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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Fan, C. Simon |
| Abstract: | An increase in the probability of work abroad, where the returns to schooling are higher than at home, induces more individuals in a developing country to acquire education, which leads to an increase in the supply of educated workers in the domestic labor market. Where there is a sticky wage-rate, the demand for labor at home will be constant. With a rising supply and constant demand, the rate of unemployment of educated workers in the domestic labor market will increase. Thus, the prospect of employment abroad causes involuntary âeducated unemploymentâ at home. A government that is concerned about âeducated unemploymentâ and might therefore be expected to encourage unemployed educated people to migrate will nevertheless, under certain conditions, elect to restrict the extent of the migration of educated individuals. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, E24, F22, J24, O15, |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:98572&r=lab |
| By: | C. Sofia Machado (Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave); Miguel Portela (Universidade do Minho - NIPE and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Using a novel dataset from the 2006 Portuguese Labor Force Survey this paper examines the impact of a voluntary reduction in hours of work, before retirement, on the moment of exit from the labor force. If, as often suggested, flexibility in hours of work is a useful measure to postpone retirement, then a reduction in working hours should be associated with retirement at later ages. Results prove otherwise suggesting that reducing hours of work before retirement is associated with early exits from the labor force. A reduction in hours of work seems to signal the worker’s wish to retire sooner rather than to announce the desire of remaining in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | aging, retirement, working hours, older workers. |
| JEL: | J14 J26 J22 J21 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:02/2011&r=lab |
| By: | Fitzenberger, Bernd; Steffes, Susanne; Strittmatter, Anthony |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the return-to-job of female employees after first birth based on exceptional longitudinal data from personnel records of a large German company. Given a very long maternity leave coverage, we investigate to what extent data available to management allow to predict the return-to-job during and after maternity leave. Our data show a large heterogeneity in transition patterns, which poses a challenge for management. Maternity leave durations often last for three years or longer. More than 50 percent of those in maternity leave do not return to their job afterwards, either because they leave the company or because they have a second child. At the same time, about 31 percent of female employees return to part-time work during maternity leave, which is often a stepping stone but no guarantee for a return-to-job afterwards. There is mixed evidence as to whether female employees in better job matches are more likely to return to their job in the company. Specifically, we find that the relative wage position, higher tenure, a combination of vocational training and university education, and an above average frequency of previous promotions show a positive association with the return-to-job and a higher employment stability afterwards. At the same time, female employees have their first child, when their careers have been particularly successful in comparison. Among these, a sizeable share does not continue to advance their career and many do not even return to their job. -- |
| Keywords: | female employees,maternity leave,match quality,personnel data |
| JEL: | J13 J22 M50 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10103&r=lab |
| By: | Nelen, Annemarie (ROA, Maastricht University); de Grip, Andries (ROA, Maastricht University); Fouarge, Didier (ROA, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether part-time employment is beneficial for firm productivity in the service sector. Using a unique dataset on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the work hours of all employees and a “hard” physical measure of firm productivity, we estimate a production function including heterogeneous employment shares based on work hours. We find that a larger part-time employment share leads to greater firm productivity. Additional data on the timing of labor demand show that part-time employment enables firms to allocate labor more efficiently. First, firms with part-time workers can bridge the gap between opening hours and a full-time work week. Second, we find that during opening hours part-time workers are scheduled differently than full-timers. For example, we find that part-time workers enable their full-time colleagues to take lunch breaks so that the firm can remain open during these times. |
| Keywords: | heterogeneous labor, matched employer-employee data, allocation of labor, timing of labor demand |
| JEL: | J24 L23 L25 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5423&r=lab |
| By: | Bonikowska, Aneta; Hou, Feng; Picot, Garnett |
| Abstract: | This paper compares changes in wages of university-educated new immigrant workers in Canada and in the U.S. over the period from 1980 to 2005, relative to those of their domestic-born counterparts and to those of high school graduates (university wage premium). Wages of university-educated new immigrant men declined relative to those of domestic-born university graduates over the entire study period in Canada, but rose between 1990 and 2000 in the U.S. The characteristics of entering immigrants underwent more change in Canada than in the U.S. over the 1980-to-2005 period; as a result, compositional changes in the immigrant population had a larger negative effect on the outcomes of highly educated immigrants in Canada than in the U.S. However, even after accounting for such compositional shifts, most of the discrepancy in relative earnings outcomes between immigrants to Canada and immigrants to the U.S. persisted. The university premium for new immigrants was fairly similar in both countries in 1980, but by 2000 was considerably higher in the U.S. than in Canada, especially for men. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic diversity and immigration, Education, training and learning, Population and demography, Educational attainment, Mobility and migration, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Outcomes of education |
| Date: | 2011–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2011329e&r=lab |
| By: | Borghans Lex; Golsteyn Bart (ROA rm) |
| Abstract: | Evidence about job mobility outside the U.S. is scarce and difficult to compare crossnationallybecause of non-uniform data. We document job mobility patterns of collegegraduates in their first three years in the labor market, using unique uniform datacovering 11 European countries and Japan. Using the NLSY, we replicate the informationin this survey to compare the results to the U.S. We find that (1) U.S. graduates hold morejobs than European graduates. (2) Contrasting conventional wisdom, job mobility inJapan is only somewhat lower than the European average. (3) There are large differencesin job mobility within Europe. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umaror:2011001&r=lab |
| By: | Antonio Di Paolo (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB); Campus de Bellaterra, Edifici B 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola), Spain. Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on PISA data of 2006, this study examines the impact of socio-economic school composition on science test score achievement for Spanish students in compulsory secondary schools. We define school composition in terms of the average parental human capital of students in the same school. These contextual peer effects are estimated using a semi-parametric methodology, which enables the spillovers to affect all the parameters of the educational production function. We also deal with the potential problem of self-selection of student into schools, using an artificial sorting that we argue to be independent from unobserved student’s abilities. The results indicate that the association between socio-economic school composition and test score results is clearly positive and significantly higher when computed with the semi-parametric approach. However, we find that the endogenous sorting of students into schools plays a fundamental role, given that the spillovers are significantly reduced when this selection process is ruled out from our measure of school composition effects. Specifically, the estimations suggest that the contextual peer effects are moderately positive only in those schools where the socio-economic composition is considerably elevated. In addition, we find some evidence of asymmetry of how the external effects and the sorting process actually operate, which seem affect in a different way males and females as well as high and low performance students. |
| Keywords: | Educational Attainments, Peer Effects, PISA, Spain |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I29 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2010-13&r=lab |
| By: | Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (IMDEA Social Sciences Institute); Vassilis Tselios (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether differences in welfare regimes shape the incentives to work and get educated. Using microeconomic data for more than 100,000 European individuals, the results show that welfare regimes make a difference for wages and education. First, people- and household-based effects (internal returns to education and household wage and education externalities) generate socioeconomic incentives for people to get an education and work, which are stronger in countries with the weakest welfare systems, i.e. those with what is known as 'Residual' welfare regimes (Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal). Second, place-based effects, and more specifically differences in regional wage per capita and educational endowment and in regional interpersonal income and educational inequality, also influence wages and education in different ways across welfare regimes. Place-based effects have the greatest incidence in the Nordic Social-Democratic welfare systems. These results are robust to the inclusion of a large number of people- and place-based controls. |
| Keywords: | education; employment; wages; welfare; regions; European Union |
| JEL: | H53 H75 I31 I38 J38 |
| Date: | 2011–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2011-01&r=lab |
| By: | Dittrich, Marcus; Knabe, Andreas |
| Abstract: | Common wisdom holds that the introduction of a non-binding minimum wage is irrelevant for actual wages and employment. Empirical and experimental research, however, has shown that the introduction of a minimum wage can raise even those wages that were already above the new minimum wage. In this paper, we analyze how these findings can be explained by theoretical wage bargaining models between unions and firms. While the Nash bargaining solution is unaffected by minimum wages below initially bargained wages, we show that such minimum wages can drive up wages - and be harmful to employment - when bargaining follows the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution. -- |
| JEL: | J38 C78 J52 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:201015&r=lab |
| By: | Steiner, Viktor; Wakolbinger, Florian |
| Abstract: | We analyze the labor supply and income effects of a needs-based minimum benefit system ('Bedarfsorientierte Mindestsicherung') to be introduced in Austria by the end of this/beginning of next year. The aim of this reform is to reduce poverty as well as increasing employment rates of recipients of social assistance. On the basis of a behavioral microsimulation model we show that this new system will slightly increase incomes for the poorest households and slightly reduce labor supply due to the generous allowances for marginal employment under the current and the planned regulations of unemployment assistance. As an alternative, we analyze a reform proposal which reduces financial incentives for marginal employment not covered by social security, and rewards working longer hours by a wage subsidy. Although this alternative reform would yield modest positive labor supply effects, a relatively large number of households would suffer income losses. -- |
| Keywords: | work incentives,labor supply,social safety system,microsimulation |
| JEL: | H31 I38 J22 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:201019&r=lab |
| By: | Luciano Canova (Enrico Matei School); Alessandro Vaglio (University of Bergamo) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the role of mothers in affecting childrens' performance at school. It develops a theoretical model in which household is treated as an individual, whose utility depends on the performance at school of the student and on consumption. The model focuses on the possibilities through which mother’s help may affect pupil's performance in terms of time devoted to supervision and spillover effects. Empirical evidence, using Italian PISA 2006, shows that highly educated mothers have a positive impact on students' score only when they are highly qualified in the job market. |
| Keywords: | Education; PISA; quantile regressions; parental help |
| JEL: | J12 J24 I21 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2010-17&r=lab |
| By: | Åslund, Olof (Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU)); Edin, Per-Anders (IFAU, UCLS); Fredriksson, Peter (Stockholm University, IZA, UCLS); Grönqvist, Hans (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject’s ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of high-educated in the assigned neighborhood raises compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. Particularly for disadvantaged groups, there are also long-run effects on educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects; Ethnic enclaves; Immigration; School performance |
| JEL: | I20 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2010–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2010_010&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen Gibbons; Olmo Silva; Felix Weinhardt |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use census data on several cohorts of secondary school students in England matched to detailed information on place of residence to investigate the effect of neighbours' background characteristics and prior achievements on teenagers' educatioinal and behavioural outcomes. Our analysis focuses on the age-11 to age-16 time-lapse, and uses variation in neighbourhood composition over this period that is driven by residential mobility. Exploiting the longitudinal nature and detail of our data, we are able to scontrol for pupil unobserved characteristics, neighbourhood fixed-effects and time-trends, school-by-cohort unobservables, as well as students' observable attributes and prior attainments. Our results provide little evidence that neighbours' characteristics significantly affect pupil test score progression during secondary education. Similarly, we find that neighbourhood composition only exerts a small effect on pupil behavioural outcomes, such as general attitudes towards schooling, substance use and anti-social behaviour, UK |
| JEL: | C21 I20 H75 R23 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0063&r=lab |
| By: | Adda, Jérôme (European University Institute); Björklund, Anders (SOFI, Stockholm University); Holmlund, Helena (CEP, London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the long-term consequences of parental death on children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills, as well as on labor market outcomes. We exploit a large administrative data set covering many Swedish cohorts. We develop new estimation methods to tackle the potential endogeneity of death at an early age, based on the idea that the amount of endogeneity is constant or decreasing during childhood. Our method also allows us to identify a set of death causes that are conditionally exogenous. We find that the loss of either a father or a mother on boys' earnings is no higher than 6-7 percent and slightly lower for girls. Our examination of the impact on cognitive skills (IQ and educational attainment) and on noncognitive skills (emotional stability, social skills) shows rather small effects on each type of skill. We find that both mothers and fathers are important, but mothers are somewhat more important for cognitive skills and fathers for noncognitive ones. |
| Keywords: | family background, cognitive and noncognitive skills, parental death |
| JEL: | J12 J17 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5425&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel Kemptner; Hendrik Jürges; Steffen Reinhold (Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA)) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the causal effect of years of schooling on health and health-related behavior in West Germany. We apply an instrumental variables approach using as natural experiments several changes in compulsory schooling laws between 1949 and 1969. These law changes generate exogenous variation in years of schooling both across states and over time. We find evidence for a strong and significant causal effect of years of schooling on long-term illness for men but not for women. Moreover, we provide somewhat weaker evidence of a causal effect of education on the likelihood of having weight problems for both sexes. On the other hand, we find little evidence for a causal effect of education on smoking behavior. Overall, our estimates suggest significant non-monetary returns to education with respect to health outcomes and not necessarily with respect to health-related behavior. |
| JEL: | I12 I21 |
| Date: | 2010–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mea:meawpa:10200&r=lab |
| By: | Coppola, Michela; Wilke, Christina Benita (Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA)) |
| Abstract: | Population Aging poses an evident threat to the financial sustainability of pension systems based on a “pay-as-you-go†(PAYG) scheme. To cope with this threat, pension systems have undergone numerous reforms in many countries in order to keep people longer at work. One crucial element of these reforms typically is an increase in the statutory retirement age at which workers are legally allowed to retire. Two questions still remain unanswered: Will people really work longer? Who is more likely to retire before the new legal retirement age? In this paper, we focus on subjective retirement expectations, analysing if and to what extent they are affected by such a policy change. We consider the legislative reform introduced in Germany in 2007, which gradually will increase the statutory retirement age (SRA) from 65 to 67 years. Using the SAVE survey, a representative panel of German households, we estimate the increase of the individuals’ expected retirement age (ERA) as an effect of the reform. Our results show that less productive workers living in relatively wealthier households are more likely to plan an early retirement. The introduction of the reform seems to motivate better educated workers to remain longer in the labour force although it does not seem to completely succeed in keeping women longer in the labour force: especially among the younger cohorts, whose SRA will be 67 years, women are still more likely than men to plan an early retirement. In terms of the magnitude of the effect, we find that the reform shifted the expectations of the younger cohorts by almost two years – if these expectations will be realized, this reform would have been quite successful. |
| JEL: | D1 D84 H55 |
| Date: | 2010–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mea:meawpa:10207&r=lab |
| By: | Veruska Oppedisano (University College London); Gilberto Turati (Department of Economics and Public Finance, University of Torino) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequalities in educational scores in European Union member states, by decomposing them into their determining factors. Using PISA data from the 2000 and 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequalities emerge in all countries and in both period, but decreased in Germany, whilst they increased in France and Italy. Decomposition shows that educational inequalities do not only reflect background related inequality, but especially schools’ characteristics. The findings allow policy makers to target areas that may make a contribution in reducing educational inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Education expenditures, educational inequalities, Oaxaca decomposition |
| JEL: | I2 I38 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2010-16&r=lab |
| By: | Samir Amine; Pedro Lages Dos Santos |
| Abstract: | This article aims to understand how public policies affect the behavior of agents in term of selectivity. In other words, we explain how the state of the labour market and, in particular qualification level of workers, affects technological choices of firms. Using a matching model in which workers are vertically differentiated and where the nature of jobs is endogenous, we show that an increase in minimum wage can enhance the recruiting of skilled workers by making firms more selective and jobs more complex. <P>Cet article vise à mieux comprendre comment les régulations publiques modifient le comportement des agents en termes de sélectivité et comment les entreprises adaptent les caractéristiques de leurs emplois en fonction de l’état du marché du travail et, notamment du niveau de qualification de la population active. En utilisant un modèle d’appariement dans lequel les travailleurs sont différenciés verticalement et la nature des emplois est endogène, nous montrons que la revalorisation du salaire minimum peut favoriser l’embauche des qualifiés en rendant les entreprises plus sélectives et les emplois plus complexes. |
| Keywords: | Minimum Wage, Productivity, Participation. , Salaire minimum, productivité et participation. |
| JEL: | J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2011s-04&r=lab |
| By: | Bo Chen; Satoru Fujishige; Zaifu Yang |
| Abstract: | We analyze a decentralized trading process in a basic labor market where heterogeneous firms and workers meet directly and randomly, and negotiate salaries with each other over time. Firms and workers may not have a complete picture of the entire market and can thus behave myopically in the process. Our main result establishes that, starting from an arbitrary initial market state, there exists a finite sequence of successive myopic (firm-worker) pair improvements, or bilateral trades, leading to a stable matching between firms and workers with a scheme of competitive salary offers. An important implication of this result is that a general random process where every possible bilateral trade is chosen with a positive probability converges with probability one to a competitive equilibrium of the market. |
| Keywords: | Decentralized market, job matching, random path, competitive salary, stability |
| JEL: | C62 D72 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:yorken:11/03&r=lab |
| By: | Samir Amine; Pedro Lages Dos Santos |
| Abstract: | Nous étudions, dans cet article, le rôle des allocations chômage dans la détermination de la nature des emplois offerts. Nous montrons qu’un système d’indemnisation du chômage généreux, en provoquant une accentuation de la sélectivité des agents, affecte les caractéristiques des emplois créés qui deviennent plus complexes et aboutit ainsi à améliorer la productivité du travail. Or, malgré cette amélioration de la qualité des appariements, la participation au marché du travail diminue. <P>This article aims at understanding the interactions between public policies, such as unemployment benefit systems, and firms’ technological choices. For this purpose, we use a matching model in which workers are vertically differentiated and where the nature of jobs is endogenous. We show that an improvement in unemployment benefits leads to an increase in productivity by making agents more selective and jobs more complex. However, the impact on labour market participation is negative. |
| Keywords: | Appariement, complexité, allocations chômage, productivité et participation, Job Complexity, unemployment benefits, productivity, participation. |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2011s-03&r=lab |
| By: | C. Sofia Machado (Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave); Miguel Portela (Universidade do Minho - NIPE and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Using a panel of new firms and their employees, this paper studies the promotion opportunities for older workers within the same firm. Survival analysis suggests that younger employees experience shorter times to promotion than older workers and, therefore, the latter face a smaller likelihood of promotion. Although men are promoted more often than women, empirical results show that women have shorter survival times to promotion than men. Also, previous promotions are stronger determinants of subsequent ones and this finding provides support to the evidence on promotion “fast-tracks”. |
| Keywords: | aging, older workers, employment relationships, promotion |
| JEL: | J14 J21 D21 J62 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:03/2011&r=lab |
| By: | Kastoryano, Stephen (University of Amsterdam); van der Klaauw, Bas (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates a job search assistance program for unemployment insurance recipients. The assignment to the program is dynamic. We provide a discussion on dynamic treatment effects and identification conditions. In the empirical analyses we use administrative data from a unique institutional environment. This allows us to compare different microeconometric evaluation estimators. All estimators find that the job search assistance program reduces the exit to work, in particular when provided early during the spell of unemployment. Furthermore, continuous-time (timing-of-events and regression discontinuity) methods are more robust than discrete-time (propensity score and regression discontinuity) methods. |
| Keywords: | treatment evaluation, dynamic enrollment, empirical evaluation |
| JEL: | C22 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5424&r=lab |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Riccardo Massari (University of Rome La Sapienza); Paolo Naticchioni (Univ. of Cassino, Univ. of Rome La Sapienza, CeLEG (LUISS)) |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses on happiness inequality, an issue rather neglected in the literature. We analyze the increase in happiness inequality observed in Germany between 1991 and 2007 by means of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) database. We make use of a recent methodology that allows decomposing the change in happiness inequality into the composition and the coefficient effect for each covariate. We find that the increase in happiness inequality is mainly driven by changes in the composition of covariates, while coefficient effect is negligible, i.e., returns from happiness “fundamentals” are stable over time. Among composition effect, the rise in happiness inequality is explained –among others- by labour market conditions. Furthermore, the increase in education levels has an inequality-reducing impact on happiness. One clear cut policy implication of our paper is that policies enhancing education and labour market performance are crucial to reduce happiness inequality and the potential social tensions arising from it. |
| Keywords: | happiness inequality, education, income inequality, labour market performance. |
| JEL: | A13 I28 J17 J21 J28 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2010-177&r=lab |
| By: | Gregory, Robert G. |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the large reductions in full-time employment among unskilled Australian males that began in the 1970's and continued over the next three to four decades. Over this period, each recession led to large falls in the male full-time employment-population ratio and during each economic recovery the employment ratio failed to move back to previous levels. Unemployment fell during each output recovery, not in response to employment gains, but in response to large scale withdrawals from the labour market into the welfare system. The loss of unskilled jobs for men has been associated with falling marriage rates and increasing use of the welfare system by single women. The paper concludes by briefly assessing some of the impacts of the new resource boom on these long run labour market and welfare trends and discusses the potential for different labour market outcomes emerging across mineral and non-mineral states. |
| Keywords: | Employment, Unskilled jobs |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hitcei:2010-6&r=lab |
| By: | Dominik Becker (CGS, University of Cologne) |
| Abstract: | The substantial aim of this paper is to integrate the main idea of 'Pygmalion' or self-fulfilling prophecy research (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968; Jussim and Harber, 2005) into the general subjective expected utility framework about inequality in educational opportunities (Breen and Goldthorpe, 1997; Esser, 1999). In the theoretical section, a formal model of the impact of self-fulfilling prophecies on educational transitions is developed. In the empirical section, we test this model to predict both students' educational success (in terms of high school graduation) and their university transitions. Since we assume a conditional dependence of these outcomes, we control for sample selection bias (Heckman, 1979). We find that in our operationalization of self-fulfilling prophecies the latter show significant effects on both educational success and university transitions. However, while the results remain stable in case of educational success, we find that the conditional decision problem of university transitions leads to a selection bias for the estimates in the latter case. In a sensitivity analysis we find that only if unobserved heterogeneity would be disturbingly high, it could also affect the stability of self-fulfilling prophecy estimates. |
| Keywords: | Inequality in Educational Opportunities, Educational Transitions, Subjective Expected Utility Theory, Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, Pygmalion, Selection Bias, Sensitivity Analysis |
| Date: | 2010–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgr:cgsser:01-07&r=lab |
| By: | Cho, Hyunkuk |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effects of birth order on education. This paper is the first to control for the mother’s age at first birth. While previous studies find that earlier-born children are better off, this paper finds no effects. |
| Keywords: | Birth order; education |
| JEL: | J13 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28028&r=lab |
| By: | Qu, Zhaopeng (Frank) (Beijing Normal University); Zhao, Zhong (Renmin University of China) |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the dynamic change of the migrant labor market in China from 2002 to 2007 using two comparable data sets. Our focus is on the rural-urban migration decision, the wage structure of migrants, the urban labor market segmentation between migrants and urban natives, and the changes of these aspects from 2002 to 2007. We find that prior migration experience is a key factor for the migration decision of rural household members, and its importance keeps increasing from 2002 to 2007. Our results show that there is a significant increase in wages among both migrants and urban natives over this 5-year period, but migrants have enjoyed faster wage growth, and most of the increase of wages among migrants can be attributed to the increase of returns to their characteristics. We also find evidence suggesting convergence of urban labor markets for migrants and for urban natives during this 5-year period. |
| Keywords: | rural-urban migration, labor market, wage structure, migration decision, segmentation, China |
| JEL: | J21 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5421&r=lab |
| By: | Sprietsma, Maresa |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on the sources of the persisting mathematics test score gap between boys and girls. In particular, we investigate the role of the share of female mathematics teachers in secondary school and of pupils self-confidence and extrinsic motivation in mathematics. We find that the share of female mathematics teachers does not seem to affect differences in test scores between boys and girls. The number of books at home as well as the included psychological factors significantly reduce the gender test score gap. A remaining gap of 14% of a standard deviation in test scores is unexplained. -- |
| Keywords: | mathematics test score gap,gender,share of female teachers,self-confidence |
| JEL: | I28 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10101&r=lab |
| By: | Manos Matsaganis (Athens University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | This brief paper aims to describe key aspects of employment in Greece, to provide some information on levels of, and trends in, non-standard work in Greece, to elaborate on the nature and characteristics of different types of such work, to analyse existing social policies to protect the workers concerned, and to speculate on future developments. |
| Date: | 2011–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:1107&r=lab |
| By: | Arzu Yavuz |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:1103&r=lab |
| By: | Amelie Constant; Martin Kahanec; Klaus F. Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | The standard approach of analysing gaps in social and labor market outcomes of different ethnic groups relies on analysis of statistical data about the affected groups. In this paper we go beyond this approach by measuring the views of expert stakeholders involved in minority integration. This enables us to better understand the risk of minority exclusion; the inner nature of discrimination, negative attitudes and internal barriers; as well as the ethnic minorities' desires and perceptions about which approaches are better than others in dealing with integration challenges. Main findings are that ethnic minorities do want to change their situation, especially in terms of employment, education, housing and attitudes towards them. Insufficient knowledge of the official language, insufficient education, discriminatory attitudes and behavior towards ethnic minorities as well as institutional barriers, such as citizenship or legal restrictions, seem to constitute the key barriers to their social and labor market integration. |
| Keywords: | Attitudes, opinions, immigrants, ethnic minorities, labor market |
| JEL: | J15 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1095&r=lab |
| By: | Olga Alonso-Villar (Universidade de Vigo); Coral del Río (Universidade de Vigo); Carlos Gradín (Universidade de Vigo) |
| Abstract: | By using data from the American Community Survey, this paper studies occupational segregation by ethnicity/race and gender in the US by comparing the distribution of any demographic group with the employment structure of the economy. The analysis shows that occupational segregation is particularly intense in the Hispanic and Asian population groups, even though the performance of the former seems to be more disturbing than that of the latter given its higher concentration in low-paid jobs. As opposed to what happens for African and Native Americans, human capital variables explain a substantive part of Hispanic and Asian segregation. The analysis also reveals that the differential between women and men is not reduced after controlling for human capital characteristics. In addition, segregation disparities are much larger among male groups than among female groups. A distinctive characteristic of Hispanic workers is that segregation is higher for men than for women. |
| Keywords: | occupational segregation, local segregation, race, ethnicity, gender. |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J71 D63 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2010-180&r=lab |
| By: | Koerselman, Kristian (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | Economists regularly regress IQ scores or achievement test scores on covariates, for example to evaluate educational policy. These test scores are ordinal measures, and their distributions can take an arbitrary shape, even though they are often constructed to look normal. The ordinality of test scores makes the use of mean-based methods such as OLS is inappropriate: estimates are not robust to changes in test score estimation assumptions and methods. I simulate the magnitude of robustness problems, and show that in practice, problems with mean-based regression of normally distributed test scores are small. Even so, test score distributions with more exotic shapes will need to be transformed before use. |
| Keywords: | dmissible statistics; test scores; educational achievement; item response theory; IQ; PISA. |
| JEL: | C40 I20 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2011_001&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Moutos (DIEES, AUEB); Sarantis Kalyvitis (DIEES, AUEB); Margarita Katsimi (DIEES, AUEB) |
| Abstract: | Received wisdom suggests that �excessive� wages, defined as the part of real wages that do not follow labour productivity developments, are adversely associated with the return on capital. This paper argues that excessive wages and profits are better thought as responses to changes in the economic, political and institutional environment and there is no a priori reason for a negative relationship between them. We thus investigate whether there is a causal effect of excessive wages on capital return using aggregate panel data for 19 OECD countries for the period 1970-2000. We account for the endogeneity of excessive wages by exploiting variations in institutional and labour market characteristics. Our main finding is that excessive wages do not affect the return on capital. This result remains robust to alternative empirical specifications and to alternative definitions of profitability and excessive wages, and questions the standard advice by international economic organizations on wage moderation. |
| Keywords: | capital return, �excessive� wages, productivity, endogeneity. |
| JEL: | E24 E25 |
| Date: | 2011–01–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:1104&r=lab |
| By: | Okunade, Albert A. (University of Memphis); Wunnava, Phanindra V. (Middlebury College) |
| Abstract: | Charitable giving to public and private institutions of higher learning in the US is a growing major source of financing academic and support programs. The novel contribution of this research is the estimation of an econometric model of gift-giving alumni business executives of a large public urban university using 10,192 individual donor observations [that is, a panel of 392 donors for 26 years]. Our theoretically consistent empirical results reinforce the earlier research findings that male alumni in Greek social organizations gave significantly more. New insights unique to this study are that alumni individuals with the higher-order executive job titles (proxy for permanent income) of a Chief Executive Officer or President (relative to the lesser ranks) are significantly more charitable, and that the number of other gift-giving alumni and friends known to donors, and national athletic conference (basketball and football) championship wins are also highly statistically significant positive drivers of alumni annual giving to the comprehensive metropolitan research university. The resulting profile of gift-giving alumni business executives can be profitably used to more effectively target likely donors and raise cost-effectiveness of fundraising efforts in these times of fiscal austerity in higher education. |
| Keywords: | educational economics, educational finance, charitable donations, alumni giving of business executives |
| JEL: | I2 L3 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5428&r=lab |
| By: | Marco Celentani; Rosa Loveira; Pablo Ruiz-Verdú |
| Abstract: | We propose a model of delegated expertise designed to analyze executive compensation. An expert has to pick one of two possible decisions. By exerting effort the expert can obtain private information on these decisions. The expert’s decision and its ultimate performance realization are publicly observed, but the expert’s information is not. In other words, the principal observes the expert’s decision and its realization, but does not know whether the expert expended effort to obtain information and whether he made an efficient decision conditional on the information he received. We characterize the optimal compensation contract among those that give the expert incentives to obtain information to determine the efficient decision and to make the decision that is efficient contingent on the obtained information. We show that: 1) It is generically optimal to make pay contingent on the decision made by the expert, not only on performance; 2) The expert is often rewarded for choosing alternatives that are ex-ante inefficient. 3) When decisions differ in their complexity, optimal pay-performance may be zero if the expert chooses the complex alternative. Our model highlights novel factors that should be considered in the design of executive compensation contracts, sheds light on existing compensation practices, such as rewarding executives for acquisitions, and suggests mechanisms to promote managerial innovation. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2010-29&r=lab |
| By: | Claude Castonguay |
| Abstract: | In the absence of change to the income security system, more than 50% of workers moving toward retirement, with salaries on both sides of the median, will have to reduce significantly their standard of living. For the workers who rely strictly on the Old Age Pension and the Quebec Pension Plan, the solution cannot reside in the setting up of large defined benefit or defined contribution plans in their current form. There is only one conclusion, the existing voluntary approach to complementary pension plans and registered retirement savings plans must be replaced by compulsory participation and the locking-up of retirement savings. For the workers not covered by an employer pension plan, the establishment of a compulsory retirement pension plan, similar to the RRSP, is the solution best adapted to the Quebec context and the income security policy. <P>En l’absence de changements au système de sécurité du revenu, plus de 50 % des travailleurs qui se dirigent vers la retraite, dont les salaires se situent de chaque côté de la médiane, vont devoir réduire significativement leur niveau de vie. Ce sont en grande partie des travailleurs de la petite et moyenne entreprise et des travailleurs autonomes. La question de la retraite des deux tiers des travailleurs qui ne peuvent compter que sur la Pension de la sécurité de la vieillesse et le Régime de rentes du Québec ne peut trouver sa solution dans l’établissement généralisé de régimes à prestation déterminée ou de régimes à cotisation déterminée dans leur forme actuelle. Une conclusion s’impose, le caractère facultatif ou volontaire qui caractérise les régimes complémentaires de retraite et les régimes enregistrés d’épargne retraite doit être remplacé par la participation obligatoire et par l’immobilisation de l’épargne retraite. Pour les travailleurs non couverts par un régime d’employeur, la création d’un régime obligatoire de type RÉER est la solution la mieux adaptée en fonction du contexte québécois et de la politique de la sécurité du revenu. |
| Keywords: | income security system, pensions, compulsory participation. , système de sécurité du revenu, pensions, participation obligatoire. |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirpro:2011rp-01&r=lab |
| By: | Claudia PIGINI (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Economia) |
| Abstract: | The analysis of performance indicators of university students has become of wide interest expecially in Italy where, over the last few decades, graduation rates have been well below the average of both European and OECD countries. This paper proposes an alternative method to jointly estimate the determinants of students academic success, in terms of both potential credits and retention, one year after they rst enrolled and a further analysis to evaluate whether there are any factors signicantly determining the probability of dropping out, once we consider the students potential academic performance ceteris paribus. We implement the algorithm to estimate the parameters of a bivariate latent variable system and then of a conditional mean equation. |
| Keywords: | Academic Performance, Bivariate Model, Drop-out, Maximum Likelihood, Potential Credits |
| JEL: | C35 I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:354&r=lab |
| By: | Warburton, William P. (University of British Columbia, Vancouver); Warburton, Rebecca N. (University of Victoria); Sweetman, Arthur (McMaster University); Hertzman, Clyde (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) |
| Abstract: | Understanding the causal impacts of taking youth on the margins of risk into foster care is an element of the evidence-base on which policy development for this crucial function of government relies. Yet, there is little research looking at these causal impacts; neither is there much empirical work looking at long-term outcomes. This paper focuses on estimating the impact of placing 16 to 18 year old male youth into care on their rates of high school graduation, and post-majority income assistance receipt and incarceration. Two distinct sources of exogenous variation are used to generate instrumental variables, the estimates from which are interpreted in a heterogeneous treatment effects framework as local average treatment effects (LATEs). And, indeed, each source of exogenous variation is observed to estimate different parameters. While both instruments are in accord in that placement in foster care reduces (or delays) high school graduation, the impact of taking youth into care on income assistance use has dramatically different magnitudes across the two margins explored, and, perhaps surprisingly, one source of exogenous variation causes an increase, and the other a decrease, in the likelihood of the youth being incarcerated by age 20. Our results suggest that it is not enough to ask whether more or fewer children should be taken into care; rather, which children are, and how they are, taken into care matter for long-term outcomes. |
| Keywords: | foster care, local average treatment effects |
| JEL: | J13 I38 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5429&r=lab |