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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Luis Santos-Pinto |
| Abstract: | I extend Spence's (1973) signaling model by assuming some workers are overconfident - they underestimate their marginal cost of acquiring education - and some are underconfident. Firms cannot observe workers' productive abilities and beliefs but know the fractions of high-ability, overconfident, and underconfident workers. I find that biased beliefs lower the wage spread and compress the wages of unbiased workers. I show that gender differences in self-confidence can contribute to the gender pay gap. If education raises productivity, men are overconfident, and women underconfident, then women will, on average, earn less than men. Finally, I show that biased beliefs can improve welfare. |
| Keywords: | signaling; education; self-confidence; wage compression; gender pay gap |
| JEL: | D03 D82 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:11.07&r=lab |
| By: | Kramarz, Francis (Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST), CEPR, IZA, IFAU); Nordström Skans, Oskar (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies) |
| Abstract: | The conditions under which young workers find their first real post-graduation jobs are both very important for the young’s future careers and insufficiently known given their public policy implications. To study these conditions, and in particular the role played by networks, we use a Swedish population-wide linked employer-employee data set of graduates from all levels of schooling which includes detailed information on family ties, neighborhoods, schools, and class composition over a period covering high as well as low unemployment years. We find that strong social ties (parents) are an important determinant of where young workers find their first job. This remarkably robust effect is estimated controlling for all confounding factors related to time, location, education, occupation, and the interaction of these. The effect is larger if the graduate’s position is “weak” (low education) or during high unemployment years, a pattern which does not emerge when analyzing the role of weak ties (neighbors or friends as measured using classmates and their parents). On the hiring side, by contrast, the effects are larger if the parent’s position is “strong” (e.g. by tenure or wage). We find no evidence of substitution in recruitment over time and fields induced by “family ties hires”. However, we do find that, just after their child is hired in their plant, parents experience a sharp drop in their wage growth. Overall, our results show that strong (family) ties are more important in the job finding process of young workers in weak positions than those weak ties usually measured in the literature (neighbors, in particular), suggesting that labor market experience and education are essential conditions for weak ties to be strong. |
| Keywords: | Weak ties; social networks; youth employment |
| JEL: | J24 J62 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_018&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen Machin; Sandra McNally |
| Abstract: | Educational inequalities are evident even before children start school. Those connected to disadvantage widen out as children progress through the education system and into the labour market. We document various forms of educational inequality. We then review available evidence for England about the impact of school-level policies on achievement and their potential for reducing the socio-economic gap. We discuss evaluation evidence under four main themes: school resources; market incentives; school autonomy; and pedagogical approaches. |
| Keywords: | Educational inequality, evaluation, school policies |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0131&r=lab |
| By: | Riddell, W. Craig |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of EI in providing support to “displaced workers,†those who permanently lose their jobs because of changing circumstances. Adjusting to change benefits Canadians as a whole. However, some workers suffer much more from job loss than do others. Those who have held their jobs for an extended period experience substantial earnings losses, while those who have been employed for brief periods experience small losses. Like other job losers, long-tenure displaced workers experience earnings losses due to reduced income during unemployment following displacement. However, unlike other job losers, many long-tenure displaced workers become re-employed at significantly lower wages. EI does not take into account these consequences of job loss. Long-tenure displaced workers constitute a small minority of job losers. My analysis indicates that job losers with 5 or more years of job tenure constitute about 5% of unemployment and 15-20% of permanent job losers. The paper makes several policy recommendations. Some address gaps in research and knowledge, while others recommend enhanced EI benefits for those who suffer greatly from job loss. Since most loss from displacement occurs after reemployment, wage insurance seems the most promising approach for insuring against large losses. |
| Keywords: | labour market adjustment, job displacement, unemployment, unemployment insurance, adjustment assistance policies, wage insurance |
| JEL: | J60 J63 J64 J65 J68 |
| Date: | 2011–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-31&r=lab |
| By: | Fabrizio Botti; Marcella Corsi; Carlo D'Ippoliti |
| Abstract: | Active ageing strategies have so far strongly focussed on increasing senior workers employment rates through pension reforms to develop incentives to retire later on the one hand, and labour market policies on the other hand. Most measures are based on the dominant male trajectory of work and retirement and they are not explicitly gender mainstreamed. By contrast, a gender approach would prove fundamental to the labour market inclusion of elderly people, because in old age women suffer from the accumulated impact of the barriers to employment they encountered during their lifetime (e.g. repeated career breaks, part-time work, low pay and gender pay gap). Moreover, it appears that some pension reforms, by mandating a higher postponement of retirement and by establishing tighter links between formal employment and pension benefits may negatively affect the already high risk of poverty for elderly women. Active ageing strategies have so far strongly focussed on increasing senior workers employment rates through pension reforms to develop incentives to retire later on the one hand, and labour market policies on the other hand. Most measures are based on the dominant male trajectory of work and retirement and they are not explicitly gender mainstreamed. By contrast, a gender approach would prove fundamental to the labour market inclusion of elderly people, because in old age women suffer from the accumulated impact of the barriers to employment they encountered during their lifetime (e.g. repeated career breaks, part-time work, low pay and gender pay gap). Moreover, it appears that some pension reforms, by mandating a higher postponement of retirement and by establishing tighter links between formal employment and pension benefits may negatively affect the already high risk of poverty for elderly women. |
| Keywords: | Gender differences; Ageing; Pensions; Active labour market policies; Age management |
| JEL: | J14 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–12–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:2013/106179&r=lab |
| By: | Morissette, René<br/> Qiu, Theresa<br/> Chan, Winnie |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the risk of job loss and the short-term earnings losses of laid-off workers evolved between the late 1970s and the mid-2000s. |
| Keywords: | Labour, Employment and unemployment, Wages, salaries and other earnings, Labour mobility, turnover and work absences |
| Date: | 2011–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2011339e&r=lab |
| By: | Gasparini, Leonardo; Galiani, Sebastian; Cruces, Guillermo; Acosta, Pablo |
| Abstract: | It has been argued that a factor behind the decline in income inequality in Latin America in the 2000s was the educational upgrading of its labor force. Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of the labor force in the region with at least secondary education increased from 40 to 60 percent. Concurrently, returns to secondary education completion fell throughout the past two decades, while the 2000s saw a reversal in the increase in the returns to tertiary education experienced in the 1990s. This paper studies the evolution of wage differentials and the trends in the supply of workers by educational level for 16 Latin American countries between 1990 and 2000. The analysis estimates the relative contribution of supply and demand factors behind recent trends in skill premia for tertiary and secondary educated workers. Supply-side factors seem to have limited explanatory power relative to demand-side factors, and are only relevant to explain part of the fall in wage premia for high-school graduates. Although there is significant heterogeneity in individual country experiences, on average the trend reversal in labor demand in the 2000s can be partially attributed to the recent boom in commodity prices that could favor the unskilled (non-tertiary educated) workforce, although employment patterns by sector suggest that other within-sector forces are also at play, such as technological diffusion or skill mismatches that may reduce the labor productivity of highly-educated workers. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Inequality,Tertiary Education |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5921&r=lab |
| By: | Schwerdt, Guido (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); West, Martin R. (Harvard Graduate School of Education) |
| Abstract: | We use statewide administrative data from Florida to estimate the impact of attending public schools with different grade configurations on student achievement through grade 10. Based on an instrumental variable estimation strategy, we find that students moving from elementary to middle school suffer a sharp drop in student achievement in the transition year. These achievement drops persist through grade 10. We also find that middle school entry increases student absences and is associated with higher grade 10 dropout rates. Transitions to high school in grade nine cause a smaller one-time drop in achievement but do not alter students' performance trajectories. |
| Keywords: | educational production, public schools, grade configuration, middle schools, high schools |
| JEL: | H52 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6208&r=lab |
| By: | Anna de Paoli (University of Milan Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | Using a representative sample of Ecuadorian young women’s households, this paper focuses on the role played by education in shaping fertility choices and labor market participation. Education, which is found to be endogenous with respect to teenage childbearing, is instrumented by a reform that took place in 1977. Then, in a model where the choices to be a mother and to be in the labor force are considered simultaneously, we find evidence that schooling is positively related to wom-en’s labor market participation rate and negatively to early motherhood. The last section concludes stressing the potential intergenerational effects of changes in the age at first birth, showing that firstborn children born to older mothers have better educational outcomes than those born to young-er ones. We find that educational policies improve women’s conditions, lowering the risk of teenage childbearing and increasing labor market attachment. |
| Keywords: | schooling, education policy, teenage fertility, labor force |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J13 J20 |
| Date: | 2011–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:319&r=lab |
| By: | Sanjaya DeSilva; Mohammed Mehrab Bin Bakhtiar |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Bicol region of the Phillipines, we examine why women are more educated than men in a rural, agricultural economy in which women are significantly less likely than men to participate in the labor market. We hypothesize that educational homogamy in the marriage market and cross-productivity effects in the household allow Filipino women to reap substantial benefits from schooling regardless of whether they enter the labor market. Our estimates reveal that the return to schooling for women is approximately 20 percent in both labor and marriage markets. In comparison, men experience a 12 percent return to schooling in the labor market. By using birth order, sibship size, percent of male siblings, and parental education as instruments, we correct for a significant downward bias that is caused by the endogeneity of schooling attainment. |
| Keywords: | Returns to Education; Gender; Marriage; Philippines |
| JEL: | I21 J12 J16 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_701&r=lab |
| By: | Yona Rubinstein; Sheetal Sekhri |
| Abstract: | Public college graduates in many developing countries outperform graduates of private ones on the college exit exams. This has often been attributed to the cutting edge education provided in public colleges. However, public colleges are highly subsidized, suggesting that the private-public education outcome gap might reflect the pre-determined quality of the students who sort into public colleges rather than the causal impact of the public tertiary education on students' outcomes. We evaluate the impact of public colleges using a newly assembled unique data set that links admission data with the educational outcomes on a set of common exit exams in India. Admission to general education public colleges is strictly based on the results of the Senior Secondary School examinations. We exploit this feature in a Regression Discontinuity Design, and find that the public colleges have no added value in the neighborhood of the admission cut off scores. |
| Keywords: | private education, public education, India |
| JEL: | O15 I21 H41 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0130&r=lab |
| By: | Maria Laura Alzua; Leonardo Gasparini; Francisco Haimovich |
| Abstract: | In the nineties Argentina implemented a large education reform (Ley Federal de Educación – LFE) that mainly implied the extension of compulsory education in two additional years. The timing in the implementation substantially varied across provinces, providing a source of identification for unraveling the causal effect of the reform. The estimations from difference-in-difference models suggest that the LFE had an overall positive although mild impact on education and labor outcomes. The impact on the income-deprived youths was small for education outcomes and null for labor outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Education, reform, labor market, wages, employment, Argentina |
| JEL: | I2 I3 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2011-21&r=lab |
| By: | Anna Zaharieva (Institute of Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | This paper incorporates job search through personal contacts into an equilibrium matching model with a segregated labour market. Job search in the public submarket is competitive which is in contrast with the bargaining nature of wages in the informal job market. Moreover, the social capital of unemployed workers is endogenous depending on the employment status of their contacts. This paper shows that the traditional Hosios (1990) condition continues to hold in an economy with family contacts but it fails to provide efficiency in an economy with weak ties. This inefficiency is explained by a network externality: weak ties yield higher wages in the informal submarket than family contacts. Furthermore, the spillovers between the two submarkets imply that wage premiums associated with personal contacts lead to higher wages paid to unemployed workers with low social capital but the probability to find a job for those workers is below the optimal level. |
| Keywords: | Personal contacts, family job search, social capital, wages, equilibrium efficiency |
| JEL: | J23 J31 J64 D10 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:459&r=lab |
| By: | Sarkar, Prabirjit |
| Abstract: | This paper analysed the OECD data on employment protection for 23 OECD countries over the time span 1990-2008 on the basis of alternative dynamic panel data models and panel causality tests and examines the validity of the neo-liberal argument that strictness of employment protection hurts labour through increased long-term and youth unemployment rates. While it finds no empirical basis for this orthodox standpoint it observes that long-term unemployment dampens aggregate production which in turn aggravates unemployment problem. |
| Keywords: | labour law; regular job protection; temporary job protection; unemployment rate; long-term unemployment; youth unemployment |
| JEL: | J08 J60 K31 J50 |
| Date: | 2011–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35547&r=lab |
| By: | Adda, Jérôme (European University Institute); Dustmann, Christian (University College London); Stevens, Katrien (University of Sydney) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the life-cycle career costs associated with child rearing and decomposes their effects into unearned wages (as women drop out of the labor market), loss of human capital, and selection into more child-friendly occupations. We estimate a dynamic life-cycle model of fertility, occupational choice, and labor supply using detailed survey and administrative data for Germany for numerous birth cohorts across different regions. We use this model to analyze both the male-female wage gap as it evolves from labor market entry onward and the effect of pro-fertility policies. We show that a substantial portion of the gender wage gap is explainable by realized and expected fertility and that the long-run effect of policies encouraging fertility are considerably lower than the short-run effects typically estimated in the literature. |
| Keywords: | fertility, labor supply, occupational choice |
| JEL: | J1 J2 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6201&r=lab |
| By: | Ragni Hege Kitterød, Marit Rønsen and Ane Seierstad (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | In spite of increased labour market participation in recent decades, women in Norway still have high part-time rates and seldom work more than their partners. Given that an aging population implies a projected large labour demand in many Western countries, it is important to explore potential labour market reserves among women. Utilising the panel in the Norwegian part of the EU-SILC, we ask whether an increase in the mother’s paid hours is associated with an increase or a decrease in the father’s hours, or whether there is no relationship between changes in the partners’ working hours at all. An increase from parttime to normal full time for the mother is not associated with a change in the father’s hours, but an increase from full time to very long hours for the mother corresponds to an increase in the father’s hours. A positive association between the parents’ paid hours applies first and foremost to parents with school-aged children and to couples where both partners have either long or short education. When the mother has long education and the father has short, an increase in her paid hours is associated with a decrease in his. |
| Keywords: | Dual-earners; gender equality; labour market; working hours |
| JEL: | J22 J23 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:670&r=lab |
| By: | Lodhi, Abdul Salam; Tsegai, Daniel; Gerber, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | Using data from Pakistan, this study analyzed the effect of various individual, household, and community level characteristics on the probability that children engage in different activities. According to the existing trend of their prevalence, we considered five childâs activities, namely: secular schooling; religious education; child labor; a combination of child labor and secular schooling; and inactivity (including leisure). Data was collected through field surveys conducted in over 40 villages in four Pakistani provinces: Balochistan, Khyber Paktunkhwa, Punjab, and Sind. A total of 963 households were interviewed on the activities of 2,496 children. Multinomial Probit model was used for the analyses. Results indicated that parental perception had significant relationship to the probability of engagement in secular school attendance, religious education, and child labor. In addition, we investigated the relationships between participation in the different child activities with location (rural/urban) and childrenâs gender. We detected a lower probability of attending secular school and a higher probability of engaging in child labor among female children in rural areas. We also found that even parents who openly expressed appreciation of the importance of secular schooling were more likely to send male children to school than female children. |
| Keywords: | Child productivity, Childâs activities, Parental perception, Gender, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:119110&r=lab |
| By: | Steven J. Davis (University of Chicago - Booth School of Business); Till Von Wachter (Columbia Business School - Economics Department) |
| Abstract: | We develop new evidence on the cumulative earnings losses associated with job displacement, drawing on longitudinal Social Security records for U.S. workers from 1974 to 2008. In present value terms, men lose an average of 1.4 years of re-displacement earnings if displaced in mass layoff events that occur when the national unemployment rate is below 6 percent. They lose a staggering 2.8 years of pre-displacement earnings if displaced when the unemployment rate exceeds 8 percent. These results reflect discounting at a 5% annual rate over 20 years after displacement. We also document large cyclical movements in the incidence of job loss and job displacement and present evidence on how worker anxieties about job loss, wage cuts and job opportunities respond to contemporaneous economic conditions. Finally, we confront leading models of unemployment fluctuations with evidence on the present value earnings losses associated with job displacement. The model of Mortensen and Pissarides (1994) extended to include search on the job generates present value losses less than one-fourth as large as observed losses. Moreover, present value losses in the model vary little with aggregate conditions at the time of displacement, unlike the pattern in the data. |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2011-009&r=lab |
| By: | Julia Reilich |
| Abstract: | Looking at smoking-behavior it can be shown that there are differences concerning the time-preference-rate. Therefore this has an effect on the optimal schooling decision in the way that we assume a lower average human capital level for smokers. According to a higher time-preference-rate we suppose a higher return to education for smokers who go further on education. With our empirical fondings we can confirm the presumptions. We use interactions-terms to regress the average rate of return with the instrumentvariable approach. Therefore we obtain that smokers have a significantly higher average return to education than non-smokers. |
| Keywords: | Returns to education, Human Capital, Smoking Effects |
| JEL: | J24 J31 I21 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp420&r=lab |
| By: | Guillaume Blache (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The scope of the paper is to estimate post-program effects in fostering good transitions from unemployment to work. Such an issue implies that besides job finding rates, qualitative variables related to work have to be included as well. The evaluation is based on a comprehensive transversal dataset of Danes who ended an activation program in the year 2002, merged with individual characteristics and yearly information related to their labour market status until 2004. To control for unobserved heterogeneity treatment-effects models have been applied. As regards transitions to work and labour market integration, main results show fairly large positive effects for private sector employment programs. It is worthwhile to be aware that job opportunities for private sector employment participants are highly dependent on the business cycle. Besides, the "creaming effects" minimize the positive impact of this type of programs as unemployed with longer work experience benefit the most from the private sector. Smaller positive impacts are found for labour market training and intensive job seeking, whereas negative coefficients are assigned to public sector employment programs. Long-term effects on wages are the most positive for those who involved into labour market training. |
| Keywords: | Active labour market policies, treatment-effects models, individual trajectories, Denmark. |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00654181&r=lab |
| By: | Constant, Amelie F. (DIW DC, George Washington University); Otterbach, Steffen (University of Hohenheim) |
| Abstract: | If individuals reveal their preference as consumers, then they are taken seriously. What happens if individuals, as employees, reveal their preferences in working hours? And what happens if there is a misalignment between actual hours worked and preferred hours, the so-called work hours constraints? How does this affect the productivity of workers, their health, and overall life satisfaction? Labor supply and corresponding demand are fundamental to production. Labor economists know for long that the fit of a worker in a job and the matching of skills to the assigned employment are of paramount importance; they guarantee high productivity, quality output, and individual happiness. Employees demand higher social awareness and a working environment where they feel useful and happy. The evidence shows that discrepancies between preferred hours of work and actual hours of work can have serious detrimental effects on workers, perverse effects on labor supply with unintended direct ramifications on the labor market and indirect implications on the goods and services markets. The sooner employers acknowledge and address working hours constraints the faster we can build work lives that make us better off. |
| Keywords: | labor market, work time, work hours constraints, health, happiness, satisfaction |
| JEL: | I10 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izapps:pp35&r=lab |
| By: | Nicolas Sanz (CEREGMIA, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane); Sonia Schwartz (CAE, Université Paul Cézanne) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates if pollution permit markets are harmful for employment within a Wage Setting-Price Setting (WS-PS) model. The employment level is determined according to several financing unemployment benefits: a wage tax or the revenue of the pollution permit auction. We first show that a permit market weakens the union market power. Whatever the way that unemployment benefits are financed, the choice of the pollution cap is always neutral on the employment levels, and these latter always increase if the technology to reduce pollution become more efficient. Depending on the value of the wage tax, the employment level can be higher or lower when unemployment benefits are financed by pollution permits rather than a wage tax. |
| Keywords: | monopolistic competition, equilibrium employment, pollution permit market, unemployment benefits |
| JEL: | E24 J50 L13 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crg:wpaper:dt2011-04&r=lab |
| By: | Pompermaier, Alberto |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a model of labour supply determination under job competition. In the presence of a positive rate of unemployment and increasing returns to labour, the level of labour supply chosen by each individual lies above the one that, at the offered wage, maximises utility. There is a unique strictly positive degree of job competition that is consistent with the optimal allocation. If labour supply is upward-sloping, increasing job competition raises the equilibrium level of activity and, when job competition causes production to exceed its optimal level, reducing output market competition leads to a welfare improvement. |
| Keywords: | labour supply; job competition; welfare; product market competition |
| JEL: | J22 D60 D43 |
| Date: | 2011–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35410&r=lab |
| By: | Marie Olivier; Vall Castello Judit (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the employment effect of a law that provides for a 36 percent increase in thegenerosity of disability insurance (DI) for claimants who are, as a result of their lack of skillsand of the labour market conditions they face, deemed unlikely to find a job. The selectionprocess for treatment is therefore conditional on having a low probability of employment, makingevaluation of its effect intrinsically difficult. We exploit the fact that the benefit increase isonly available to individuals aged 55 or older, estimating its impact using a regressiondiscontinuity approach. Our first results indicate a large drop in employment for disabledindividuals who receive the increase in the benefit. Testing for the linearity of covariatesaround the eligibility age threshold reveals that the age at which individuals start claiming DIis not continuous: the benefit increase appears to accelerate the entry rate of individuals aged55 or over. We obtain new estimates excluding this group of claimants, and find that the policydecreases the employment probability by 8 percent. We conclude that the observed DI generosityelasticity of 0.22 on labour market participation is mostly due to income effects since benefitreceipt is not work contingent in the system studied. |
| Keywords: | labour organization; |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2011050&r=lab |
| By: | Hazans, Mihails |
| Abstract: | The European Social Survey data are used to analyze informal employment in 30 countries, focusing on employees without contracts and on informal self-employed workers (who are distinguished from formal workers). Overall the size of informal employment decreases from South to West to East to North. However, working without a contract is more prevalent in Eastern Europe than in the West, except for Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Austria. Between 2004 and 2009, no cases were found when unemployment and dependent informality rates in a country went up together, suggesting that working without a contract is pro-cyclical in Europe. The dependent informality rate is inversely related to skills (measured by either schooling or occupation). Both in Southern and in Western Europe, the highest dependent informality rate is found among immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, while in Eastern Europe this group is second after minorities without immigrant background. In the Southern and part of Western Europe, immigrants not covered by European Union free mobility provisions are much more likely to work without a contract than otherwise similar natives. The paper provides evidence that exclusion and discrimination plays an important role in pushing employees into informality, while this seems not to be the case for informal self-employed workers. Both on average and after controlling for a rich set of individual characteristics, informal employees in all parts of Europe are having the largest financial difficulties among all categories of the employed population (yet they fare much better than the unemployed and discouraged), while informal self-employed workers are at least as well off as formal employees. Finally, there is a negative and significant effect of individual-level satisfaction with the national government on the propensity to work without a contract in Eastern Europe, as well as in Western Europe. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Work&Working Conditions,Labor Policies,Labor Management and Relations,Tertiary Education |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5912&r=lab |
| By: | Ural Marchand, Beyza (University of Alberta, Department of Economics); Rees, Ray (University of Munich); Riezman, Raymond (University of Iowa) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effect of changes in maternal and paternal labor supply on the schooling rates of children in India using the variation in trade tariffs across a period of liberalization. The results suggest that increases in maternal labor supply raise the schooling probability of younger children by seven percentage points. This accounts for one fourth of the overall improvement in schooling rates among this age group. The effect for older children is found to be insignificant, and increases in paternal labor supply are found to have no effect on schooling rates. The results found through instrumentation were an order of magnitude higher than the ordinary effects based on correlation between parental labor supply and child schooling. In addition, a set of instruments based on the gender composition of children was used to test whether the selection of fertility levels is a driving factor. While the effect of the number of children on schooling is significant, it does not alter the coefficient of either parent’s labor supply. |
| Keywords: | child schooling; labor supply; trade liberalization; India |
| JEL: | D13 J13 O12 O19 |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:2011_021&r=lab |
| By: | Jósef Sigurdsson |
| Abstract: | This paper studies business cycle dynamics in the Icelandic labour market with the focus on two separate but related dimensions. First, which margin for adjustment of labour input, the extensive margin or the intensive margin, accounts for more variation in total working hours? It finds that both margins are important. Variation in employment accounts for 56% of the overall variation in total hours while variation in hours per worker contributes 44% to variation in total hours. Second, which of the two unemployment transition rates, the separation rate or the job-finding rate, drives the observed fluctuations in unemployment, and how do these transition rates move over the business cycle? The results show that fluctuations in the separation rate explain 70% of the total variation in the unemployment rate. Both transition rates are highly cyclical. The procyclical job finding rate moves roughly contemporaneously with the cycle, while the countercyclical separation rate is found to lead the cycle. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ice:wpaper:wp56&r=lab |
| By: | Abdurrahman Aydemir (Sabanci University); Murat G. Kirdar (Middle East Technical University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the employment effects of an increase in labor supply using the politically-driven exodus of ethnic Turks from Bulgaria into Turkey in 1989. The strong involvement of the Turkish state in the settlement of earlier waves of repatriates provides us a strong source of exogenous variation in the 1989 immigrant shock across locations. Using a potential sample of 613 cities and towns in Turkey with variable treatment intensity - in some locations the change in the labor force is almost 10 percent - this analysis places much attention on constructing a matched sample that is well balanced in terms of covariate distributions of the treatment and comparison groups, including matching based on an estimated propensity score. We find a positive effect of repatriates on the unemployment of non-repatriates. In fact, in certain regions, a 10-percentage-point increase in the share of repatriates in the labor force increases the unemployment rate of natives by 4 percentage points. When the analysis is done according to skill groups, we find that the impact is the strongest on the young and on non-repatriates with similar educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Labor Force and Employment, Immigrant Workers, Quasi experiments |
| JEL: | J21 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1123&r=lab |
| By: | David Card; Ana Rute Cardoso |
| Abstract: | Although military conscription was widespread during most of the past century, credible evidence on the effects of mandatory service is limited. We provide new evidence on the long-term effects of peacetime conscription, using longitudinal data for Portuguese men born in 1967. These men were inducted at a relatively late age (21), allowing us to use pre-conscription wages to control for ability differences between conscripts and non-conscripts. We find that the average impact of military service for men who were working prior to age 21 is close to zero throughout the period from 2 to 20 years after their service. These small average effects arise from a significant 4-5 percentage point impact for men with only primary education, coupled with a zero-effect for men with higher education. The positive impacts for less-educated men suggest that mandatory service can be a valuable experience for those who might otherwise spend their careers in low-level jobs. |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17694&r=lab |
| By: | Schneck, Stefan |
| Abstract: | This paper uses unique German data to examine the effects of the relative standing on the individual propensity to become self-employed in the next two years. The results suggest that the relationship between relative wage positions and propensity to become self-employed is U-shaped. This is interpreted as evidence that low status translates into entrepreneurial motivation for workers in low relative wage positions. Employees with high relative standing, in turn, seem to be more concerned about the lack of future career prospects in paid employment and consider self-employment as a next step on the individual career ladder. |
| Keywords: | Relative wage position, status, self-employment |
| JEL: | L26 L29 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-486&r=lab |
| By: | J. Ignacio García-Pérez (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide); Marisa Hidalgo-Hidalgo (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide); J. Antonio Robles-Zurita (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide) |
| Abstract: | Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students’ achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a grade are likely to be determined simultaneously. We address this problem by estimating a Switching Regression Model. We find that grade retention has a negative impact on educational outcomes, but we confirm the importance of endogenous selection, which makes observed differences between repeaters and non-repeaters appear 14.6% lower than they actually are. The effect on PISA scores of repeating is much smaller (-10% of non-repeaters’ average) than the counterfactual reduction that non-repeaters would suffer had they been retained as repeaters (-24% of their average). Furthermore, those who repeated a grade during primary education suffered more than those who repeated a grade of secondary school, although the effect of repeating at both times is, as expected, much larger. |
| Keywords: | Grade retention, educational scores, PISA |
| JEL: | D63 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:11.09&r=lab |
| By: | Aydemir, Abdurrahman; Kirdar, Murat G. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the employment effects of an increase in labor supply using the politically-driven exodus of ethnic Turks from Bulgaria into Turkey in 1989. The strong involvement of the Turkish state in the settlement of earlier waves of repatriates provides us a strong source of exogenous variation in the 1989 immigrant shock across locations. Using a potential sample of 613 cities and towns in Turkey with variable treatment intensity—in some locations the change in the labor force is almost 10 percent—this analysis places much attention on constructing a matched sample that is well balanced in terms of covariate distributions of the treatment and comparison groups, including matching based on an estimated propensity score. We find a positive effect of repatriates on the unemployment of non-repatriates. In fact, in certain regions, a 10-percentage-point increase in the share of repatriates in the labor force increases the unemployment rate of natives by 4 percentage points. When the analysis is done according to skill groups, we find that the impact is the strongest on the young and on non-repatriates with similar educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Labor Force and Employment; Immigrant Workers; Quasi experiments |
| JEL: | J21 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35423&r=lab |
| By: | Lundborg, Petter (Lunds University); Nilsson, Martin (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Vikström, Johan (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we estimate socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of unexpected health shocks on labor market outcomes, using register-based data on the entire population of Swedish workers. We effectively exploit a Difference-in-Difference-in-Differences design, in which we compare the change in labor earnings across treated and control groups with high and low education levels. If the anticipation effects are similar for individuals with high and low education, any difference in the estimates across socioeconomic groups could plausibly be given a causal interpretation. Our results suggest a large amount of heterogeneity in the effects, in which individuals with a low education level suer relatively more from a given health shock. These results hold across a wide range of different types of health shocks and become more pronounced with age. Our results suggest that socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of health shocks offers one explanation for how the socioeconomic gradient in health arises. |
| Keywords: | Health; Health Shocks; Socioeconomic Status; Life-cycle |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I14 |
| Date: | 2011–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_019&r=lab |
| By: | Christian Dustmann (UCL and CReAM); Ian Preston (UCL and CReAM) |
| Abstract: | We discuss approaches to estimating the effect that immigration has on wages of native workers which assume a three-level CES model, where immigrants and natives are allowed to be imperfect substitutes within an age-education cell, and predict the wage impact based on estimates of the elasticities of substitution at each level. We argue that this approach is sensitive to immigrants downgrading at arrival, and we illustrate the possible bias in estimating the elasticity of substitution between immigrants and natives. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2011026&r=lab |
| By: | Dhuey, Elizabeth; Smith, Justin |
| Abstract: | As school leaders, principals can influence student achievement in a number of ways, such as: hiring and firing teachers, monitoring instruction, and maintaining student discipline, among others. We measure the effect of individual principals on gains in student math and reading achievement between grades four and seven. We estimate that a one standard deviation improvement in principal quality can boost student performance by approximately 0.2 standard deviations in both math and reading. We also show that principal experience does not exert a significant influence on student performance. Our results imply that isolating the most effective principals and allocating them accordingly between schools can have a significant positive effect on reducing achievement gaps. |
| Keywords: | Economics of education, principals, education |
| JEL: | I20 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-33&r=lab |
| By: | Stefan Boeters (CPB, Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Luc Savard (Département d’économique and GRÉDI, Université de Sherbrooke) |
| Abstract: | This chapter reviews options of labour market modelling in a CGE framework. On the labour supply side, two principal modelling options are distinguished and discussed: aggregated, representative households and microsimulation based on individual household data. On the labour demand side, we focus on the substitution possibilities between different types of labour in production. With respect to labour market coordination, we discuss several wage-forming mechanisms and involuntary unemployment. |
| Keywords: | computable general equilibrium model, labour market, labour supply, labour demand, microsimulation, involuntary unemployment |
| JEL: | C68 D58 J20 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shr:wpaper:11-20&r=lab |
| By: | Michael W.L. Elsby; Bart Hobijn; Aysegul Sahin; Robert G. Valletta |
| Abstract: | Since the end of the Great Recession in mid-2009, the unemployment rate has recovered slowly, falling by only one percentage point from its peak. We find that the lackluster labor market recovery can be traced in large part to weakness in aggregate demand; only a small part seems attributable to increases in labor market frictions. This continued labor market weakness has led to the highest level of long-term unemployment in the U.S. in the postwar period, and a blurring of the distinction between unemployment and nonparticipation. We show that flows from nonparticipation to unemployment are important for understanding the recent evolution of the duration distribution of unemployment. Simulations that account for these flows suggest that the U.S. labor market is unlikely to be subject to high levels of structural long-term unemployment after aggregate demand recovers. ; Powerpoint supplement available at http://www.frbsf.org/economics/economist s/wp11-29bk_supplement.pdf |
| Keywords: | Labor market ; Recessions |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2011-29&r=lab |
| By: | Carlsson, Mikael (Research Department, Sveriges Riksbank); Messin, Julián (Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean,); Nordström Skans, Oskar (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies) |
| Abstract: | We study how workers’ wages respond to TFP-driven innovations in firms’labor productivity. Using unique data with highly reliable firm-level output prices and quantities in the manufacturing sector in Sweden, we are able to derive measures of physical (as opposed to revenue) TFP to instrument labor productivity in the wage equations. We find that the reaction of wages to sectoral labor productivity is almost three times larger than the response to pure idiosyncratic (firm-level) shocks, a result which crucially hinges on the use of physical TFP as an instrument. These results are all robust to a number of empirical specifications, including models accounting for selection on both the demand and supply side through worker-firm (match) fixed effects. Further results suggest that technological progress at the firm level has negligible effects on the firm-level composition of employees. |
| Keywords: | Matched employer-employee data; sorting; wage; labor productivity; TFP |
| JEL: | J23 J31 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_014&r=lab |
| By: | Grönqvist, Hans (Stockholm University); Hall, Caroline (Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies effects of education policy on early fertility. We study a major educational reform in Sweden in which vocational tracks in upper secondary school were prolonged from two to three years and the curricula were made more academic. Our identification strategy takes advantage of cross-regional and cross-time variation in the implementation of a pilot scheme preceding the reform in which several municipalities evaluated the new policy. The empirical analysis draws on rich population micro data. We find that women who enrolled in the new program were significantly less likely to give birth early in life and that this effect is driven by women with higher opportunity costs of child rearing. There is however no statistically significant effect on men’s fertility decisions. Our results suggest that the social benefits of changes in education policy may extend beyond those usually claimed. |
| Keywords: | Schooling reform; teenage childbearing; fertility |
| JEL: | I20 J13 |
| Date: | 2011–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2011_024&r=lab |
| By: | Nilsen, Øivind Anti (Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)); Reiso, Katrine Holm (Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)) |
| Abstract: | Using Norwegian individual register data of young workers, from the period 1986-2008, we analyse whether there are large and persistent negative relationships between unemployment and the risk of repeated unemployment and being out of labour force. A nearest-neighbour propensity score matching method is applied to make the treatment group (the unemployed) and the control group (the employed) as similar as possible. By tracking workers over a 10-year follow-up period, we find that unemployment has a negative effect on later labour market attachment. This is consistent with existing findings in the literature. The negative effects decrease over time. Using the bounding approach proposed by Rosenbaum (2002) to analyse the importance of unobserved variables, our results indicate that a relatively high level of unobserved selection bias could be present in the data before changing the inference. Thus, unemployment leaves young workers with long-term scars. |
| Keywords: | unemployment persistency, scarring, matching technique |
| JEL: | J64 J65 C23 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6198&r=lab |
| By: | Raffaela Giordano (Banca d’Italia, Via Nazionale 91, 00184 Roma, Italy.); Domenico Depalo (Banca d’Italia, Via Nazionale 91, 00184 Roma, Italy.); Manuel Coutinho Pereira (Banco de Portugal, R. Francisco Ribeiro 2, 1150-165 Lisboa, Portugal.); Bruno Eugène (Banque Nationale de Belgique, de Berlaimontlaan 14, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.); Evangelia Papapetrou (Bank of Greece, 21 E. Venizelos Avenue, 102 50 Athens, Greece.); Javier J. Perez (Banco de España, Calle Alcalá, 48, 28014 Madrid, Spain.); Lukas Reiss (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Otto-Wagner-Platz 3, 1090 Vienna, Austria.); Mojca Roter (Banka Slovenije, Slovenska 35, 1505 Ljubljana, Slovenija.) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the public-private wage differentials in ten euro area countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain). To account for differences in employment characteristics between the two sectors, we focus on micro data taken from EU-SILC. The results point to a conditional pay differential in favour of the public sector that is generally higher for women, at the low tail of the wage distribution, in the Education and the Public administration sectors rather than in the Health sector. Notable differences emerge across countries, with Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain exhibiting higher public sector premia than other countries. JEL Classification: J310, J450, O520. |
| Keywords: | Wage differentials, public/private sector. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20111406&r=lab |
| By: | Hallberg, Daniel (Institute for Futures Studies); Lindh, Thomas (Institute for Futures Studies); Žamac, Jovan (Institute for Futures Studies) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we explore the composition of students, the study length towards diploma, and examine the likelihood of diploma, all with respect to parenthood. Few get children while enrolled in higher education, nevertheless one fourth of female university students in Sweden has children. In Sweden as in many other countries enrollment periods have been prolonged and allocated to later parts of life. Using a large longitudinal register micro data set containing educational achievement we find that students with children seem to be somewhat more efficient in their studies among those who have graduated. Becoming parent speeds up ongoing studies but not studies that are initiated after entry into parenthood. We also find an indication that students with children have a lower dropout rate since their probability to register a diploma is higher, compared to students without children. |
| Keywords: | Students; parenthood; education; study interruption |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–12–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifswps:2011_012&r=lab |
| By: | Massimiliano Bratti (University of Milan); Mariapia Mendola (University of Milan Bicocca and Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano) |
| Abstract: | Evidence on the role of parental health on child schooling is surprisingly thin. We explore this issue by estimating the short-run effects of parents\' illness on child school enrollment. Our analysis is based on household panel data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country whose health and educational systems underwent extensive destruction during the 1992-1995 war. Using child fixed effects to correct for potential endogeneity bias, we find that — contrary to the common wisdom that shocks to the primary household earner should have more negative consequences for child education — it is especially maternal health that makes a difference as far as child schooling is concerned. Children whose mothers self-reported having poor health are about 7 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in education at ages 15-24. These results are robust to considering alternative indicators of parental health status such as the presence of limitations in the activities of daily living and depres-sion symptoms. Moreover, we find that mothers\' health shocks have more negative consequences on younger children and sons. |
| Keywords: | Bosnia and Herzegovina, children, education, parents, school, self-reported |
| JEL: | I21 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:318&r=lab |
| By: | Hallberg, Daniel (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Lindh, Thomas (Institute for Futures Studies and Linnaeus University.); Zamac, Jovan (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we explore the composition of students, the study length towards diploma, and examine the likelihood of diploma, all with respect to parenthood. Few get children while enrolled in higher education, nevertheless one fourth of female university students in Sweden has children. In Sweden as in many other countries enrollment periods have been prolonged and allocated to later parts of life. Using a large longitudinal register micro data set containing educational achievement we find that students with children seem to be somewhat more efficient in their studies among those who have graduated. Becoming parent speeds up ongoing studies but not studies that are initiated after entry into parenthood. We also find an indication that students with children have a lower dropout rate since their probability to register a diploma is higher, compared to students without children. |
| Keywords: | Students; parenthood; education; study interruption |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_016&r=lab |
| By: | Chiappori, Pierre-André (Columbia University); Oreffice, Sonia (Universidad de Alicante); Quintana-Domeque, Climent (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the interaction of race with physical and socioeconomic characteristics in the U.S. marriage market, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1999 to 2009 for black, white, and inter-racial couples. We consider the anthropometric characteristics of both spouses, together with their wage and education, and estimate who inter-racially marries whom along these dimensions. Distinctive patterns arise by gender and race for inter-married individuals: the black women who inter-marry are the thinner and more educated in their group; instead, white women are the fatter and less educated; black or white men who inter-marry are poorer and thinner. While women in "mixed" couples find a spouse who is poorer but thinner than if they intra-married, black men match with a white woman who is more educated than if they intra-married, and a white man finds a thinner spouse in a black woman. |
| Keywords: | interracial couples, marriage market, BMI, wages, education |
| JEL: | D1 J1 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6196&r=lab |
| By: | Menon, Nidhiya (Brandeis University); van der Meulen Rodgers, Yana (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women’s decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, we employ a difference-in-difference approach to identify the impact of war on women’s employment decisions. Results indicate that as a result of the Maoist-led insurgency, women’s employment probabilities were substantially higher in 2001 and 2006 relative to the outbreak of war in 1996. These employment results also hold for self-employment decisions, and they hold for smaller sub-samples that condition on husband’s migration status and women’s status as widows or household heads. Numerous robustness checks of the main results provide compelling evidence that women’s likelihood of employment increased as a consequence of the conflict. |
| Keywords: | conflict, women’s employment, added worker effect, geography, Nepal |
| JEL: | J21 O12 D74 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6209&r=lab |
| By: | Janice Compton; Robert A. Pollak |
| Abstract: | We show that close geographical proximity to mothers or mothers-in-law has a substantial positive effect on the labor supply of married women with young children. We argue that the mechanism through which proximity increases labor supply is the availability of childcare. We interpret availability broadly enough to include not only regular scheduled childcare during work hours but also an insurance aspect of proximity (e.g., a mother or mother-in-law who can provide irregular or unanticipated childcare). Using two large datasets, the National Survey of Families and Households and the public use files of the U.S. Census, we find that the predicted probability of employment and labor force participation is 4-10 percentage points higher for married women with young children living in close proximity to their mothers or their mothers-in-law compared with those living further away. |
| JEL: | J13 J20 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17678&r=lab |
| By: | Fouarge Didier; Grip Andries de; Smits Wendy; Vries Robert de (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | As suggested by human capital theory, workers with flexible contracts participate less often intraining than those with permanent contracts. We find that this is merely due to the fact thatflexworkers receive less employer–funded training, a gap they can only partly compensate for bytheir own training investments. Flexworkers particularly participate less in firm–specifictraining that is meant to keep up with new skill demands than workers with permanent contracts.However, for those who participate in employer–funded firm–specific training, a temporary contractappears to facilitate the transition to a permanent contract with the same employer. However, thisdoes not hold for participation in self–paid training. This training, which is usually generaltraining, does not help in finding a better job. |
| Keywords: | labour economics ; |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2011051&r=lab |
| By: | Avdic, Daniel (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Gartell, Marie (Institute for Futures Studies) |
| Abstract: | In 2001, the Swedish system of student aid for college students was substantially re-formed; the grant-share of the total aid was increased, students were allowed to earn more without a reduction in student aid, and the repayment schedule of the loans was significantly tightened. In this paper, we examine the effects of the reform on individual study efficiency, measured as the number of credit points achieved each semester. We use all program students with a first registration at a Swedish college between 1995 and 2001(before the reform) and estimate a linear regression model including individual fixed effects. There is a slightly positive and significant effect of the reform on the ag-gregate level. However, dividing the sample conditionally on the parental educational level reveals that the individual study efficiency has increased only for students from a strong academic background. In other words, the relative study efficiency has decreased for students from a weak academic background. The different results between students from different parental backgrounds appear to be related to the reallocation of time be-tween work and studies. |
| Keywords: | study efficiency; time-to-graduation; university education; student aid |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2011–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_015&r=lab |
| By: | Inés Macho-Stadler (Department of Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); David Pérez-Castrillo (Department of Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Nicolás Porteiro (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide) |
| Abstract: | We consider a market where firms hire workers to run their projects and such projects differ in profitability. At any period, each firm needs two workers to successfully run its project: a junior agent, with no specific skills, and a senior worker, whose effort is not verifiable. Senior workers differ in ability and their competence is revealed after they have worked as juniors in the market. We study the length of the contractual relationships between firms and workers in an environment where the matching between firms and workers is the result of market interaction. We show that, despite in a one-firm-one-worker set-up long-term contracts are the optimal choice for firms, market forces often induce firms to use short-term contracts. Unless the market only consists of firms with very profitable projects, firms operating highly profitable projects offer short-term contracts to ensure the service of high-ability workers and those with less lucrative projects also use short-term contracts to save on the junior workers' wage. Intermediate firms may (or may not) hire workers through long-term contracts. |
| Keywords: | Labor contracts, short-term, long-term, matching, incentives. |
| JEL: | D86 C78 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:11.08&r=lab |
| By: | A. Tampieri |
| Abstract: | In this paper I analyse grade inflation when students differ both in ability and social background. I consider a signalling game where a school may inflate the grade of low-ability students and a company decides whether ot hiring or not the students, and observes their grades. In the one-shot (repeated) version of the game, the company is aware (unaware) of the school strategy and the distribution of ability. The results suggest that a school can inflate grades in order to smooth down class differences in the job market. The results in the repeated game can explain how string-pulling can emerge as a job hiring strategy in the presence of grade inflation and school low reputation. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp801&r=lab |
| By: | Egger, Hartmut; Egger, Peter; Kreickemeier, Udo |
| Abstract: | This paper formulates a structural empirical model of heterogeneous firms whose workers exhibit fair-wage preferences. In the underlying theoretical framework, such preferences lead to a link between a firm's operating profits on the one hand and wages of workers employed by this firm on the other hand. The latter establishes an exporter wage premium, since exporters have higher profits, given their productivity, than non-exporting firms. We estimate the parameters of the model in a data-set of five European economies and find that, when evaluated at these parameter values, the model has a high level of explanatory power. The estimates also enable us to quantify the exporter wage premium and the consequences of trade for the main variables of interest. According to our results, openness to international trade contributes to greater inequality across firms in terms of both operating profits and average wages. We also find evidence for gains from trade for all five countries, which go along with negative, but quantitatively moderate, aggregate employment effects. |
| Keywords: | Exporter wage premium; Fair wages; Heterogeneous firms; Labour market imperfections; Structural models |
| JEL: | C31 F12 F16 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8727&r=lab |
| By: | Basile, Roberto (University of Naples II); Girardi, Alessandro (ISTAT, Rome); Mantuano, Marianna (ISTAT, Rome); Pastore, Francesco (University of Naples II) |
| Abstract: | Using Local Labour Systems (LLSs) data, this work aims at assessing the effects of sectoral shifts and industry specialization patterns on regional unemployment in Italy over the years 2004-2008, when huge worker reallocation caused by changes in the international division of labour occurred. Italy represents an interesting case study because of the high degree of spatial heterogeneity in local labour market performance and the well-known North-South divide. Furthermore, the presence of strongly specialized LLSs (Industrial Districts, IDs) allows us to test whether IDs perform better than highly diversified urban areas thanks to the effect of agglomeration economies, or vice versa. Building on a semiparametric spatial auto-regressive framework, our empirical investigation documents that sectoral shifts and the degree of specialization exert a negative role on unemployment dynamics. By contrast, highly diversified areas turn out to be characterized by better labour market performances. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, sectoral shift, diversification, spatial dependence, nonparametrics |
| JEL: | C14 C21 L16 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6197&r=lab |
| By: | Eriksson, Stefan (Department of Economics); Stadin, Karolina (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of hiring. We use the search-matching model with imperfect competition in the product market from Carlsson, Eriksson and Gottfries (2011) to derive an equation for total hiring in a local labor market, and estimate it on Swedish panel data. When product markets are imperfectly competitive, product demand shocks have a direct effect on employment. Our results show that product demand is important for hiring. Moreover, we show that conventional measures of vacancies do not fully capture the effect of product demand on hiring. Finally, we show that the number of unemployed workers has a positive effect on hiring as predicted by search-matching models. |
| Keywords: | Hiring; Search-matching; Imperfect Competition; Unemployment |
| JEL: | E24 J23 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2011_019&r=lab |
| By: | Dorothée Boccanfuso (Département d’économique and GRÉDI, Université de Sherbrooke); Luc Savard (Département d’économique and GRÉDI, Université de Sherbrooke) |
| Abstract: | Labour market analysis is an important element to understand the inequality and poverty within a given population. The literature reveals that the informal sector is characterised by a great deal of flexibility and exempt from formal market rigidities but on the other hand, this sector can constitute a trap from which it is difficult to exit for workers active in the sector with low wages. In this paper we aim to identify the main characteristics differentiating the labor supply of workers on the informal and formal market in the Philippines while estimating these two labor supplies, capturing discrete choice or changes in employment status. We use these estimates to construct a labor supply model that can serve as an input for a broader macro-microsimulation model applied to the Philippines. The results of the estimation provide relatively intuitive findings, highlighting some differences between the two markets. We also contribute to shedding some light into this macro-microsimulation modelling framework that is generally opaque in describing how to construct a microsimulation model with endogenous discrete choice model linked to a CGE model. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, informal sector, microsimulation, discrete choice model, Philippines |
| JEL: | C35 O53 J24 C81 O17 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shr:wpaper:11-19&r=lab |
| By: | Fort, Margherita (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy); Schneeweis, Nicole (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria); Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, and Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria) |
| 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: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:281&r=lab |
| By: | Grönqvist, Hans (Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University); Hall, Caroline (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies effects of education policy on early fertility. We study a major edu-cational reform in Sweden in which vocational tracks in upper secondary school were prolonged from two to three years and the curricula were made more academic. Our identification strategy takes advantage of cross-regional and cross-time variation in the implementation of a pilot scheme preceding the reform in which several municipalities evaluated the new policy. The empirical analysis draws on rich population micro data. We find that women who enrolled in the new program were significantly less likely to give birth early in life and that this effect is driven by women with higher opportunity costs of child rearing. There is however no statistically significant effect on mens ferti-lity decisions. Our results suggest that the social benefits of changes in education policy may extend beyond those usually claimed. |
| Keywords: | Schooling reform; teenage childbearing; fertility |
| JEL: | I20 J13 |
| Date: | 2011–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_020&r=lab |
| By: | Sean Dougherty; Verónica C. Frisancho Robles; Kala Krishna |
| Abstract: | Using plant-level data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for the fiscal years from 1998-99 through 2007-08, this study provides plant-level cross-state/time-series evidence of the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on total factor productivity (TFP) and labor productivity in India. Identification of the effect of EPL follows from a difference-in-differences estimator inspired by Rajan and Zingales (1998) that takes advantage of the state-level variation in labor regulation and heterogeneous industry characteristics. The fundamental identification assumption is that EPL is more likely to restrict firms operating in industries with higher labor intensity and/or higher sales volatility. Our results show that firms in labor intensive or more volatile industries benefited the most from labor reforms in their states. Our point estimates indicate that, on average, firms in labor intensive industries and in flexible labor markets have TFP residuals 14% higher than those registered for their counterparts in states with more stringent labor laws. However, no important differences are identified among plants in industries with low labor intensity when comparing states with high and low levels of EPL reform. Similarly, the TFP of plants in volatile industries and in states that experienced more pro-employer reforms is 11% higher than that of firms in volatile industries and in more restrictive states; however, the TFP residuals of plants in industries with low labor intensity are 11% lower in high EPL reform states than in states with lower levels of EPL reform. In sum, the evidence presented here suggests that the high labor costs and rigidities imposed through Indian federal labor laws are lessened by labor market reforms at the state level. |
| JEL: | D24 F16 J5 J8 K31 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17693&r=lab |
| By: | Julio Davila (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris) |
| Abstract: | If raising and educating children is a private cost to households, while the availability of skilled labor supply resulting from the households' fertility and education choices is a public good, then competitive equilibria typically deliver a suboptimal mix of size and skills of the population. In particular, households would underinvest in their children education compared to the optimal level. This is the case even if households are aware of the increase in savings returns implied by a higher supply of skilled labor and manage to coordinate to try to exploit this effect. This paper shows that a tax-financed compulsory education is unlikely to implement the optimal steady state, even if the mandatory level of education is the optimal one (the system of equations is overdetermined). Nevertheless, a pensions scheme that makes payments contingent to the household fertility and investment in its children's education can implement the first-best steady state. The pension scheme is balanced period by period by financing pensions through a payroll tax on the increase in children's labor income resulting from their parents' human capital investment. |
| Keywords: | Education, population. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00653997&r=lab |
| By: | Wrede, Matthias |
| Abstract: | Employing a standard matching unemployment model extended by within-labor-market-regions commuting, this paper analyzes the tradeoff between commuting costs and unemployment. Depending on whether commuters are able to bargain for fringe benefits, search may or may not be biased towards distant workplaces and less productive centers. As a consequence, unemployment benefits should be tied to search in high productivity regions. Using German county data, the paper tests some positive predictions that emerge from of the model. In particular, it confirms that increasing labor market tightness reduces the willingness to out-commute. -- |
| Keywords: | unemployment,matching,commuting,search,labor market policy |
| JEL: | R12 R13 R14 H22 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwqwdp:122011&r=lab |
| By: | Veronica Amarante; Mery Ferrando; Andrea Vigorito |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyze the impact an emergency social assistance program, PANES, on school attendance and child labour. The program was carried out in Uruguay from April 2005 to December 2007. Specifically, we analyze the effects of the cash transfer component of the plan (Ingreso Ciudadano), and explore potential explanatory channels such as labour market outcomes, income and awareness of conditionalities. This research is based on a panel of successful and unsuccessful applicants to PANES. The first wave uses the administrative records of the program and the second wave is a follow-up survey that was gathered two months after the program ended and was specifically designed to carry out the impact evaluation of the program. In order to check the robustness of our results, we provide evidence based on two different identification strategies: a regression discontinuity approach using data from the second wave of the panel, and a difference-in-difference approach that exploits the longitudinal nature of the collected data. Our results indicate that the program did not affect school attendance or child labour, whether children are considered as one group or are disaggregated by age or sex. We also do not find any impact on household income, which suggests that income substitution does not explain the lack of results in terms of schooling. It therefore appears that either the size of the transfer was not generous enough to promote school attendance or that the determinants of child school attendance are more complex and require complementary interventions. Our results are particularly relevant for understanding of the role of cash transfers in middle-income countries where attendance rates at primary school are already high, and where the main challenge is to keep students in school at the secondary level. The data also allows us to explore the role of conditionalities. Only a small share of households was aware of the school enrolment condition (20%). Conditionalities were announced and are present in other social security programs in Uruguay, but were ultimately not monitored in this case. We did not find the conditionality to have any robust impact (as perceived by the household) on children’s school enrolment. |
| Keywords: | Cash transfer program; Impact evaluation; School attendance, Child labour, Uruguay |
| JEL: | I38 J13 I21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2011-22&r=lab |
| By: | Hazans, Mihails |
| Abstract: | This paper looks into institutional and other macro determinants of prevalence of informal dependent employment, as well as informal self-employment, in European countries, using European Social Survey data on work without legal contract in on 30 countries, covering years 2004-2009. Consistently with theoretical predictions, quality of business environment has a significant negative impact on prevalence of both types of informal employment. The share of non-contracted employees is negatively affected by perceived quality of public services and positively related to economic growth. Informal self-employment is positively related to growth in Europe at large, as well as in Eastern and Southern Europe. The level of GDP per capita also has a positive impact on the prevalence of informal employment in Europe at large and within Eastern and Southern Europe, whilst an opposite effect is found in Western and Northern Europe. Other things equal, the share of non-contracted employees in the labor force across European countries increases with the minimum-to-average wage ratio, with union density, with the share of first and second generation immigrants, and with income inequality, but falls with stricter employment protection legislation (EPL) and higher tax wedge on labor. Thus it appears that in Europe at large, labor cost effects of EPL and taxes are weaker than their impact via perceptions of job security and law enforcement, along with tax morale and the income effect. Yet the EPL effect on informality is positive (i.e., cost-related) when either Eastern and Southern Europe or Western and Northern Europe are considered separately. Furthermore, within Western and Northern Europe, the minimum wage effect is negative, whilst within Eastern and Southern Europe, the union effect is negative; in both cases, we offer a supply side explanation. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Debt Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5917&r=lab |
| By: | Grip Andries de; Sauermann Jan; Sieben Inge (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we estimate tenure-performance proles using unique panel data that containdetailed information on individual workers'' performance. We find that a 10 per cent increase intenure leads to an increase in performance of 5.5 per cent of a standard deviation. Thistranslates to an average performance increase of about 75 per cent within the first year of theemployment relationship. Furthermore, we show that there are peer effects in learning on-the-job:Workers placed in teams with more experienced and thus more productive peers performsignificantly better than those placed in teams with less experienced peers. An increase in theaverage team tenure by one standard deviation leads to an increase of 11 to 14 per cent of astandard deviation in performance. |
| Keywords: | labour economics ; |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2011052&r=lab |
| By: | Braga, Michela (University of Milan); Checchi, Daniele (University of Milan); Meschi, Elena (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse the effects of changes in the institutional design of the educational system on school attainment. In particular, we test whether alternative reforms have increased the average educational attainment of the population and whether various deciles of the education distribution have been differentially affected. We constructed a dataset of relevant reforms occurred at the national level over the last century, and match individual information to the most likely set-up faced when individual educational choices were undertaken. Thus our identification strategy relies on temporal and geographical variations in the institutional arrangements, controlling for time/country fixed effects, as well as for confounding factors. We also explore who are the individual most likely affected by the reforms. We also group different reforms in order to ascertain the prevailing attitudes of policy makers, showing that reforms can belong to either "inclusive" or "selective" in their nature. Finally we correlate these attitudes to political coalitions prevailing in parliament, finding support to the idea that left wing parties support reforms that are inclusive in nature, while right wing parties prefer selective ones. |
| Keywords: | education, institutions, reform, family background |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6190&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Sampson |
| Abstract: | Understanding the allocation of skilled labor across industries is necessary to explain inter-industry wage differences and the effect of trade on wages. This paper develops a multi-sector assignment model with both heterogeneous labor and a non-labor input in which high skill agents match with high input productivity sectors where they can best leverage their talent. When the ranking of sectors by input productivity differs across countries, their ranking by workforce skill also differs - this is an assignment reversal. In a two sector, two country model the existence of an assignment reversal implies that each country has a comparative advantage in its high skill sector. Consequently, trade integration causes both the relative wage of high skill workers, and wage inequality within the high skill sector, to increase in both countries. Using exogenous differences in capital productivity induced by a country's proximity to major capital exporters the paper shows that international variation in the industry wage structure supports the existence of assignment reversals and is consistent with the model's sorting predictions. |
| Keywords: | skilled labor, productivity, workforce, wage inequality, skill intensity reversal |
| JEL: | J30 L60 O30 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1105&r=lab |
| By: | Brösamle, Klaus J (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany); Nordström Skans, Oskar (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the relationship between career path characteristics of civil servants and their career success. Following a description of the institutional setting and some qualitative evidence on typical paths to the top, we use data that follows the careers of all Swedish civil servants for up to 24 years to document a clear link between early mobility and later success. Controlling for a wide range of other factors, incidents of inter-organizational mobility within the administration, but also interchanges between the administrative and other sectors are positively associated with becoming a senior government ocial. We also show that the positive association between mobility and future success is smaller for more educated workers, which is consistent with signalling effects driving the link between mobility and career success. |
| Keywords: | public sector employment; job mobility; internal labour markets; signalling; promotions; Swedish civil service |
| JEL: | J45 J62 M51 |
| Date: | 2011–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2011_017&r=lab |
| By: | Gioia De Melo |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on peer effects in educational achievement exploiting for the first time a unique data set on social networks within primary schools in Uruguay. The relevance of peer effects in education is still largely debated due to the identification challenges that the study of social interactions poses. I adopt a recently developed identification method that exploits detailed information on social networks, i.e. individual-specific peer groups. This method enables me to disentangle endogenous effects from contextual effects via instrumental variables that emerge naturally from the network structure. Correlated effects are controlled, to some extent, by classroom fixed effects. I find significant endogenous effects in standardized tests for reading and math. A one standard deviation increase in peers’ test score increases the individual’s test score by 40% of a standard deviation. This magnitude is comparable to the effect of having a mother that completed college. By means of a simulation I illustrate that when schools are stratified by socioeconomic status peer effects may operate as amplifiers of educational inequalities. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 O1 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:627&r=lab |
| By: | Lindahl, Mikael (Department of Economics); Palme, Mårten (Stockholm University); Sandgren Massih, Sofia (Department of Economics); Sjögren, Anna (IFAU) |
| Abstract: | Most previous studies on intergenerational transmission of human capital are restricted to two generations - between the parent and the child generation. In this paper we investigate if there is an independent effect of the grandparent and the great grandparent generations in this process. We use a dataset where we are able to link individual measures of life time earnings for three generation and data on educational attainments of four generations. We first do conventional regressions and transition matrices for life time earnings measures and educational attainments adding variables for the grandparent and great grandparent generations, respectively. We find that grandparents and even great grandparents significantly influence earnings and education. We then estimate the so called Becker-Tomes model using the educational attainment of the great grandparent generation as an instrumental variable. We fail to find support for the models predictions. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational income mobility; earnings distribution; income inequality |
| JEL: | D31 J62 |
| Date: | 2011–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2011_018&r=lab |
| By: | Fialova, Kamila; Schneider, Ondrej |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the role of labor market institutions in explaining the development of shadow economies in European countries. The analysis uses several alternative measures of the shadow sector, and examines the effects of labor institutions on the shadow sector in two specific regions: new and old European Union member countries, as their respective shadow sectors exhibited a different development in the past decade. Although the share of the shadow economy in gross domestic product averaged 27.5 percent in the new member countries in 1999-2007, the respective share in the old member states stood at 17.9 percent. The paper estimates the effects of labor market institutions on two sets of shadow economy indicators -- shadow production and shadow employment. Comparing alternative measures of the shadow sector allows a more granulated analysis of labor market institution effects. The results indicate that the one institution that unambiguously increases shadow economy production and employment is the strictness of employment protection legislation. Other labor market institutions -- active and passive labor market policies, labor taxation, trade union density, and the minimum wage setting -- have less straightforward and statistically robust effects and their impacts often diverge in new and old European Union member countries. The differences are not robust enough, however, to allow for rejecting the hypothesis of similar effects of labor market institutions in new and old European Union member states. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5913&r=lab |
| By: | Katrien Cuyvers; Gio De Weerd; Sanne Dupont; Sophie Mols; Chantal Nuytten |
| Abstract: | What is the impact of school infrastructure on the well-being of students in Flemish secondary schools? A study, commissioned by AGIOn (the Flemish agency that subsidises school buildings), investigated the impact of educational spaces on their users and set out to identify empirical evidence supporting the importance of school infrastructure on the well-being of students in secondary schools. |
| Keywords: | infrastructure, well-being, quality indicators, satisfaction levels |
| Date: | 2011–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaac:2011/10-en&r=lab |
| By: | Slonimczyk, Fabian |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that skill mismatch is a significant source of inequality in real earnings in the U.S. and that a substantial fraction of the increase in wage dispersion during the period 1973-2002 was due to the increase in mismatch rates and mismatch premia. In 2000-2002 surplus and deficit qualifications taken together accounted for 4.3 and 4.6 percent of the variance of log earnings, or around 15 percent of the total explained variance. The dramatic increase in over-education rates and premia accounts for around 20 and 48 percent of the increase in the Gini coefficient during the 30 years under analysis for males and females respectively. The surplus qualification factor is important in understanding why earnings inequality polarized in the last decades. |
| Keywords: | Skill Mismatch; Earnings Inequality; Shapley Value Decomposition |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35449&r=lab |
| By: | Walewski, Mateusz |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the results of an attempt to use the combined results of the dedicated survey performed by CASE in 2007 and Polish LFS data in order to: (a) analyze the development of the shadow employment in Poland in years 2003-2008 and, (b) analyze the transition probabilities in and out of shadow employment. The estimated share of shadow workers in total employment in Poland in years 2003-2008 was increasing until 2006 and then started to decrease in the years 2007 and 2008. Other results are in line with one of the main conclusions of the CASE study from 2007 suggesting that shadow employment is more a way of coping with lack of other employment opportunities than an equivalent or even superior alternative to any legal employment contracts. On the other hand those who enter shadow employment are more active part of the group having problems with finding full time/open term employment. They are much more inclined to cope with their situation by entering some form of self-employment than to stay passive and depend on social assistance. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Labor Standards,Work&Working Conditions,Labor Management and Relations |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5910&r=lab |
| By: | Juan Jóse Dolado; Salvador Ortigueira; Rodolfo Stucchi |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the effect of having a large gap in firing costs between permanent and temporary workers in a dual labour market on TFP development at the firm level. We propose a simple model showing that, under plausible conditions, both temporary workers’ effort and firms’ temp-to-perm conversion rates decrease when that gap increases. We test this implication by means of a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms from 1991 to 2005, using as natural experiments some labour market reforms entailing substantial changes in this gap. Our main empirical finding is that reforms leading to a lower gap enhanced conversion rates, which in turn increased firms’ TFP, and conversely for reforms that increased the gap. |
| Keywords: | Firms' TFP, Workers' effort, Temporary workers, Firing costs |
| JEL: | C14 C52 D24 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we1137&r=lab |
| By: | Rebecca Ann Freeman |
| Abstract: | The imputation of the labour income of the self-employed typically relies upon the assumption that individuals of this group earn the same average hourly compensation as employees, either at the total economy or industry level. While this assumption is convenient in that it relies upon readily available information on the composition of the labour force and on the compensation of employees, it nevertheless remains somewhat simplistic and thus questionable in its validity. This shortcoming is addressed here by investigating a more refined method to impute the labour income of the self-employed in the United States. Imputations are based on the assumption that the labour income of the self-employed equals the average earnings of employees of the same sex and within the same age group, working in the same industry and having the same level of education. The proposed estimation of the labour income of the self-employed is followed by an analysis of how adjusted total labour income might impact the value of the labour share of output. Results for the United States show that applying this alternative methodology leads to a 2.5 percentage point rise in labour shares of output at the total economy level, led by larger increases of this indicator in sectors such as agriculture and hunting as well as professional, business and other service industries. The time profile in recent years, i.e. 2003-2009, of the labour share of output remains nevertheless unchanged when applying the proposed adjustment methodology. |
| Keywords: | labour income, Self-employed, labour share of output, wage share, US Current Population Survey (CPS), ASEC Supplement |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2011/4-en&r=lab |
| By: | Ive Marx (Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp); Pieter Vandenbroucke (Centrum voor Sociaal Beleid, Herman Deleeck, Universiteit Antwerpen); Verbist, G. (Gerlinde) |
| Abstract: | At the European level and in most EU member states, higher employment levels are seen as key to better poverty outcomes. But what can we expect the actual impact to be? Up until now shift-share analysis has been used to estimate the impact of rising employment on relative income poverty. This method has serious limitations. We propose a more sophisticated simulation model that builds on regression based estimates of employment probabilities and wages. We use this model to estimate the impact on relative income poverty of moving towards the Europe 2020 target of 75 percent of the working aged population in work. Two sensitivity checks are included: giving priority in job allocation to jobless households and imputing low instead of estimated wages. This article shows that employment growth does not necessarily result in lower relative poverty shares, a result that is largely consistent with observed outcomes over the past decade. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aia:ginidp:dp15&r=lab |
| By: | ICHIMURA Hidehiko; SHIMIZUTANI Satoshi |
| Abstract: | While the average retirement age is higher in Japan, the retirement process has not been in-depth explored from multiple factors including economic, health and family statuses. We examine the transition of work status and working hours for Japanese males and females using JSTAR (Japanese Study on Aging and Retirement) in 2007 and 2009. We provide some empirical patterns of retirement. First, those who are aged 60 or over and retired stay retired two years later, either male or female, while some portion of those who are aged in 50s come back to work. Second, the probability to retire in 2009 for those who were not retired in 2007 ranges 20-30%. Higher index workers in their 60s are less likely to retire but quickly retire if working hours are reduced. Third, higher index workers seem to keep working at the current working hours than lower index counterparts. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:11080&r=lab |
| By: | Ohinata, Asako; van Ours, Jan C |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze how the share of immigrant children in the classroom affects the educational attainment of native Dutch children. Our analysis uses data from various sources, which allow us to characterize educational attainment in terms of reading literacy, mathematical skills and science skills. We do not find strong evidence of negative spill-over effects from immigrant children to native Dutch children. Immigrant children themselves experience negative language spill-over effects from a high share of immigrant children in the classroom but no spill-over effects on maths and science skills. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment; immigrant children; peer effects |
| JEL: | I21 J15 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8718&r=lab |
| By: | Gao, Hang (University of Alberta, Department of Economics); Marchand, Joseph (University of Alberta, Department of Economics); Song, Tao (University of Alberta, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Real earnings have increased for all demographic and skill groups within China’s urban labor market from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. This paper analyzes these changes in earnings with respect to the relative supply and demand changes of each of the imperfectly substitutable labor inputs. These movements are found to be consistent with real earnings increases for some of the input groups but are inconsistent for others. This implies that China has transitioned closer to a free labor market from its planned origin. In addition, labor supply is shown to be moving towards a more educated workforce, and firm privatization and international trade are found to play significant roles in determining the labor demand movements. |
| Keywords: | China; earnings; labor demand; labor supply; transitional economies |
| JEL: | J20 P23 P31 |
| Date: | 2011–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:2011_023&r=lab |
| By: | Maria Olivares (University of Zuerich, Department of Business Administration, Switzerland); Heike Wetzel (University of Cologne, Institute of Energy Economics, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Since the late 1990s, the European higher education system has had to face deep structural changes. With the public authorities seeking to create an environment of quasi-markets in the higher education sector, the increased competition induced by recent reforms has pushed all publicly financed higher education institutions to use their resources more efficiently. Higher education institutions increasingly now aim at differentiating themselves from their competitors in terms of the range of outputs they produce. Assuming that different market positioning strategies will have different effects on the performance of higher education institutions, this paper explores the existence of economies of scale and scope in the German higher education sector. Using an input-oriented distance function approach, we estimate the economies of scale and scope and the technical efficiency for 154 German higher education institutions from 2001 through 2007. Our results suggest that comprehensive universities should indeed orientate their activities to the concept of a full-university that combines teaching and research activities across a broad range of subjects. In contrast, praxis-oriented small and medium-sized universities of applied sciences should specialise in the teaching and research activities they conduct. |
| Keywords: | Higher Education Production, Economies of Scale and Scope, Technical Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Input Distance Function |
| JEL: | L25 I23 D24 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lue:wpaper:223&r=lab |
| By: | Paola Salardi (Department of Economics, University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a unique analysis of the evolution of gender and racial occupational segregation in Brazil from 1987-2006. Drawing on a novel dataset, constructed by harmonizing national household data over twenty years, the paper provides extensive new insights in the nature and evolution of occupational segregation over time, while also providing important new insights into the forces driving these changes. The results presented here expand upon existing research in the developing world in several directions. First, the new dataset constructed for this study allows the analysis to cover a longer time period than has previously been possible. Second, the analysis explores both gender and racial segregation side by side. Third, all of the analysis is conducted for the labour market as a whole, and disaggregated into the formal, informal and self-employed labour markets. Fourth, the paper decomposes the key driving forces that lie behind trends in occupational segregation. The paper presents three major findings: first, gender segregation is always considerably greater than racial occupational segregation, but racial segregation has been more persistent over time and has several features that make it comparatively worrisome; second, while occupational segregation is declining by both gender and race, the decline has been greater in the formal labour market. Third, the decomposition of segregation measures over time reveals that changes in the internal gender and racial composition of occupations have driven improvements over time. These important differences between formal and non-formal labour markets provide preliminary insights into the possible importance of formal labour market policies and institutions in shaping outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Brazil, Gender, Race, Occupational Segregation, Informality. |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J71 O17 O54 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:3011&r=lab |
| By: | Juan F. Castro (Departamento de Economía, Universidad del Pacífico); Gustavo Yamada (Departamento de Economía, Universidad del Pacífico); Omar Arias (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the relative importance of short term financial constraints vis a vis skills and other background factors affecting schooling decisions when explaining access to higher education in Peru. We focus on college access disparities between rich and poor households. We use a novel household survey that includes special tests to measure cognitive and non-cognitive skills of the urban population age 14-50. These are complemented with retrospective data on basic education and family socioeconomic conditions in a multinomial model. We find that strong correlation between college enrollment and family income in urban Peru is not only driven by credit constraints, but also by poor college readiness in terms of cognitive skills and by poor family and educational backgrounds affecting preferences for schooling. Family income explains, at most, half of the college access gap between poor and non-poor households. The other half is related to differences in parental education, educational background and cognitive skills. Our results indicate that credit and/or scholarship schemes alone will not suffice to change the regressive nature of higher education enrollment in Peru, and that such programs will face strong equity-efficiency trade-offs. |
| Keywords: | Higher education, cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, credit constraints, Peru. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pai:wpaper:11-14&r=lab |
| By: | Pedro Carneiro (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Michael Lokshin; Cristobal Ridao-Cano; Nithin Umapathi (Institute for Fiscal Studies and World Bank) |
| Abstract: | <p>This paper estimates average and marginal returns to schooling in Indonesia using a non-parametric selection model. Identification of the model is given by exogenous geographic variation in access to upper secondary schools. We find that the return to upper secondary schooling varies widely across individuals: it can be as high as 50 percent per year of schooling for those very likely to enroll in upper secondary schooling, or as low as -10 percent for those very unlikely to do so. Average returns for the student at the margin are well below those for the average student attending upper secondary schooling.</p> |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:cemmap:36/11&r=lab |
| By: | Christian Dustmann (University College London and CReAM); Tommaso Frattini (Università degli Studi di Milano, CReAM, IZA and LdA); Gianandrea Lanzara (University College London and CReAM) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the educational achievements of second generation immigrants in several OECD countries in a comparative perspective. We first show that the educational achievement (measured as test scores in PISA achievement tests) of children of immigrants is quite heterogeneous across countries, and strongly related to achievements of the parent generation. The disadvantage considerably reduces, and even disappears for some countries, once we condition on parental background characteristics. Second, we provide novel analysis of cross-country comparisons of test scores of children from the same country of origin, and compare (conditional) achievement scores in home and host countries. The focus is on Turkish immigrants, whom we observe in several destination countries. We investigate both mathematics and reading test scores, and show that the results vary according to the type of skills tested. For mathematics, in most countries and even if the test scores achievement of the children of Turkish immigrants is lower than that of their native peers, it is still higher than that of children of their cohort in the home country - conditional and unconditional on parental background characteristics. The analysis suggests that higher school quality relative to that in the home country is important to explain immigrant children's educational advantage. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2011025&r=lab |
| By: | Carolina Fugazza (Università di Torino and CeRP-Collegio Carlo Alberto) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we evaluate the expected evolution of the Trattamento di ?ne rapporto over the Italian employees?working life careers. We use adiminstrative (INPS) data to disentangle the amount that is expected to be accumulated until retirement, the amount expected not to accrue because of discountinuos working careers and/or paid as an anticipated withdrawal. This is relevant in the light of the recent pension system reforms that encourage the diversion of the TFR to pension funds. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crp:wpaper:125&r=lab |
| By: | Christoph Ehlert; Sandra Schaffner |
| Abstract: | Over the last two decades, temporary employment has gained importance in the European Union. The implications of this development for the health of the workforce are not yet established. Using a unique individual-level data set for 27 European countries, this paper evaluates whether temporary employment is interrelated with self-assessed health. We find pronounced differences in self-assessed health by employment status across European countries. Furthermore, in the EU full-time permanent employed workers report the best health, followed by temporary and part-time employed workers. These differences largely vanish, when taking into account the potential endogeneity between employment status and self-assessed health. However, repeated temporary contracts have a significant negative impact on health. |
| Keywords: | Temporary employment; fixed-term contracts; self-assessed health |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rwi:repape:0295&r=lab |
| By: | Jason M. Lindo; Isaac D. Swensen; Glen R. Waddell |
| Abstract: | We consider the relationship between collegiate-football success and non-athlete student performance. We find that the team's success significantly reduces male grades relative to female grades. This phenomenon is only present in fall quarters, which coincides with the football season. Using survey data, we find that males are more likely than females to increase alcohol consumption, decrease studying, and increase partying in response to the success of the team. Yet, females also report that their behavior is affected by athletic success, suggesting that their performance is likely impaired but that this effect is masked by the practice of grade curving. |
| JEL: | H0 I23 J16 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17677&r=lab |