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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Riddell, W. Craig; Song, Xueda |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the causal effects of education on individuals’ transitions between employment and unemployment, with particular focus on the extent to which education improves re-employment outcomes among unemployed workers. Given that positive correlations between education and labour force transitions are likely to be confounded by the endogeneity of education, we make use of data on compulsory schooling laws and child labour laws as well as conscription risk in the Vietnam War period to create instrumental variables to identify the causal relationships. Results indicate that education significantly increases re-employment rates of the unemployed. Particularly large impacts are found in the neighborhoods of 12 and 16 years of schooling. Evidence on the impact of formal schooling on unemployment incidence is mixed. |
| Keywords: | education, labour market transitions, unemployment, causal effects, compulsory schooling laws, child labour laws, Vietnam War draft |
| JEL: | I20 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-18&r=lab |
| By: | Herrera, Santiago; Badr, Karim |
| Abstract: | The paper estimates the rates of return to investment in education in Egypt, allowing for multiple sources of heterogeneity across individuals. The paper finds that, in the period 1998-2006, returns to education increased for workers with higher education, but fell for workers with intermediate education levels; the relative wage of illiterate workers also fell in the period. This change can be explained by supply and demand factors. On the supply side, the number workers with intermediate education, as well as illiterate ones, outpaced the growth of other categories joining the labor force during the decade. From the labor demand side, the Egyptian economy experienced a structural transformation by which sectors demanding higher-skilled labor, such as financial intermediation and communications, gained importance to the detriment of agriculture and construction, which demand lower-skilled workers. In Egypt, individuals are sorted into different educational tracks, creating the first source of heterogeneity: those that are sorted into the general secondary-university track have higher returns than those sorted into vocational training. Second, the paper finds that large-firm workers earn higher returns than small-firm workers. Third, females have larger returns to education. Female government workers earn similar wages as private sector female workers, while male workers in the private sector earn a premium of about 20 percent on average. This could lead to higher female reservation wages, which could explain why female unemployment rates are significantly higher than male unemployment rates. Formal workers earn higher rates of return to education than those in the informal sector, which did not happen a decade earlier. And finally, those individuals with access to technology (as proxied by personal computer ownership) have higher returns. |
| Keywords: | Access&Equity in Basic Education,Teaching and Learning,Education For All,Primary Education,Labor Markets |
| Date: | 2011–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5740&r=lab |
| By: | Sunakawa, Takeki |
| Abstract: | In a search and matching model with right-to-manage bargaining, matched workers and firms bargain over wages, given labor demand schedule of firms for hours worked per worker. Wages and hours worked per worker are determined as if they are determined in a competitive labor market with a distortion to wage markups. A positive inefficiency gap in the labor market diminishes workers' effective bargaining power relative to firms, because firms can adjust labor input and wage schedule via intensive margin. The Hosios condition does not necessarily hold even when workers' actual bargaining power is equal to unemployment elasticity of matches. |
| Keywords: | Labor market search; efficiency; right-to-manage bargaining |
| JEL: | J64 E60 |
| Date: | 2011–07–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32503&r=lab |
| By: | Fredriksson, Peter (Stockholm University); Öckert, Björn (IFAU); Oosterbeek, Hessel (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the long-term effects of class size in primary school. We use rich administrative data from Sweden and exploit variation in class size created by a maximum class size rule. Smaller classes in the last three years of primary school (age 10 to 13) are not only beneficial for cognitive test scores at age 13 but also for non-cognitive scores at that age, for cognitive test scores at ages 16 and 18, and for completed education and wages at age 27 to 42. The estimated effect on wages is much larger than any indirect (imputed) estimate of the wage effect, and is large enough to pass a cost-benefit test. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment, non-cognitive skills, cognitive skills, regression discontinuity, class size, earnings |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J24 C31 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5879&r=lab |
| By: | David Black (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Cain Polidano (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Yi-Ping Tseng (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | By OECD standards, the share of the Australian labour force with at least a secondary school qualification is low. One way to rectify this shortfall is to improve rates of re-engagement in education among early school leavers. This paper examines the patterns of re-engagement among early school leavers in the HILDA sample. A key finding is that the early years after leaving school are crucially important, with rates of re-engagement dropping dramatically in the first three years out from school. For those who enter the labour market after school, results suggest that finding work, especially satisfying work, is an important driver for returning to study. |
| Keywords: | Early school leavers, vocational education and training, re-engaging in education |
| JEL: | J01 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n13&r=lab |
| By: | Shemyakina, Olga N. |
| Abstract: | Shortly following its independence in 1991, Tajikistan suffered a violent civil war. This study explores the effect of this conflict on education and labor market outcomes for men and women. The results are based on the data from the 2003 and 2007 Tajik Living Standards Measurement Surveys that were separated from the 1992-1998 Tajik civil war by five and nine years, respectively. The regression analysis that controls for the cohort and regional-level exposure points toward a persistent and lasting gap in the educational attainment by women who were of school age during the war and lived in the more conflict-affected regions as compared with women the same age who lived in the lesser affected regions and also to the older generation. These empirical results support the anecdotal and observational evidence about the decline in female educational attainment in Tajikistan. Interestingly, this group of young women is more likely to hold a job as compared with the rest of the analytical sample. Conditional on being employed, men and women in the more conflict-affected areas do not receive wages that are significantly different from wages received by men and women in the lesser affected areas. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Labor Markets,Gender and Development,Labor Policies,Population&Development |
| Date: | 2011–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5738&r=lab |
| By: | Frenette, Marc |
| Abstract: | It is well documented that Aboriginal people generally have lower levels of educational attainment than other groups in Canada, but little is known about the reasons behind this gap. This study is the first of two by the same author investigating the issue in detail. This initial paper focuses on one potential reason for differences in educational attainment between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals: the possibility that Aboriginal individuals reap fewer labour market benefits from additional schooling than do their non-Aboriginal counterparts. The results of this analysis, which is based on the 2006 Census of Population, show that additional schooling is generally associated with a larger decline in the probability of being unemployed for Aboriginal people compared to non-Aboriginal people. In terms of wages and salaries, additional schooling generally yields about the same benefits for both groups. The results hold whether Aboriginal people live off-reserve, on-reserve, or in northern communities. There is also no evidence that Aboriginal people who eventually choose to pursue further education following high school are a more select group than their non-Aboriginal counterparts in terms of academic performance; this suggests that the results in this study are not likely to be explained by self-selection. Furthermore, there is little evidence that perceptions of the benefits to schooling are any different for Aboriginal youth than for non-Aboriginal youth. These findings suggest that the labour market benefits to schooling are not likely to be a factor behind the lower levels of educational attainment among Aboriginal people. |
| Keywords: | Educational attainment, Labour market outcomes, Aboriginal |
| JEL: | J15 |
| Date: | 2011–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-17&r=lab |
| By: | Cuong, Nguyen Viet; Mont, Daniel |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of parental disability on school enrollment and educational performance for children in the 2006 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey. Results from instrumental-variables regressions indicate that children of parents with a disability have a lower enrollment rate in primary and secondary school of about 8 percentage points: 73 percent compared with 81 percent. However, the association of parental disability with educational performance is small and not statistically significant. The conclusion of the paper is that to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary school as well as increased coverage of secondary education, the government should have policies and programs that either directly support the education of children with disabled parents and/or have policies that support disabled adults, thus lessening the incentive for their children not to attend school. |
| Keywords: | Disability,Primary Education,Gender and Law,Education For All,Youth and Governance |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5743&r=lab |
| By: | Tabasso, Domenico (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the applicability of the theory of equalizing differences (Rosen, 1987) in a market in which temporary and permanent workers co-exist. The assumption of perfect competition in the labour market is directly questioned and a model is developed in which the labour market is described as a duopsony and the relation between wage and non-monetary job characteristics is studied for workers with different contract lengths. The empirical analysis, based on several waves of the UK Labour Force Data, confirms several of the hypotheses suggested by the model and emphasizes how in the short run workers who have experienced a change in their employer can expect a career trajectory in line with the theory on compensating differentials. In particular, while the wage dynamic related to workers shifting from a temporary contract to another temporary position cannot be exactly predicted, shifts from temporary to permanent contracts tend to be linked to a reduction in wages and a simultaneous increase in travel-to-work distance. Nonetheless, when unobserved characteristics are accounted for in the selection process into temporary contracts, these results lose significance and only a positive relation between wage and commuting time persists, irrespective of the type of contract. |
| Keywords: | atypical contracts, oligopsony, compensating differentials, commuting time |
| JEL: | J22 J31 J41 J42 L13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5867&r=lab |
| By: | Heather Antecol (The Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College; and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)); Deborah Cobb-Clark (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)); Eric Helland (The Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College) |
| Abstract: | Legal cases are generally won or lost on the basis of statistical discrimination measures, but it is workers’ perceptions of discriminatory behavior that are important for understanding many labor-supply decisions. Workers who believe that they have been discriminated against are more likely to subsequently leave their employers and it is almost certainly workers' perceptions of discrimination that drive formal complaints to the EEOC. Yet the relationship between statistical and self-assessed measures of discrimination is far from obvious. We expand on the previous literature by using data from the After the JD (AJD) study to compare standard Blinder-Oaxaca measures of earnings discrimination to self-reported measures of (i) client discrimination; (ii) other work-related discrimination; and (iii) harassment. Overall, our results indicate that conventional measures of earnings discrimination are not closely linked to the racial and gender bias that new lawyers believe they have experienced on the job. Statistical earnings discrimination is only occasionally related to increases in self-assessed bias and when it is the effects are very small. Moreover, statistical earnings discrimination does not explain the disparity in self-assessed bias across gender and racial groups. |
| Keywords: | Labour market discrimination, lawyers, gender and racial bias, wages |
| JEL: | J71 J15 J16 J44 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n18&r=lab |
| By: | Domenico Tabasso (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; and IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the applicability of the theory of equalizing differences (Rosen, 1986) in a market in which temporary and permanent workers co-exist. The assumption of perfect competition in the labour market is directly questioned and a model is developed in which the labour market is described as a duopsony and the relation between wage and non-monetary job characteristics is studied for workers with different contract lengths. The empirical analysis, based on several waves of the UK Labour Force Data, confirms several of the hypotheses suggested by the model and emphasizes how in the short run workers who have experienced a change in their employer can expect a career trajectory in line with the theory on compensating differentials. In particular, while the wage dynamic related to workers shifting from a temporary contract to another temporary position cannot be exactly predicted, shifts from temporary to permanent contracts tend to be linked to a reduction in wages and a simultaneous increase in travel-to-work distance. Nonetheless, when unobserved characteristics are accounted for in the selection process into temporary contracts, these results lose significance and only a positive relation between wage and commuting time persists, irrespective of the type of contract. |
| Keywords: | Atypical contracts, oligopsony, compensating differentials, commuting time |
| JEL: | J22 J31 J41 J42 L13 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n16&r=lab |
| By: | Bratti, Massimiliano (University of Milan); Mendola, Mariapia (University of Milan Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | Evidence on the role of parental health on child schooling is surprisingly thin. We explore this issue by estimating the short-run effects of parents’ illness on child school enrollment. Our analysis is based on household panel data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country whose health and educational systems underwent extensive destruction during the 1992-1995 war. Using child fixed effects to correct for potential endogeneity bias, we find that – contrary to the common wisdom that shocks to the primary household earner should have more negative consequences for child education – it is especially maternal health that makes a difference as far as child schooling is concerned. Children whose mothers self-reported having poor health are about 7 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in education at ages 15-24. These results are robust to considering alternative indicators of parental health status such as the presence of limitations in the activities of daily living and depression symptoms. Moreover, we find that mothers’ health shocks have more negative consequences on younger children and sons. |
| Keywords: | Bosnia and Herzegovina, children, education, parents, school, self-reported health |
| JEL: | I21 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5870&r=lab |
| By: | Pravin Krishna; Jennifer P. Poole; Mine Zeynep Senses |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use a linked employer–employee database from Brazil to examine the impact of trade reform on the wages of workers employed at heterogeneous firms. Our analysis of data at the firm level confirms earlier findings of a differential positive effect of trade liberalization on average wages at exporting firms relative to non-exporting firms. However, the analysis of average firm-level wages is incomplete along several dimensions. First, it cannot fully account for the impact of a change in trade barriers on workforce composition, especially in terms of unobservable (time-invariant) worker characteristics (innate ability) and any additional productivity that results from employment in a specific firm (match-specific ability). Furthermore, the firm-level analysis is undertaken under the assumption that the assignment of workers to firms is random. This ignores the sorting of workers into firms and leads to a bias in estimates of the differential impact of trade on average wages at exporting firms relative to non-exporting firms. Using detailed information on worker and firm characteristics to control for compositional effects and firm-worker match-specific effects to account for the endogenous mobility of workers, we find an insignificant differential effect of trade openness on wages at exporting firms relative to domestic firms. Consistent with the models of Helpman, Itskhoki, and Redding (2010) and Davidson, Matusz, and Schevchenko (2008), we also find that the workforce composition post-liberalization improves systematically in exporting firms in terms of innate worker ability and in terms of the quality of the worker-firm matches. These findings underscore the importance of search frictions and labor market matching mechanisms in determining the effects of trade policy changes on wages. |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17256&r=lab |
| By: | Nicolas Hérault (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Rezida Zakirova (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the literature by separately analysing the signalling (or sheepskin) effects of the enrolment in and the completion of vocational education and training as well as higher education. Moreover, we investigate the persistence of these sheepskin effects over time. We take advantage of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, which contains comprehensive information about completed and uncompleted courses and subsequent labour market outcomes. We find that signalling effects form a substantial part of the total return to education but that they vary by type of course. In addition, we show that both course attendance and course completion contribute to the overall signalling effects. |
| Keywords: | Return to education, signalling effects, post-secondary education |
| JEL: | I20 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n04&r=lab |
| By: | Masakazu Hojo |
| Abstract: | Education production functions are estimated using student-level achievement data for Japanese students, with emphasis on estimating the causal effect of class size on students' academic performance. The empirical results show that students‟ test scores are strongly affected by individual and family backgrounds, whereas school resource variables and teacher characteristics have a more limited impact. The causal effect of class size, which is currently being politically debated in Japan, is investigated using a regression discontinuity design. The estimation results suggest that class-size reduction has a weak impact on the academic performance of Japanese students. |
| Keywords: | Education production function, Class size, Regression discontinuity design, Japan |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd11-194&r=lab |
| By: | Gaëlle Ferrant (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I); Yannick Bourquin (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence that local social interactions within etnic groups may explain the puzzling variations in labour-market outcomes across individuals. Peer effects work first by creating pressure on labor-market participation, second, by conveying information about job opportunities and by raising wages. These effects differ through a selection effect : gender and ethnic groups who are less integrated in the labour market benefit more from peer effect. Finally, networks exhibit decreasing returns. The problems of endogeneity and simultaneity of local peer effects are addressed by using (i) data aggregated at the province level, (ii) the distribution of the sex of the peers' siblings as an instrumental variable and (iii) a quasi-panel data approach relying on the Hausman-Taylor estimator. The importance of social interactions in the labour market suggests that a social multiplier exists and our estimates show that any labour-market shock is magnified with an elasticity of 0.5. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects, development economics, labour, South Africa. |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00612120&r=lab |
| By: | Hazans, Mihails (University of Latvia) |
| Abstract: | The European Social Survey data are used to analyze informal employment at the main job in 30 countries. Overall, informality decreases from South to West to East to North. However, dependent work without contract is more prevalent in Eastern Europe than in the West, except for Ireland, the UK and Austria. Between 2004 and 2009, no cases found when unemployment and dependent informality rates in a country went up together, suggesting that work without contract is pro-cyclical in Europe. Dependent informality rate is inversely related to skills (measured by either schooling or occupation). The low-educated, the young (especially students), the elderly, and persons with disabilities are more likely to work informally, other things equal. In Southern and Western Europe, immigrants from CEE and FSU feature the highest dependent informality rate, whilst in Eastern Europe this group is second after minorities without immigrant background. In Eastern, Southern and part of Western Europe, immigrants not covered by EU free mobility provisions are more likely to work without contracts than otherwise similar natives. We provide evidence that exclusion and discrimination play important role in pushing employees into informality, whilst this seems not to be the case for informal self-employed. Both on average and after controlling for a rich set of individual characteristics, informal employees in all parts of Europe are having the largest financial difficulties among all categories of employed population (yet they fare much better than the unemployed and discouraged), whilst informal self-employed are at least as well off as formal employees. |
| Keywords: | informal employment, human capital, discrimination, minorities, immigrants |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J61 J71 O17 O52 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5871&r=lab |
| By: | Barbara Hanel (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)) |
| Abstract: | I investigate the incentive effects of disability pensions on the labour supply decision. The implicit tax rate on further work is included as a forward looking incentive measure in order to investigate the effect of disability benefits on disability retirement entry as a special type of early retirement. A substantial change of the disability pension legislation caused exogenous variation in disability benefits in Germany in 2001 and is used to obtain estimates of individual’s responses to financial incentives. Benefit levels appear to have no effect on the labour market behaviour. At the same time, there is a sizable and significant disincentive effect of implicit taxes on labour market income, indicating that alleviating such disincentives would likely increase labour force participation. Since the response to financial incentives occurs mainly among those in good health, such a policy might on the other hand imperil the aim of providing insurance against a health induced loss of ones working capacity. |
| Keywords: | Disability pensions, labour force exit |
| JEL: | I12 J26 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n05&r=lab |
| By: | Kohler, Wilhelm; Wrona, Jens |
| Abstract: | The policy debate views offshoring as job destruction. Theoretical models of offshoring mostly assume full employment. We develop a model of task trade that allows for equilibrium unemployment. In this model, there are two margins of adjustment. At the extensive margin, moving tasks offshore destroys jobs. At the intensive margin, due to higher productivity of labor in domestic tasks it creates jobs. Exploring these conditions in detail, we identify the potential of non-monotonic adjustment: Early stages of offshoring always lead to higher unemployment, while later stages may entail net job creation. We highlight this potential through numerical simulations. -- |
| Keywords: | Offshoring,Trade in Tasks,Unemployment,Non-monotonicity |
| JEL: | F16 F11 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuewef:12&r=lab |
| By: | Hazans, Mihails (University of Latvia) |
| Abstract: | European Social Survey data on 30 countries, covering years 2004-2009, are used to look into joint institutional [and other macro] determinants of the rates of dependent employment without a contract, informal self-employment, and unemployment (secondary jobs are not accounted for). Consistently with theoretical predictions, quality of business environment has a significant negative impact on prevalence of both types of informal employment. The share of non-contracted employees is negatively affected by perceived quality of public services and is positively related to economic growth. GDP per capita has a positive impact on informality in Europe at large and within Eastern and Southern Europe. Other things equal, the share of non-contracted employees in the labor force across all European countries increases with the minimum-to-average wage ratio, with union density, with the share of first and second generation immigrants, and with income inequality, but falls with stricter employment protection legislation (EPL) and higher tax wedge on labor. Thus it appears that in Europe at large, labor cost effects of EPL and taxes are weaker than their impact via perceptions of job security and law enforcement, along with tax morale and the income effect. Yet the EPL effect on informality is positive (i.e., cost-related) when either Eastern and Southern Europe or Western and Northern Europe are considered separately. Furthermore, within Western and Northern Europe, the minimum wage effect is negative, whilst within Eastern and Southern Europe, the union effect is negative. Various panel data methods are used to confirm the robustness of the results. |
| Keywords: | labor market institutions, informal employment, immigrants, ethnic minorities |
| JEL: | J08 J21 J51 J61 K31 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5872&r=lab |
| By: | Chongvilaivan, Aekapol (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies); Powdthavee, Nattavudh (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) |
| Abstract: | This paper is an empirical study of slope heterogeneity in job satisfaction. It provides evidence from the generalized ordered probit models that different job characteristics tend to have different distributional impacts on the overall job satisfaction. For instance, standard models tend to significantly underestimate the effects of monthly salary and hours worked at generating the "highly" satisfied workers, whilst lowering the incidence of the "very dissatisfied" workers. Although our results should be viewed as illustrative, we provide discussions of their potential implications for employers and they could help with the design of employment contracts. |
| Keywords: | generalized ordered probit, employment contract, heterogeneity, job satisfaction, salary, work-life balance |
| JEL: | J53 D61 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5868&r=lab |
| By: | vom Berge, Philipp |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a solvable general equilibrium agglomeration model, where search frictions for low-skilled immobile workers generate regional unemployment differentials. Contrary to other work in this field, the model yields a higher long-run unemployment rate in the core region. This is because low-skilled manufacturing jobs are more valuable there and unemployment works as a compensating differential. It therefore more closely resembles the classical result of Harris and Todaro (1970). One main difference is that here regions are ex ante equal. I derive expressions for the break and sustain point and analyze the effect of search frictions on their location. |
| Keywords: | Regional labor markets; New Economic Geography; job matching; unemployment |
| JEL: | F12 J61 J64 R12 |
| Date: | 2011–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bay:rdwiwi:21422&r=lab |
| By: | Carlos Miguel Silva (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto and CEF.UP); Ana Paula Ribeiro (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto and CEF.UP) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we aim at analyzing the impacts on welfare and wealth and consumption distribution across different labor market structural features. In particular, we pursue a steady-state analysis to assess the impacts of unit vacancy costs, unemployment replacement ratio or the job destruction rate, when they are changed in order to promote a given reduction in the unemployment rate. We combine a labor market search and matching framework with unions, based on Mortensen and Pissarides (1994) with a heterogeneous-agent framework close to Imrohoroglu (1989) in a closed economy model. Such approach enables the joint assessment of macroeconomic welfare and inequality together with implications derived from institutional changes in labor market. Moreover, the transition matrix between worker's states is endogenous, fully derived from labor market conditions. Using feasible calibration to the Euro Area, we conclude that different institutional changes to promote unemployment reduction have non-neutral and differentiated effects on welfare and inequality. While changing unit vacancy costs and job destruction can be ranked, changes in the unemployment benefit replacement ration involve a trade-off between gains in welfare and in consumption/income distribution. |
| Keywords: | Labor market institutions, search and matching models, heterogeneous-agent models, welfare and inequality. |
| JEL: | E21 E24 E27 I30 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:1104&r=lab |
| By: | Ortega, J.; Verdugo, G. |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact of immigration on the labor market outcomes of natives in France over the period 1962-1999. Combining large (up to 25%) extracts from six censuses and data from Labor Force Surveys, we exploit the variation in the immigrant share across education/experience cells and over time to identify the impact of immigration. In the Borjas (2003) specification, we find that a 10% increase in immigration increases native wages by 3%. However, as the number of immigrants and the number of natives are positively and strongly correlated across cells, the immigrant share may not be a good measure of the immigration shock. When the log of natives and the log of immigrants are used as regressors instead, the impact of immigration on natives’ wages is still positive but much smaller, and natives’ wages are negatively related to the number of natives. To understand this asymmetry and the positive impact of immigration on wages, we explore the link between immigration and the occupational distribution of natives within education/experience cells. Our results suggest that immigration leads to the reallocation of natives to better-paid occupations within education/experience cells. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Impact, France. |
| JEL: | J15 J31 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:335&r=lab |
| By: | Julie Moschion (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of fertility on mothers’ labour supply in Australia, using exogenous variation in family size generated by twin births and the gender mix of siblings. Results show that having more than one child decreases labour market participation by 15.5 percentage points and hours worked by around 6 hours per week. Having more than two children reduces labour market participation by between 12 and 20 percentage points and hours worked by between 3 and 8 hours a week, depending on the instrument used. Interestingly, fathers also reduce both their labour market participation (by 10 percentage points) and their number of hours worked per week (by 4 hours) when having more than one child. Compared with the results obtained with the same methodology for other countries, the effects for Australia are large, which partly reflects the constraints on public childcare and the lack of a national paid parental leave scheme prior to 2011. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, labour market participation, Australia, family policies |
| JEL: | J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n17&r=lab |
| By: | Olivier Joseph (CEREQ - Centre d'études et de recherches sur les qualifications - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - ministère de l'Emploi, cohésion sociale et logement); Séverine Lemière (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, IUT Paris Descartes - IUT Paris Descartes); Laurence Lizé (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I); Patrick Rousset (CEREQ - Centre d'études et de recherches sur les qualifications - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - ministère de l'Emploi, cohésion sociale et logement) |
| Abstract: | This research focuses on individuals who consider they have been victims of discrimination. The aim is to look at the feeling of discrimination and to assess its effects on career paths seven years after leaving school. Taking data from the Class of 98 (Génération 98) survey by the Céreq, we used the method for grouping self-organising maps (Kohonen's algorithm), supplemented by an econometric analysis to distinguish eight major classes of career paths. In parallel, an interview survey was conducted. The results show a segmentation of career paths at two levels. On the one hand, young people of foreign origin who experienced discrimination are over-represented in certain paths, characterised by unemployment, temping or precarious work (inter- class segmentation). On the other hand, strong inequalities exist within those paths which provide rapid access to stabe employment, as persons obtain lower-quality jobs (intra-class segmentation). |
| Keywords: | Labor economics, segmentation, discrimination, youth, France. |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00611925&r=lab |
| By: | Costas Meghir (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Yale University); Mårten Palme (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Stockholm); Marieke Schnabel |
| Abstract: | <p>The Swedish comprehensive school reform implied an extension of the number of years of compulsory school from 7 or 8 to 9 for the entire nation and was implemented as a social experiment by municipality between 1949 and 1962. A previous study (Meghir and Palme, 2005) has shown that this reform significantly increased the number of years of schooling as well as labor earnings of the children who went through the post reform </p><p>school system, in particular for individuals originating from homes with low educated fathers. This study estimates the impact of the reform on criminal behavior: both within the generation directly affected by the reform as well as their children. We use census data on all born in Sweden between 1945 and 1955 and all their children merged with individual register data on all convictions between 1981 and 2008. We find a significant inverse effect of the reform on criminal behavior of men and on sons to fathers who went through the new school system.</p> |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:11/11&r=lab |
| By: | Vladimir Gligorov (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Hermine Vidovic (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Kosovka Ognjenović |
| Abstract: | In the period after the political changes in the year 2000, GDP growth in Serbia was rather rapid and compares favourably with other transition countries in Southeastern Europe. It was driven mainly by the expansion of services, with industrial production and agriculture basically stagnating over the whole period. The labour market effects were similar to those in other countries going through transition: employment declined in the public sector and increased in the private sector, with the overall number of employed declining and those unemployed increasing, and also with strong increases in the number of pensioners. The Serbian labour market is characterized by low employment and activity rates, particularly for women and young people. This indicates the weaknesses of the secondary educational system in adapting to the needs of the labour market, but also the obsolete skills of the high percentage of long-term unemployed. In general, the educational attainments of the workforce have changed only marginally over recent years. Labour mobility, as everywhere in Europe, is very low in Serbia. By contrast, Serbia’s (outward) migration is very high and remittances constitute an important share of income. Brain drain has become an important issue in recent years though it is hardly a new phenomenon. However, for highly educated people, the relevant labour market is the world labour market. Informal sector employment, which has been traditionally high in Serbia, even increased during the past decade, with a rising share of older workers, better educated persons with secondary education or more, self-employed persons and unpaid family workers. During the current crisis there has been a marked decline in the number of self-employed persons, which is where most informally employed people are to be found. Serbia has not relied on consistent labour market policies to address the low level of employment and high level of unemployment. Some changes are being introduced in the crisis and post-crisis periods, but the effects are uncertain and are yet to be determined in any case. Although spending on passive and active labour market policy measures in Serbia has been growing in the past couple of years, it is still low compared to the EU average but higher than in most other Western Balkan countries. The lion’s share of the available budget is spent on passive measures. An important step in order to improve the efficiency of labour market policy measures was made in 2007, when the administration of health insurance was separated from the NES which absorbed much time and efforts in the past. Transition and the current crisis have led to the development of significant structural problems in the labour markets in Serbia. The policies so far have been inadequate as they have been targeting cyclical rather than structural problems. This needs to be changed in the future with significant improvements in the policy design and the institutional support for implementation. |
| Keywords: | labour market, wage developments, skill mismatch, informal economy, labour market policies |
| JEL: | J08 J21 J24 J31 J43 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:rpaper:rr:371&r=lab |
| By: | Mohamad Fahmi (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University); Achmad maulana (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University); Arief Anshory Yusuf (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | As a means to improve the school quality in Indonesia, Indonesian government introduced and encouraged two different kinds of programs: The International Standard Schools and Acceleration Class Program. Both programs are expected to contribute to improve the quality of education system in Indonesia. However, quantitative analysis to evaluate their impact on student’s performance is lacking in the literature. In this paper, we use the Difference in Difference method (DD) using the school data from Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) to estimate the effectiveness of both programs in increasing school performance, measured by their national exam score. We then combined the cost data with this effectiveness measure to compare their cost-effectiveness. Our finding suggests that international standard school program is more effective to increase the math and bahasa score. However, in term of cost-effectiveness the result is mixed. International standard school is more cost-effective in increasing students score in bahasa, while acceleration class is more cost-effective in increasing students score in math subject. |
| Keywords: | Acceleration Class, International Standard School, Cost Effectiveness Analysis, Difference in Difference, Indonesia |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:201106&r=lab |
| By: | Zwick, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that training of older employees is less effective. Training effectiveness is measured with respect to key dimensions such as career development, earnings, adoption of new skills, flexibility or job security. Older employees also pursue less ambitious goals with their training participation. An important reason for these differences during the life cycle might be that firms do not offer the 'right' training forms and contents. Older employees get higher returns from informal and directly relevant training and from training contents that can be mainly tackled by crystallised abilities. Training incidence in the more effective training forms is however not higher for older employees. Given that other decisive variables on effectiveness such as training duration, financing and initiative are not sensitive to age, the wrong allocation of training contents and training forms therefore is critical for the lower effectiveness of training. -- |
| Keywords: | Training,Older Employees,Linked-Employer-Employee Data |
| JEL: | J10 J24 J28 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:11046&r=lab |
| By: | Blau, Francine D. (Cornell University); Kahn, Lawrence M. (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | We use Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics data and data from a 2008 telephone survey of adults conducted by Westat for the Princeton Data Improvement Initiative (PDII) to explore the importance and feasibility of adding retrospective questions about actual work experience to cross-sectional data sets. We demonstrate that having such actual experience data is important for analyzing women's post-school human capital accumulation, residual wage inequality, and the gender pay gap. Further, our PDII survey results show that it is feasible to collect actual experience data in cross-sectional telephone surveys like the March Current Population Survey annual supplement. |
| Keywords: | gender, microeconomic data collection, human capital, work experience |
| JEL: | C81 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5873&r=lab |
| By: | Christopher Reicher |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the short run and long run behavior of the search and matching model with staggered Nash wage bargaining. It turns out that there is a strong tradeoff inherent in assuming that previously bargained sticky wages apply to new hires. If sticky wages apply to new hires, then the staggered Nash bargaining model can generate realistic volatility in labor input, but it predicts a strong counterfactually negative long run relationship between inflation and unemployment. This finding is robust to including a microeconomically realistic degree of indexation of wages to inflation. The lack of a negative long run relationship between trend inflation and unemployment provides indirect evidence against the proposed mechanism that high inflation systematically makes new hiring more profitable by depressing the real wages of new hires |
| Keywords: | Sticky wages, staggered Nash bargaining, trend inflation, unemployment, search and matching |
| JEL: | E24 E25 J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1722&r=lab |
| By: | Hirsch, Boris (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Schnabel, Claus (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | Building on the right-to-manage model of collective bargaining, this paper tries to infer union power from the observed results in wage setting. It derives a time-varying indicator of union strength and confronts it with annual data for Germany. The results show that union power was relatively stable in the 1990s but fell substantially (by almost one-third) from 1999 to 2007. Two-thirds of this fall in union power follow from the reduction in the labour share relative to the capital share whereas changes in the gap between the net wage and the income when unemployed account for the remaining third. |
| Keywords: | labour share, wage bargaining, trade union power, Germany |
| JEL: | J50 J51 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5875&r=lab |
| By: | Katarzyna Budnik (National Bank of Poland, Economic Institute; Warsaw School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the emigration propensity of Polish workers between 1994 and 2009. Particular attention is paid to a labour market situation of prospective temporary emigrants, the role of developments on host labour markets and the importance of an open-door policy. The Polish household survey data suggest that temporary emigrants are generally young, more frequently male than female, well educated but with less labour market experience, and have less family commitments than stayers. Other things equal, non-employed are twice that likely to emigrate as employed. The propensity to emigrate varies substantially among the employed. Farmers and employees employed on permanent contracts or in jobs with a high social prestige (managerial or specialist positions) are least probable to leave Poland. The highest propensity to emigrate is observed among temporarily employed or helping family members. The introduction of an open-door policy by majority of the European Economic Area countries after 2004 significantly facilitated emigration from Poland and increased the share of workers leaving to countries with the more liberal immigration regime. The open-door policy within the European Economic Areas amplifies responses of Polish workers to cyclical fluctuations in employment opportunities abroad. Similar changes in the unemployment rate (real wages) abroad lead to more pronounced reaction of temporary emigration or return migration flows, then before the European Union enlargement. |
| Keywords: | emigration, EU enlargement, open-door policy, labour market flexibility |
| JEL: | C34 C35 J61 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:90&r=lab |
| By: | Ylenia Brilli; Daniela Del Boca; Chiara Pronzato |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of public childcare availability in Italy on mothers' working status and children's scholastic achievements. We use a newly available dataset containing individual standardized test scores of pupils attending second grade of primary school in 2008-09 in conjunction with data on public childcare availability. Public childcare coverage in Italy is scarce (12.7 percent versus the OECD average of 30 percent) and the service is "rationed": each municipality allocates the available slots according to eligibility criteria. We contribute to the existing literature taking into account rationing in public childcare access and the functioning of childcare market. Our estimates indicate that childcare availability has positive and significant effects on both mothers' working status and children's language test scores. The effects are stronger when the degree of rationing is high and for low educated mothers and children living in lower income areas of the country. |
| Keywords: | childcare; female employment; child cognitive outcomes |
| JEL: | J13 D1 H75 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:214&r=lab |
| By: | Heinemann, Friedrich; Hennighausen, Tanja; Moessinger, Marc-Daniel |
| Abstract: | Although demographic change leaves pay-as-you-go pension systems unsustainable, reforms, such as a higher pension age, are highly unpopular. This contribution looks into the role of intrinsic motivation as a driver for pension reform acceptance. Theoretical reasoning suggests that this driver should be relevant: The choice among different pension reform options (increasing pension age, increasing contributions, cutting pensions) can be analyzed within the framework of an optimal job separation decision. In this optimization, intrinsic job satisfaction matters as it decreases the subjective costs of a higher pension age. We test this key hypothesis on the basis of the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). The results are unambiguous: In addition to factors such as age or education, the inclusion of intrinsic work motivation helps to improve our prediction of an individual's reform orientation. Our results are of importance for reform acceptance beyond the specific topic of pension reform. They point to the fact that the support for welfare state reform is also decided at the workplace. -- |
| Keywords: | Pension system,reforms,pension age,ALLBUS |
| JEL: | D78 H55 H31 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:11045&r=lab |
| By: | Kostas Mavromaras (National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University; and IZA, Bonn); Cain Polidano (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | During the 2001-8 period, the employment rate of people with a disability remained remarkably low in most western economies, hardly responding to better macroeconomic conditions and favourable anti-discrimination legislation and interventions. Continuing health and productivity improvements in the general population are leaving people with disabilities behind, unable to play their role and have their share in the increasing productive capacity of the economy. This paper combines dynamic panel econometric estimation with longitudinal data from Australia to show that vocational education has a considerable and long lasting positive effect on the employment participation and productivity of people with disabilities. |
| Keywords: | Employment, disabilities, productivity, vocational training, dynamic panel regression |
| JEL: | J14 I19 I29 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n03&r=lab |
| By: | Olivier Bargain (University College Dublin); Kristian Orsini (University of Leuven); Andreas Peichl (University of Cologne) |
| Abstract: | Despite numerous studies on labor supply, the size of elasticities is rarely com- parable across countries. In this paper, we suggest the first large-scale international comparison of elasticities, while netting out possible differences due to methods, data selection and the period of investigation. We rely on comparable data for 17 Euro- pean countries and the US, a common empirical approach and a complete simulation of tax-benefit policies affecting household budgets. We find that wage-elasticities are small and vary less across countries than previously thought, e.g., between .2 and .6 for married women. Results are robust to several modeling assumptions. We show that differences in tax-benefit systems or demographic compositions explain little of the cross-country variation, leaving room for other interpretations, notably in terms of heterogeneous work preferences. We derive important implications for research on optimal taxation. |
| Keywords: | household labor supply, elasticity, taxation, Europe, US |
| Date: | 2011–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201114&r=lab |
| By: | Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe Kortajarene (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | Social security contributions in most countries are split between employers and employees. According to standard incidence analysis, social security contributions affect employment negatively, but it is irrelevant how they are divided between employers and employees. This paper considers the possibility that: (i) workers perceive a linkage between current contributions and future benefits and, (ii) they discount employers contributions more heavily, as they are less “visible”. Under these assumptions, I find that employer contributions have a stronger (negative) effect on employment than employee contributions. Furthermore, a change in how contributions are divided that reduces the share of employers is beneficial for employment. Finally, making employers contributions more visible to workers also has a positive effect on employment. |
| Keywords: | Payroll tax, social security, tax incidence, tax visibility |
| JEL: | H22 H55 J08 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2011-16&r=lab |
| By: | Jörgen Hansen; Xingfei Liu |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we formulate and estimate an economic model of labor supply and welfare participation. The model is estimated on data on single men from Quebec drawn from the 1986 Canadian Census. Budget sets for each work-welfare combination - accounting for income taxes, tax credits and welfare benefit rules - are derived using a microsimulation model. We validate our model by comparing reactions to a welfare reform that implied a dramatic increase in welfare benefits predicted by our model to those obtained by using a regression discontinuity approach. The results show that our model is capable of recovering actual changes in labor supply and welfare participation. We also show the advantage of having estimated a structural model by illustrating how labor supply and welfare participation change when benefit levels change. <P> |
| Keywords: | labor supply, welfare participation, unobserved heterogeneity, natural experiment, regression discontinuity, microsimulation, |
| Date: | 2011–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2011s-53&r=lab |
| By: | Kate H. Choi (Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Princeton University); Marta Tienda (Office of Population Research, Princeton University); Deborah Cobb-Clark (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; and Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)); Mathias Sinning (Research School of Economics, The Australian National University) |
| Abstract: | The claim that marriage is a venue for status exchange of achieved traits, like education, and ascribed attributes, notably race and ethnic membership, has regained traction in the social stratification literature. Most studies that consider status exchanges ignore birthplace as a social boundary for status exchanges via couple formation. This paper evaluates the status exchange hypothesis for Australia and the United States, two Anglophone nations with long immigration traditions whose admission regimes place different emphases on skills. A loglinear analysis reveals evidence of status exchange in the United States among immigrants with lower levels of education and mixed nativity couples with foreign-born husbands. Partly because Australian educational boundaries are less sharply demarcated at the postsecondary level, we find is weaker evidence for the status exchange hypothesis. Australian status exchanges across nativity boundaries usually involve marriages between immigrant spouses with a postsecondary credential below a college degree and native-born high school graduates. |
| Keywords: | Status exchange, immigration, educational assortative mating |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n12&r=lab |
| By: | Drinkwater, Stephen (Swansea University) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the links between informal care provision and labour market activity at the sub-national level. Within-country analysis of this issue has been very limited to date despite the wide regional variations in informal care provision that often exist. This issue is important in the context of policy decisions in Wales and other parts of the UK because of relatively high levels of informal caring in certain areas, especially in the South Wales Valleys. In particular, given that these areas typically have the lowest economic activity and employment rates, labour market differences can be exacerbated by the provision of informal caring by people of working age. Despite the wide variations in informal care provision, it is found that labour market outcomes do not differ markedly by different care categories across spatial areas within England and Wales. However, the analysis reveals that labour market outcomes for males as well as females are heavily influenced for those who provide high levels of caring, especially in the South Wales Valleys. For example, the largest impact of caring on the probability of not working for males and for part-time work for females is seen in this area. |
| Keywords: | informal care provision, labour market outcomes, area variations |
| JEL: | J22 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5877&r=lab |
| By: | Johnston, David W. (Monash University); Propper, Carol (University of Bristol); Pudney, Stephen (ISER, University of Essex); Shields, Michael A. (University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of survey measurement error on the empirical relationship between child mental health and personal and family characteristics, and between child mental health and educational progress. Our contribution is to use unique UK survey data that contains (potentially biased) assessments of each child's mental state from three observers (parent, teacher and child), together with expert (quasi-)diagnoses, using an assumption of optimal diagnostic behaviour to adjust for reporting bias. We use three alternative restrictions to identify the effect of mental disorders on educational progress. Maternal education and mental health, family income, and major adverse life events, are all significant in explaining child mental health, and child mental health is found to have a large influence on educational progress. Our preferred estimate is that a 1-standard deviation reduction in 'true' latent child mental health leads to a 2-5 months loss in educational progress. We also find a strong tendency for observers to understate the problems of older children and adolescents compared to expert diagnosis. |
| Keywords: | child mental health, education, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, measurement error |
| JEL: | C30 I10 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5874&r=lab |
| By: | Ahmed Imran, Hunjra; Muhammad Irfan, Chani; Sher, Aslam; Muhammad, Azam; Kashif-Ur, Rehman |
| Abstract: | The job satisfaction has got tremendous attention in organizational research. The focus of this study is to determine the impact of various human resource management practices like job autonomy, team work environment and leadership behavior on job satisfaction. It also investigates the major determinants of job satisfaction in Pakistani banking sector. This study further evaluates the level of difference in job satisfaction among male and female employees. The sample of the study consisted of 450 employees working in different banks of Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore through the questionnaire, of which 295 were returned and processed. SPSS was used to analyze the data, using Independent Sample T Test, Correlation and regression analysis. There is a positive and significant link between job satisfaction and human recourse management practices like team work environment, job autonomy and behavior of leadership. From the findings of the study, it is also inferred that male and female workers have significantly different level of job satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | Human resource management practices; job satisfaction; employees; banking sector |
| JEL: | E24 C12 E44 |
| Date: | 2010–08–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32130&r=lab |
| By: | Li, Jinjing (Maastricht University); O'Donoghue, Cathal (Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates a structured life cycle model of family retirement decision using a unique historical dataset back simulated from Living in Ireland survey. Our model takes the advantages of the dataset and models retirement decisions in terms of monetary and leisure incentives, which reflect the complex welfare system in Ireland. The household extension version of the model adapts a collective modelling approach, where the intra-household bargaining is considered. We further incorporate complimentary leisure, which allows us to analyse the interactions of spouses' retirement timing. This methodology enables us to capture the dynamics of retirement and tax-benefit policies and can be used to simulate the effect of policy reform on household retirement behaviours. The paper, in addition, applies the model to assess individual budgetary implications and the labour market impact of rising the minimum retirement age. Our simulation shows that increasing the minimum age for state pension entitlement to 70 would only delay the retirement by less than 2 years according to the individual based model. When we consider the intra-household bargaining and the higher preference of leisure found in the dual career households, the effect of postponing retirement further declines. The result suggests barely postponing the minimum retirement age for state pension without redefining the occupation and private pension rules will only have limited impact for household retirement behaviour in Ireland. |
| Keywords: | retirement, choice modelling, microsimulation |
| JEL: | J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5866&r=lab |
| By: | Salladarré, Frédéric; Hlaimi, Boubaker |
| Abstract: | This study provides an analysis of the determinants of female part-time employment in 18 European countries. The distinction between short and long part-time allowed us to highlight some differences. Female part-timers are often married mothers and hold less secure jobs within the public sector. In addition, long part-time seems to stand out by economic conditions more favorable in terms of security. Our decomposition of the working time suggests that the differences between long part-time and short part-time appear to be stronger than differences between full-time and short part-time and working conditions of both long part-time and full-time may justify these differences. |
| Keywords: | female part time work; full time work; working time; decomposition |
| JEL: | J41 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32479&r=lab |
| By: | James Banks (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Manchester); Richard Blundell (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Antoine Bozio (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Carl Emmerson (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | <p>This paper examines changes in health and disability related transfers in the UK over the last thirty years, and describes how they are related to changes in labour force participation. The objective is to present a comprehensive description of the reforms to the institutional setting, along with available time series coming from administrative data on benefit receipt, cross-section or panel data on self-reported health and their interactions with labour force status. By providing systematic evidence on institutions and data, we hope to help future research providing a fuller picture of the trends over this period. We also present evidence on the impact of two large reforms to disability benefits in the UK.</p> |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:11/12&r=lab |
| By: | Paul Ryan (King’s College Cambridge) |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0064&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Bauer; Sebastian Braun; Michael Kvasnicka |
| Abstract: | The flight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe during and after World War II constitutes one of the largest forced population movements in history. We analyze the economic integration of these forced migrants and their offspring in West Germany. The empirical results suggest that even a quarter of a century after displacement, first generation migrants and native West Germans that were comparable before the war perform strikingly different. Migrants have substantially lower incomes and are less likely to own a house or to be self-employed. Displaced agricultural workers, however, have significantly higher incomes. This income gain can be explained by faster transitions out of low-paid agricultural work. Differences in the labor market performance of second generation migrants resemble those of the first generation. We also find that displacement considerably weakens the intergenerational transmission of human capital between fathers and children, especially at the lower tail of the skill distribution |
| Keywords: | Forced Migration, Economic Integration, World War II, West Germany |
| JEL: | J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1719&r=lab |
| By: | Menon, Nidhiya; Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how Nepal's 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women's decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, the authors employ a difference-in-difference approach to identify the impact of war on women's employment decisions. The results indicate that as a result of the Maoist-led insurgency, women's employment probabilities were substantially higher in 2001 and 2006 relative to the outbreak of war in 1996. These employment results also hold for self-employment decisions, and they hold for smaller sub-samples that condition on husband's migration status and women's status as widows or household heads. Numerous robustness checks of the difference-in-difference estimates based on alternative empirical methods provide compelling evidence that women's likelihood of employment increased as a consequence of the conflict. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Rural Poverty Reduction,Labor Markets,Regional Economic Development,Gender and Law |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5745&r=lab |
| By: | Uschi Backes-Gellner (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich); Jens Mohrenweiser (Centre for European Economic Research); Kerstin Pull (Department of Human Resource Management and Organization, Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen) |
| Abstract: | The German Codetermination Law grants workers of establishments with 200 or more employees the right to have a works councillor fully exempted from his regular job while still being paid his regular salary. We analyze theoretically and empirically how this de jure right to paid leave of absence translates into practice and explicitly take into account the nature of the industrial relations participation regime. We find the right of exemption to make no difference in cooperative employment relations, but to develop its bite in adversarial rela-tions, i.e. when – without legal enforcement – the legislator’s intent would not be realized. |
| Keywords: | Works councils, employment relations, de facto and de jure consequences of legal regulations |
| JEL: | J53 M54 K31 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:wpaper:0147&r=lab |
| By: | Christopher Reicher |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I estimate a series of long run reallocative shocks to sectoral employment using a stochastic volatility model of sectoral employment growth for the United States from 1960 through 2011. Reallocative shocks (which primarily measure construction and technology busts) have little effect on the natural rate of unemployment or on long run productivity, but there is mild evidence that they are recessionary. A broad class of theoretical models suggests that the contractionary effect of a reallocative shock should come from the direct aggregate effect of the underlying shock and not from human capital mismatch. Looking at the period of the Great Recession, reallocation has had no detectable effect on the natural rate of unemployment and can count for a 0.5% rise in cyclical unemployment from 2007 through the end of 2009 and 0.3% through the beginning of 2011 |
| Keywords: | Mismatch, sectoral shifts, reallocation, natural rate, unemployment, Great Recession, stochastic volatility |
| JEL: | E24 E32 E66 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1720&r=lab |
| By: | Christopher Reicher |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the aggregate effects of sectoral reallocation in the United States and Western Germany using a stochastic volatility model of sectoral employment growth. Reallocative shocks have no effect on the natural rate of unemployment in either country, and there is mild evidence that reallocative shocks are contractionary over the cycle. The overall statistical contribution of such shocks to the cycle, however, is limited. Reallocative shocks do not appear to be to blame for the rise in trend unemployment in Germany in the 1980s or for a possible rise in trend unemployment in the United States following the Great Recession |
| Keywords: | Sectoral shifts, reallocation, natural rate, unemployment, turbulence, stochastic volatility |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1721&r=lab |
| By: | Elena Del Rey; Maria Racionero |
| Abstract: | We consider risk-averse individuals who differ in two characteristics - ability to benefit from education and inherited wealth - and analyze higher education participation under two alternative financing schemes - tax subsidy and (risk-sharing) income-contingent loans. With decreasing absolute risk aversion, wealthier individuals are more likely to undertake higher education despite the fact that, according to the stylized financing schemes we consider, individuals do not pay any up-front financial cost of education. We then determine which financing scheme arises when individuals are allowed to vote between schemes. We show that the degree of risk aversion plays a crucial role in determining which financing scheme obtains a majority, and that the composition of the support group for each financing scheme can be of two different types. |
| JEL: | H52 I22 D72 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-549&r=lab |
| By: | Monstad, Karin; Propper, Carol; Salvanes, Kjell G |
| Abstract: | There is relatively little research on peer effects in teenage motherhood despite the fact that peer effects, and in particular social interaction within the family, is likely to be important. We estimate the impact of an elder sister’s teenage fertility on the teenage childbearing of their younger sister. To identify the peer effect we utilize an educational reform that impacted on the elder sister’s teenage fertility. Our main result is that within families, teen births tend to be contagious and the effect is larger where siblings are close in age and for women from low resource households. |
| Keywords: | education; spillover effects; teenage pregnancy |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8505&r=lab |
| By: | Benz, Sebastian; Kohler, Wilhelm |
| Abstract: | We explore the role of trade in differentiated final goods as well ollshoring of tasks for inequality both within and between countries. We emphasize the distinction between managerial and production labor. Managerial labor is a fixed input while production labor is a variable input. Following Grossman & Rossi-Hansberg (2010b) we assume that production labor is composed of tradable tasks, with Marshallian economies of scale on the task level. We first identify the key determinants of income distribution in a world where trade is restricted to final goods. We then allow for trade in production tasks, driven by country size as well as relative endowment with managerial and production labor. If the two countries are of equal size and if their relative endowments are not too different, then the task trading equilibrium features equalization of production wages, although the pattern of task trade and managerial wages are indeterminate. For differences in relative endowments beyond a certain threshold level, the trading equilibrium is unique and features one-way trade in line with comparative advantage. Relying on numerical simulations we show that international inequality is affected in a non-monotonic way by the cost of task trade. Comparing orders of magnitude we conclude that offshoring between similar countries only has a small positive effect on the managerial wage premium, compared to offshoring between countries with a different relative endowment. -- |
| Keywords: | Offshoring,Economies of Scale,Income Distribution,International Inequality |
| JEL: | F12 F16 F23 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuewef:13&r=lab |
| By: | Parsons, Donald O. (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | The potentially adverse labor market effects of severance pay mandates are a continuing source of policy concern. In a seminal study, Lazear (1990) found that contract avoidance of severance pay firing costs was theoretically simple – a bonding scheme would do – but that empirically the labor market distortions were large. Subsequent empirical work resolved the apparent paradox – firing cost effects are modest even without firm avoidance activities. To explore why that should be so, formal measures of severance-induced firing costs and hiring costs are derived. Firing costs are, it turns out, systematically less than benefit generosity alone would imply. Moreover their interrelationship with hiring costs, often employed in empirical studies as a substitute measure, is complex, with co-movements varying in sign and magnitude across policy parameters and the economic environment. Although the analysis assumes a fixed benefit mandate, the cost measures are easily extended to assess the impact of service-linked severance benefits on age-specific employment levels. The model permits design of a cohort-neutral severance mandate – which is not a flat rate structure. |
| Keywords: | severance pay, firing costs, hiring costs, layoff, employment, insurance, savings, moral hazard |
| JEL: | J65 J41 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5876&r=lab |
| By: | Hoarau, J-F.; Lopez, C.; Paul, M. |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the hysteresis hypothesis in the unemployment rates of the four French overseas regions (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, Reunion) [FORs] over the period 1993-2008. We use standard univariate and panel unit root tests, among them Choi (2006) and Lopez (2009) that account for cross-sectional dependence and have improved performance when the number of countries and the time dimension of the data are limited. Our results cannot reject the null hypothesis of a unit root and so find evidence supporting hysteresis in the unemployment rates for the FORs. |
| Keywords: | panel unit root, unemployment, hysteresis. |
| JEL: | C32 F31 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:337&r=lab |
| By: | Roger Wilkins (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Mark Wooden (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | An important group of interest for industrial tribunals in Australia is those workers who are reliant on awards for their pay and other employment conditions. Research on award reliance and its consequences, however, has long been hampered by the lack of good quality microdata. Most obviously, there are relatively few data sets in Australia that identify the method by which pay is set and also provide detailed information about individuals and the households in which they live. The HILDA Survey, however, is an exception to this, with information about award reliance, and methods of pay setting more generally, being collected for the first time in its 8th survey wave (in 2008). This paper reviews the quality of the data on award reliance that is being collected from this source. It then provides two examples of how these data can inform policy-relevant research questions: (i) to what extent are award-reliant workers found living in income-poor households; and (ii) what role does award reliance play in contributing to the gender pay gap? The results confirm that award-reliant workers are not especially concentrated in poor households, and that for award-reliant workers there is no evidence of any gender-based pay gap. |
| Keywords: | Award reliance, Australia, gender pay equity, HILDA Survey, income distribution, minimum wages |
| JEL: | J31 J50 D31 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n11&r=lab |
| By: | Julia Simonson; Laura Romeu Gordo; Nadiya Kelle |
| Abstract: | Before the 90s, men’s employment careers in East and West Germany were quite similar, despite their widely differing institutional settings. Before reunification, employment biographies were mainly dominated by full-time employment in both East and West. After 1989 the GDR was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany and almost all East German institutions were supplanted by adapted West German institutions. In the present paper we use SOEP data to analyse whether the East German labour market has converged completely with that of West Germany, following the same pattern of flexibilization and de-standardization, or if East Germany has even overtaken the West in this regard. We observe evidence of inhomogenization and pluralization in employment biographies in both regions. However, these trends are more pronounced in East Germany. As a result, employment biographies of younger men are more pluralised and less homogeneous in East Germany than in the West. |
| Keywords: | Cohort comparison; Cluster analysis; German transformation; Inhomogenization of employment biographies; Optimal matching; Pluralization of employment biographies; Sequence analysis; SOEP |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp391&r=lab |
| By: | Mike Brewer (Institute for Fiscal Studies and ISER, Essex University); James Browne (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Haroon Chowdry (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Claire Crawford (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | <p>Conventional in-work benefits or tax credits are now well established as a policy instrument for increasing labour supply and tackling poverty. A different sort of in-work credit is one where the payments are time-limited, conditional on previous receipt of welfare, and, perhaps, not means-tested. Such a design is cheaper, and perhaps better targeted, but potentially less effective. Using administrative data, this paper evaluates one such policy for lone parents in the UK which was piloted in around one third of the country. It finds that the policy did increase flows off welfare and into work, and that these positive effects did not diminish after recipients reached the 12 month time-limit for receiving the supplement. Most of the impact arose by speeding up welfare off-flows: the job retention of programme recipients was good, but this cannot be attributed to the programme itself.</p> |
| Keywords: | In-work benefits, labour supply, time-limits, welfare, lone parents. |
| JEL: | H21 I38 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:11/14&r=lab |
| By: | Mathias Sinning; Matthias Vorell |
| Abstract: | This paper compares the effects of immigration flows on economic outcomes and crime levels to the public opinion about these effects using individual and regional data for Australia. We employ an instrumental variables strategy to account for non-random location choices of immigrants and find that immigration has no adverse effects on regional unemployment rates, median incomes, or crime levels. This result is in line with the economic effects that people typically expect but does not confirm the public opinion about the contribution of immigration to higher crime levels, suggesting that Australians overestimate the effect of immigration on crime. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-548&r=lab |
| By: | Chung Tran; Alan Woodland |
| Abstract: | Inclusion of means testing into age pension programs allows governments to better direct benefits to those most in need and to control funding costs by providing flexibility to control the participation rate (extensive margin) and the benefit level (intensive margin). The former is aimed at mitigating adverse effects on incentives and to strengthen the insurance function of an age pension system. In this paper, we investigate how means tests alter the trade-off between these insurance and incentive effects and the consequent welfare outcomes. Our contribution is twofold. First, we show that the means test effect via the intensive margin potentially improves the insurance aspect but introduces two opposing impacts on incentives, the final welfare outcome depending upon the interaction between the two margins. Second, conditioning on the compulsory existence of pension systems, we find that the introduction of a means test results in nonlinear welfare effects that depend on the level of maximum pension benefits. More specifically, when the maximum pension benefit is relatively low, an increase in the taper rate always leads to a welfare gain, since the insurance and the positive incentive effects are always dominant. However, when maximum pension benefits are relatively more generous the negative incentive effect becomes dominant and welfare declines. |
| JEL: | D9 E2 E6 H3 H5 J1 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-550&r=lab |
| By: | Hazans, Mihails (University of Latvia); Philips, Kaia (University of Tartu) |
| Abstract: | We use Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian LFS data (2002-2007) complemented with several other surveys to compare the profile of Baltic temporary workers abroad before and after EU accession with that of stayers and return migrants. Determinants of migration and return, as well as selection issues are discussed. Post-enlargement migrants from all three countries were significantly less educated than stayers. After accession, medium-educated workers were most likely to move, other things equal, and human capital became increasingly less pro-migration over time. Return migrants differ from all movers in many ways and, in particular, are more educated. Although brain drain was not a feature of post-accession Baltic migration, brain waste was: during 2006-2007, the proportion of overqualified among high-educated movers ranged from five out of ten for Latvia to seven out of ten for Lithuania, but it was around one fifth among high-educated stayers in all three countries. We find that the free movement of labor partially introduced in 2004 (and expanded in 2006) for EU citizens, although excluding Baltic non-citizens, brought about significant changes in how ethnicity and citizenship affect workers' mobility. We conclude by discussing migration perspectives in the context of recession. |
| Keywords: | return migrants, Baltic countries, EU enlargement, migration, ethnic minorities |
| JEL: | J61 J15 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5878&r=lab |
| By: | Li, Jinjing (Maastricht University); O'Donoghue, Cathal (Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre) |
| Abstract: | Retirement behaviours and elderly poverty issues have been the subject of much attention and discussion in recent years as most countries are facing a rapidly ageing society. Ireland enjoys a relatively young population compared with other European countries, but is also struggling with increasing fiscal pressures. This paper analyses the retirement pattern and the replacement rate observed in Ireland using the Living in Ireland panel dataset. Since traditional empirical estimations may have selection bias issues as people with low replacement rates may not choose to retire, the paper adopts a combined method with both synthetic household simulation and empirical estimates. The study reveals the social economic attributes patterns associated with the replacement rates and retirement behaviours, and explores the heterogeneities of replacement rates among retirees. |
| Keywords: | retirement, replacement rates, microsimulation |
| JEL: | J14 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5865&r=lab |
| By: | Mark A. Aguiar; Erik Hurst; Loukas Karabarbounis |
| Abstract: | We use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), covering both the recent recession and the pre-recessionary period, to explore how foregone market work hours are allocated to other activities over the business cycle. Given the short time series, it is hard to distinguish business cycle effects from low frequency trends by simply comparing time spent on a given category prior to the recession with time spent on that category during the recession. Instead, we identify the business cycle effects on time use using cross state variation with respect to the severity of the recessions. We find that roughly 30% to 40% of the foregone market work hours are allocated to increased home production. Additionally, 30% of the foregone hours are allocated to increased sleep time and increased television watching. Other leisure activities absorb 20% of the foregone market work hours. We use our evidence from the ATUS to calibrate and test the predictions of workhorse macroeconomic models with home production. We show that the quantitative implications of these models regarding the allocation of time over the business cycle matches reasonably well the actual behavior of households. |
| JEL: | D13 E32 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17259&r=lab |
| By: | Nicolas Hérault (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Guyonne Kalb (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Rezida Zakirova (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the persistence over time of living in a jobless household, aiming to disentangle the roles of state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. In addition, the potential heterogeneity of state dependence is examined through estimation of interaction terms with the lagged household joblessness variable. Finally, the robustness of results is explored through the use of alternative definitions of household joblessness each based on different variables available in our data. Using the two definitions that are most different, we find substantial state dependence which is larger for women than for men under both definitions. That is, being in a jobless household in the previous year increases the probability of currently living in a jobless household by 7.7 to 17.2 percentage points for men and 12.7 to 25.1 percentage points for women. Although state dependence clearly is an important factor, as are a number of observed characteristics, unobserved heterogeneity also plays an importantrole for men and women: 32 to 40 per cent of the unexplained variance can be attributed to unobserved heterogeneity for men, and for women this is 42 to 46 per cent. A few characteristics (age, disability, student status, living outside of major cities, having a university degree, presence of preschool children) seem to affect the level of state dependence to some extent. However, aside from the age effect, which can increase state dependence by up to 50 per cent for men aged 60 to 64, the level of state dependence seems fairly homogenous amongst men and amongst women. |
| Keywords: | Household joblessness, state dependence, unobserved heterogeneity |
| JEL: | D19 I32 J01 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2011n10&r=lab |
| By: | Jaume Puig-Junoy (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and Research Centre for Economics and Health (CRES), Barcelona, Spain); Pilar Garcia-Gomez (Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands); David Casado-Marinc (Institut d'Avaluacio de Polítiques Publiques (IVALUA), Barcelona, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of coinsurance exemption for prescription medicines applied to elderly individuals in Spain after retirement. To evaluate this coinsurance change we use a rich administrative dataset that links pharmaceutical consumption and hospital discharge records for the full population aged 58 to 65 in January 2004 covered by the public insurer in a Spanish region and we follow them until December 2006. We use a difference-in-differences strategy and exploit the eligibility age for Social Security to control for the endogeneity of the retirement decision. Our most conservative results show that the uniform exemption from pharmaceutical copayment granted to retired people in Spain increases the consumption of prescription medicines on average by 9.5%, total pharmaceutical expenditure by 15.2% and the costs borne by the insurer by 47.5%, without evidence of any offset effect in the form of reduced hospitalization. The impact is concentrated among individuals who were consumers of medicines for acute and other non-chronic diseases with a previous coinsurance rate in the range 30% to 40%. |
| Keywords: | pharmaceuticals; cost sharing; hospitalization offsets; health care expenditure |
| JEL: | G22 I18 J14 |
| Date: | 2011–07–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20110108&r=lab |
| By: | Katarzyna Budnik (National Bank of Poland, Economic Institute) |
| Abstract: | There is an increasing awareness of an empirical relevance of temporary migration. This literature overview attempts to summarize the current state of knowledge about drivers and economic role of temporary migration. It sets together elements of relevant theories of initiation, perpetuation and return migration, international trade and conclusions from a growing body of empirical literature on returns, remittances and behaviour of immigrants in host economies, including labour markets. Distinguishing between permanent and temporary migration may help to explain not only the dynamics of the actual labour force movements but also to better describe their impact on source and host economies. |
| Keywords: | temporary migration, migration theory, return migration, remittances |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:89&r=lab |
| By: | Werner Boente (Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal); Monika Jarosch (Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal) |
| Abstract: | In this study we empirically investigate the contribution of personality traits to the gender gap in entrepreneurship. Our empirical analyses, which are based on data obtained from a large scale survey of individuals in 36 countries, suggest that a group of personality traits which we call Individual Entrepreneurial Aptitude (IEA) has a positive effect on latent and nascent entrepreneurship among women and men. Moreover, women’s considerably lower level of IEA contributes significantly to the gender gap in entrepreneurship. The lower level of IEA is mainly due to women’s lower levels of competitiveness and risk tolerance. Furthermore, these results are confirmed by the results of a country-level analysis which show that the within-country variation of entrepreneurial activities of women and men is significantly related to within-country variation of IEA. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, gender gap, personality traits, competitiveness |
| JEL: | J16 L26 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwu:schdps:sdp11012&r=lab |
| By: | Baldwin, John R.; Leung, Danny; Rispoli, Luke |
| Abstract: | This paper asks how the performance of self-employed unincorporated businesses affects the size of the gap in labour productivity between Canada and the United States. To do so, the business sector in each country is divided into unincorporated and corporate businesses, and estimates of labour productivity are generated for each sector. The productivity performance of the unincorporated sector relative to the corporate sector is much lower in Canada than in the United States. As a result, when the unincorporated sector is removed from the estimates for the business sector in each country and only the corporate sectors for the two countries are compared, the gap in the level of productivity between Canada and the United States is reduced. The unincorporated sector consists of both sole proprietorships and partnerships. This paper also investigates the impact of just sole proprietorships on the Canada-United States productivity gap. Sole proprietorships in the two countries more closely resemble one another than do partnerships, as U.S. partnerships are much larger than their Canadian counterparts. When sole proprietorships are removed from the business-sector estimates of each country (allowing a comparison of sole proprietorships to the rest of the business sector, which consists of partnerships and the corporate sector), the gap in labour productivity between Canada and the United States also declines but by only about half as much as when both sole proprietorships and partnerships are removed. The lower productivity of the unincorporated sector (both sole proprietorships and partnerships) accounted for almost the entire productivity gap between Canada and the United States in 1998. Since then, the productivity of the corporate sector in Canada has fallen relative to that of the corporate sector in the United States and the unincorporated sector no longer accounts for the entire gap. |
| Keywords: | Business performance and ownership, Economic accounts, Business ownership, Productivity accounts, Small and medium-sized businesses, Current conditions |
| Date: | 2011–07–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp5e:2011071e&r=lab |