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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Gueorgui Kambourov; Aloysius Siow; Laura Turner |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the roles of relationship skill and human capital in determining life-cycle outcomes in education, labor, and marriage markets. We find strong empirical evidence of an individual fixed factor that affects both job and marriage separation hazards and extract an index of non-cognitive skill that increases the durability of relationships in marriages and in the labor market. Using this index, we develop and estimate a two-factor life-cycle model of schooling, job search, and marriage. We find that relationship skill can explain about 40% of the persistence in employment turnover and 35% of the persistence in marriage turnover. |
| Keywords: | relationship skill, social skills, search and matching, marriage, occupational sorting, two-factor models, human capital, non-cognitive skills |
| JEL: | D13 J12 J24 J64 |
| Date: | 2015–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-543&r=lab |
| By: | Gary Burtless; Kan Zhang |
| Abstract: | The Earnings Public-Use File (EPUF) contains complete information on annual Social Security-covered earnings for a sample of 3.13 million Americans who had earnings in at least one year between 1951 and 2006. The panel data are used to examine patterns and trends in lifetime earnings. The EPUF data show the increasing convergence of female and male lifetime earnings patterns across a number of dimensions: (1) the shape and level of the average age-earnings profile; (2) the age at first entry into covered employment; and (3) the age of labor force exit. The full lifetime earnings profiles for birth cohorts that entered work after 1951 and exited before 2006 reveal associations between workers’ ages of labor force entry and exit and the peak earnings they attain during their careers. We find that workers who enter employment at older ages and exit at earlier ages on average earn lower incomes in their 40s than those who enter employment earlier and exit later. Among men born between 1941 and 1945, those who began working between ages 20 and 22 earned about one-fifth less when they were in their 40s compared with men who had their first covered earnings when they were 15. The EPUF data show a clear and strong positive association between workers’ age of exit from covered employment and their earnings in mid-career. Workers who retire later, up through about age 62, tend to earn higher incomes during their 40s than workers who retire closer to age 50. For each birth cohort we examine and for both sexes, we find that workers who have a high level of earnings in years when they are employed also tend to have the longest careers. We also report the average and net return that successive cohorts of workers obtain on their Social Security contributions. |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2015-7&r=lab |
| By: | Mohammadi, Ali (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Broström, Anders (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Franzoni, Chiara (Politecnico di Milano) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study how workforce composition is related to firm’s radical innovation. Previous studies have argued that teams composed by individuals with diverse background are able to perform more information processing and make a deeper use of the information, which is important to accomplish complex tasks. We suggest that this argument can be extended to the level of the aggregate workforce of high technology firms. Our theoretical interest is focused on the extent to which insights from the literatures on science and invention can be applied to firms’ abilities to achieve radical innovation. In particular, we argue that having a set of employees with greater ethnical and higher education diversity is associated with superior radical innovation performance. Using a sample of 3,888 Swedish firms, we find that greater workforce ethnic diversity is positively correlated to the share of a firm’s turnover generated by radical innovation, while it is neutral to incremental innovation. Greater diversity in terms of higher educational disciplinary background of the workforce is positively correlated to the share of turnover generated by both radical and incremental innovation. Contrary to our hypothesis, we also find that having more external collaborations reduces the importance of a workforce with a diverse disciplinary background, while the importance of ethnic diversity is hold unchanged. Our findings hold after using alternatives measures of dependent and independent variables, alternative sample sizes, and alternative estimation techniques including panel data, and structural equation modeling for simultaneous estimation of diversity, R&D intensity and external search. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic diversity; Education diversity; External search; Radical innovation |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J61 O32 |
| Date: | 2015–06–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0413&r=lab |
| By: | McAdam, Peter; Willman, Alpo |
| Abstract: | For the US the supply and wages of skilled labor relative to those of unskilled labor have grown over the postwar period. The literature has tended to explain this through “skill-biased technical change”. Empirical work has concentrated around two variants: (1) Capital-skill complementarity, and (2) Skill-augmenting technical change. Our purpose is to nest and discriminate between these two explanations. We do so in the framework of 2- and 3-level CES production function where factors are disaggregated into skilled and unskilled labor, and the capital stock into structures and equipment capital. Using a 5-equation system approach and several nesting alternatives, we retrieve estimates of the elasticities of substitution and factor augmenting technical changes. Our estimations are able to produce results in line with capital skill- complementarity hypothesis. However, those results are outperformed results where the only source of the widening skill-premium has been skill augmenting technical change. We also show that the different explanations for SBTC have very different implications for future projected developments of the skill premium. JEL Classification: J01, J31, O4 |
| Keywords: | Capital-Skill Complementarity, Factor Substitution, Factor- Augmenting Technical Progress, Inequality, Multi-level CES production function, Projections, Skill Premium |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20151800&r=lab |
| By: | Sophie-Charlotte Meyer (Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal) |
| Abstract: | A widespread finding among studies from the US and the UK is that maternal employment is correlated with an increased risk of child overweight, even in a causal manner, whereas studies from European countries obtain less conclusive results. As evidence for Germany is still scarce, the purpose of this study is to identify the effect of maternal employment on childhood overweight in Germany using two sets of representative micro data. Moreover, we explore potential underlying mechanisms that might explain this relationship. In order to address the selection into maternal full-time employment, we use an instrumental variable strategy exploiting the number of younger siblings in the household as an instrument. While the OLS model suggests that maternal full-time employment is related to a 5 percentage point higher probability of the child to be overweight, IV estimates indicate a 25 percentage points higher overweight probability due to maternal full-time employment. Exploring various possible pathways, we find that maternal employment is associated with unhealthy dietary and activity habits which might explain the positive effect of maternal employment on child overweight to some extent. Several sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of our findings. |
| Keywords: | aternal employment, childhood overweight, BMI, maternal labor supply |
| JEL: | I12 J22 J13 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwu:schdps:sdp15005&r=lab |
| By: | Purna Banerjee (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research); C. Veeramani (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research) |
| Abstract: | In the context of increasing contribution of developing countries in world trade, an important question is whether trade can be used as an instrument to stimulate higher participation of women in the labour market? Trade and industrial liberalization undertaken during the 1990s and 2000s marked the end of India's nearly four decade experiment with state directed, heavy industry based, and import substituting industrialization. In this context, we analyse the role of various trade and technology related factors in determining female employment intensity (FEI), in a panel of India's manufacturing industries for the period 1998-2008. We find that import tariff rates exert a negative effect on FEI, supporting the hypothesis that firms, when exposed to international competition, tend to reduce costs by substituting male with female workers. Further, the relative demand for female workers increases to the extent that trade liberalization leads to resource reallocation in favour of unskilled labour intensive industries where India holds comparative advantage. By contrast, greater use of new technology and capital intensive production biases the gender composition of workforce against females. Liberalization has not led to large growth of female employment in India's organized manufacturing sector because the resource reallocation effect has not been strong enough to offset the negative technology effect. |
| Keywords: | female employment intensity, trade liberalization, manufacturing, India |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J82 F16 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2015-018&r=lab |
| By: | Nybom, Martin (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Stuhler, Jan (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Estimates of the most common mobility measure, the intergenerational elasticity, can be severely biased if snapshots are used to approximate lifetime income. However, little is known about biases in other popular dependence measures. We use long Swedish income series to provide such evidence for linear and rank correlations, and rank-based transition probabilities. Attenuation bias is considerably weaker in rank-based measures. Life-cycle bias is strongest in the elasticity; moderate in the linear correlation; and small in rank-based measures. However, with important exceptions: persistence in the tails of the distribution is considerably higher, and long-distance downward mobility considerably lower, than estimates from short-run income suggest. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; correlation; measurement error |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2015–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2015_013&r=lab |
| By: | Ioannou, Demosthenes; Kleibl, Johannes; Jamet, Jean-Francois |
| Abstract: | During the crisis, support for the EU has declined noticeably in many European Union member states. While previous research on European public opinion has mainly focused on the impact of domestic country- and individual-level factors on public attitudes towards the EU, this paper argues that developments in other EU member states can also have a significant impact on domestic euroscepticism. Specifically, deteriorating economic and fiscal conditions in other member states can lead to concerns in domestic publics about possible negative spillovers on the domestic economy and the ability of the EU to deliver positive economic outcomes. This in turn may lead to rising euroscepticism at the domestic level. The analysis of a panel data set for the EU as a whole and the euro area countries lends support to these arguments by showing that higher unemployment rates and government debt levels in other European countries are systematically related to lower levels of trust in the EU domestically. JEL Classification: D72, E02, F15, H63, J64 |
| Keywords: | Debt, European Union, Euroscepticism, Spillovers, Unemployment |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20151815&r=lab |
| By: | Jose Antonio Alonso |
| Abstract: | The increasing problems associated with international migration call for nations to manage migratory flows in a more realistic way both at national and international levels. However, global initiatives undertaken to date in this field have seen very limited success. This paper adopts a political economy approach for identifying the interests of affected social groups with a view towards building feasible policy responses. A dual proposal for global governance of migration is suggested, based on a combination between the establishment of universal minimum standards and the promotion of bilateral and regional interaction driven by problem-solving goals. |
| Keywords: | International migration, global governance, development, mobility of labor, migratory policy |
| JEL: | F22 F24 J61 J83 K31 O15 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:une:cpaper:026&r=lab |
| By: | Emre Akgunduz; Egbert Jongen; Paul P.M. Leseman; Janneke Plantenga |
| Abstract: | In this article we present quasi-experimental evidence on the relation between child care subsidies and child care quality. We exploit the difference in funding of private and public centers in the Netherlands. A recent subsidy cut reduced funding for private centers while funding for public centers was unaffected. The quality measurements are from a panel survey in which centers' quality was evaluated through classroom assessments by trained observers. Using differences-in-differences we find that the subsidy reduction caused a statistically significant decrease in quality of one fifth of a standard deviation. We also present results for nonlinear differences-in-differences estimators. The decline in quality is robust across specifications and appears to be driven by a decline in the middle of the distribution. A limitation of our data set is that our pre-reform period is short, so that we can not perform pre-reform placebo tests. |
| JEL: | C21 I21 I28 J13 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:310&r=lab |
| By: | Hatton, Timothy J.; Moloney, Joe |
| Abstract: | This paper outlines trends in asylum applications to industrialized countries, with a particular focus on Australia. Following a survey of existing studies we specify and estimate a model to explain asylum applications in 19 major destination countries from 48 source countries over the period from 1997 to 2012. We find that the political terror scale has a strong positive effect on applications while lack of civil liberties also has a positive effect. Origin country GDP per capita has a negative effect on the number of asylum claims while destination country unemployment rates also have a negative effect. We also explore the effects of asylum policies in destinations countries. Tougher policies relating to access to territory and to the processing of asylum claims have negative deterrent effects, but those relating to welfare conditions do not. The sharp tightening of Australian asylum policy in 2001 and subsequent easing from 2008 had larger than average effects. |
| Keywords: | asylum policy; asylum seekers; refugees |
| JEL: | F22 I38 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10678&r=lab |
| By: | Mikucka, Malgorzata |
| Abstract: | This investigation examined whether the life satisfaction advantage of married over unmarried persons decreased over the last three decades, and whether the changes in the contextual gender specialization explained this trend. The author used representative data from the World Values Survey–European Values Study (WVS–EVS)-integrated data set for 87 countries (N = 292,525) covering a period of 29 years. Results showed that the life satisfaction advantage of being married decreased among men but not among women. The analysis did not support the hypothesis that contextual gender specialization shaped the observed trend. Only in developed countries the declining contextual specialization correlated with smaller life satisfaction advantage of being married. This evidence suggests that the advantages of marriage are greater under conditions that support freedom of choice rather than economic necessity. |
| Keywords: | marriage; subjective well-being; time-trends; specialization; |
| JEL: | J1 J12 |
| Date: | 2015–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:59698&r=lab |
| By: | Barry P. Bosworth; Gary Burtless; Mattan Alalouf |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the importance of annuity-like income as a share of total money income received by aged families. The analysis considers the aged (62+) population as a whole as well as different parts of the aged families’ income distribution during the period from the early 1980s through 2009. We use survey data from 1983 through 2009 from the March Current Population Survey (March CPS) and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The total income amounts reported in the files are compared with data in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). We calculate the family income consisting of annuitized income flows (primarily Social Security and pensions) and measure it as a share of families’ total money income. We also expand the definition of both annuitized and non-annuitized income to include income flows not captured in the surveys, namely, health insurance subsidies and the housing services received by homeowners. Finally, we consider the potential impact on aged families if they were to convert their wealth into private annuities. The paper finds that: - Despite the shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) retirement plans, there is little evidence that the annuity-like income share of total income has fallen for aged families – and, in particular, for low-income aged families – over the past three decades. - This basic result remains unchanged when we consider more comprehensive income definitions and when we focus on aged families with retired heads of family.N - Nonetheless, many middle- and high-income aged families would experience a sizeable increase in monthly income if they annuitized their wealth. The policy implications of the findings are: - Concerns that reduced rates of annuitization will lead retirees to spend down their assets at a too-rapid rate seem overblown or at least premature; there is little evidence that the share of income derived from annuity-like income sources has declined. - Contrary to a widespread fear, the shift from DB to DC workplace pensions has not reduced the share of retirement income that consists of relatively secure, annuity-like income flows that will last as long as aged breadwinners and their spouses survive. |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2015-9&r=lab |
| By: | Pierre Cahuc (Department of Economics); Stéphane Carcillo (Departement d'Economie de Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | In France, 17% of youths between the ages of 15 and 29 are not in education, employment or training. Many of them are unemployed or inactive, and are poorly qualified to integrate into the job market. This chapter discusses the main obstacles this group faces, as well as possible remedies. Programmes, vocational training, and support in the search for jobs could be wise long-term investments, but including young people in the minimum income scheme and reducing the cost of work are as important. [Résumé éditeur] |
| Keywords: | Jeunesse; Europe; Marché du travail; Insertion; Inégalités sociales |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2b3na0suur9ds9u32v0c18uhhq&r=lab |
| By: | Leandro De Magalhães; Salomo Hirvonen |
| Abstract: | Incumbency may have effects on a political career that go beyond increasing the probability of reelection. In particular, incumbency may affect the probability of winning different political offices. So far, the literature has not looked at these multi-office incumbency effects. In contexts where politicians move frequently to other offices, ignoring multi-office advantages may generate biased estimates of the true effect of holding a political office on the success of one's career. We define Multi-Office Incumbency Advantage and study it using a novel data set that tracks all Brazilian politicians, from local councillor to federal legislator, from 1994 to 2010. Furthermore, we use our results to evaluate two standing hypothesis regarding Brazilian politics. The first is that there is an incumbency disadvantage in Brazil. The second is the hypothesis that holding a federal legislative office is a spring board to becoming a Mayor. We find no support for either. |
| Keywords: | Incumbency Advantage, Political Careers, Regression Discontinuity Design, Brazil. |
| JEL: | D70 D72 J00 |
| Date: | 2015–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:15/662&r=lab |
| By: | Barry P. Bosworth |
| Abstract: | This study examines the potential impact of the 2008-2009 financial crisis on economic growth. Expectations of future growth are critical to evaluating of the sustainability of overall budget trends and the financial condition of the Old-Age Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) and Medicare trust funds. The paper includes an assessment of the experience of other industrial economies with similar situations in earlier decades. The Nordic countries achieved a relatively complete recovery within a period of 5-10 years, but the slump in economic growth in Japan has continued for over a quarter century. The analysis of the current experience in the United States focuses on recent changes in the supply of labor and capital and changes in the growth of total factor productivity (TFP). The large decline in the labor force participation rate is largely the result of demographic changes and not the recession. Similarly, the growth of TFP has slowed in recent years, but most studies perceive it as predating the onset of the recession. The paper finds that: - Even though they may not be directly due to the financial crisis, expectations have been cut back in a wide range of analyses of future growth prospects. - The recent decline in labor force participation is dominated by demographic changes that will continue in future decades. Only a small portion appears to be related to cyclical factors. - The growth in TFP has also slowed, but the change predates the financial crisis and is also likely to continue in future years. The policy implications of the findings are: - The economic assumptions that underlie current projections of government expenditure programs are likely to be overly optimistic, particularly because the changed expectations are not cyclical or temporary in nature. |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2015-8&r=lab |