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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Joop Hartog (University of Amsterdam); Michael Sattinger (University at Albany) |
| Abstract: | The paper provides a theoretical foundation for the empirical regularities observed in estimations of wage consequences of overeducation and undereducation. Workers with more education than required for their jobs are observed to suffer wage penalties relative to workers with the same education in jobs that only require their educational level. Similarly, workers with less education than required for their jobs earn wage rewards. These departures from the Mincer human capital earnings function can be explained by Nash bargaining between workers and employers. Under fairly mild assumptions, Nash bargaining predicts a wage penalty for overeducation and a wage reward for undereducation, and further predicts that the wage penalty will exceed the wage reward. This paper reviews the established empirical regularities and then provides Nash bargaining results that explain these regularities. |
| Keywords: | Overeducation, Undereducation,; Overeducation; Undereducation; Nash bargaining; Qualitative mismatches; Mincer earnings function; Wages |
| JEL: | J31 J24 C78 C51 |
| Date: | 2012–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20120129&r=lab |
| By: | David Seim |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of displacement on outcomes such as annual earnings, unemployment, wages and hours worked. It relies on previously unexplored administrative data on all displaced workers in Sweden in 2002, 2003 and 2004 which are linked to employer-employee matched data at the individual level. By linking the data to military enlistment records, the paper assesses the selection into displacement and finds that workers with low cognitive and noncognitive skills are significantly more likely to be displaced than high-skilled workers. The analysis of displacement effects shows evidence of large and long-lasting welfare costs from displacement. Moreover, studying the heterogenous impacts of job displacement in terms of cognitive and noncognitive skills reveals that although workers with high skills fare better than low-skilled workers in absolute terms, there are no significant differences in the recovery rates between skill groups. Finally, by using administrative data on displacements, it is possible to assess quantitatively the bias that results from not being able to separate quits from layoffs in earlier studies |
| Keywords: | job displacement, cognitive and noncognitive skills, employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J60 J63 J65 I21 C23 |
| Date: | 2012–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eea:boewps:wp2012-4&r=lab |
| By: | Muysken, Joan; Vallizadeh, Ehsan; Ziesemer, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of the skill composition of migration flows on the host country's labour market in a specific-factors-two-sector model with heterogeneous labour (low, medium, and high skill) and price- and wage-setting behaviour. The low- and medium-skilled labour markets are characterized by frictions due to wage bargaining. Moreover, we assume bumping down of unemployed medium-skilled workers into low-skilled labour supply. Endogenous benefits create an interdependency between the two bargaining processes. Particular attention is paid to medium-skilled migration which enables us to augment the literature by replicating important stylized facts regarding medium skills, such as i) the interaction between immigration, low-skilled unemployment and medium-skilled over-qualification, ii) the polarization effect where both low- and high-skilled wages increase relative to the medium-skilled. The model is calibrated using German data. The key findings are: (i) a migration-induced supply shock of medium-skilled workers decreases the low-skilled unemployment rate because of the endogenous benefits; (ii) immigration of medium-skilled labour together with some high-skilled labour has a positive effect on output per capita; (iii) migration of only medium-skilled labour has a neutral impact on GDP per capita. |
| Keywords: | Medium-Skilled Migration; Wage and Price Setting; Specific Factors Model; Unemployment; Over-qualification; Wage Polarization |
| JEL: | F22 J51 J52 J61 J64 |
| Date: | 2012–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43057&r=lab |
| By: | Anna Piil Damm (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | Using survey information about characteristics of personal contacts linked with administrative register information on employment status one year later, I show that unemployed survey respondents with many employed acquaintances have a higher job finding rate. Settlement in a socially deprived neighborhood may, therefore, hamper individual labor market outcomes because of lack of employed contacts. I investigate this hypothesis by exploiting a unique natural experiment that occurred between 1986 and 1998 when refugee immigrants to Denmark were assigned to municipalities quasirandomly, which successfully addresses the methodological problem of endogenous neighborhood selection. Taking account of location sorting, living in a socially deprived neighborhood does not affect labor market outcomes of refugee men. Furthermore, their labor market outcomes are not affected by the overall employment rate of men living in the neighborhood, but positively affected by the employment rate of non-Western immigrant men and co-national men living in the neighborhood. This is strong evidence that immigrants find jobs in part through their employed immigrant and co-ethnic contacts in the neighborhood of residence and that a high quality of contacts increases the individual’s employment chances and annual earnings. |
| Keywords: | Residential job search networks, referral, contacts, neighborhood quality, labor market outcomes. |
| JEL: | J60 J31 R30 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1235&r=lab |
| By: | Holger Görg; Dennis Görlich |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of offshoring on individual level wages and unemployment probabilities and pay particular attention to the question of whether workers on temporary contracts are affected differently than workers on permanent contracts. Data are taken from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), linked with industry-level data on offshoring of materials and services inputs calculated from the World Input Output Database (WIOD). In manufacturing we find that temporary workers face a significant reduction in wages as materials offshoring increases, while permanent workers’ wages are unaffected or even tend to increase. Offshoring of core activities generally also tends to reduce the probability of becoming unemployed, and more so for temporary than for permanent workers. By contrast, offshoring of services inputs does not have any statistically significant effects on either wages or employment probabilities in manufacturing. In the service industries, workers are affected in terms of employment probabilities from offshoring of services inputs only, although, in contrast to manufacturing industries, there are no statistically significant effects on individual wages from any type of offshoring. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp512&r=lab |
| By: | Bruno Crépon; Esther Duflo; Marc Gurgand; Roland Rathelot; Philippe Zamora |
| Abstract: | This paper reports the results from a randomized experiment designed to evaluate the direct and indirect (displacement) impacts of job placement assistance on the labor market outcomes of young, educated job seekers in France. We use a two-step design. In the first step, the proportions of job seekers to be assigned to treatment (0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or100%) were randomly drawn for each of the 235 labor markets (e.g. cities) participating in the experiment. Then, in each labor market, eligible job seekers were randomly assigned to the treatment, following this proportion. After eight months, eligible, unemployed youths who were assigned to the program were significantly more likely to have found a stable job than those who were not. But these gains are transitory, and they appear to have come partly at the expense of eligible workers who did not benefit from the program, particularly in labor markets where they compete mainly with other educated workers, and in weak labor markets. Overall, the program seems to have had very little net benefits. |
| JEL: | C93 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18597&r=lab |
| By: | Dennis, Wesselbaum |
| Abstract: | Do men and women behave differently while adjusting labor supply over the business cycle? Using data for the United States we show that women are signifi cantly more likely to adjust along the intensive margin (number of hours), while men adjust more often along the extensive margin (employment). Older, single, and divorced/widowed adjust predominantly along the extensive margin. Our findings have crucial implications for the design of policy reforms, especially as governments desire to increase female labor force participation while facing demographic challenges. |
| Keywords: | Extensive Margin; Intensive Margin; Male and Female Labor Supply |
| JEL: | E32 J10 J20 |
| Date: | 2012–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43040&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Buser; Muriel Niederle; Hessel Oosterbeek |
| Abstract: | Gender differences in competitiveness are often discussed as a potential explanation for gender differences in education and labor market outcomes. We correlate an incentivized measure of competitiveness with an important career choice of secondary school students in the Netherlands. At the age of 15, these students have to pick one out of four study profiles, which vary in how prestigious they are. While boys and girls have very similar levels of academic ability, boys are substantially more likely than girls to choose more prestigious profiles. We find that competitiveness is as important a predictor of profile choice as gender. More importantly, up to 23 percent of the gender difference in profile choice can be attributed to gender differences in competitiveness. This lends support to the extrapolation of laboratory findings on competitiveness to labor market settings. |
| JEL: | C9 I20 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18576&r=lab |
| By: | Marco Caliendo; Steffen Künn |
| Abstract: | A shortage of skilled labor and low female labor market participation are problems many developed countries have to face. Beside activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for exible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to do so. Promoting self-employment among the unemployed might be promising. Starting their own business might give women more independence and exibility in allocating their time to work and family. Access to long-term informative data allows us to close existing research gaps, and we investigate the impact of two start-up programs on long-run labor market and fertility outcomes of female participants. We find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market and partly improve their income situations. The impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs. |
| Keywords: | Start-Up Subsidies, Evaluation, Long-Term Effects, Female Labor-Force Participation, Fertility |
| JEL: | J68 C14 H43 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1260&r=lab |
| By: | Kenn Ariga (Institute of Economic Research,Kyoto University); Fumio Ohtake (The Institute of Social and Economic Research of Osaka University); Masaru Sasaki (The Graduate School of Economics at Osaka University); Zheren Wu (Faculty of Economics,Kinki University) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a unique survey of the Chinese youth to construct a panel data in which we keep track of geographical and job mobilities. Our estimation results deliver the following major findings. (1) The sample individuals are highly mobile. Job quits and relo- cations are frequent and they are closely correlated. We find the job hopping to be highly productive as our estimates indicate each job quit generates more than .2 log increase in monthly wage. .(2) The migrant disadvantage in urban labor market is compensated by their higher job mobility. After four jobs, the expected earnings di¤erentials essentially disappear. We also find that migration and job mobility are highly selective processes. Our evidence indicates that the migrants are positively selected. (3) Job and location mobilities are highly dependent upon family back ground and personal traits which we interpret as representing un- observable characteristics associated with risk taking, active and opti- mistic personality, as well as the implied economic incentives to migrate and keep searching for better jobs. |
| JEL: | J31 J61 J62 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kyo:wpaper:833&r=lab |
| By: | Karimi, Arizo (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies); Lindahl, Erica (Institute for evaluation of labour market and education policy); Skogman Thoursie, Peter (Department of Economics, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | Women account for the majority of parental leave take-up, which is likely one of the major reasons for the gender gap in income and wages. Consequently, many countries exert effort to promote a more gender equal division of parental leave. Indeed, the last decades have seen an increase in fathers’ take-up of parental leave benefits, but the gender earnings gap has remained fairly constant. In this paper we re-evaluate the labour supply responses of both mothers and fathers to three major reforms in the Swedish parental leave system, recognizing that take up of paid parental leave might not fully reflect actual time off from work in a system where job-protection exceeds paid leave. We find that both mothers and fathers decreased their labour supply to the same extent as a response to an increase in paid parental leave without gender restrictions. In contrast, we find no support for any changes in fathers’ labour supply due to reforms introducing gender quotas in paid leave. |
| Keywords: | natural experiment; parental leave; labour supply |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J48 |
| Date: | 2012–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2012_020&r=lab |
| By: | Michael C. Burda; Daniel S. Hamermesh; Jay Stewart |
| Abstract: | We examine monthly variation in weekly work hours using data for 2003-10 from the Current Population Survey (CPS) on hours/worker, from the Current Employment Survey (CES) on hours/job, and from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) on both. The ATUS data minimize recall difficulties and constrain hours of work to accord with total available time. The ATUS hours/worker are less cyclical than the CPS series, but the hours/job are more cyclical than the CES series. We present alternative estimates of productivity based on ATUS data and find that it is more pro-cyclical than other productivity measures. |
| JEL: | E23 J22 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18603&r=lab |
| By: | Damiani, Mirella; Pompei, Fabrizio; Ricci, Andrea |
| Abstract: | Liberalisation of temporary contracts has become an important component of recent labour reforms but up to now available research has not paid attention to the impacts of these institutional changes on functional income distribution. The present paper intends to fill this gap by focussing on the reduction in strictness of employment protection of temporary jobs and analysing its effects on factor shares. We have estimated labour share, as well as its components, worker pays and employment, by considering country-sector evidence for 14 EU economies and the sample period 1995-2007. We have found that these legislative changes, that have favoured the extensive use of temporary contracts, have contributed to instability of working conditions and caused negative effects on workers’ pays. These impacts have more than counterbalanced the scanty positive effects on employment (due to greater access to the labour market of additional workers, likely young and women), thus leading to a decrease in income share accruing to workers. |
| Keywords: | factor income distribution, labour regulation |
| JEL: | E25 J5 |
| Date: | 2012–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43050&r=lab |
| By: | Andreas Hornstein |
| Abstract: | Shimer (2012) accounts for the volatility of unemployment based on a model of homogeneous unemployment. Using data on short-term unemployment he finds that most of unemployment volatility is accounted for by variations in the exit rate from unemployment. The assumption of homogeneous exit rates is inconsistent with the observed negative duration dependence of unemployment exit rates for the U.S. labor market. We construct a simple model of heterogeneous unemployment with short-term and long-term unemployed, and use data on the duration distribution of unemployment to account for entry to and exit from the unemployment pool. This alternative account continues to attribute most of unemployment volatility to variations in exit rates from unemployment, but it also suggests that most of unemployment volatility is due to the volatility of long-term unemployment rather than short-term unemployment. We also show that once one allows for heterogeneous unemployment, the expected value of income losses from unemployment increases substantially, and unemployment volatility implied by a simple matching model increases. |
| Keywords: | Business cycles ; Labor market ; Unemployment ; Economic growth |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedrwp:12-07&r=lab |
| By: | Kyle F. Herkenhoff |
| Abstract: | How do job losers use default -- a phenomenon 6x more prevalent than bankruptcy --as a type of “informal" unemployment insurance, and more importantly, what are the social costs and benefits of this behavior? To this end, I establish several new facts: (i) job loss is the main reason for default, not negative equity (ii) people default because they are credit constrained and cannot borrow more, and (iii) the value of debt payments is a significant fraction of a defaulter's earnings. Using these facts, I calibrate a general equilibrium model with a frictional labor market similar to Burdett and Mortensen (1998) and Menzio and Shi (2009, 2011) and individually priced debt along the lines of Eaton and Gersovitz (1981) and Chatterjee et al. (2007). After proving the existence of a Block Recursive Equilibrium, I find that the extra self- insurance job losers obtain by defaulting outweighs the subsequent increase in the cost of credit, and as a result, protectionist policies such as the Mortgage Servicer Settlement of 2012 or the CARD Act of 2009 improve overall welfare by .1%. The side effect of the policies, however, is a .2-.5% higher unemployment rate during recessions that persists throughout the recovery. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment ; Insurance ; Labor market |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2012-057&r=lab |
| By: | Stops, Michael (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "This paper refers to an analysis of matching processes in occupational labour markets in terms of classes of jobs that share extensive commonalities in their required qualifications and tasks. To date, all studies in this field have been based on the assumption of separate occupational labour markets. This assumption suggests that job search and matching processes only transpire within distinct occupational labour markets and that no occupational changes occur. I present theoretical and empirical arguments that undermine the validity of this assumption. Moreover, I construct an 'occupational' topology based on information about the ways in which occupational groups may be seen as alternatives in searches for jobs or workers respectively. I then use pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects, and pooled mean-group models that consider cross-sectional dependency lags for regressors to test the hypothesis that job search and matching occur across occupational labour markets. In particular, I find significant and positive matching elasticities with respect to the averaged numbers of unemployed workers and vacancies in similar occupational groups; these results clearly support my hypothesis. Furthermore, there are indications that returns to scale that are derived from the results of the pooled mean-group model are constant. The findings of this study strongly suggest the use of an augmented matching function that considers job and worker searches across occupational labour markets." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | C21 C23 J44 J64 |
| Date: | 2012–11–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201227&r=lab |
| By: | Manos Antoninis |
| Abstract: | With more than ten million children out of school, Nigeria is the country furthest away from universal primary education. Low access to school is concentrated in the north of the country where a tradition of religious education has been seen as both a constraint and an opportunity. This paper uses recent survey data to explain household decisions related to secular and religious education. It demonstrates a shift in attitudes with unobserved household characteristics that favor religious education attendance being negatively correlated with secular school attendance after controlling for a rich set of background variables. The paper also provides quantitative evidence to support the argument that the poor quality of secular education acts as a disincentive to secular school attendance. This finding cast doubts at policy attempts to increase secular school enrolment through the integration of religious and secular school curricula. |
| Keywords: | Universal primary education, Islamic education, Nigeria, bivariate probit |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2012-17&r=lab |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Gino Gancia; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | To study the short-run and long-run implications on wage inequality, we introduce directed technical change into a Ricardian model of offshoring. A unique final good is produced by combining a skilled and an unskilled product, each produced from a continuum of intermediates (tasks). Some of these tasks can be transferred from a skill-abundant West to a skill-scarce East. Profit maximization determines both the extent of offshoring and technological progress. Offshoring induces skill-biased technical change because it increases the relative price of skill intensive products and induces technical change favoring unskilled workers because it expands the market size for technologies complementing unskilled labor. In the empirically more relevant case, starting from low levels, an increase in offshoring opportunities triggers a transition with falling real wages for unskilled workers in the West, skill-biased technical change and rising skill premia worldwide. However, when the extent of offshoring becomes sufficiently large, further increases in offshoring induce technical change now biased in favor of unskilled labor because offshoring closes the gap between unskilled wages in the West and the East, thus limiting the power of the price effect fueling skill-biased technical change. The unequalizing impact of offshoring is thus greatest at the beginning. Transitional dynamics reveal that offshoring and technical change are substitutes in the short run but complements in the long run. Finally, though offshoring improves the welfare of workers in the East, it may benefit or harm unskilled workers in the West depending on elasticities and the equilibrium growth rate. |
| JEL: | F43 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18595&r=lab |
| By: | Selim Gulesci |
| Abstract: | I show that labor-tying (being in a labor contract where the employer also acts as an insurance-provider) is an important channel through which the poor in rural Bangladesh insure themselves against risks. Using a theoretical framework adapted from Bardhan (1983), I analyze the effects of an exogenous increase in the outside options of poor women (through an improvement in their self-employment opportunities) on their and their spouses' participation in tied labor, as well as the general equilibrium effects of the treatment on the terms of the labor contracts in the village. I find that treated women and their spouses are less likely to be in tied-labor contracts. Their wages increase through two channels: (a) due to the switch from tied to casual labor contracts (b) through the general equilibrium effects in the village labor market. Furthermore, I find that the treated households form reciprocal transfer links with wealthier households in the village. These findings imply that poor households may be involved in second-best labor contracts to insure themselves against risks. When their self-employment opportunities improve, they break these ties and move to greater reliance on reciprocal transfer arrangements. Keywords: tied labor, poverty, rural labor market. JEL Classification: J43; O12; I32. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:igi:igierp:460&r=lab |
| By: | Marta Styrc; Anna Matysiak (Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | A discussion of the effects of partners’ labour force participation on marital stability has been part of the demographic debate for several decades. While theorists generally agree that men’s employment has a stabilizing effect on marriage, there is considerable controversy about the effects of women’s involvement in the labour market on marital stability. This debate has centred on several models and arguments. The most recent contributions have underlined the role of the context in moderating the relationship in question, and our study aims to contribute to this debate. We use the case of Poland, a country that underwent rapid and profound changes in its economic, institutional, and socio-cultural settings. Using GGS-PL data, we estimated a hazard regression of marital disruption, separately for women and men. The effects of employment status were allowed to vary by calendar time in order to determine how the relationship between women’s economic activity and marital stability was affected by the transformation of the labour market; the reassignment of responsibility for an individual’s welfare among the state, the family, and the market; the change in institutional support for families; and the liberalisation of the gender roles. Our empirical study showed that, after the onset of the economic transformation, working women became significantly more likely to divorce than women who did not have a job. This finding implies that the economic transformation led to a substantial increase in women’s dependence on their partners, and made it much more difficult for non-working women to exit unhappy marriages. This conclusion is further corroborated by our finding that, relative to working women, the disruption risk among women on maternity and parental leave declined over time. As expected, men’s employment was found to stabilise marriages both prior to and after 1989. |
| Keywords: | marital instability, marital disruption, women’s employment, women’s economic independence |
| JEL: | J12 I J16 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isd:wpaper:52&r=lab |
| By: | Maria Bigoni (University of Bologna); Gabriele Camera (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University and University of Basel); Marco Casari (University of Bologna) |
| Abstract: | We study the individual behavior of students and workers in an experiment where they repeatedly face the same cooperative task. The data show that clerical workers differ from college students in overall cooperation rates, strategy adoption and use of punishment opportunities. Students cooperate more than workers. Cooperation increases in both subject pools when a personal punishment option is available. Students are less likely than workers to adopt strategies of unconditional defection, and more likely to select strategies of conditional cooperation. Finally, students are more likely than workers to sanction uncooperative behavior by adopting decentralized punishment, and also personal punishment when available. |
| Keywords: | Non-standard subject pools, prisoner’s dilemma, peer punishment, artefactual field experiment, stranger matching |
| JEL: | C90 C70 D80 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:12-29&r=lab |
| By: | Ingo Geishecker; Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | There is a large body of literature analyzing the relationship between objective economic conditions and voting behavior, but there is very little evidence of how perceived economic insecurity impacts on political preferences. Using seventeen years of household panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examine whether job loss fears impact on individuals' party identification. Consistent with the deprivation theory, we find strong and robust evidence that subjective job loss fears foster affinity for parties at the far right-wing of the political spectrum. The effects are broadly comparable in direction and magnitude with the ones from objective unemployment and being out of the labor force. However, our empirical estimates do not suggest that job loss fears result in people withdrawing their support from political parties altogether or increasingly identify with extremist left-wing parties. |
| Keywords: | job insecurity, party identification, prospective voting, economic worries |
| JEL: | J01 J63 P16 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp511&r=lab |
| By: | Leen Sebrechts |
| Abstract: | The general and universal right to education has been well established for some time. But despite international agreement, the commitment to education for all is not necessarily linked to obligatory mainstream education for all children with disabilities. The mature European countries have a history of segregating children with special educational needs in special schools and special schools continue to exist in many countries. In addition, initiatives towards more inclusive education systems are taken. So in many countries, children with special needs and their parents are able to choose between segregated special education and inclusive education. However, different factors influence this choice. Using existing research, country profiles and results of analyses on Flemish data, this paper compares the organisation of inclusive and special education systems in the Flemish community of Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and England. We add a perspective to the existing comparative studies. We proceed from the Network Episode Model developed by Pescosolido (and the importance of the social networks included within this model), focusing specifically on the guidance systems for the social networks of children with special educational needs within the education. The results describe that the choice for a certain school type is influenced by a number of factors, including the country’s education system, the guidance and the characteristics and competences of the family and its social network. Social and socio-economic factors are relevant within the educational field of children with special educational needs. Policy-makers should consider the potential influence of these factors on the overall effectiveness of the measures introduced. |
| Keywords: | child with special needs, comparative study, Europe, inclusive education, parental guidance, socio-economic position, special needs education |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1211&r=lab |
| By: | Anne Salles |
| Abstract: | The German labour market is in better shape than that of France, and the employment rate among women in particular is higher. This is true even though German women have more difficulty reconciling work and family life than in France. Anne Salles takes a critical look at employment indicators and how they are calculated, and explains why German women appear to be more economically active than French women, and what is really happening in the two countries. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idg:posoce:493&r=lab |
| By: | David R. Johnson (Wilfrid Laurier University) |
| Abstract: | In neighbourhoods with falling student populations, policymakers should place a priority on closing middle schools and, elsewhere, avoid opening new ones. In this report, the author shows that middle school attendance increases the chance that students will fail provincially administered achievement tests, compared to similar students who stay in the same school through Grade 8. The report concludes that in regions with falling student populations, policymakers should place a priority on closing middle schools and, elsewhere, avoid opening new ones. |
| Keywords: | Social Policy, Ontario, Canada, middle schools, elementary schools, provincial achievement tests |
| JEL: | I28 H75 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdh:ebrief:141&r=lab |
| By: | Klinger, Sabine (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Weber, Enzo (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Between 1979 and 2009, the German labour market moved along a Beveridge curve with changing slope that usually shifted outwards but once inwards. We employ an unobserved components model to simultaneously disentangle permanent and transitory components of matching efficiency and separation rate (shifting parameters) as well as unemployment and vacancies. Cointegration and identification are especially addressed. We find a steady overlay of structural and transitory shocks for both shifts of and movements along the curve. Thereby, the separation rate is more important than matching efficiency and the two are negatively correlated. Labour market tightness is mostly driven by stochastic trends, which leads to permanent rotations of the job creation curve, i. e. movements along the Beveridge curve." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | C32 E24 E32 J2 J69 |
| Date: | 2012–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201228&r=lab |
| By: | NAKAMURO Makiko; INUI Tomohiko |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to measure the causal effect of education on earnings using a sample of twins in Japan, with information collected through a web-based survey. The empirical results show that although the conventional OLS estimate is 10.0%, we obtain 9.3% as the estimated rate of return to education after the omitted ability bias and measurement errors in self-reported schooling were corrected. Our findings suggest that the conventional OLS estimate is not largely contaminated by potential biases. |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:12076&r=lab |
| By: | Harold L. Cole; Soojin Kim; Dirk Krueger |
| Abstract: | This paper constructs a dynamic model of health insurance to evaluate the short- and long run effects of policies that prevent firms from conditioning wages on health conditions of their workers, and that prevent health insurance companies from charging individuals with adverse health conditions higher insurance premia. Our study is motivated by recent US legislation that has tightened regulations on wage discrimination against workers with poorer health status (Americans with Disability Act of 2009, ADA, and ADA Amendments Act of 2008, ADAAA) and that will prohibit health insurance companies from charging different premiums for workers of different health status starting in 2014 (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, PPACA). In the model, a trade-off arises between the static gains from better insurance against poor health induced by these policies and their adverse dynamic incentive effects on household efforts to lead a healthy life. Using household panel data from the PSID we estimate and calibrate the model and then use it to evaluate the static and dynamic consequences of no-wage discrimination and no-prior conditions laws for the evolution of the cross-sectional health and consumption distribution of a cohort of households, as well as ex-ante lifetime utility of a typical member of this cohort. In our quantitative analysis we find that although a combination of both policies is effective in providing full consumption insurance period by period, it is suboptimal to introduce both policies jointly since such policy innovation induces a more rapid deterioration of the cohort health distribution over time. This is due to the fact that combination of both laws severely undermines the incentives to lead healthier lives. The resulting negative effects on health outcomes in society more than offset the static gains from better consumption insurance so that expected discounted lifetime utility is lower under both policies, relative to only implementing wage nondiscrimination legislation. |
| JEL: | E61 H31 I18 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18572&r=lab |
| By: | Jason A. Grissom; Demetra Kalogrides; Susanna Loeb |
| Abstract: | Expansion of the use of student test score data to measure teacher performance has fueled recent policy interest in using those data to measure the effects of school administrators as well. However, little research has considered the capacity of student performance data to uncover principal effects. Filling this gap, this article identifies multiple conceptual approaches for capturing the contributions of principals to student test score growth, develops empirical models to reflect these approaches, examines the properties of these models, and compares the results of the models empirically using data from a large urban school district. The paper then assesses the degree to which the estimates from each model are consistent with measures of principal performance that come from sources other than student test scores, such as school district evaluations. The results show that choice of model is substantively important for assessment. While some models identify principal effects as large as 0.15 standard deviations in math and 0.11 in reading, others find effects as low as 0.02 in both subjects for the same principals. We also find that the most conceptually unappealing models, which over-attribute school effects to principals, align more closely with non-test measures than do approaches that more convincingly separate the effect of the principal from the effects of other school inputs. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18568&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel Dujava (Department of Economic Theory, University of Economics in Bratislava) |
| Abstract: | In the study we propose an index of unemployment caused by structural changes. In the case of employment drop, the index enables to quantify what fraction of jobs has been lost because of ongoing structural changes. The index is based on distinction between temporary and permanent changes in employment in different industries. We consider fluctuations outside the corridor defined by initial and final level of employment to be temporary. It is possible to calculate the index only after employment reaches its former level which is its major drawback. We apply this methodology on Slovakia and Czech Republic during the period 1996 - 2007. We find out that in Slovakia, 62 % of jobs have been lost due to structural reasons. In Czech Republic, corresponding number is 55 %. |
| Keywords: | Cyclical employment, Economic cycles, Employment, Structural changes, Structural unemployment |
| JEL: | J69 L16 |
| Date: | 2012–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brt:wpaper:007&r=lab |
| By: | Luigi Pistaferri; Itay Saporta-Eksten |
| Abstract: | Since the late 1970s there has been a remarkable and persistent increase in wage inequality in the US and other industrialized countries. Researchers have also documented an increase in the dispersion of individual earnings, household (pooled) earnings, household disposable income, and (less consistently) consumption. Some of the changes in inequality are exogenous and reflect transformations in labor markets and institutions,1 while others are endogenous and reflect individual and household behavioural responses to such changes in terms of labor supply, asset accumulation, and participation in government insurance programs. The first goal of this paper is to discuss what we know about the effect of shifts in the distribution of income on aggregate consumption. We focus in particular on changes in inequality, volatility, and expectations, and highlight the pervasive role of heterogeneity. Our second goal is to asses the role of changes in the income distribution in explaining the joint evolution of aggregate consumption and income over the Great Recession. |
| Keywords: | Income distribution; Aggregate consumption |
| JEL: | D31 D91 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:itt:wpaper:2012-11&r=lab |
| By: | Bengtsson, Ola (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Sanandaji, Tino (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Johannesson, Magnus (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | A striking fact about entrepreneurship is that the number of male entrepreneurs greatly exceed the number of female entrepreneurs. We use detailed survey data from Sweden to study to what extent this gender gap can be explained by gender differences in personality. We show that women have markedly different psyche than men (11 out of 14 traits differ), and that entrepreneurs have markedly different psyche than others (8 out of 14 traits differ). However gender differences in traits do not reduce women's likelihood of being an entrepreneur in a one-sided way. We find that, in aggregate, gender differences in personality traits can explain a modest part of the gender gap in entrepreneurship: our estimates suggest 21%–32%. We also document that personality traits that distinguish entrepreneurs from others are generally not more prevalent among the non-entrepreneurial self-employed. This finding highlights that entrepreneurship is distinct from other types of self-employment. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Self-employment; Gender differences; Personality traits |
| JEL: | J16 L26 |
| Date: | 2012–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0944&r=lab |
| By: | Stephan Whitaker |
| Abstract: | Raising the share of adults with college degrees in a region or jurisdiction is a nearly universal goal of regional policymakers. They believe that education, as summarized by this statistic, is the cause of increasing employment, productivity, and wages. Using statistics estimated from the decennial censuses and the American Community Survey, this analysis demonstrates how different measures would suggest different rankings of more successful versus less successful metro areas. The "place-of-birth" variable in Census data enables a disaggregation of the origins of the skilled and unskilled adult populations. This provides insight into whether high-skilled regions developed talent among natives or attracted talent nationally or globally. I find that metros in states that are successful at getting their natives through college have experienced lower growth in their native and migrant graduate populations. With a few exceptions, metro areas with high degree shares or large improvements in their degree share have not grown their graduate population at unusually high rates. The numbers suggest that metro areas held up as exemplars of educational attainment have achieved this distinction to a large extent by being unattractive to nongraduates. |
| Keywords: | Regional economics ; Education - Economic aspects |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1231&r=lab |
| By: | Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont |
| Abstract: | Keynes had a lot of plausible things to say about unemployment and its causes. His ‘mercurial mind’, though, relied on intuition which means that he could not prove his diverse opinions convincingly. This explains why Keynes’s ideas immediately invited bastardizations. One of them, the Phillips curve synthesis, proved to be fatal. This paper identifies Keynes’s undifferentiated employment function as weak spot. The structural employment function, on the other hand, works in inflationary and deflationary environments and supersedes the bastard Phillips curve. It will be rigorously demonstrated why there is no trade-off between price inflation and unemployment. |
| Keywords: | new framework of concepts; structure-centric; axiom set; Say’s regime; Keynes’s regime; market clearing; full employment; product price flexibility; intertemporal budget balancing; multiplier; trade-off; price inflation; wage inflation |
| JEL: | E12 E24 |
| Date: | 2012–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43111&r=lab |
| By: | Chiara Franzoni; Giuseppe Scellato; Paula Stephan |
| Abstract: | We investigate performance differentials associated with mobility for research active scientists residing in a broad spectrum of countries and working in a broad spectrum of fields using data from the GlobSci survey. We distinguish between two categories of mobile scientists: (1) those studying or working in a country other than that of origin and (2) those who have returned to their native country after a spell of study or work abroad. We compare the performance of these mobile scientists to natives who have never experienced a spell of mobility and are studying or working in their country of origin. We find evidence that mobile scientists perform better than those who have not experienced mobility. Among the mobile, we find some evidence that those who return perform better than the foreign born save in the United States, suggesting that positive selection is not at work in determining who remains outside the country. This is supported by the finding that for most countries the performance of returnees is no different than that of compatriots who remain abroad after controlling for other effects. |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 O30 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18577&r=lab |
| By: | Thomas Siedler; Bettina Sonnenberg |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the extent to which intergenerational upward and downward mobility in earnings are related to individuals’ preferences for redistribution. A novel survey question from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study—whether the taxes paid by unskilled workers are too high, adequate or too low—are used to elicit attitudes toward redistribution. Intergenerational mobility with regard to long-term earnings is measured using a rich panel data spanning an observation window of 22 years. The results reveal that intergenerational mobility is significantly related to preferences for redistribution. The empirical results yield strong and robust support for Piketty’s (1995) rational-learning theory: individuals who experience upward (downward) intergenerational mobility are less (more) likely to favor redistribution taxation policies. |
| Keywords: | labour, family and networks, subjective indicators |
| JEL: | J62 H23 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp510&r=lab |
| By: | Caroline M. Hoxby; Christopher Avery |
| Abstract: | We show that the vast majority of very high-achieving students who are low-income do not apply to any selective college or university. This is despite the fact that selective institutions would often cost them less, owing to generous financial aid, than the resource-poor two-year and non-selective four-year institutions to which they actually apply. Moreover, high-achieving, low-income students who do apply to selective institutions are admitted and graduate at high rates. We demonstrate that these low-income students' application behavior differs greatly from that of their high-income counterparts who have similar achievement. The latter group generally follows the advice to apply to a few "par" colleges, a few "reach" colleges, and a couple of "safety" schools. We separate the low-income, high-achieving students into those whose application behavior is similar to that of their high-income counterparts ("achievement-typical" behavior) and those whose apply to no selective institutions ("income-typical" behavior). We show that income-typical students do not come from families or neighborhoods that are more disadvantaged than those of achievement-typical students. However, in contrast to the achievement-typical students, the income-typical students come from districts too small to support selective public high schools, are not in a critical mass of fellow high achievers, and are unlikely to encounter a teacher or schoolmate from an older cohort who attended a selective college. We demonstrate that widely-used policies–college admissions staff recruiting, college campus visits, college access programs–are likely to be ineffective with income-typical students, and we suggest policies that will be effective must depend less on geographic concentration of high achievers. |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I24 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18586&r=lab |
| By: | Daphna Bassok; Maria Fitzpatrick; Susanna Loeb |
| Abstract: | The success of any governmental subsidy depends on whether it increases or crowds out existing consumption. Yet to date there has been little empirical evidence, particularly in the education sector, on whether government intervention crowds out private provision. Universal preschool policies introduced in Georgia and Oklahoma offer an opportunity to investigate the impact of government provision and government funding on provision of childcare. Using synthetic control group difference-in-difference and interrupted time series estimation frameworks, we examine the effects of universal preschool on childcare providers. In both states there is an increase in the amount of formal childcare. In Georgia, both the private and public sectors grow, while in Oklahoma, the increase occurs in the public sector only. The differences likely stem from the states’ choices of provision versus funding. We find the largest positive effects on provision in the most rural areas, a finding that may help direct policymaking efforts aimed at expanding childcare. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18605&r=lab |
| By: | Dennis, Wesselbaum |
| Abstract: | In state-of-the-art macroeconomic and labor market models shocks are assumed to be homoscedastic. However, we show that this assumption is much too restrictive. We find signifi cant evidence for strong time-varying volatility in all considered labor market time series. First, we estimate the unconditional variance-covariance matrix and find signi cant evidence for time variability. Second, we estimate the conditional variance-covariance matrix and discuss the time-varying risk contained in labor market variables. The implications are relevant for modelling purposes, welfare analysis, and the understanding of sources of fluctuations. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic Correlation; Multivariate GARCH; Stochastic Volatility |
| JEL: | E30 J60 C30 |
| Date: | 2012–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:43054&r=lab |
| By: | James J. Heckman; Rodrigo Pinto; Peter A. Savelyev |
| Abstract: | A growing literature establishes that high quality early childhood interventions targeted toward disadvantaged children have substantial impacts on later life outcomes. Little is known about the mechanisms producing these impacts. This paper uses longitudinal data on cognitive and personality traits from an experimental evaluation of the influential Perry Preschool program to analyze the channels through which the program boosted both male and female participant outcomes. Experimentally induced changes in personality traits explain a sizable portion of adult treatment effects. |
| JEL: | I21 I28 I29 J13 J15 J16 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18581&r=lab |