recently, e.g. by Breyer and Hupfeld (2007), since the value of a contributed Euro depends on the life expectancy of the individual, which is positively correlated with annual income. In that earlier paper, we introduced the concept of "distributive neutrality", which takes income-group-specific differences in life expectancy into account. The present paper estimates the relationship between annual earnings and life expectancy of German retirees empirically and shows how the formula that links benefits to contributions would have to be modified to achieve distributive neutrality. We compare the new formula to the benefit formulas in other OECD countries and analyze a data set provided by the German Pension Insurance Office on a large cohort of pensioners to find out how the old-age poverty rate would be affected by the proposed change of the benefit formula. Finally, we discuss other possible effects of a change in the benefit formula, especially on the labour supply of different earnings groups. |
| Keywords: | Social security, life expectancy, poverty, redistribution |
| JEL: | H55 I38 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp817&r=lab |
| By: | John T. Addison (Department of Economics, University of South Carolina, GEMF/University of Coimbra, and IZA Bonn); Lutz Bellmann (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung der Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Nürnberg); André Pahnke (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung der Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Nürnberg); Paulino Teixeira (GEMF and Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra) |
| Abstract: | Using German data from the Institute for Employment Research Establishment Panel, this paper constructs two main measures of outsourcing and examines their determinants and consequences for employment. There are some commonalities in the correlates of the two measures of outsourcing, as well as agreement on the absence of adverse employment effects across all industries. For one specification, however, some negative effects are reported for manufacturing industry, balanced by positive effects for the services sector for another. But there are no indications of survival bias. This is because the association between outsourcing and plant closings is predominantly negative, albeit poorly determined. |
| Keywords: | outsourcing, organizational change, employment change, plant closings, value added |
| JEL: | F16 J23 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2008-04&r=lab |
| By: | Docquier, Frederic; Faye, Ousmane; Pestieau, Pierre |
| Abstract: | Assuming a given educational policy, the recent brain drain literature reveals that skilled migration can boost the average level of schooling in developing countries. This paper introduces educational subsidies determined by governments concerned by the number of skilled workers remaining in the country. The theoretical analysis shows that developing countries can benefit from skilled emigration when educational subsidies entail high .fiscal distortions. However when taxes are not too distortionary, it is desirable to impede emigration and subsidize education. The authors investigate the empirical relationship between educational subsidies and migration prospects, obtaining a negative relationship for 105 countries. Based on this result, the analysis revisits the country specific effects of skilled migration upon human capital. The findings show that the endogeneity of public subsidies reduces the number of winners and increases the magnitude of the losses. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Access to Finance,International Migration,Emerging Markets |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4614&r=lab |
| By: | T. Dohmen; H. Lehmann; A. Zaiceva |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:633&r=lab |
| By: | Lupi, Claudio; Ordine, Patrizia |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the reasons that determine students’ mobility in Italy and tries to explain why in the presence of quality differentials among universities the majority of students choose to remain in their regions of origin. We find that low mobility is related to family income and other financial and background characteristics. Low mobility in turn implies the existence of little competition among universities, and hence little incentive for improvement in either teaching or research. A crucial issue is therefore to evaluate if and how the government may affect this process and improve the supply of higher education quality and the degree of competition among academic institutions. |
| Keywords: | Higher education, University choice, Liquidity constraints |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2008–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mol:ecsdps:esdp08047&r=lab |
| By: | Jennifer Hunt; Marjolaine Gauthier-Loiselle |
| Abstract: | We measure the extent to which skilled immigrants increase innovation in the United States by exploring individual patenting behavior as well as state-level determinants of patenting. The 2003 National Survey of College Graduates shows that immigrants patent at double the native rate, and that this is entirely accounted for by their disproportionately holding degrees in science and engineering. These data imply that a one percentage point rise in the share of immigrant college graduates in the population increases patents per capita by 6%. This could be an overestimate of immigration's benefit if immigrant inventors crowd out native inventors, or an underestimate if immigrants have positive spill-overs on inventors. Using a 1950-2000 state panel, we show that natives are not crowded out by immigrants, and that immigrants do have positive spill-overs, resulting in an increase in patents per capita of about 15% in response to a one percentage point increase in immigrant college graduates. We isolate the causal effect by instrumenting the change in the share of skilled immigrants in a state with the initial share of immigrant high school dropouts from Europe, China and India. In both data sets, the positive impacts of immigrant post-college graduates and scientists and engineers are larger than for immigrant college graduates. |
| JEL: | J61 O31 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14312&r=lab |
| By: | Martin Gustafsson (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Alejandro Morduchowicz (International Institute for Educational Planning, Buenos Aires) |
| Abstract: | An existing accounting framework to describe an education system is elaborated and used as a framework for understanding and comparing the resource allocation policies of the South African and Argentinean schooling systems. The comparison highlights how, by paying fewer teachers more (relative to GDP per capita), South Africa is structurally forced to deal with relatively large class sizes. Both countries have attempted to use production function studies to understand ways of improving pupil performance, and in both countries the utilisation of education human resources appears particularly important. The economic case for expanding secondary schooling is perhaps not as strong as the policies, especially those in Argentina, suggest. Whilst rates of return to secondary schooling do not appear to offer concrete policy direction, a cross-country analysis that takes into account a secondary school completion ratio (a statistic calculated for this analysis) suggests that more policy emphasis should go towards improving the quality of secondary schooling. |
| Keywords: | South Africa, Argentina, education policy, education financing, school, education, secondary school, educational quality |
| JEL: | D20 H52 I22 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers65&r=lab |
| By: | Marek Góra; Oleksandr Rohozynsky; Irina Sinitsina; Mateusz Walewski |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwesc:diwesc8&r=lab |
| By: | Rijkers, Bob; Laderchi, Caterina Ruggeri; Teal, Francis |
| Abstract: | The Addis Ababa Integrated Housing Development Program aims to tackle the housing shortage and unemployment that prevail in Addis Ababa by deploying and supporting small and medium scale enterprises to construct low-cost housing using technologies novel for Ethiopia. The motivation for such support is predicated on the view that small firms create more jobs per unit of investment by virtue of being more labor intensive and that the jobs so created are concentrated among the low-skilled and hence the poor. To assess whether the program has succeeded in biasing technology adoption in favor of labor and thereby contributed to poverty reduction, the impact of the program on technology usage, labor intensity, and earnings is investigated using a unique matched workers-firms dataset, the Addis Ababa Construction Enterprise Survey. The data are representative of all registered construction firms in Addis and were collected specifically for the purpose of analyzing the impact of the program. The authors find that program firms do not adopt different technologies and are not more labor intensive than non-program firms. There is an earnings premium for program participants, who tend to be relatively well-educated, which is heterogeneous and highest for those at the bottom of the earnings distribution. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Access to Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Microfinance,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2008–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4629&r=lab |
| By: | Mishra, SK |
| Abstract: | The IDEAS publishes every month the rankings of economists (and departments of economics including research institutions working in the related areas) in different countries. These rankings are based on a large number of measures. It is observed that economists of some countries participate more vigorously in academic and professional activities. This paper investigates into the factors responsible for variations in participation of economists of different countries in academic and professional activities reflected in their intellectual output. |
| Keywords: | Economist; participation; rankings; IDEAS; RePEc; intellectual output; human development; less developed countries; journal articles; working papers; SSRN |
| JEL: | A11 A14 |
| Date: | 2008–09–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:10338&r=lab |
| By: | Tanja Kirjavainen |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the views of the staff members of nine upper secondary schools in Finland that were in the upper or lower tails of the efficiency distribution measured with stochastic frontier analysis. Teachers and principals were interviewed on their views about the students, staff relations, school management, curriculum work, parent-school relations, teacher training, and evaluation .In efficient schools, views concerning the students were caring, appreciating all students. Respecting views were also present, with students? own initiative being appreciated. In inefficient schools there was more often frustration or disappointment at the low performance of the students. In efficient schools, staff relations were professional, whereas in some inefficient schools it was characterized as tense. Management and decision making were participative in efficient schools and teachers were happy with their possibilities to influence school matters. In inefficient schools, there were disappointments and frustrated views about the management and possibilities to have an influence. Curriculum work was seen as way to develop the school and the work in efficient schools. In inefficient schools, it was considered as an administrative measure. |
| Keywords: | Efficiency, upper secondary schools, school management, staff relations, stochastic frontier analysis |
| Date: | 2008–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:dpaper:450&r=lab |
| By: | Debashis Pal; Arup Bose; David Sappington |
| Abstract: | We demonstrate the value of equal pay policies in teams, even when team members have distinct abilities and make different contributions to team performance. A commitment to compensate all team members in identical fashion eliminates the incentive that each team member otherwise has to sabotage the activities of teammates in order to induce the team owner to implement a more favorable reward structure. The reduced sabotage benefits the team owner, and can secure Pareto gains under plausible circumstances. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cin:ucecwp:2008-07&r=lab |
| By: | Matt Sutton; Ross Elder; Bruce Guthrie; Graham Watt |
| Abstract: | An innovative and expensive performance-related pay scheme was introduced for general practices across the UK in 2004. It was not piloted and baseline performance data were not collected prior to its introduction. We estimate the impact of this Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) by analysing annual rates of recording of blood pressure, smoking status, cholesterol, body mass index and alcohol consumption based on individual patient records from 315 general practices over the period 2000/1 to 2005/6. The recording of each risk factor is designated as incentivised or unincentivised for each individual based on whether they have one of the diagnoses targeted by the QOF. The estimated impact is sensitive to the dynamic specification of the recording process and was substantially larger on the targeted patient groups (+19.9 percentage points) than the untargeted groups (+5.3). We also find positive spillovers of (+10.9) for the targeted groups onto unincentivised factors. We propose that the intended rewards per additional record were under-estimated, because account was not taken of substantial multiple-payment for co-morbid patients, levels of pre-QOF recording and the additional rewards available for risk factor control that would be achieved by measurement alone. Based on naïve assumptions, we estimate the intended financial reward per additional risk factor record to be £4.40. Allowing for co-morbidity, pre-QOF performance and the additional ‘control’ rewards, increases this average reward eleven-fold, to £48.90. Taking account of the positive spillovers reduces this figure to £25.10, but it remains substantially larger than what appears to have been intended. |
| Keywords: | incentives, quality, primary care, payment systems, spillovers |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:08/21&r=lab |
| By: | Sabarwal, Shwetlena; Terrell, Katherine |
| Abstract: | Using 2005 firm level data for 26 countries in Eastern and Central Europe, this paper estimates performance gaps between male and female-owned businesses, while controlling for location by industry and country. The findings show that female entrepreneurs have a significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales revenues) and are less efficient in terms of total factor productivity, although the difference is small. However, women entrepreneurs generate the same amount of profit per unit of revenue as men. Although both male and female entrepreneurs in the region are sub-optimally small, women's returns to scale are significantly larger than men's, implying that women would gain more from increasing their scale. The authors argue that the main reasons for the sub-optimal size of female-owned firms are that they are both capital constrained and concentrated in industries with small firms. |
| Keywords: | Access to Finance,,Banks&Banking Reform,Gender and Health,Gender and Law |
| Date: | 2008–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4705&r=lab |
| By: | Loukas Balafoutas; Kiichiro Fukasaku |
| Abstract: | Globalisation has brought benefits to the economies in the Black Sea Economic Co-operation (BSEC) and Central Asia (CA), but compounded volatility and uncertainty associated with the transition to market economy. Labour markets have been put under pressure, as BSEC-CA countries compete on the international arena. One important form of labour market adjustment has been a large amount of migration flows within the BSEC-CA region and to the neighbouring countries. |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:devaac:68-en&r=lab |
| By: | Zhang, Xuelin |
| Abstract: | La présente étude, qui repose sur le Fichier de données longitudinales sur la main d'oeuvre de 1983 à 2004, porte sur l'emploi, la mobilité professionnelle et les trajectoires des gains des mères canadiennes, après la naissance d'un enfant. Nous avons déterminé que les taux d'emploi à long et à court termes après la naissance d'un enfant, dans le cas des cohortes de mères canadiennes du début des années 2000, étaient plus élevés que ceux de leurs homologues au milieu des années 1980, et que par rapport aux femmes sans enfant, les mères canadiennes étaient de moins en moins susceptibles de quitter leur emploi au fil du temps. Nos données nous permettent aussi d'examiner les répercussions de la naissance d'un enfant sur les gains pour un groupe de mères canadiennes ayant un niveau élevé d'activité sur le marché du travail. Pour elles, les gains ont diminué respectivement de 40 % et de 30 % l'année de la naissance de l'enfant et l'année suivante. Tant selon le modèle à effets fixes que selon le modèle à tendance fixe, les répercussions sur les gains de la naissance d'un enfant diminuent au cours des autres années suivant la naissance d'un enfant. Les résultats du modèle à tendance fixe laissent aussi supposer qu'à partir de la deuxième année et jusqu'à la septième année suivant la naissance d'un enfant, les effets négatifs varient entre 8 % et 3 % et deviennent négligeables par la suite. |
| Keywords: | Travail, Salaires, traitements et autres gains |
| Date: | 2008–08–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3f:2008314f&r=lab |
| By: | Cory Koedel (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether educational production in secondary school involves joint production among teachers across subjects. In doing so, it also provides insights into the reliability of value-added modeling. Teacher value- added to reading test scores is estimated for four different teacher types: English, math, science and social studies. While the initial results indicate that reading output is jointly produced by math and English teachers, post-estimation falsification tests debunk the math-teacher effects - that is, there is in fact no evidence of joint production in secondary school. The results offer a mixed review of the value-added methodology, suggesting that it may be useful in some contexts but not others. . |
| Keywords: | value-added, teacher quality, secondary school teachers, educational production |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2008–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:0808&r=lab |
| By: | Luo, Xubei; Zhu, Nong |
| Abstract: | Income inequality in China has risen rapidly in the past decades across regions, between rural and urban sectors, and within provinces. The dynamics of divergence across these sub-national areas have taken the form of a"race to the top"- meaning that all segments of the population, including the poor with low education in lagging inland rural areas, have experienced gains in average income. The largest gains have been registered by those with higher income and education in leading coastal urban areas. Using the China Economic, Population, Nutrition and Health Survey data of 1989 and 2004, we show that the most important factors explaining overall inequality are differential returns to schooling and sector of employment. A decomposition analysis based on household income determination shows that the increase in returns to education explains two-thirds of income changes in urban areas and one-sixth in rural areas. The widening income gaps are the consequence of higher growth in leading urban and coastal areas and that the skilled population has benefited more from the economic reforms carried out during the last 25 years. The authors argue that rising income inequality can be part of a normal process of development at a certain stage, and that the dynamics of spatial income divergence in the form of"a race to the top"can be desirable to some extent as it unleashes competitive pressure and creates incentives for investment in skills. Continuing to improve market efficiency and investing in people, in particular improving education service in lagging areas to poor people, are important for sustainable growth and equitable distribution in the long run. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Inequality,Achieving Shared Growth,Population Policies, |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4700&r=lab |
| By: | Denis Drechsler |
| Abstract: | Migration can strengthen the development process in sending countries. Potential gains from migration are currently insufficiently utilised. More coherence between various policy domains – in particular related to migration, human resource development and the labour market – is a critical component of an improved migration management. |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:devaac:69-en&r=lab |
| By: | Amin, Mohammad; Mattoo, Aaditya |
| Abstract: | Using panel data for the fourteen major states of India over the 1980-2000 period, the authors estimate the effect of human capital endowment on the performance of the state economies. They find that greater availability of skilled workers had a positive and significant impact on output in the service sectors. They do not find any such effect for the manufacturing sectors. The paper shows that the differential effect on services and manufacturing arises because service sectors are more skill intensive. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory&Research,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,E-Business,Achieving Shared Growth,Access to Finance |
| Date: | 2008–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4576&r=lab |
| By: | Denis Drechsler; Theodora Xenogiani |
| Abstract: | Informal employment is a widespread phenomenon in Romania and a key challenge for the country’s development. Policies should target two distinct groups: those who voluntarily opt out of the formal system and those with no alternative. Transforming people’s attitudes towards the state and strengthening their trust in public institutions is key. |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:devaac:70-en&r=lab |
| By: | Nada Eissa; Hilary Hoynes |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the distributional and behavioral effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). We chart the growth of the program over time, and argue several expansions show that real responses to taxes are important. We use tax data to show the distribution of benefits by income and family size, and examine the impacts of hypothetical reforms (expansions and contractions) to the credit. Finally, we calculate the efficiency effects of marginal changes to EITC parameters. Targeting the EITC to lower-income families by raising the phase-out rate generates a welfare loss for single mothers, primarily because of the disincentive to enter the labor market and not the traditional hours-of-work distortion. |
| JEL: | H2 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14307&r=lab |