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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Beatrice Brunner; Andreas Kuhn |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effects of labor market entry conditions on wages for male individuals first entering the Austrian labor market between 1978 and 2000. We find a large negative effect of unfavorable entry conditions on starting wages as well as a sizeable negative long-run effect. Specifically, we estimate that a one percentage point increase in the initial local unemployment rate is associated with an approximate shortfall in lifetime earnings of 6.5%. We also show that bad entry conditions are associated with lower quality of a worker's first job and that initial wage shortfalls associated with bad entry conditions only partially evaporate upon involuntary job change. These and additional findings support the view that initial job assignment, in combination with accumulation of occupation or industry-specific human capital while on this first job, plays a key role in generating the observed wage persistencies. |
| Keywords: | initial labor market conditions, endogenous labor market entry, initial job assignment, specific human capital |
| JEL: | E3 J2 J3 J6 M5 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2010_15&r=lab |
| By: | Giorgia Casalone (University of Piemonte Orientale A. Avogadro); Carmen Aina (University of Piemonte Orientale A. Avogadro) |
| Abstract: | We use a sample of Italian graduates drawn from the Consorzio AlmaLaurea to study whether the time taken to attain a degree matters for employment and earnings after one, three and five years from graduation. The relevance of this topic arises from the observation that Italian tertiary education system is characterized by an average time to undergraduate degree that is longer than the prescribed period. In addition, this issue is important also because delay in college completion entails a waste of resources both at individual and at collective level, and deprives the economics system of new and up-to-date competencies, as graduates enter the labour market with partially obsolete skills. Our estimates highlight that the probability of finding a job is negatively related to the time taken to graduate only if such delay is greater than three years. Graduates with previous work experiences, then, take on average two months less to be employed and receive higher wages. We also find evidence that students who obtain a degree beyond the minimum period suffer a wage penalty not while entering the labour market, but in the subsequent years (especially 5 years after graduation). This finding suggests that time-to-degree along with work experiences are good proxies for employers to discriminate between the ability of graduates. |
| Keywords: | time-to-degree, tertiary education, wage differentials |
| JEL: | I20 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:38&r=lab |
| By: | Gerard Thomas Horvath |
| Abstract: | Using detailed micro data on earnings and employment, I analyze the effects of immigration on the wage distribution of native male workers in Austria. I find that immigration has heterogeneous effects on wages, differing by type of work as well as the wage level. While there are small , but insignificant, negative effects for blue collar workers at the lower end of the wage distribution there are positive effects on wages at higher percentiles. For white collar workers positive effects occur at most percentiles. The estimated effects of immigration are relatively small in size and not significant for most workers. Overall it seems that most of potentially adverse effects of immigration on natives' wages are offset by complementarities stemming from immigration of workers with different skill levels. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Labor market, Wage distribution |
| JEL: | J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_09&r=lab |
| By: | Bart COCKX (Sherppa, Ghent University, Belgium; UCLouvain (IRES), Louvain-la- Neuve; IZA, Bonn and CESIfo, Munich); Matteo PICCHIO (CentER, ReflecT, and Department of Economics, Tilburg University,Tilburg, The Netherlands and IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates whether and to what extent further unemployment experience for youths who are already long-term unemployed imposes a penalty on subsequent labor market outcomes. We propose a flexible method for analyzing the effect on wages aside of transitions from unemployment and employment within a multivariate duration model that controls for selection on observables and unobservables. We find that prolonging unemployment drastically decreases the chances of finding employment, but hardly affects the quality of subsequent employment. The analysis suggests that negative duration dependence in the job finding rate is induced by negative signaling and not by human capital depreciation. |
| Keywords: | scarring effect of unemployment duration, employment quality, wage in multivariate duration model, selectivity |
| JEL: | C33 C41 J62 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–08–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2011032&r=lab |
| By: | Postel-Vinay, Fabien (University of Bristol); Turon, Hélène (University of Bristol) |
| Abstract: | Job-to-job turnover provides a way for employers to escape statutory firing costs, as unprofitable workers may willfully quit their job on receiving an outside offer, thus sparing their incumbent employer the firing costs. Furthermore, employers can induce their unprofitable workers to accept outside job offers that they would otherwise reject by offering voluntary severance packages, which are less costly than the full statutory firing cost. We formalize those mechanisms within an extension of the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) matching model that allows for employed job search and negotiation over severance packages. We find that, while essentially preserving most standard qualitative predictions of the DMP model without employed job search, our model explains why higher firing costs intensify job-to-job turnover at the expense of transitions out of unemployment. We further find that allowing for on-the-job search markedly changes the quantitative predictions of the DMP model regarding the impact of firing costs on unemployment and employment flows: ignoring on-the-job search leads one to strongly underestimate the negative impact of firing costs on unemployment. |
| Keywords: | firing costs, on-the-job search, mutual consent, minimum wage |
| JEL: | J33 J64 E24 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6023&r=lab |
| By: | Elise Brezis (Azrieli Center for Economic Policy (ACEP), Bar-Ilan University); Ariel Soueri (Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University; Ministry of Finance) |
| Abstract: | The flow of students has grown very rapidly these last decades, and in some regions, has become twice as important as the flows of those seeking work. The purpose of this study is to explore the elements affecting students’ decision on migration. The two main elements affecting migration are wages, and quality of education. It should be stressed that the countries with the highest-quality education are not necessarily those with high wages. Therefore there is a need to explore whether it is quality of higher education or wage levels that determine the direction of student flows. First, we develop a simple two-stage model relating decisions on educational choices to those on job search. Our model shows that student migration is towards countries with the highest quality of higher education. In the second part of this study, we empirically investigate our theoretical model using a panel data on European OECD countries. We use the Bologna process to outline which of the elements, wages or educational quality, determines the direction of flows. We find strong evidence of concentration of students in countries with high-quality education and not in high-wage countries. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Human capital, Students, higher education, Bologna process, Brain drain. |
| JEL: | F22 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:25&r=lab |
| By: | Takuya Hasebe (The Graduate Center, The City University of New York) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of a type of employment contract on starting wage and short-term wage growth. I estimate the differences in starting wage and wage growth patterns between temporary and permanent workers by using a dataset from the Netherlands. The data contain new graduates from post-secondary schools in the Netherlands. As in the continental European countries, the use of temporary employment is common in the Netherlands, especially among young workers. Those who just graduate from school have less experience in the labor market. It is rather difficult for an employer to find a qualified worker. Because of high firing costs for a permanent worker, an employer has to bear more costs if employing an under-qualified worker. To avoid this, an employer engages in a more intensive search processes when hiring a worker on a permanent worker, which increase search costs. If such costs are passed on to a permanent worker, the starting wage is expected to be lower for a permanent worker than a temporary worker. The empirical comparisons of the starting wage shows evidence of a lower starting wage, but this is not robust to differences in estimation structure. The comparison of the wage growth between the two types of contract shows that wage growth is more suppressed for a temporary worker than for a permanent worker. Since the observations are those who have little job experience, training upon employment is important. As a matter of fact, almost all relevant observations receive training at the beginning, regardless of type of contract. Employers could recoup the costs of training by suppressing the wage growth relative to underlying productivity growth. An employer suppresses wage growth more for a temporary worker than a permanent worker as the shorter employment period of a temporary worker leaves the employer with less time to recoup the costs. The empirical results confirm this hypothesis, and these findings are robust. The empirical strategy in this paper takes into consideration the fact that the type of contract is presumably determined endogenously even after controlling for observable individual characteristics. The empirical results indeed indicate that this selectivity issue is necessary to be considered. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:20&r=lab |
| By: | Patrizia Ordine (Dept. of Economics and Statistics, University of Calabria); Giuseppe Rose (Dept. of Economics and Statistics, University of Calabria) |
| Abstract: | This work investigates educational mismatch and its interrelationships with individual unemployment duration. By studying unemployment histories of Italian workers we show that overeducated have longer unemployment spells than well matched workers. Using duration models we show that hazard rates of graduates are higher than those of undergraduates only for transitions toward occupations that require the competencies provided by the universities. This process is strictly related to innate ability and geographical location. Our findings are consistent with an interpretation of educational mismatch as a penalizing phenomenon in the individuals' working life associated to long term unemployment. We argue that a policy that gives more relevance to individual ability in the schooling attainment may reduce educational mismatch. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:19&r=lab |
| By: | Martin Halla; Martina Zweimüller |
| Abstract: | This paper interprets accidents occurring on the way to and from work as negative health shocks to identify the causal effect of health on labor market outcomes. We argue that in our sample of exactly matched treated and control workers, these health shocks are quasi-randomly assigned. A fixed-effects difference-in-differences approach estimates a negative and persistent effect on subsequent employment and income. After initial periods with a higher incidence of sick leave, treated workers are more likely unemployed, and a growing share of them leaves the labor market via disability retirement. Those treated workers, who manage to stay in employment, incur persistent income losses. The effects are stronger for sub-groups of workers who are typically less attached to the labor market. |
| Keywords: | Health, employment, income |
| JEL: | I10 J22 D31 J31 J24 J26 J64 J28 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_03&r=lab |
| By: | Saleh Alkafri (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics) |
| Abstract: | Theories and studies indicate that education is an essential factor to reduce the probability and unemployment duration and increase chances for business continuity and stability in a decent job. Nonetheless, what happens to women in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa is just the opposite, specifically in the Palestinian Territories, where the participation of women in the labour market is very low and significantly high rates of unemployment are witnessed. Results indicate that the more the years of education among women the higher the unemployment rate, unlike men, causing a significant gap between both sexes. Then comes the question repeated in all seminars, workshops and conferences, of why women face low possibilities of getting a job when they decide to enter the labour market, especially those young and highly educated? This is the basic problem that this research study tries to tackle through highlighting and identifying the factors affecting the low potential of graduate women in entering the labour market unlike graduate males despite their achievements in education. We have used recent data of the results of Labour Force Quarterly Survey 1996-2008 (total Quarterly sample size for each year is 7600 households), using high technology in the methodology for rotating the sample and the personnel follow-up for the four quarters during a year and a half which provides a meticulous study of the situation. A survey of graduates in the labour market 2006 was also used, which in turn provides a rich base of indicators that support the search results. It should be noted that the methodology came in twofold, the first, a descriptive analysis of the available data, and the second by using the Transition Probability Matrix and analysis of the Probit Regression model. The results confirm the existence of the problem, and relate the reasons to the limitations that restrict the movement of women to get jobs. Moreover, it shows that the problem of unemployment among graduates is highlighted in specific areas and disciplines that do not match the requirements of the market, as well as the employers’ point of view of occupations and activities that women can exercise. Delays in obtaining work, often lead women out of the labour market which in turn causes their low participation in the workforce. The general trend in the future puts in front of the Palestinian decision-maker extraordinary challenges to provide opportunities for jobs that take into account the geographical distribution and the programming of scientific disciplines offered by universities. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:30&r=lab |
| By: | Rudolf Winter-Ebmer; Mario Schnalzenberger (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Nicole Schneeweis; Martina Zweimüller |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between job quality and retirement using panel data for European countries (SHARE). While previous studies looked at the impact of bad working conditions on retirement intentions, we can use the panel dimension to study actual retirement as well as other pathways out of a job. As indicators for job quality we use three different approaches: overall job satisfaction, over- and undereducation for a particular job as well as effort-reward imbalance which measures the imbalance between a worker's effort and the rewards he or she receives in turn. |
| Keywords: | retirement, job quality, job satisfaction, educational mismatch, effort-reward imbalance, SHARE |
| JEL: | J14 J18 J26 J28 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_05&r=lab |
| By: | Chiara MUSSIDA (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy); Matteo PICCHIO (Department of Economics, CentER, ReflecT, Tilburg University, The Netherlands and IZA, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We analyse gender wage inequalities in Italy in the mid-1990s and in the mid-2000s. In this period important labour market developments occurred: institutional changes have loosened the use of flexible and atypical contracts; the female employment rates and educational levels have substantially increased. We identify the time trends of different components of the gender wage gap by estimating wage distributions in the presence of covariates and sample selection and by counterfactual microsimulations. We find that women swam against the tide: whilst the trend in female qualifications slightly reduced the gender wage gap, the gender relative trends in the wage structure significantly increased it. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, counterfactual distributions, decompositions, hazard function, labour market reforms |
| JEL: | C21 C41 J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2011031&r=lab |
| By: | Anne BUCHER (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | To investigate why young workers exhibit higher unemployment and separation rates, I extend the basic matching model of Pissarides by incorporating learning on match quality as Pries and Rogerson (2005). Match quality is heterogenous and is inferred from the output performance. Because matches revealed to be bad are dissolved, the separation risk decreases with job tenure. Within the framework, the specificity of youth only comes from their entry position on the labor market. Discrepancies between age-groups arise as young workers are mainly unemployed searching for their first job, or newly employed facing higher unemployment risks. The model, calibrated above French data, performs well in reproducing the intergenerational gap in worker separation and unemployment rates. |
| Date: | 2011–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2011027&r=lab |
| By: | Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina); Blackburn, McKinley L. (University of South Carolina); Cotti, Chad (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh) |
| Abstract: | Do apparently large minimum wage increases in an environment of recession produce clearer evidence of disemployment effects than is typically observed in the new minimum wage literature? This paper augments the sparse literature on the most recent increases in the U.S. minimum wage, using three different data sets and the two main estimation strategies for handling geographically-disparate trends. The evidence is generally unsupportive of negative employment effects, still less of a 'recessionary multiplier.' Minimum wage workers seem to be concentrated in sectors of the economy for which the labor demand response to wage mandates is minimal. |
| Keywords: | minimum wages, disemployment, earnings, low-wage sectors, geographically-disparate employment trends, recession |
| JEL: | J2 J3 J4 J8 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6036&r=lab |
| By: | Haefke, Christian (IHS - Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna); Reiter, Michael (IHS - Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use information on the cyclical variation of labor market participation to learn about the aggregate labor supply elasticity. For this purpose, we extend the standard labor market matching model to allow for endogenous participation. A model that is calibrated to replicate the variability of unemployment and participation, and the negative correlation of unemployment and GDP, implies an aggregate labor supply elasticity along the extensive margin of around 0.3 for men and 0.5 for women. This is in line with recent micro-econometric estimates. |
| Keywords: | matching models, labor market participation, labor supply elasticity |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J21 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6039&r=lab |
| By: | Kampelmann, Stephan (University of Lille 1); Rycx, Francois (Free University of Brussels) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between institutions and the remuneration of different jobs by comparing the German and Belgian labour markets with respect to a typology of institutions (social representations, norms, conventions, legislation, and organisations). The observed institutional differences between the two countries lead to the hypotheses of (I) higher overall pay inequality in Germany; (II) higher pay inequalities between employees and workers in Belgium; and (III) higher (lower) impact of educational credentials (work-post tenure) on earnings in Germany. We provide survey-based empirical evidence supporting hypotheses I and III, but find no evidence for hypothesis II. These results underline the importance of institutional details: although Germany and Belgium belong to the same "variety of capitalism", we provide evidence that small institutional disparities within Continental-European capitalism account for distinct structures of pay. |
| Keywords: | labour market institutions, wage inequality, rules, collective bargaining |
| JEL: | J31 J51 J52 J53 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6010&r=lab |
| By: | Giulio Bosio (University of Milan); Chiara Noè (University of Cergy-Pointoise) |
| Abstract: | The Italian system of higher education has recently experienced a process of radical transformation. The so-called 3+2 university reform reflects a big increase in the supply of college graduates that has attracted the attention of policy makers and fostered the debate on the size of human capital externalities. Using the 2009 Italian Labour Force Survey and incorporating a measure of graduate density within each occupation, in this article, we explore whether the social returns to education exceeds the private return and less educated workers gain more than college educated workers from spillovers associated with higher college share in their relative occupation. The OLS results clearly indicate that increases in graduate density have positive effects on wages and that the effect is larger for less educated workers, also controlling for potential confounding factors. However, the concentration of college workers across occupations is such that we may have a potential endogeneity problem. In order to recover a causal interpretation and to isolate the effect of graduate density, we employ an IV strategy exploiting the lagged demographic and occupational structure and the variation in the introduction of 3+2 courses at regional level. Merely, IV estimates largely indicate that the size of spillovers is significantly increased with respect to standard OLS results. Indeed, we estimate that a 1% increase in the college share within occupation raises wages by 0.9-1.3% for male and female, respectively. The effect is further larger for less educated workers. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:39&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Robert (TÁRKI); Annamária Gáti (TÁRKI-TUDOK) |
| Abstract: | The paper intends to increase the information and knowledge on graduates’ labour market entry and early career under post-communism. The specific purpose of the analysis is to examine gender differences with respect to two particular research questions: the length of time graduates need to enter the labour force and find a first job; the odds for becoming unemployed during the first five years spent in labour force. Data from the recent HEGESCO project (www.hegesco.org) are employed in the paper. The data collection has occurred in 2008 / 2009 and refers to those diploma holders who completed their studies five years earlier in 2002 / 2003. The project involved five nations: Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and Turkey. The present study deals with three former communist countries: Hungary (N=1533), Poland (N=1200) and Slovenia (N=2923). The paper provides background information on these three countries in terms of their institutional features related to the school system and the labour market. Both descriptive (bivariate) and causal (multivariate) techniques are applied in the study. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis is used to examine gender differences in labour market entry in the three countries. For investigating the determinants of possible unemployment experience (did it occur or not), the logistic regression method is applied. In addition to gender variation, data offer a large variety of predictors and control variables informing about various characteristics of the study program (field of study, BA/MA, full-time / part-time, first degree gained) as well as about the respondent’s involvement during studies (voluntary / student organization activity, internship, work experience). It is also possible to control for social origin (parental education). Results reveal that gender difference for the length of time to find a first job is significantly present only in Slovenia. For unemployment, at observed level women are definitely disadvantaged and experienced unemployment in all three countries more frequently as compared to men. On the ground of the multivariate analysis, however, the female disadvantage to have a significantly bigger chance to become unemployed in comparison to males turns out to be present only in Poland. As taking into account the large variation in the compositional effects, the paper elaborates on how these features bring advantages or disadvantages for males and females to avoid unemployment. On this ground it is impossible to conclude about a better or worse situation regarding the rank order of the three countries. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:34&r=lab |
| By: | Nadereh Chamlou (The World Bank); Silvia Muzi (The World Bank); Hanane Ahmed (The World Bank) |
| Abstract: | The similarities between the labor market supply of women with a Middle Eastern background living in Europe and those of women living in the Middle East is of particular interest. Indeed, empirical evidence shows that Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) of immigrants reflects to a large extent the FLFP of country of origin, with women from more conservative societies tending to participate less in the labor market than natives or immigrants from countries with a high FLFP. This impacts the host country’s FLFP at an aggregate level. Therefore, from a European perspective, understanding the determinants of female labor supply in the conservative societies, such as countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is of particular interest, considering the high share of this group among immigrants. Hence, this empirical research focuses on the role of education, especially higher education, and social norms in MENA on the choice of women to work outside. The region has achieved substantial progress in educating women, increasingly so at the tertiary level and across disciplines, but its FLFP remains the lowest among all regions. Our paper empirically investigates the impact of education with emphasis on higher education on FLFP and the relationship between social norms and female labor supply in a representative city in MENA, namely Amman, Jordan, as a proxy for MENA. Our analysis shows that higher education (post-secondary/university/post-university) has a positive and significant impact on FLFP, whereas secondary and below do not. In addition, there is a strong negative and statistically significant association between traditional social norms and the participation of women in the labor force. The findings pose the question of whether additional policies and actions are needed to change institutions and attitudes toward women’s work in general, as well as improve the economic opportunities of women who have secondary education which affects the bulk of working age women. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:31&r=lab |
| By: | Christopher L. Smith |
| Abstract: | Since the beginning of the recent recession, the employment-population ratio for high-school age youth (16-17 years old) has fallen by nearly a third, to its lowest level ever. However, this recession has exacerbated a longer-run downward trend that actually began in the 1990s and accelerated in the early 2000s. There is little research regarding why teen employment has fallen. Some earlier work emphasized labor supply explanations related to schooling and education, such as an increased emphasis on college preparation (Aaronson, Park, and Sullivan 2006), while others have argued that adult immigrants have crowded out teens, at least in part because adult immigrants and native teens tend to be employed in similar occupations (Sum, Garrington, and Khatiwada 2006, Camarota and Jensenius 2010, Smith 2012). This paper presents updated trends in teen employment and participation across multiple demographic characteristics, and argues that, in addition to immigration, occupational polarization in the U.S. adult labor market has resulted in increased competition for jobs that teens traditionally hold. Testing various supply and demand explanations for the decline since the mid-1980s, I find that demand factors can explain at least half of the decline unexplained by the business cycle, and that supply factors can explain much of the remaining decline. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2011-41&r=lab |
| By: | Brahim Boudarbat |
| Abstract: | In 2010, the unemployment rate among immigrants aged 15 to 64 was 12.4 % in Quebec, compared to 10.4 % in Ontario and 8.8 % in British Columbia. The ratio of the unemployment rates of immigrants to those of the Canadian born was 1.7 in Quebec, 1.3 in Ontario, and 1.2 in British Columbia. <p> The economic turmoil of recent years has had a greater impact on immigrants than on the Canadian born: Nation-wide, between 2008 and 2010 the unemployment rate of the former increased by 2.7 percentage points and that of the latter by 1.7 points. This deterioration is observed in all three of the provinces we examined—especially in British Columbia, where the unemployment rate of immigrants rose by 3.9 percentage points between 2008 and 2010. In Ontario, the unemployment rate of immigrants increased by 2.8 percentage points during the same period, versus only 1.2 percentage points in Quebec. <p> The unemployment rate differential between immigrants to Quebec and British Columbia shrank dramatically between 2006 and 2010, from 7.9 to 3.6 percentage points. This trend is the result of a marked deterioration in the situation of immigrants on the B. C. labour market. <p> With regard to the unemployment rate of those born in Canada, the situation in Quebec is comparable to that in British Columbia and better than in Ontario. Quebec also resembles other Canadian provinces how well it integrates immigrants having completed their postsecondary studies in Canada. However, this province is distinguished by an unemployment rate that is much higher for immigrants who obtained their postsecondary education abroad (13 %) than for those who acquired it here (7.8 %). In the two other provinces, the country in which the credentials were awarded weighs relatively less in the hiring decision: The unemployment rate for immigrants with foreign postsecondary credentials was 9.7 % in Ontario and 7.6 % in British Columbia in 2010. <p> Rapid integration of newcomers poses another challenge for Quebec. In 2010, the unemployment rate of immigrants having been in Canada five years or less was 19.4 % in Quebec, compared to 17.9 % in Ontario and 13.8 % in British Columbia. <p> Another specificity of Quebec's labour market is that it is less accessible to poorly educated immigrants: In 2010, the unemployment rate in Quebec of those with no degree, certificate or diploma was 20.5 %, in contrast to 15.8 % in British Columbia and 17.9 % in Ontario. On the other hand, the unemployment rate of immigrants with a university degree was 9.4 % in Quebec, 9.0 % in Ontario, and 8.0 % in British Columbia. Thus, integration into the labour market in Quebec and elsewhere does not only reflect recognition of foreign degrees, since those who don't have one typically encounter more problems finding work than others. <p> Despite these difficulties integrating into the Quebec labour market, the percentage of immigrants who report having experienced problems or difficulties in finding work during their first four years in Canada is relatively lower in Quebec (63.8 %) than in Ontario (71.0 %) and British Columbia (65.1 %). <p> According to the immigrants themselves, the lack of Canadian experience is the greatest hurdle to finding work (71.8 % in Quebec, 74.4 % in Ontario, and 64.1 % in British Columbia). This suggests that access to a first suitable job is crucial to the integration of immigrants. The second obstacle to obtaining a job involves language skills: 49.7 % of new immigrants to Quebec identified this as a problem, compared with 42.3 % in Ontario and 48.5 % in British Columbia. Thus, there is a case to be made for strengthening programs that help immigrants master the language used in the labour market of the host country. <p> Whether well founded or not, the perception of discriminatory hiring practices is evoked by very few immigrants, but the proportion of those who do mention this is slightly higher in Quebec (21.8 %) than in Ontario (17.1 %) or British Columbia (12 %). These values fall to 7.4 %, 3.2 %, and 3.1 %, respectively, when only the main obstacles to employment are considered. It is in Quebec that the rate of overqualification of Canadian-born university graduates is lowest, at 34.9 % in 2010, versus 42.7 % in British Columbia and 40.1 % in Ontario. Immigrants to Quebec with a degree from a Canadian university also benefit from this comparative advantage, since their rate of overqualification (43.6 %) is lower than that of immigrants to British Columbia (47.9 %). As to immigrants with a university degree earned abroad, in Quebec 64.9 % of them are overqualified for their job, compared with 64.6 % in Ontario and 70.2 % in British Columbia. Thus, immigrants in this latter province are more successful in finding work than their counterparts in Quebec, but their jobs are less likely to match their skills. Overall, Canadian-born workers are more likely than immigrants to be employed in the public sector and in union shops. However, between 2006 and 2010 we observe an improvement in these indicators among immigrants. Quebec's public sector has the best record for employing immigrants. In 2010, 16.5 % of immigrants with a job in Quebec were employed by this sector, versus 14.9 % in Ontario and 14.8 % in British Columbia. Since 2006, the public sector's share in the employment of immigrants has increased by three percentage points in Quebec, compared to less than two points in the other two provinces. Consequently, the record of the Government of Quebec and its agencies cannot be faulted in the matter of the recruitment of immigrants. <p> Immigrants increasingly opt for self-employment—and do so in a greater proportion than native-born Canadians. British Columbia is the province in which this form of employment is most widespread among immigrants (21.4 % in 2010). In Quebec, 18.7 % of immigrants created their own jobs (17.1 % in Ontario). This is a marked increase over 2006, when it was only 16.9 % (15.8 % in Ontario and 21.8 % in British Columbia). Promoting private initiative could play a central role in programs to foster integration into the labour market. <p> As is the case for those born in Canada, the rate of unionization is considerably higher among immigrants in Quebec (32 % in 2010) than in Ontario (24.7 %) and British Columbia (28.3 %), and this rate is rising steadily (30.4 % in Quebec in 2006). <p> The percentage of immigrants with a permanent job in 2010 was relatively lower in Quebec (84.9 %) than in Ontario (88.1 %) and British Columbia (89.1 %). The proportion of full-time jobs held by immigrants was 83.6 % in Quebec and 84.9 % in Ontario, versus only 80.7 % in British Columbia. With regard to wages, for each dollar earned by those born in Canada in 2010, immigrants earned $0.93 in Quebec and British Columbia and $0.95 in Ontario, on average. These earnings differentials do not account for differences between the characteristics of immigrants and those born in Canada. <p> Multivariate analysis reveals that the observable characteristics of immigrants to Quebec fall far short of explaining the gaps that exist between them and immigrants to Ontario and British Columbia in terms of the unemployment rate. For example, the gap between the unemployment rate of immigrants to Quebec and to British Columbia during the 2006–2010 period would only have fallen by one-fifth had the two provinces received the same type of immigrants. The Quebec-Ontario differential would have been cut by one-third. Consequently, immigrants to Quebec must contend with a labour market that appears inherently less open to hiring them. This situation may be attributed to a reluctance among Quebec employers to recruit immigrants. It is also possible that immigrants to Quebec are less likely to revise downward their expectations in order to adapt to market realities. So, they may refuse taking available jobs that do not match their expectations, and by doing so, they may risk a long spell of unemployment. <p> Notwithstanding the problems with integration detailed in this report, immigration remains a positive contribution: Overall, 87.6 % of immigrants aged 15 to 64 who are on the labour market—90.6 % of those with a university degree—have a job and are contributing to the socio-economic development of Quebec. <p> Immigration certainly plays an important role in boosting demographic growth and providing manpower to the labour market. However, it should not detract from the importance of other policies that affect the size and skill level of the labour force in the short and long term. The government should continue to promote investment in Quebec's school system, persist in combating dropping out school, and strengthen incentives to families to boost the birthrate. <P> |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirpro:2011rp-09&r=lab |
| By: | Martins, Pedro S. (Queen Mary, University of London); Opromolla, Luca David (Banco de Portugal) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the relationship between exporting, importing, and wage premia using a rich matched employer-employee data set. We improve on the previous literature (i) by using a new methodology to quantify the contribution of an extensive set of worker- and firm-level observable and unobservable characteristics to the wage gap, and (ii) by controlling for the import as well as the export activity of the firm. These two innovations allow us to avoid large biases that characterized the previous literature. A robust result is that the hiring policy of exporters is quite different than the one of importers. While firm size and sales are, to different extents, important components of the wage gap both for exporters and importers, importers hire workers that are overwhelmingly more able than the average. Workers at exporting firms, on the contrary, are no different in terms of unobserved time-invariant characteristics. Our analysis provides a useful guidance for recent theories that aim at explaining participation both in export and import markets and at including non-neoclassical labor market features into trade models. |
| Keywords: | globalization, export, import, wage differentials |
| JEL: | F16 J31 F15 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6013&r=lab |
| By: | Paola Potestio (University of Rome 3) |
| Abstract: | The article analyses the relation in Italy between education and labour status of highly educated people aged 20-29 over the years 1993-2009. A special labour market entry problem for young Italian graduates – it is argued – stands out in this long period. The article investigates and stresses a series of facts underlying the labour performance of young Italian graduates: the failure (at least so far) of the reform of the higher education system at the end of 1990s to accelerate the entry of young graduates into the labour market with the introduction of three-year degrees aimed at shortening university courses for a vast majority of students; the special difficulty in matching the demand for and supply of labour for graduates aged 20-24; the poor labour performances of first-level graduates aged 25-29 compared with that of second-level graduates and long programme diploma holders; the progress in the educational attainment of women and the consequent evolution in female labour status; and the enormous regional differences underlying the national data. Policy interventions to mitigate, if not eliminate, the special entry problem of first-level graduates – simplifying the organization of the two degree levels and removing restrictions on access to a range of professions, especially in the public sector – are required. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:41&r=lab |
| By: | Hugo Figueiredo (Department of Social, Political Sciences and Law, University of Aveiro CIPES – Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies); Pedro Teixeira (Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies-CIPES); Jill Rubery (Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester) |
| Abstract: | The appeal of HE expansion has been particularly significant in the case of Portugal, whose levels of qualification of the labour force have been historically low. Over the last two decades the country has experience a massive expansion of its higher education system and the numbers of students enrolled and rates of enrolment have multiplied more than four times. This paper focus on the sustainability of this trend of higher education (HE) expansion in Portugal and attempts to update and rebalance a debate that is too often carried out exclusively from a supply-side perspective. The paper develops an empirical framework which incorporates the diversity of jobs currently carried out by university graduates and their changing skill requirements but that also provides a useful benchmark to refer to growing expectations mismatches among graduates. Using a new typology of graduate-level jobs and staff logs data collected annually by the Portuguese Government for private sector employees, the paper analyses the increasing dispersion of graduates’ relative earnings and relates this trend to the increasing diversification of their jobs. The paper also tests more directly the impact of over-education (relative to the graduate jobs’ current skill requirements) and finds that the relative penalty associated with this condition has increased during the 1995-2005 period. The paper then questions the extent to which Portugal can continue to be portrayed as a straightforward success story regarding the massification of HE and considers the implications regarding political and social support for continuing expansion in the system. |
| Keywords: | human capital; higher education massification; demand for graduates; over-education; inequality |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:14&r=lab |
| By: | Coppola, Andrea; Calvo-Gonzalez, Oscar |
| Abstract: | Do public sector employees earn less than their counterparts in the private sector? This paper addresses this question in the case of Peru, a country where civil service reform is being debated yet the only available empirical studies on wage differentials date back to the late 1980s. Using data from the 2009 national household survey, the authors perform a multiple step analysis. First, they estimate a single equation with a public sector dummy, which is found to be statistically significant and positive when only monetary wages are taken into account. However, when in-kind payments and bonuses are included to measure compensation, the analysis finds a private sector premium. Second, they estimate for public and formal private employees two distinct wage functions, including the inverse Mills ratio. This takes into account the selection bias resulting from workers self-selecting into the public or private sector. Third, these results are used to decompose wage differentials using the standard Oaxaca-Blinder approach. The results show that the compensation differentials are not significant except for the sub-sample of employees that achieved a postgraduate degree. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Public Sector Economics,Inequality,Public Sector Management and Reform,Education and Digital Divide |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5858&r=lab |
| By: | Leung, Danny<br/> Robinson, Chris:University of Western Ontario |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the nature of self-employment may have changed, by comparing the labour market transition rates for males (between non-employment, paid employment, own-account self-employment, and self-employment with paid help) in two panels of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID): the 1993-1998 panel and the 2002-2007 panel. An econometric model is then estimated for the purpose of characterizing the change further. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Business performance and ownership, Employment and unemployment, Business ownership |
| Date: | 2011–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp5e:2011073e&r=lab |
| By: | Rosalia Castellano (Department of Statistics and Mathematics for Economic Research, University of Naples Parthenope); Gennaro Punzo (Department of Statistics and Mathematics for Economic Research, University of Naples Parthenope) |
| Abstract: | The crucial aim of this paper is to investigate, in a generational perspective, the effects of specific dimensions of human capital on individuals earnings and earnings differentials across a selected set of six developed economies of Western Europe with structural differences in their formal education systems and, more generally, in their institutional frameworks. In a cross-country comparison, we intend to inspect how formal education and work experience stand for critical predictors of inequality between and within earner-groups and/or educational groups. In this light, the role of family background on individuals’ earnings in relation to the two main occupational status (i.e., wage-employment rather than self-employment) and, in particular, the impact of parental education and abilities on children’s human capital are argued as well. In order to look into the critical determinants of intergenerational im-mobility, in terms of educational and employment decision-making process, and to what extent they vary across countries, two-stage structural probit models with quantile regressions in the second stage are estimated. As we expect that individual earnings also depend on a range of personal and structural factors and on the family background as well, a set of human capital earnings equations, based on extensions of Mincer models, are estimated by the main employment status. Microdata come from EU-SILC survey, the main new reference source for comparative statistics at European level, which also detects a set of retrospective parental information allowing to account for potential generational changes over time. Briefly, empirical results are interesting, taken as a whole. Although not a few determinants appear to be relatively similar across countries, wider national-specific differentials are drawn. Most of all, it emerges how each component of human capital differently affects individuals’ earnings and earnings inequality across European countries and, most importantly, how this impact differs along the whole earnings distributions. Also, quite dissimilar patterns of influence of family-specific background on children’s outcomes across countries is sketched. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:28&r=lab |
| By: | Gianluca Argentin (University of Milan-Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | In recent years in Italy, there has been a fast increase in the number of young people graduating with a tertiary degree and a sharp change in the composition of this population by gender, social origins and the field of study. Since the middle of the 90s, we have also detected a growth in the enrolment in post-tertiary education, but this is not the result of the compositional change which has occurred among graduates across cohorts. Instead, it seems mainly due to the increased offer of training and academic opportunities to the graduates: a new educational level emerged while the graduates’ rate was increasing. Until now, this new form of educational stratification has not been considered by sociological research, even if it could lead to new forms of inequality. In our paper, we primarily test the credentialist hypothesis, looking at the strength of the association between social origins and post-tertiary education among recent graduates’ cohorts. Following the credentialist theory, graduates coming from higher-educated families would be more involved in the new educational level, to maintain their advantage in the labour market, where they can take advantage of their higher credentials. Then we look at gender: we investigate whether this second ascriptive dimension plays a role in shaping enrolment at post-tertiary level. Our analyses, based on the best data available in Italy on this topic, support the credentialist hypothesis: higher social origins are associated with a greater propensity to enrol at post-tertiary education and training. Moreover, graduates coming from more educated families participated more frequently in the more institutionalized forms of post-tertiary education, the ones leading to a professional qualification. Contrary to this, gender seems not to play an influential role: the female advantage is weak and limited to the less institutionalized forms of post-tertiary education/training; moreover it almost disappears considering academic performance and horizontal stratification of upper school and university. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:45&r=lab |
| By: | Di Mo; Hongmei Yi; Linxiu Zhang; Yaojiang Shi; Scott Rozelle; Alexis Medina |
| Abstract: | In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China’s Ministry of Education embarked on an ambitious program of elementary school mergers by shutting down small village schools and opening up larger centralized schools in towns and county seats. The goal of the program was to improve the teacher and building resources in an attempt to raise the human capital of students in poor rural areas, although it was recognized that students would lose the opportunity to learn in the settings of their own familiar villages. Because of the increased distances to the new centralized schools, the merger program also entailed building boarding facilities and encouraging or mandating that students live at school during the week away from their family. Given the magnitude of the program and the obvious mix of benefits and costs that such a program entails there has been surprisingly little effort to evaluate the impact of creating a new system that transfers students from school to school during their elementary school period of education and, in some cases, making student live in boarding facilities at school. In this paper, our overall goal is to examine the impact of the Rural Primary School Merger Program on academic performance of students using a dataset from a survey that we designed to reflect transfer paths and boarding statuses of students. We use OLS and Propensity Score Matching approaches and demonstrate that there is a large “resource effect” (that is, an effect that appears to be associated with the better facilities and higher quality of teachers in the town and county schools) that appears to be associated with the transfers of students from less centralized schools (such as, village schools) to more centralized schools. Boarding, however, is shown to have negative impacts on academic performance. However, students who transfer to county school benefit from the transfer no matter where they start and whether they board or not. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:28211&r=lab |
| By: | Tim BUYSE (SHERPPA, Ghent University); Freddy HEYLEN (SHERPPA, Ghent University and UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Renaat VAN DE KERCKHOVE (SHERPPA, Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of pension reform in a four-period OLG model for an open economy where hours worked by three active generations, education of the young, the retirement decision of older workers, and aggregate per capita growth, are endogenous. Next to the characteristics of the pension system, our model assigns an important role to the composition of fiscal policy. We find that the model explains the facts remarkably well for many OECD countries. Our simulation results prefer an intelligent pay-as-you-go pension system above a fully-funded private system. When it comes to promoting employment, human capital, growth, and welfare, positive effects in a PAYG system are the strongest when it includes a tight link between individual labor income (and contributions) and the pension, and when it attaches a high weight to labor income earned as an older worker to compute the pension assessment base. |
| Keywords: | employment by age, endogenous growth, retirement, pension reform, overlapping generations |
| JEL: | E62 H55 J22 O41 |
| Date: | 2011–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2011025&r=lab |
| By: | Moris Triventi (Department of Sociology and social research University of Milano-Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to examine whether there is a gender gap in monthly wage among recent graduates in eleven European countries and which variables can explain it. In the first part of the paper previous literature is presented and some limitations of existing studies are discussed. In the theoretical framework the gender wage gap is conceived as a function of five main factors: human capital, employment characteristics, working hours, work-family conciliation aspects and residual discrimination. Different types of decomposition after OLS linear regression and Heckman selection models are applied; data comes from REFLEX survey on tertiary graduates in 2000. The main results indicate that the raw gender gap is higher in Austria and Germany, while it is lower in Belgium and United Kingdom, with Southern and Nordic countries placed in the middle. There is great variability in the unexplained part of the gender gap, which is mainly imputable to residual discrimination. This is low in Nordic countries, followed by Continental and Southern Europe. Overall the most important factors accounting for the gender gap are employment characteristics, followed by working hours. Human capital, work-family conciliation issues and individuals’ preferences matter in most countries, but their role is not prominent. There is also evidence of a correlation between several macro-institutional indicators (type of wage-setting institutions and welfare policies) and the extent of the gender gap, suggesting that wage determination is deeply rooted into institutional contexts. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:32&r=lab |
| By: | Bauer, Thomas (RWI); Fertig, Michael (ISG, Cologne); Vorell, Matthias (RWI) |
| Abstract: | Using a unique dataset for Germany that links individual longitudinal data from the GSOEP to regional data from the federal employment agency and data of real estate prices, we evaluate the impact of neighborhood unemployment on individual employment prospects. The panel setup and richness of the data allows us to overcome some of the identification problems which are present in this strand of literature. The empirical results indicate that there is a significant negative impact of neighborhood unemployment on the individual employment probability. |
| Keywords: | social interactions, unemployment, neighborhood characteristics |
| JEL: | J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6040&r=lab |
| By: | Richard Desjardins; Kjell Rubenson |
| Abstract: | The focus of this study is on the potential causes of skill mismatch, the extent of skill mismatch, the sociodemographic make-up of skill mismatch, and the consequences of skill mismatch in terms of earnings as well as employer sponsored adult education/training. A distinction is made between skill mismatch and education mismatch. The analysis is based on the 2003-2007 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALLS) – a dataset similar to the one that is forthcoming from the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in 2013. These studies contain direct measures of key foundation skills as well as measures of the use of certain generic skills at work which allow for a direct measure of skill mismatch. The analysis points to the complex ways in which mismatch is generated and the need for an accurate and up to date measure of mismatch, one that reflects the possibilities for skill gain and skill loss over the lifespan, and reflects differences in the quality of qualifications. Two key findings stand out. First, including supply and demand characteristics in an earnings function reveals that labour demand characteristics are more important than labour supply characteristics in explaining earnings differentials. In other words, skills matter for earnings but only if they are required by the job. This has direct implications for understanding better the causes of mismatch on earnings. Second, the skill content of jobs seems to be an even stronger determinant of participation in employer supported adult education/training than educational attainment or literacy proficiency. The influence of demand characteristics thus tends to outweigh the influence of supply characteristics when employers make the decision to support adult education/training. Addressing mismatch thus requires a careful consideration of both the demand and supply sides of the labour market, so as to understand better the variety of factors which may have a negative impact on the effectiveness of skill formation, skill maintenance, and also skill use.<BR>Le présent document a pour thème l’inadéquation des compétences. Il évoque tour à tour ses causes potentielles, son ampleur et de sa répartition socio-démographique, ainsi que ses répercussions sur le niveau des revenus et sur la participation à la formation pour adultes financée par l’employeur. On notera la distinction établie entre inadéquation des compétences et inadéquation de l'éducation. L'analyse repose sur les résultats de l'Enquête sur l’alphabétisation des adultes (ALLS), menée en 2003-2007 qui rassemble un ensemble de données similaire à celui que le Programme pour l'évaluation internationale des compétences des adultes (PIAAC) rendra public en 2013. Ces deux enquêtes proposent des mesures directes des compétences élémentaires et de l'utilisation au travail de certaines compétences génériques, permettant ainsi une évaluation directe de l'inadéquation des compétences. Ce document décrit les situations complexes qui sont à la source d’une inadéquation des compétences et démontre la nécessité d'une mesure précise et actualisée de cette inadéquation, qui prenne en considération les occasions d’acquérir ou de perdre des compétences au cours de la vie, ainsi que les différences dans la qualité des compétences. Deux conclusions principales ressortent de ces analyses. Premièrement, la prise en compte des caractéristiques de l’offre et de la demande de travail dans une logique de rémunération permet de constater que lorsqu’il s’agit d’expliquer les écarts de rémunération, les caractéristiques de la demande de travail sont plus importantes que ne le sont celles de l'offre. En d'autres termes, les compétences ont un impact sur la rémunération uniquement dans la mesure où elles sont requises pour occuper l'emploi. Cette constatation permet de mieux comprendre les causes des écarts de rémunération. Deuxièmement, la nature des compétences requises par les emplois semble être un facteur encore plus déterminant de la participation des adultes à la formation financée par l’employeur que ne le sont le niveau d'instruction ou les compétences en littératie. L'influence des caractéristiques de la demande a donc tendance à l'emporter sur l'influence des caractéristiques de l'offre lorsque les employeurs prennent la décision de financer la formation des adultes. Aborder la question de l’inadéquation nécessite donc un examen attentif à la fois de la demande et de l'offre du marché du travail, afin de mieux comprendre la diversité des facteurs qui peuvent exercer un impact négatif sur l'efficacité de la formation, le maintien et aussi l'utilisation des compétences. |
| Date: | 2011–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaab:63-en&r=lab |
| By: | Lalanne, Marie; Seabright, Paul |
| Abstract: | Using an original dataset describing the career history of some 16,000 senior executives and members of the non-executive board of US, UK, French and German companies, we investigate gender differences in the use of social networks and their impact on earnings. There is a large gender wage gap: women (who make up 8.8% of our sample) earned average salaries of $168,000 in 2008, only 70% of the average $241,000 earned by men. This is not due to differences in age, experience or education levels. Women are more likely than men to be non-executives, whose salaries are lower; nevertheless, a substantial gender gap still exists among executives. We construct measures of the number of currently influential people each individual has encountered previously in his or her career. We find that executive men's salaries are an increasing function of the number of such individuals they have encountered in the past while women's are not. Controlling for this discrepancy, there is no longer a significant gender gap among executives. These findings are robust to the use of different years, to the use of salaried versus non-salaried remuneration, and to the use of panel estimation to control rigorously for unobserved individual heterogeneity. In contrast to executives, the salaries of non-executive board members do not display a significant gender wage gap, nor any gender difference in the effectiveness with which men and women leverage their links into salaries. This suggests that adoption of gender quotas for board membership, as has been enacted or proposed recently in several European countries, is unlikely to reduce the gender gap in earnings so long as such quotas do not distinguish between executive and non-executive board members. |
| Keywords: | executive compensation; gender wage gap; social networks |
| JEL: | A14 J16 J31 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8623&r=lab |
| By: | Yu Zhu (School of Economics, University of Kent); Ian Walker (Department of Economics,Lancaster University Management School) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, the latest and largest dataset available, to provide independent estimates of returns to higher education qualifications in the UK for graduates with different degree majors, class of first degree, and postgraduate qualifications. For reasons of sample size, we collapse various undergraduate degrees into four broad subject groups: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - and here we also include Medicine); LEM (Law, Economics and Management), OSSAH (other social sciences, arts and humanities which includes languages), and COMB (those with degrees that combine more than one subject). We adopt a method which allows our data to identify the effects of experience on earnings separately from cohort effects in wages for different degree majors. We also allow for tuition fees and the tax system in calculating the NPV associated with higher education (and also the loan scheme). Ordinary Least Squares estimates show high average returns for women that does not differ by subject. For men, we find very large returns for LEM but not for other subjects. Degree class has large effects in all subjects suggesting the possibility of large returns to effort and ability. Postgraduate study has large effects, independently of first degree class. A large rise in tuition fees across all subjects has only a modest impact on relative rates of return suggesting that little substitution across subjects would occur. The strong message that comes out of this research is that even a large rise in tuition fees makes little difference to the quality of the investment – those subjects that offer high returns (LEM for men, and all subjects for women) continue to do so. And those subjects that do not (especially OSSAH for men) will continue to offer poor returns. The effect of fee rises is dwarfed by existing cross subject differences in returns. |
| Keywords: | Rate of return, college premium |
| JEL: | I23 I28 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:33&r=lab |
| By: | Fort, Margherita (University of Bologna); Schneeweis, Nicole (University of Linz); Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of childlessness. We find that more education causes a substantial decrease in childlessness and an increase in the average number of children per woman. Our findings are robust to a number of falsification checks and we can provide complementary empirical evidence on the mechanisms leading to these surprising results. |
| Keywords: | instrumental variables, education, fertility |
| JEL: | I2 J13 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6015&r=lab |
| By: | Caroleo, Floro Ernesto (University of Naples, Parthenope); Pastore, Francesco (University of Naples II) |
| Abstract: | Italy has an immobile social structure. At the heart of this immobility is the educational system, with its high direct, but especially indirect cost, due to the extremely long time necessary to get a degree and to complete the subsequent school-to-work transition. Such cost prevents the educational system from reallocating the best opportunities to all talented young people and from altering the "typical" market mechanism of intergenerational transfer of human capital and social status. About ten years after the Bologna declaration and the "3+2" reform of the university system, AlmaLaurea data relative to 2008 shows a framework not much different from that of 2000. This is apparent by looking at the socio-educational background of university graduates. Parents' educational level seems to be the main determinant of the probability to get a university degree and to get it with the highest possible grade. As previous studies have also shown, the effect of the socio-educational background on children success at the university is not direct, but through the high school track. In fact, although any secondary high school gives access to the university, nonetheless lyceums provide students with far higher quality of education than technical and professional schools. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational transfers, human capital, social status, Bologna declaration, "3+2" university reform, AlmaLaurea, Italy |
| JEL: | H52 I23 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6021&r=lab |
| By: | Giles, John; Wang, Dewen; Cai, Wei |
| Abstract: | This paper highlights the employment patterns of China's over-45 population and, for perspective, places them in the context of work and retirement patterns in Indonesia, Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom. As is common in many developing countries, China can be characterized as having two retirement systems: a formal system, under which urban employees receive generous pensions and face mandatory retirement by age 60, and an informal system, under which rural residents and individuals in the informal sector rely on family support in old age and have much longer working lives. Gender differences in age of exit from work are shown to be much greater in urban China than in rural areas, and also greater than observed in Korea and Indonesia. Descriptive evidence is presented suggesting that pension eligible workers are far more likely to cease productive activity at a relatively young age. A strong relationship between health status and labor supply in rural areas is observed, indicating the potential role that improvements in access to health care may play in extending working lives and also providing some basis for a common perception that older rural residents tend to work as long as they are physically capable. The paper concludes with a discussion of measures that may facilitate longer working lives as China's population ages. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Population Policies,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Work&Working Conditions |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5853&r=lab |
| By: | Ramos, Raul (University of Barcelona); Sanromá, Esteban (University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of individual variables and some characteristics related to spatial mobility in regional labour markets on overeducation in Spain. With this aim, we use microdata from the Spanish Budget Family Survey to estimate a logit model for overeducation probability taking into account the problem of selection bias and the presence of data of different levels (individuals and territory). The obtained results permit us to conclude that the size of local labour markets and the possibility of extending the job search to other labour markets through commuting are relevant factors to explain overeducation in the Spanish labour market. In spite of the differences in terms of labour market institutions, our results are very similar to the ones obtained for other countries. |
| Keywords: | educational mismatch, Spain, multilevel, commuting, job mismatch, differential overeducation |
| JEL: | J61 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6028&r=lab |
| By: | Bönke, Timm (Free University of Berlin); Corneo, Giacomo (Free University of Berlin); Lüthen, Holger (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the magnitude, pattern, and evolution of lifetime earnings inequality in Germany. Based on a large sample of earning biographies from social security records, we show that the intra-generational distribution of lifetime earnings of male workers has a Gini coefficient around .2 for cohorts born in the late 1930s and early 1940s; this amounts to about 2/3 of the value of the Gini coefficient of annual earnings. Within cohorts, mobility in the distribution of yearly earnings is substantial at the beginning of the lifecycle, decreases afterwards and virtually vanishes after age forty. Earnings data for thirty-one cohorts reveals striking evidence of a secular rise of intra-generational inequality in lifetime earnings: West-German men born in the early 1960s are likely to experience about 80 % more lifetime inequality than their fathers. In contrast, both short-term and long-term intra-generational mobility have been rather stable. Longer unemployment spells of workers at the bottom of the distribution of younger cohorts contribute to explain 30 to 40 % of the overall increase in lifetime earnings inequality. |
| Keywords: | lifetime earnings, earnings distribution, inequality, mobility, Germany |
| JEL: | D31 D33 H24 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6020&r=lab |
| By: | Yossi Shavit (Tel Aviv University) |
| Abstract: | This is a study of change in inequality of educational opportunity in Israel. Recent studies in Israel and elsewhere have found declining inequality of opportunity at the primary and secondary levels of education coupled with more persistent inequality at higher levels. However, these studies ignore the fact that the relative value of qualifications change as education expands over time. Many scholars agree that that the value of qualifications lies in their relative position in the distribution of education. And yet, in empirical research education is typically represented in absolute rather than relative terms. I analyze all available Israeli mobility data for the cohorts born between1951-1981 and estimate models of both absolute and relative education, as well as of education recoded into its earning value. When education is defined in absolute terms, I find the familiar decline in the effects of parents’ education. When it is measured in terms of its earning value or in relative terms, the results show significant increases in the effect of parents’ education on education. I also study change in the effects of ethnicity and of gender. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:27&r=lab |
| By: | Jones, Melanie K. (Swansea University); Latreille, Paul L. (Swansea University); Sloane, Peter J. (Swansea University); Staneva, Anita V. (Swansea University) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the fourth European Working Conditions Survey (2005) to address the impact of age on work-related self-reported health outcomes. More specifically, the paper examines whether older workers differ significantly from younger workers regarding their job-related health risk perception, mental and physical health, sickness absence, probability of reporting injury and fatigue. Accounting for the 'healthy worker effect', or sample selection – in so far as unhealthy workers are likely to exit the labour force – we find that as a group, those aged 55-65 years are more 'vulnerable' than younger workers: they are more likely to perceive work-related health and safety risks, and to report mental, physical and fatigue health problems. As previously shown, older workers are more likely to report work-related absence. |
| Keywords: | endogeneity, fatigue, absence, physical health, mental health, healthy worker selection effect |
| JEL: | I0 J28 J81 J20 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6044&r=lab |
| By: | Amini, Chiara (University College London); Commander, Simon (EBRD, London) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses two large multi-country datasets on educational scores – PISA and TIMSS – to examine the performance of Russia in comparative light as well as the factors associated with differences in educational outcomes in Russia. Despite the perception of a positive educational legacy, Russian scores are not stellar and have mostly deteriorated. Using an education production function, we distinguish between individual and family background factors and those relating to the school and institutional environment. We use pooled data, as well as cross sectional evidence, to look at the variation across countries before looking at within-country variation in Russia. We find – both in the cross-country estimates as also those using just Russia data – that a number of individual and family variables in particular, such as parental educational levels, are robustly associated with better educational outcomes. Institutional variables also matter – notably student-teacher ratios and indicators of school autonomy – but there are also some clear particularities in the Russian case. |
| Keywords: | human capital, PISA |
| JEL: | H5 I21 I28 J24 O15 P5 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6033&r=lab |
| By: | Sandro Favre |
| Abstract: | Recent immigrants in Switzerland are overrepresented at the top of the wage distribution in high and at the bottom in low skill occupations. Basic economic theory thus suggests that immigration has led to a compression of the wage distribution in the former group and to an expansion in the latter. The data confirm this proposition for high skill occupations, but reveal effects close to zero for low skill occupations. While the estimated wage effects are of considerable magnitude at the tails of the wage distribution in high skill occupations, the effects on overall inequality are shown to be negligible. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Wage Distribution, Occupation Groups, Inequality |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_08&r=lab |
| By: | Dorothee Schneider |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses empirically the hypotheses by Bental and Demougin (2010) that innovations in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) reduce the labor share in OECD countries by improving the monitoring technology. In a first step, I show that data trends for the labor share, wages in efficiency units, and labor in efficiency units over capital can be matched by a simulation of the model of Bental and Demougin (2010). In a second approach, I confirm increasing monitoring of workers using micro data for Germany. I argue that ICT influences labor not only through substitutability of labor with ICT and foreign work, but also through to lowering rents of workers as monitoring technology improves. |
| Keywords: | Labor Shares, Bargaining, Monitoring |
| JEL: | D24 J30 E25 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2011-066&r=lab |
| By: | Margherita Fort; Nichole Schneeweis; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of childlessness. We find that more education causes a substantial decrease in childlessness and an increase in the average number of children per woman. Our findings are robust to a number of falsification checks and we can provide complementary empirical evidence on the mechanisms leading to these surprising results. |
| Keywords: | Instrumental Variables, Education, Fertility |
| JEL: | I2 J13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_11&r=lab |
| By: | José De Sousa (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I); Sandra Poncet (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I) |
| Abstract: | China's export performance over the past fifteen years has been phenomenal. Is this performance going to last? Wages are rising rapidly but a population in excess of one billion represents a large reservoir of labor. Firms in export-intensive provinces may draw on this reservoir to increase competition in their labor market and keep wages low for many years to come. We develop a wage equation from a New Economic Geography model to capture the upward pressure from national and international demand and downward pressure from migration. Using panel data at the province level, we find that migration has moderately slowed down Chinese wage increase over the period 1995-2007. |
| Keywords: | Wage, China |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-00633752&r=lab |
| By: | Margherita Fort; Nichole Schneeweis; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of childlessness. We find that more education causes a substantial decrease in childlessness and an increase in the average number of children per woman. Our findings are robust to a number of falsification checks and we can provide complementary empirical evidence on the mechanisms leading to these surprising results. |
| Keywords: | Instrumental Variables, Education, Fertility |
| JEL: | I2 J13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2011_05&r=lab |
| By: | René Böheim (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Thomas Leoni (Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO) (Austrian Institute of Economic Research)) |
| Abstract: | Sick workers in many countries receive sick pay during their illness- related absences from the workplace. In several countries, the social security system insures firms against their workers’ sickness absences. However, this insurance may create moral hazard problems for firms, leading to the inefficient monitoring of absences or to an underinvestment in their prevention. In the present paper, we investigate firms’ moral hazard problems in sickness absences by analyzing a legislative change that took place in Austria in 2000. In September 2000, an insurance fund that refunded firms for the costs of their blue-collar workers’ sickness absences was abolished (firms did not receive a similar refund for their white-collar workers’ sickness absences). Before that time, small firms were fully refunded for the wage costs of blue- collar workers’ sickness absences. Large firms, by contrast, were refunded only 70% of the wages paid to sick blue-collar workers. Using a difference-in-differences-in-differences approach, we estimate the causal impact of refunding firms for their workers’ sickness absences. Our results indicate that the incidences of blue-collar workers’ sicknesses dropped by approximately 8% and sickness absences were almost 11% shorter following the removal of the refund. Several robustness checks confirm these results. |
| Keywords: | absenteeism, moral hazard, sickness insurance |
| JEL: | J22 I38 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_10&r=lab |
| By: | Gevrek, Z. Eylem (University of Konstanz); Gevrek, Deniz (Texas A&M University Corpus Christi); Gupta, Sonam (University of Florida) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of culture on the work behavior of second-generation immigrant women in Canada. We contribute to the current literature by analyzing the role of intermarriage in intergenerational transmission of culture and its subsequent effect on labor market outcomes. Using relative female labor force participation and total fertility rates in the country of ancestry as cultural proxies, we find that culture matters for the female labor supply. Cultural proxies are significant in explaining number of hours worked by second-generation women with immigrant parents. More importantly, we show that the impact of cultural proxies is significantly larger for women with immigrant parents who share same ethnic background than for those with intermarried parents. The fact that the effect of culture is weaker for women who were raised in intermarried families stresses the importance of intermarriage in assimilation process. Our results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies. |
| Keywords: | immigrant women, labor supply, culture, intermarriage |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J22 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6043&r=lab |
| By: | Olga Bohachova; Bernhard Boockmann; Claudia M. Buch |
| Abstract: | In Germany, the employment response to the post-2007 crisis has been muted compared to other industrialized countries. Despite a large drop in output, employment has hardly changed. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of German firms’ labor demand during the crisis using a firm-level panel dataset. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we estimate a dynamic labor demand function for the years 2000-2009 accounting for the degree of working time flexibility and the presence of works councils. Second, on the basis of these estimates, we use the difference between predicted and actual employment as a measure of labor hoarding as the dependent variable in a cross-sectional regression for 2009. Apart from total labor hoarding, we also look at the determinants of subsidized labor hoarding through short-time work. The structural characteristics of firms using these channels of adjustment differ. Product market competition has a negative impact on total labor hoarding but a positive effect on the use of short-time work. Firm covered by collective agreements hoard less labor overall; firms without financial frictions use short-time work less intensively. |
| Keywords: | Labor demand, economic crisis, short-time work, financial frictions, labor market institutions, employment adjustment |
| JEL: | J23 J68 G32 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iaw:iawdip:76&r=lab |
| By: | Benchekroun Bahia (Mohammadia School of Engineers); Nawal Zaaj (Mohammadia School of Engineers) |
| Abstract: | Located at the hinge of education and employment, vocational training is supposed to provide profiles adapted to the labour market requirements. However, Moroccan graduates of vocational training often find it difficult to fit into the labour market. Indeed, according to the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training, only 63% of the graduates in 2006 succeeded in integrating the working environment. Yet, this rate hides several realities and is likely to overestimate integration since it does not take into account some crucial variables in the analysis of professional integration, namely the duration of employment, the precariousness of employment, etc. Studies about the paths of vocational training graduates realized periodically (every two years) since 1987 by the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training aim, by virtue of their longitudinal aspect, to analyze the stability and the evolution of these graduates employment as well as their behaviour. In other words, these studies seek to answer some questions about the dynamics of youth employment in the labour market. This work aims to model the transitions of vocational training graduates using a retrospective calendar recalling their professional situation starting from the date of obtaining the diploma (2002) until the date of the survey (2006). Our model uses a transition process generated by a homogeneous, stationary and ergodic Markov chain for the graduates state space. We propose to explain the transitions from one state to another, via a multivariate logistic link, through variables which can influence between-state transitions. This leads that the processual variables explain these transitions. To estimate the parameters of our model, we use an iterative method of unconstrained nonlinear optimization: Conjugate Gradient "CG”. The stationarity of the Markov chain and the estimation of the transition matrix allow us to compute labour market indicators used to describe the behaviour of young graduates as well as their professional mobility. |
| Keywords: | llabour market, transitions, vocational training, Markov chain, "CG” Method, Morocco |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:12&r=lab |
| By: | Maher Gassab (ESC Tunis, URMA – FSEG Tunis); Hanène Ben Ouada Jamoussi (ESC Tunis, URMA – FSEG Tunis) |
| Abstract: | According to the report of the Central Bank of Tunisia (2009), the unemployment rate had reached 13.3% in 2009. This rate had steadily increased from 12.5% in 2006. This is one of the major challenges of the Tunisian economy and many countries of the MENA region. Furthermore, with more than 500 000 job seekers, the unemployment rate in Tunisia remains one of the highest in the MENA region. A feature of unemployment in Tunisia is the unemployment of graduates. The unemployment rate for this category of young people has recently grown dramatically from 16.9% in 2006 to 21.9% in 2009. This rate is expected to rise in coming years despite all the arrangements made for young graduates to insert them into the labour market. To understand the determinants of this type of unemployment, the paper is based on the diagnosis of the situation through a synthesis of the key findings of surveys conducted in 2005 and 2007 on the promotion of graduates in 2004. This diagnosis was supported by an econometric model linking the unemployment indicator to the key indicators of qualification. The massification of the higher education and the lack of creation of adequate jobs are the main causes of the exponential rise of the unemployment rate for graduates. This situation has forced many students to continue their studies, thus paradoxically minimizing their chances of being recruited because of their over qualification. With the exception of a few specialties such as medicine, computing, telecommunications and architecture, where opportunities are available, especially abroad, other types of graduates meet more or less difficulty on the labour market. The solutions to overcome this crisis of unemployment are rather difficult, requiring enormous resources over several years. These solutions would affect several areas; such as the higher education, the vocational training, the investment and the regional integration. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:16&r=lab |
| By: | Shi Li (Beijing Normal University); Jin Song (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Not available. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:201120&r=lab |
| By: | Thushyanthan Baskaran (Gothenburg Centre of Globalization and Development, Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, Sweden); Zohal Hessami (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of globalization on public expenditures allocated to different stages of education. First, we derive theoretically that globalization’s influence on education expenditures depends on the type of government. For benevolent governments, the model suggests that expenditures for higher education will increase and expenditures for basic education will decline with deepening economic integration. For Leviathan governments, on the other hand, the effects of globalization on public education spending cannot be unambiguously predicted. In the second part of the paper, we empirically analyze globalization’s influence on primary, secondary, and tertiary education expenditures with panel data covering 104 countries over the 1992 - 2006 period. The results indicate that globalization has led in both industrialized and developing countries to more spending for secondary and tertiary and to less spending for primary education. |
| Keywords: | Globalization, economic integration, public education, education expenditures |
| JEL: | F15 H42 H52 |
| Date: | 2011–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:dpteco:1142&r=lab |
| By: | Lorenzo Rocco (University of Padova); Giorgio Brunello (University of Padova, Cesifo; IZA); Elena Crivellaro (University of Padova and LSE) |
| Abstract: | Using data for 23 economies in Eastern and Western Europe, we find evidence that having studied under communism is relatively penalized in the economies of the late 2000s. This evidence, however, is limited to males and to primary and secondary education, and holds for eight CEE economies but not for the East Germans who have studied in the former German Democratic Republic. We also find that post-secondary education acquired under communism yields higher, not lower, payoffs than similar education in Western Europe. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:17&r=lab |
| By: | Malak Reda (Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies-ECES) |
| Abstract: | Using panel data regressions for twenty-five countries, including Egypt, for the period 2005-2011, the current study investigates how labor, education and innovation affect Egypt’s competitiveness and in turn affect real economic growth. Results indicate that labor, education and innovation affect greatly competitiveness and real GDP growth and that investing in those dimensions is key for greater economic growth. Further using Egypt’s specific time series for the period 1980-1999, results indicate the importance of raising both the efficiency and level of expenditure on education; highlight the necessity to raise the innovation capacity of the country and stress upon the importance of youth employment and its positive impact on real GDP growth. Assuming that Egypt is able to improve its education, innovation and labor indicators that underlie the global competitiveness score by five percent, this will in turn lead to greater real GDP growth, estimated at 9.9 percent. The results emphasize the need to improve the quality and efficiency of the educational system; to invest heavily in the creation of employment, especially for the youth, and to invest in improving innovation capacity towards higher output growth and welfare. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:18&r=lab |
| By: | Wen Fan (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | College graduates tend to earn more than non-graduates but it is difficult to ascertain how much of this empirical association between wages and college degree is due to the causal effect of a college degree and how much is due to unobserved factors that influence both wages and education (e.g. ability). In this paper, I use the 1970 British Cohort Study to examine the college premium for people who have a similar ability level by using a restricted sample of people who are all college eligible but some never attend. Compared to using the full sample, restricting the sample to college-eligible reduces the return to college significantly using both regression and propensity score matching (PSM) estimates. The finding suggests the importance of comparing individuals of similar ability levels when estimating the return to college. |
| Keywords: | return to college, regression, propensity score matching |
| Date: | 2011–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201119&r=lab |
| By: | Chris Robinson (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | Measures of occupation distance based on underlying skill portfolios are constructed and used to contrast involuntary and total mobility. One component of total occupational mobility is voluntary mobility, including moves to higher job offers using the same skills, as well as promotions that may reflect augmented skills. These are not sources of specific human capital loss. By contrast, the involuntary mobility component due to plant closure involves a higher incidence of loss of specific capital. The evidence indicates that a decreasing fraction of occupation switches involve significant skill portfolio switches: the mean distance in involuntary occupational mobility declines significantly over time. Wage losses following displacement are strongly related to distance. This is reflected in a marked downward shift in the skill portfolio for involuntary occupation switchers. By contrast, the direction of the skill portfolio change in total mobility shows a neutral or modest upward pattern, suggesting limited specific human capital loss from voluntary occupational mobility. |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:20115&r=lab |
| By: | Di Mo; Hongmei Yi; Linxiu Zhang; Renfu Luo; Scott Rozelle; Carl Brinton |
| Abstract: | Recent anecdotal reports suggest that dropout rates may be higher and actually increasing over time in poor rural areas. There are many reasons not to be surprised that there is a dropout problem, given the fact that China has a high level of poverty among the rural population, a highly competitive education system and rapidly increasing wages for unskilled workers. The overall goal of this study is to examine if there is a dropout problem in rural China and to explore the effectiveness that a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program could have on dropouts (and mechanism by which the CCT might affect drop outs). To meet this objective, we conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a CCT using a sample of 300 junior high school students in a nationally-designated poor county in Northwest China. Using our data, we found that the annual dropout rate in the study county was high, about 7.0%. We find, however, that a CCT program reduces drop outs by 60%; the dropout rate is 13.3% in the control group and 5.3 % in the treatment group. The program is most effective in the case of girls, younger students and the poorest performing students. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:28311&r=lab |
| By: | Fabian Kratz (Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning) |
| Abstract: | Concentrating on the social origin, determinants of international mobility of students and recent graduates are identified, drawing on a combination of the microeconomic human capital model as well as the job-search-theory. The analysis is based on the Bavarian Graduate Study (Bayerisches Absolventen Panel, BAP), a representative data base for a wide array of fields of study at Bavarian universities and universities of applied sciences. Methods of multilevel modeling are employed to identify individual differences in the spatial mobility propensities of students and young graduates. First, analyzing the determinants of international mobility of students revealed the following associations. The younger the students, the higher the likelihood to study abroad. This propensity is also positively associated with parents’ status. Apart from that, students from universities display a significantly higher migration propensity than students from universities of applied sciences. Second, considering differences in the emigration propensities after graduation, our results imply that the likelihood of working abroad is contingent on a high social origin, being a single, graduating at a lower age. Furthermore, migration experiences in the past and competencies in foreign languages show a positive impact. Consequently, international mobility both during the studies and upon entrance into the labor market is significantly influenced by the social origin. In addition to this direct effect, the higher likelihood of students and graduates with a favorable social background to experience mobility in early stages increases their propensity to go abroad again indirectly, too, as a mediator. The same holds true for the readiness to move for a job as indicated by the radius considered when searching for a job. As a result, the range of opportunities resulting from the combined effects of a high social origin and previous migration experiences resembles a sophisticated mechanism contributing to the reproduction of social inequality. |
| Keywords: | international mobility, students, graduates, social origin, inequality, job search |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:26&r=lab |
| By: | Sara Flisi; Marcello Morciano |
| Abstract: | The empirical analysis carried out in this paper represents the basis for the construction of the labour market module in the dynamic microsimulation model CAPP_DYN. Using LFS longitudinal data for the period 1993-2007, we describe the recent trends on the Italian labour market and provide an international comparison with other European countries. In order to investigate the determinants of labour market transitions, multinomial logistic regressions are implemented, and the estimated parameters are then used to model transition probabilities in the dynamic microsimulation model |
| Keywords: | Labour Mobility; Multinomial Logit |
| JEL: | C25 C40 J60 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:depeco:0661&r=lab |
| By: | Algan, Yann; Cahuc, Pierre; Shleifer, Andrei |
| Abstract: | We use several data sets to consider the effect of teaching practices on student beliefs, as well as on organization of firms and institutions. In cross-country data, we show that teaching practices (such as copying from the board versus working on projects together) are strongly related to various dimensions of social capital, from beliefs in cooperation to institutional outcomes. We then use micro-data to investigate the influence of teaching practices on student beliefs about cooperation and students’ involvement in civic life. A two-stage least square strategy provides evidence that teaching practices have an independent sizeable effect on student social capital. The relationship between teaching practices and student test performance is nonlinear. The evidence supports the idea that progressive education promotes social capital. |
| Keywords: | Education; Social Capital; Teaching Practices |
| JEL: | I2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8625&r=lab |
| By: | Emilia Del Bono; Andrea Weber; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of job displacement on fertility in a sample of white collar women in Austria. Using instrumental variables methods we show that unemploy- ment incidence as such has no negative effect on fertility decisions, but the very fact of being displaced from a career-oriented job has; fertility rates for women affected by a plant closure are signiffcantly below those of a control group, even after six years. |
| Keywords: | fertility, unemployment, plant closings, human capital |
| JEL: | J13 J64 J65 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_02&r=lab |
| By: | Antoine Zahlain (International science policy consultant (Lebanon)) |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:24&r=lab |
| By: | Bjorn Gustafsson (University of Goteborg); Sai Ding (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Not available. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:201117&r=lab |
| By: | Frank T. Denton; Ross Finnie; Byron G. Spencer |
| Abstract: | Measures of retirement that take a cohort perspective are appealing since retirement patterns may change, and it would be useful to have consistent measures that would make it possible to compare retirement patterns over time and between countries or regions. We propose and implement two measures. One is based on administrative income tax records and relates to actual cohorts; the other is based on a time-series of cross sectional labour force surveys and relates to pseudo-cohorts. We conclude that while the tax-based observations for actual cohorts provide a richer data set for analysis, the estimated measures of retirement and transition from work to retirement based on the two data sets are quite similar. |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:qseprr:446&r=lab |
| By: | Todd Stinebrickner (University of Western Ontario); Ralph Stinebrickner (Berea College) |
| Abstract: | Due primarily to the difficulty of obtaining ideal data, much remains unknown about how college majors are determined. We take advantage of longitudinal expectations data from the Berea Panel Study to provide new evidence about this issue, paying particular attention to the choice of whether to major in math and science. The data collection and analysis are based directly on a simple conceptual model which takes into account that, from a theoretical perspective, a student’s final major is best viewed as the end result of a learning process. We find that students enter college as open to a major in math or science as to any other major group, but that a large number of students move away from math and science after realizing that their grade performance will be substantially lower than expected. Further, changes in beliefs about grade performance arise because students realize that their ability in math/science is lower than expected rather than because students realize that they are not willing to put substantial effort into math or science majors. The findings suggest the potential importance of policies at younger ages which lead students to enter college better prepared to study math or science. |
| Keywords: | Education, College, Math/Science, Learning, Expectations Data |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:20111&r=lab |
| By: | Bos, Frits |
| Abstract: | The official national accounts statistics do not show the role of human capital in the national economy. A set of satellite tables supplementing the standard national accounts statistics could serve this data need. In this satellite account, expenditure on education and training are recorded as human capital formation. This includes not only the expenditure on primary, secondary and tertiary education, but also expenditure on training and courses by employers and the earnings foregone by students. Consumption of human capital is allocated to various persons and industries as a charge on their income; it is not part of final consumption expenditure. The satellite shows more comprehensively than OECD Education at a Glance who pays for human capital formation. It also shows how education and training are employed in the national economy. In line with calculations of private and social rates of return, taxes and subsides on labour income and the relative prices of various types of labour (high-skilled, medium-skilled, low-skilled) are also shown. Links could be made with labour accounts broken-down by level of education, productivity and growth accounts and tables on expenditure by function of government, households and corporations. A simple decomposition analysis can show the role of demography and participation rates in the development of public expenditure on education. The satellite could be regarded as a macroeconomic framework supplementing the OECD-statistic Education at a Glance. |
| Keywords: | Human capital; education; economic growth; public expenditure on education; national accounts satellite; statistics on education |
| JEL: | I20 C82 O15 E01 H52 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33791&r=lab |
| By: | Alfano, Marco (University College London); Arulampalam, Wiji (University of Warwick); Kambhampati, Uma (University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | This paper makes a significant contribution on both conceptual and methodological fronts, in the analysis of the effect of maternal autonomy on school enrolment age of children in India. The school entry age is modelled using a discrete time duration model where maternal autonomy is entered as a latent characteristic, and allowed to be associated with various parental and household characteristics which also conditionally affect school entry age. The model identification is achieved by using proxy measures collected in the third round of the National Family Health Survey of India, on information relating to the economic, decision-making, physical and emotional autonomy of a woman. We concentrate on three very different states in India – Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. Our results indicate that female autonomy is not associated with socio-economic characteristics of the woman or her family in Kerala (except maternal education), while it is strongly correlated to these characteristics in both Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Secondly, while female autonomy is significant in influencing the school starting age in UP, it is less important in AP and not significant at all in Kerala. |
| Keywords: | latent factor models, structural equation models, female autonomy, school enrolment decisions, India, National Family Health Survey |
| JEL: | I2 J12 C35 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6019&r=lab |
| By: | Ayal Kimhi (The Hebrew University); Moran Sandel (The Hebrew University) |
| Abstract: | The important role of education in the process of economic development is well known. Less known is the effect of education on inequality. This is an important issue, since economic policies that promote growth often lead to higher income inequality. A policy that promotes growth and at the same time reduces inequality would be preferred. The question is whether promoting education is such a policy. In this paper, the determinants of income inequality in Israel are analyzed using regression-based inequality decomposition techniques, focusing on the role of years of schooling and type of education. In particular, we differentiate between general schooling and ultra-orthodox schooling, following the common belief that ultra-orthodox schooling is not as valuable as general schooling for labor market outcomes. Indeed, we find that years of general schooling of the household head have a positive effect on per-capita household income, while the effect of years of ultra-orthodox schooling is negative. Years of general schooling are positively correlated with income, while years of ultra-orthodox schooling are negatively correlated with income. This implies that a policy that closes the schooling gaps in the secular sector is equalizing, while a policy that closes the schooling gaps in the ultra-orthodox sector is disequalizing. In addition, a uniform percentage increase in years of general schooling reduces per-capita income inequality, while a similar increase in ultra-orthodox years of schooling increases inequality. These results are robust to the type of regression used (OLS versus Gini regression), the use of equivalence scales, and do not change qualitatively even when we allow all regression coefficients to be different in the ultra-orthodox subsample. We conclude that policies directed at general schooling can potentially promote development and reduce inequality at the same time. However, when policy makers consider public funding of ultra-orthodox schools, they should take into account the adverse effects of this type of schooling on income inequality. In particular, we suggest that such funding will be conditioned on aligning the curriculum with the requirements of modern labor markets |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:29&r=lab |
| By: | Bhalotra, Sonia R. (University of Bristol); Venkataramani, Atheendar (Massachusetts General Hospital) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the introduction of sulfa drugs in 1937 to identify the causal impact of exposure to pneumonia in infancy on later life well-being and productivity in the United States. Using census data from 1980-2000, we find that cohorts born after the introduction of sulfa experienced increases in schooling, income, and the probability of employment, and reductions in disability rates. These improvements were larger for those born in states with higher pre-intervention levels of pneumonia as these were the areas that benefited most from the availability of sulfa drugs. These estimates are, in general, larger and more robust to specification for men than for women. With the exception of cognitive disability and poverty for men, the estimates for African Americans are smaller and less precisely estimated than those for whites. This is despite our finding that African Americans experienced larger absolute reductions in pneumonia mortality after the arrival of sulfa. We suggest that pre-Civil Rights barriers may have inhibited their translating improved endowments into gains in education and employment. |
| Keywords: | early childhood, infectious diseases, pneumonia, medical innovation, antibiotics, schooling, income, disability, mortality trends |
| JEL: | I18 H41 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6041&r=lab |
| By: | Raghbendra Jha; Sharmistha Nag; Hari K. Nagarajan |
| Abstract: | In a developing economy with an ethnically diverse society, such as India's, household welfare and its distribution within the household unambiguously depend on how much time each member of the household spends on productive activity. In this paper we examine the welfare impact of reducing the time spent by members of households, particularly women, through political reservations in rural India. Using a unique data set we find that (i) Political reservations and the ability of women to participate in the process of governance contribute to household welfare by allowing women to participate in labor markets, essentially because provision of public goods and in particular water, increases the productivity of household labor time. (ii) The concomitant decline in household work and increase in labor market participation is a robust indicator of increased productivity of household labor time being translated into productive work. In particular women participate in self employment and on cultivation. The effect on household incomes caused by members engaged in self-employment activities and own-cultivation is higher compared to effects caused by participation in off-farm wage labor. (iii) Further, our results are robust to the inclusion of residential location, access to credit, and shocks. |
| Keywords: | Political Reservations for Women, Water, Time in Unproductive Activity, IV estimation |
| JEL: | B21 H41 H42 J22 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:asarcc:2011-15&r=lab |
| By: | Figueiredo, Octávio (University of Porto); Guimaraes, Paulo (University of South Carolina); Woodward, Douglas (University of South Carolina) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use a novel approach and a large Portuguese employer-employee panel data set to study the hypothesis that industrial agglomeration improves the quality of the firm-worker matching process. Our method makes use of recent developments in the estimation and analysis of models with high-dimensional fixed effects. Using wage regressions with controls for multiple sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity we find little evidence that the quality of matching increases with firm’s clustering within the same industry. This result supports Freedman’s (2008) analysis using U.S. data. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, matching, fixed-effects |
| JEL: | R12 R39 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6016&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Kuhn (Department of Economics, University of California - University of California, Santa Barbara); Marie-Claire Villeval (GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS : UMR5824 - Université Lumière - Lyon II - École Normale Supérieure de Lyon) |
| Abstract: | Are women disproportionately attracted to work environments where cooperation rather than competition is rewarded? This paper reports the results of a real-effort experiment in which participants choose between an individual compensation scheme and a team-based payment scheme. We find that women are more likely than men to select team-based compensation in our baseline treatment, but women and men join teams with equal frequency when we add an efficiency advantage to team production. Using a simple structural discrete choice framework to reconcile these facts, we show that three elements can account for the observed patterns in the team-entry gender gap: (1) a gender gap in confidence in others (i.e. women are less pessimistic about their prospective teammates' relative ability), (2) a greater responsiveness among men to instrumental reasons for joining teams, and (3) a greater "pure" preference for working in a team environment among women. |
| Keywords: | Gender; cooperation; self-selection; confidence; experiment |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00633646&r=lab |
| By: | Christoph Pamminger (Department of Applied Statistics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria,); Regina Tüchler |
| Abstract: | In this work, we analyze wage careers of women in Austria. We identify groups of female employees with similar patterns in their earnings development. Covariates such as e.g. the age of entry, the number of children or maternity leave help to detect these groups. We find three different types of female employees: (1) “high-wage mums”, women with high income and one or two children, (2) “low-wage mums”, women with low income and ‘many’ children and (3) “childless careers”, women who climb up the career ladder and do not have children. We use a Markov chain clustering approach to find groups in the discretevalued time series of income states. Additional covariates are included when modeling group membership via a multinomial logit model. |
| Keywords: | Income Career, Transition Data, Multinomial Logit, Auxiliary Mixture Sampler, Markov Chain Monte Carlo |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2011_04&r=lab |
| By: | Edwards, William M. |
| Date: | 2011–10–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:34430&r=lab |
| By: | Carlo Altavilla (University of Naples Parthenope, CESifo and CSEF); Floro Ernesto Caroleo (University of Naples Parthenope) |
| Abstract: | Labour market policies settled at national level imply a “one-size-fits-all” labour market strategy. This strategy might not sufficiently take into account region-specific economic structures. We employ a panel factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) to evaluate whether active labour market programmes (ALMPs) might asymmetrically affect labour markets at regional level in a data-rich environment. The paper focuses on Italian regions. Our results suggest that while in the South employment is mainly driven by social and economic context variables, in the North the employment dynamics is significantly explained by policy interventions. Finally, we suggest two main policy implications. First, the success of active policies depends on the regional labour market conditions. Second, policymakers should adjust labour policy strategy to the regional economic structure |
| Keywords: | Active Labour Market Policies, FAVAR. |
| JEL: | C33 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–10–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:293&r=lab |
| By: | Audra J. Bowlus (University of Western Ontario); Jean-Marc Robin (Sciences Po, Paris and University College London) |
| Abstract: | We compare earnings inequality and mobility across the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. during the late 1990s. A flexible model of earnings dynamics that isolates positional mobility within a stable earnings distribution is estimated. Earnings trajectories are then simulated, and lifetime annuity value distributions are constructed. Earnings mobility and employment risk are found to be positively correlated with base-year inequality. Taken together they produce more equalization in countries with high cross-section inequality such that the countries in our sample have more similar lifetime inequality levels than crosssection measures suggest. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:20116&r=lab |
| By: | Terje Næss (Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education-NIFU) |
| Abstract: | In Norway, as in most other countries, even most educational researchers and politicians agrees that knowledge worker jobs will be plentiful in the new knowledge economy and that new graduates from higher education not will have large problems in finding relevant employment in spite of their increasing numbers, there is still some disagreement about this. In Norway, the development on the graduate labour market is monitored by NIFU using graduate-surveys. According to the surveys, most graduates still find "relevant employment” after graduation. In this article we have explored the content of "relevant employment” by looking at various indicators for the skill level for those graduates who are in "relevant employment”; economic activity, sector, wages, and information-related work. This has been analysed for four fields of study; humanities, law, economics and science&technology, and by comparing the 1989/91- cohorts with the 2005/07-cohorts. All the indicators seem to indicate that "relevant employment” for the large part still is high-skill employment, and that there not is substantial deskilling or overqualification. Firstly, the large part of growth in graduate numbers has been absorbed by typical high-skill economic activities. This was however not mainly traditional academic work areas, but different types of "knowledge-intensive service production”. Especially important was ”professional and technical services” and information&communication. 43 per cent of the growth in recruitment occurred within these two economic activities. Wages in these two economic activities were also higher than in the traditional academic sector, indicating that the shift in recruitment to these two economic activities not should be interpreted as deskilling. For two other relatively important "new” work areas, for these groups of graduates, "cultural and other personal services” and "health care and social services”, however, and especially the first group, average wages was lower than in other economic activities, especially for the first group, which may indicate that the skill level is lower than in the traditional academic areas. Another important signal of large demand for graduates is that the business sector, which generally is thought of as more attractive than the public sector, accounted for three quarters of the increase in the number of employed graduates. This was not only because it was economic activities within the business sector domain that increased recruitment the most; there was also a general trend towards increased recruitment in business sector organization irrespective of economic activity. Lastly, nearly a third of the growth in recruitment was information-related work, also usually thought of as typical skilled work. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:21&r=lab |
| By: | Gábor Kátay (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (central bank of Hungary)) |
| Abstract: | Following the approach recently developed for the International Wage Flexibility Project (IWFP), the paper presents new estimates of downward real and nominal wage rigidity for Hungary. Results suggest that nominal rigidity is more prominent in Hungary than real rigidity. When compared to other countries participating in the IWFP, Hungary ranks among the countries with the lowest degree of downward real rigidity. The estimated downward nominal rigidity for Hungary is higher, the measure is close to but still below the overall cross-country average. Using the same methodology, the paper also confirms the widespread view that the wage growth bargained at the national level has little compulsory power in Hungary. On the other hand, the minimum wage remains an important source of potential downward wage rigidity in Hungary. |
| Keywords: | downward nominal and real wage rigidity, wage change distributions, wage flexibility |
| JEL: | C23 E24 J3 J5 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnb:wpaper:2011/9&r=lab |
| By: | Daria Ciriaci (European Commission); Alessandro Muscio (University of Foggia) |
| Abstract: | Universities have come under increasing pressure to become key drivers of economic development in the age of the knowledge economy. Yet we know very little about the impact of university quality and scientific excellence on the probability of graduates finding jobs. This paper investigates the determinants of Italian graduates’ employability 3-years after graduation, with special reference to university quality measured in terms of research performance and teaching quality. The empirical evidence sheds light on the pivotal role of academic institutions in economic systems, proving that their contribution to employment growth could be substantial. Our analysis supports the promotion of policy initiatives to improve the quality of academic institutions, and the accountability of research results. As we also observe wide regional differences, we argue that university quality emerges as a supply tool for policy makers aiming at boosting young and skilled labour demand in less developed regions. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:49&r=lab |
| By: | Kässi, Otto |
| Abstract: | I decompose the variance of earnings of Finnish male and female workers to its permanent and transitory components and study their evolution between the years 1998 and 2007. I find that the increasing earnings inequality of men and women is driven by both transitory and permanent components of earnings. In addition, I find considerable differences in earnings dynamics between men and women that have been largely neglected in previous studies of earnings dynamics. The inequality among men is dominated by the permanent component. Conversely, permanent and transitory components are of comparable magnitudes to women. As a corollary, men face more stable income paths but with larger permanent earnings differences. Women, on the other hand, face more instable earnings profiles but have smaller permanent differences in earnings. The correlation between initial earnings inequality and the growth in earnings inequality is found to be positive for both sexes, implying a divergence of earnings profiles towards end of the working career. In addition, earnings instability has risen for both sexes. |
| Keywords: | Earnings distribution; earnings dynamics; permanent inequality; transitory inequality; variance decomposition |
| JEL: | J62 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34301&r=lab |
| By: | Roberto Antonietti (Department of Economics & Management Marco Fanno, University of Padova); Massimo Loi (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Econometric and Applied Statistics, ISPRA) |
| Abstract: | Relying on a rich firm-level dataset, we investigate the factors underlying the demand for foreign languages (FL) by Italian manufacturing firms. As main determinants, we focus on innovation and internationalization activities, these latter ranging from export to FDI. In the empirical analysis, we first estimate the probability of demanding for the knowledge of at least one FL through a set of univariate probit models, in which we also control for other characteristics required by firms, like the type of job, the level of education, the type of experience and the knowledge of informatics. Then, we make the demand for FL interact with the demand for these characteristics by estimating a set of bivariate probit models from which we extract the joint and conditional probabilities. Our estimates show that the probability to demand for FL increases with firm size, human capital intensity, engagement in R&D and in exporting goods, whereas the other internationalization activities are not significant when considered individually. Instead, we find a strong and positive effect on FL demand of increasing commitment to internationalization. Moreover, R&D and internationalization acts like observable substitutes on FL demand. When we further make FL demand interact with other required attributes, we find that the impact of increasing exposure to internationalization is higher when the firm also demands for professional occupations with a university degree, for specific experience and for the simultaneous knowledge of informatics. We conclude that FL are a strategic asset for firms and, from a labor demand perspective, are complementary to high levels of human capital. |
| Keywords: | foreign languages, innovation, internationalization, labor demand |
| JEL: | F16 J23 L60 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:48&r=lab |
| By: | John Knight (Beijing Normal University); Quheng Deng (Beijing Normal University); Shi Li (Beijing Normal University) |
| Abstract: | Not available. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:201115&r=lab |
| By: | Picot, Garnett<br/> Hou, Feng |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the labour market benefits associated with becoming a citizen of the host country, in this case Canada or the United States. Recent international research indicates that there is an economic return to acquiring citizenship. In addition, the paper examines the rising gap in the citizenship rate between Canada and the United States and examines the differences in individual and region characteristics of immigrants as a possibility for explaining changes in the citizenship rate gap. |
| Keywords: | Children and youth, Ethnic diversity and immigration, Labour market activities, Immigrants and non-permanent residents, Citizenship |
| Date: | 2011–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2011338e&r=lab |
| By: | Adriana Luciano (University of Turin); Roberto Di Monaco (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Steady growing literature has examined the relationship between human capital and economic development. However, there is no empirical evidence that the increase in education is always related to growth. The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between human capital and growth in Mediterranean countries to put the premises for further research on single countries and on the functioning of the Mediterranean high skill labour market and the relationship with the economic development of the whole area. The First step of our analysis is to measure the increasing stock of human capital in the labour force and the population in a working age over the past twenty years, for the Mediterranean countries (Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco). The second step will be to single out the contribution of human capital to the economic development. Data of the World Bank is available to carry out this study. The third step will be to study the allocation of labour across sectors of the economy; and the public and private sector. This allocation will be put in relationship with labour market institutions. Furthermore, to deepen the relation between human capital and growth, the fourth step will be to utilize UNPD’s aggregate indexes to measure gender inequalities (GDI) and the importance of women in society (GEM) in Mediterranean countries, as intervenient variables. In the last step, we will analyse migration flows of skilled people among these countries in order to introduce the topic of brain drain and brain waste in the analysis. In conclusion, the analysis shows that the relationship between the development of tertiary education and economic development is not at all linear. The countries overlooking the Mediterranean not only have differing levels of economic and educational development, but, above all, they have employment markets regulated by different institutions and different social institutions determine the opportunities for access to resources by women and men. Deeper analyses by country which could enrich statistical analysis with information concerning the structures of the economic and non-economic institutions that regulate the development of education and the functioning of the labour market, as well as suitable further investigations into the structure of respective economic systems, are needed to formulate useful hypotheses in order to reach agreements which foster a balanced exchange of persons and knowledge between countries that are increasingly interconnected in economic, social and cultural terms. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:42&r=lab |
| By: | D.P. Chaudhri; Raghbendra Jha |
| Abstract: | Using Census and NSS data this paper studies the evolution of Gender Bias (GB) in the age group 0–6 in India and its association with education and higher prosperity. GB is pervasive and has grown over time with higher prosperity and resultant demographic transition and enhanced education. The number of children in the age group 0–14 peaked in 2001 and has, since, been falling. Even as the under 5 mortality rate has fallen from 240.1 per thousand in the 1961 census to 65.6 in 2011, the total fertility rate (TFR) has experienced an equally sharp decline from 6.1 in 1961 to 2.6 in 2011. That large household size (associated with high fertility rates and low Monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE)) is linked with low GB comes as no surprise. However, with higher prosperity and lower TFR GB rises sharply. The percentage difference in GB in successive time periods fell from 0.3 in 1951 to 0.1 in 1961 but accelerated to 1.9 in 2011. GB is higher in the age group 0–4 than in the 0–6 group. GB has actually improved for the age group 10–14 but this fact is irrelevant for the evolution of GB in children since children in that age group will soon be adults. Hence, the outlook for GB in the age group 0–6 appears bleak at least until 2026. The paper also demonstrates that there are wide variations in GB across various states, even districts, of India. In 2011 child population is still high in the EAG states whereas the growth of child population has come down substantially in some states, particularly some southern states and Himachal Pradesh. At the district level we discover that the education of girls is an important determinant of GB. At the household level both improved education of females in the age group 15–49 and higher prosperity lead to worsening of GB. However, at high values of the interaction of these two variables there could be a turnaround in the trend of worsening GB. At present trends, however, this is unlikely to happen at least until 2026. More positive outcomes require social engineering through multidimentional, orchestrated policies, especially in relation to enhanced prosperity and education of women in the child bearing age group. Improvements in GB are discernable in some districts, states and households. In 55 districts GB declined and proportion of girls attending schools increased. Kerala and Tamil Nadu did not have any worsening of GB while GB declined in Himachal Pradesh. Finally, prosperity improved GB among Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims, and households having women in child bearing age group with graduate degrees. |
| Keywords: | Gender Bias, Census, National Sample Survey, Demographic Transition, India |
| JEL: | J16 N35 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:asarcc:2011-14&r=lab |
| By: | Rosa Bernardini Papalia (Department of Statistics, University of Bologna); Silvia Bertarelli (Department of Economics Institutions and Territory , University of Ferrara); Carlo Filippucci (Department of Statistics, University of Bologna) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the relationship between the level of development of an economy and returns to different levels of education for the panel of OECD countries over the 1965-2004 period, in a club convergence framework. The connection between growth and human capital measures of primary, secondary and tertiary education in a multiple-club spatial convergence model with non linearities and spatial dependence is considered. By decomposing total schooling into its three constituent parts, we are able to evaluate their impact on regional growth without imposing homogeneous returns from each level of education. We contribute to the identification of two regimes for OECD countries, each characterized by different returns on physical and human capital accumulation and technological spillovers. We also find that the non-monotonic pattern of convergence is strongly influenced by human capital stocks and technology diffusion process is stronger in the club less close to the technological frontier. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:15&r=lab |
| By: | Michèle BELOT (Oxford University, Nuffield Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS), Nuffield College); Vincent VANDENBERGHE (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)) |
| Abstract: | Like active labour market programmes (ALPMs), grade repetition could generate two types of effects. Better/worse outcomes due to programme participation (i.e. the fact that pupils repeat a particular grade). This is what the existing literature on grade repetition has focused on. Another potential outcome is the ‘threat’ effect of grade repetition. Pupils and/or their family could make significant efforts to avoid grade repetition and its important opportunity cost. Learning effort by pupils could be a function of the risk of grade repetition. This paper attempts to assess that relationship by exploiting a reform introduced in 2001 in the French-Speaking Community of Belgium, synonymous with a reinforced overall threat of grade repetition. The possibility to impose grade repetition sanctions and the end of grade 8-12 has always existed, but in year 2001, policy makers reinstated the possibility to repeat grade 7, putting an end to the regime of “social promotion” applicable to that grade since 1995. We use data from two waves of the PISA study (corresponding to periods before and after the reform) to evaluate the medium-term effects of this reform. The first measure of performance we consider is the position in the curriculum (or grade) reached at the age of 15, and we show that it deteriorated after 2001. We also consider the reform’s impact on test scores. Focusing on grade 10, we fail to verify the necessary condition for grade repetition threat to lead to higher test scores. The tentative conclusion is that an enhanced threat of grade retention after 2001 did not lead to better medium-term outcomes, even among the segments of the population the most at risk of grade repetition. |
| Keywords: | Grade retention, educational attainment, threat effects |
| JEL: | I20 I28 H52 |
| Date: | 2011–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2011026&r=lab |
| By: | Eileen Trzcinski; Elke Holst |
| Abstract: | This article critically examines the theoretical arguments that underlie the literature linking personality traits to economic outcomes and provides empirical evidence indicating that labour market outcomes influence personality outcomes. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigated the extent to which gender differences occur in the processes by which highly positive and negative labour market outcomes are determined and in the processes underlying the development of one particular aspect of personality, locus of control. Gender differences were more pronounced in the results for years in managerial/ leadership positions than for locus of control. Negative labour market states were also marked by gender differences. We conclude by arguing that an explicitly value-laden analysis of the rewards associated with personality within the labour market could expose areas where the gendered nature of rewards by personality serves to perpetuate power relationships within the labour market. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp403&r=lab |
| By: | Hinerasky, Christiane (University of Paderborn); Fahr, René (University of Paderborn) |
| Abstract: | We econometrically evaluate the performance effects of a six month e-learning programme in a large retail chain with monthly data on sales revenue, for four years using panel regressions. Participants in early cohorts show positive performance effects during training periods that depreciate afterwards. We conclude that offering training on a voluntary basis leads participants with the highest expected idiosyncratic gains and the highest talent to self-select into early participation. As performance effects already unfold during training, our findings put forward the importance of continuous training with close coaching unlike single training incidences. |
| Keywords: | evaluation, company training, e-learning, average treatment effect, average treatment effect on the treated, selection effect, continuous learning, continuous vocational training |
| JEL: | C31 C33 J24 M53 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6037&r=lab |
| By: | Eileen Trzcinski; Elke Holst |
| Abstract: | This article critically examines the theoretical arguments that underlie the literature linking personality traits to economic outcomes and provides empirical evidence indicating that labour market outcomes influence personality outcomes. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigated the extent to which gender differences occur in the processes by which highly positive and negative labour market outcomes are determined and in the processes underlying the development of one particular aspect of personality, locus of control. Gender differences were more pronounced in the results for years in managerial/ leadership positions than for locus of control. Negative labour market states were also marked by gender differences. We conclude by arguing that an explicitly value-laden analysis of the rewards associated with personality within the labour market could expose areas where the gendered nature of rewards by personality serves to perpetuate power relationships within the labour market. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1157&r=lab |
| By: | Di Bartolomeo Giovanni; Tirelli Patrizio; Acocella Nicola |
| Abstract: | Empirical contributions show that wage re-negotiations take place while expiring contracts are still in place. This is captured by assuming that nominal wages are pre-determined. As a consequence, wage setters act as Stackelberg leaders, whereas in the typical New Keynesian model the wage-setting rule implies that they play a Nash game. We present a DSGE New Keynesian model with pre-determined wages and money entering the representative household's utility function and show how these assumptions are sufficient to identify an inverse relationship between the inflation target and the wage markup (and thus employment) both in the short and the long run. This is due to the complementary effects that wage claims and the inflation target have on money holdings. Model estimates suggest that a moderate long-run inflation rate generates non-negligible output gains. |
| Keywords: | E52, E58, J51, E24 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ter:wpaper:0079&r=lab |
| By: | Francesca Froy; Sylvain Giguère; Lucy Pyne; Donna E. Wood |
| Abstract: | In the context of the growing knowledge economy, human resources and skills are becoming increasingly crucial to economic development. This is especially pressing in the aftermath of the global economic downturn. Labour market agencies and institutions have the capacity to contribute significantly to returning localities to prosperity, but only if they adapt themselves to new priorities: helping workers to compete on the global market, and ensuring that people access employment that is sustainable and productive, and that best harnesses their skills and aptitudes. At the same time, achieving higher employment rates will mean bringing new groups of workless people into the labour market and developing innovative means of reducing labour market disadvantage in the context of limited public funds... |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:cfeaaa:2011/10-en&r=lab |
| By: | Giunio Luzzatto (University of Genoa); Stefania Mangano (University of Genoa); Roberto Moscati (University of Milan-Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | Traditionally, Italy had just one long-cycle university degree; the two-tier system has been introduced as implementation of the Bologna Process (1999). We are interested in examining how the new first level degree, Bachelor in Europe and "Laurea L” in Italy, has worked in our country, mainly as far as employability is concerned. Our analysis has been framed in the European context, particularly looking at Bachelors in countries where traditionally there was only one level. The basic question is: has the new first-cycle degree been accepted by the labour market, or is it considered merely as an intermediate step in a route leading to a Master degree? As expected, there are differences in the countries under scrutiny, but there are also common indications. Answers for Italy are found analysing in detail existing surveys, which give precise indications about working and study conditions of 2007 and 2008 graduates, interviewed one year after graduation. Employment rate is not negligible, even if it is of course lower for L than from second level graduates; sometimes, work is combined with prosecution of studies. Effects of the crisis are present for both types of graduates. Some preliminary conclusions are drawn, and possible developments of the research are indicated. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:43&r=lab |
| By: | Philippe Belley (Kansas State University); Marc Frenette (Social Research and Demonstration Corporation); Lance Lochner (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the implications of tuition and need-based financial aid policies for family income – post-secondary (PS) attendance relationships. We first conduct a parallel empirical analysis of the effects of parental income on PS attendance for recent high school cohorts in both the U.S. and Canada using data from the 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and Youth in Transition Survey. We estimate substantially smaller PS attendance gaps by parental income in Canada relative to the U.S., even after controlling for family background, adolescent cognitive achievement, and local residence fixed effects. We next document that U.S. public tuition and financial aid policies are actually more generous to low-income youth than are Canadian policies. By contrast, Canada offers more generous aid to middle-class youth than does the U.S. These findings suggest that the much stronger family income – PS attendance relationship in the U.S. is not driven by differences in the need-based nature of financial aid policies. Based on previous estimates of the effects of tuition and aid on PS attendance, we consider how much stronger income – attendance relationships would be in the absence of need-based aid and how much additional aid would need to be offered to lower income families to eliminate existing income – attendance gaps entirely. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:epuwoc:20113&r=lab |
| By: | Chiara Cimini (AlmaLaurea Inter-university Consortium); Gasperoni (University of Bologna, Dept. of Communication Disciplines); Claudia Girotti (AlmaLaurea Inter-university Consortium) |
| Abstract: | An established yearly survey aimed at monitoring the employment opportunities of Italian graduates, traditionally carried out with Cati methods, has been integrated during the last few years with Cawi. Cawi has become increasingly crucial due to the high number of graduates involved in the survey, which has mandated a reduction in fieldwork duration and unit costs. Although the seven Cawi surveys used here have different substantive and methodological characteristics, preliminary analysis reveals a common trend: the utmost participation is observed during the first few days immediately following initiation of fieldwork and, to a lesser degree, the delivery of follow-up reminders. Web respondents comprise a self-selected subgroup of the target population, having better academic performance and greater computer skills. A Cox regression model estimating response probability (or response time) shows, besides the obvious effects of certain personal and survey design characteristics, that faster response times are expressed by graduates in science or engineering and reporting good computer skills, whereas the fields of medicine/health and defence/security and no computer skills give rise to lower response probability. Ways to use these findings for fine-tuning data collection are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Cawi surveys, Response rate, University graduates,Cox regression |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:35&r=lab |
| By: | Alessandra Decataldo (Department of Communication and Social research, Sapienza University of Rome); Antonio Fasanella (Department of Communication and Social research, Sapienza University of Rome) |
| Abstract: | Studies on university productivity show that little has changed though of the enforcement of DDMM 509/1999 and 270/2004: the long-standing ills that had afflicted the Italian university under the previous system still continue to affect it even after the adoption of the "3+2” reform. These considerations on productivity of the university system are alarming especially in terms of the objectives that the DM 509/1999 intended to achieve and the expectations of what was invested. These expectations concern the control on productivity (more regular graduates) and an approach to academic and working life, maintaining high standards of quality training. It seems that has not worked out in the process of change from the old to the new university system. Italian university has answered to external pressures absorbing change content in pre-existing organizational structures and cultural background. We are conducting a research that allows for an in-depth examination of the phenomenon of poor productivity of the university system, and also sheds light on some of the factors that combine to determine this result. The Sapienza University of Rome was identified as an ideal context for this analysis, due to its dimensions and complexity, and because of its variety of scientific and educational areas of academic training. The research involves conducting a secondary analysis of longitudinal data of administrative type for a description of the phenomena of late performance and student drop out. It focuses on the batches of students enrolled in specific key moments before (from academic year 1991/1992 to 2000/2001) and after the reform (from academic year 2001/2002 to 2006/2007). Each of these batches (about 410,000 student enrolments) was monitored up to April 2008 (the official closing date of academic year 2006/2007). The analysis take into account ex novo enrolments, excluding both the re-registrations and students who have already obtained more than one degree. Longitudinal analyses (the generational approach) allow us to individually monitor students in a single generation for a number of years, reduce the risks associated with aggregate data. This data - required statistical office of Sapienza - were treated to obtain variables in line with the present research and then be reorganized into a diachronic database. From a practical point of view, we analyzed how the DM 509/1999 was introduced and implemented within and by the university organization (analyzing a wide variety of phenomena such as dropping out, delayed and decreasing graduations). From a methodological point of view, we came to the creation of longitudinal multidimensional models of the students’ careers, aiming at identifying the "mechanisms” through which from an initial state t0, a subsequent state t1 is generated. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:40&r=lab |
| By: | Samo Pavlin (University of Ljubljana) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses graduates employability and early career success. In this context it follows multiple goals. First, it overviews the key research issues, results and concepts related to HE graduates’ transition. While this classification remains on the level of a simplified meta overview, it indicates the need for the contextualisation of graduate models and improvements in the interpretation of results. Second, it provides a short overview of the graduate transition models developed in early stages of the DEHEMS project and prior to it. Third, it applies theoretical considerations and the model developed in previous sections to a case study analysis of two domains. The data set relates to Slovenian graduates 5 years after they graduated from the HEGESCO international survey. The preliminary analysis leads to general conclusions and recommendations for further analysing and comparing different professional domains. Some concluding observations related do domain varieties are: a) graduates’ professional success is a multidimensional concept and requires modifications when applied to analytical models of study domains, b) even when the results of different study domains appear to be similar, their meaning can differ a lot when the interpretation is placed within the specific context of a professional domain, c) the principles and responsibility of the competencies incubation phase from education and the labour market should be interpreted and understood in line with the expected function of the HE institution, e) knowing the prevailing logic behind graduates’ jobs, such as managerialism, bureaucracy or professionalism in relation to graduates’ career observations might be another factor in determining graduates’ career success factors, f) when considering the factors of career success or the quality of jobs, one should be aware there might be an important difference when considering a model on an individual-level or a country-level basis. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:36&r=lab |
| By: | Bauer, Michal (Charles University, Prague); Chytilová, Julie (Charles University, Prague); Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara (Charles University, Prague) |
| Abstract: | Other-regarding preferences are central for the ability to solve collective action problems and thus for society's welfare. We study how the formation of other-regarding preferences during childhood is related to parental background. Using binary-choice dictator games to classify subjects into other-regarding types, we find that children of less educated parents are less altruistic and more spiteful. This link is robust to controlling for a range of child, family, and peer characteristics, and is attenuated for smarter children. The results suggest that less educated parents are either less efficient to instill social norms or their children less able to acquire them. |
| Keywords: | other-regarding preferences, altruism, spite, experiments with children, family background, education |
| JEL: | C91 D64 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6026&r=lab |
| By: | Pietro Giorgio Lovaglio (Dept. of Quantitative Methods, University of Bicocca-Milan); Giuseppe Folloni (Department of Economics, University of Trento) |
| Abstract: | The present paper focuses on statistical models for estimating Human Capital (HC) at disaggregated level (worker, household, graduates). The more recent literature on HC as a latent variable states that HC can be reasonably considered a broader multi-dimensional non-observable construct, depending on several and interrelate causes, and indirectly measured by many observed indicators. In this perspective, latent variable models have been assuming a prominent role in the social science literature for the study of the interrelationships among phenomena. However, traditional estimation methods are prone to different limitations, as stringent distributional assumptions, improper solutions, and factor score indeterminacy for Covariance Structure Analysis and the lack of a global optimization procedure for the Partial Least Squares approach. To avoid these limitations, new approaches to structural equation modelling, based on Component Analysis, which estimates latent variables as exact linear combinations of observed variables minimizing a single criterion, were proposed in literature. However, these methods are limited to model particular types of relationship among sets of variables. In this paper, we propose a class of models in such a way that it enables to specify and fit a variety of relationships among latent variables and endogenous indicators. Specifically, we extend this new class of models to allow for covariate effects on the endogenous indicators. Finally, an application aimed to measure, in a realistic structural model, the causal impact of formal Human capital (HC), accumulated during Higher education, on the initial earnings for University of Milan (Italy) graduates is illustrated. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:11&r=lab |
| By: | Juan Yang (Beijing Normal University); Sylvie Demurger (Universite de Lyon-CHRS-GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne); Shi Li (Beijing Normal University) |
| Abstract: | Not available. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:201118&r=lab |
| By: | Lutz Heidemann (INCHER, Univerity of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | INCHER-Kassel and 58 German Higher Education Institutions conducted together the biggest tracer studies campaign in Germany so far. Up to date, more than 100.000 graduates of the cohorts 2006 – 2009 were surveyed in the years 2007 – 2011. During this project it was often claimed that graduate tracer studies cannot be representative. This doubt is based on the assumption that only particularly successful or satisfied persons participate in these surveys. This hypothesis will be discussed in the following essay after a introduction in the methodological approach of the Cooperation Project balancing comparability and individuality of the questionnaires. The essay will also explain the network approach of the Cooperation Project "Study Conditions and Professional Success – Cooperation of German Institutions of Higher Education for the Design and Execution of Tracer Studies” (KOAB). The respondents of the cohort 2008 which were surveyed in the fall semester 2009/10 are divided into two groups to test the hypothesis that only particularly successful or satisfied persons participate in these surveys: early respondents and late respondents. The graduates were invited by up to four contacts to participate in the survey. Early respondents participate right after the first contact, while late respondents representing the non-respondents of the first contact. This model refers to the idea of a "continuum of resistance” in survey participation. A comparison shows that there are no fundamental differences between the early respondents and late respondents according to the following indicators: assessment and satisfaction with study programme, study success (final grade), or actual professional situation and satisfaction with current professional situation. Based on these observations, the above mentioned statement that only successful or satisfied persons will participate in graduate tracer studies cannot be confirmed. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:laa:wpaper:13&r=lab |
| By: | Ruud Dorenbos; Francesca Froy |
| Abstract: | In the context of the growing knowledge economy, human resources and skills are becoming increasingly crucial to economic development. This is especially pressing in the aftermath of the global economic downturn. Labour market agencies and institutions have the capacity to contribute significantly to returning localities to prosperity, but only if they adapt themselves to new priorities: helping workers to compete on the global market, and helping regions to move along the path towards a high-skills, high productivity equilibrium. At the same time, achieving higher employment rates will mean bringing new groups of workless people into the labour market and developing innovative means of reducing labour market disadvantage.<p> This broader context for labour market policy calls for policies that are well co-ordinated and adapted to meet local challenges, requiring increased collaboration between labour market policy actors and their social and economic development partners (Mosley, 2009). Such local collaboration and experimentation does not always fit with the standardised procedures of employment and training organisations. Public employment services are often managed in a relatively centralised fashion, offering few possibilities for local agencies to identify for themselves the opportunities to be seized and the problems to be tackled. The demand for more proactive local employment agencies has significant implications for how government policies are designed and managed, with one of the biggest challenges being to provide more flexibility on the ground where policies are implemented. These responsibilities require a new framework for the management of workforce development. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:cfeaaa:2011/13-en&r=lab |