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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Jing Cai (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research); Morris M. Kleiner (University of Minnesota) |
| Abstract: | This study shows the influence of occupational licensing on two occupations that provide similar services: occupational therapists and physical therapists. Most of the tasks for these two occupations differ, but several jobs overlap, and individuals in both occupations could have legal jurisdiction over these tasks. We empirically examine how these two occupations interact with one another in the labor market on wage determination and employment. Unlike previous studies, our study examines two occupations that are female dominated both within the professions and among its leadership. Our results show that occupational licensing can raise the wages of members of both occupations, but the duration of state occupational licensing statutes is the dominant influence on wage determination. Occupational licensing is also associated with a reduction in annual hours worked and in the relative numbers of members in each of the professions. Moreover, the ability of physical therapists to have direct access to patients is associated with a reduction in hourly earnings for occupational therapists, suggesting some substitution for certain service tasks across the two occupations. The ability of these two occupations to be both complements to and substitutes for one another provides new evidence on how the growing number of regulated occupations that are similar interact and influence one another. |
| Keywords: | Occupational licensing, wage determination, interaction of occupations |
| JEL: | J44 J31 J38 J88 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:16-259&r=lab |
| By: | Alfonso Arpaia (European Commission); Aron Kiss (European Commission); Balazs Palvolgyi (European Commission); Alessandro Turrini (European Commission, IZA and Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses macroeconomic determinants of labour mobility and its role in the adjustment to asymmetric shocks. First, the paper develops stylised facts of mobility at the national and sub-national levels in the EU. Then, it explores the macroeconomic determinants of bilateral migration flows. Econometric evidence suggests that labour mobility increases significantly when a country joins the EU. While euro area membership seems not to be associated with an overall rise in the magnitude of mobility flows, workers do appear more ready to move from countries where unemployment is high to those where it is lower. Thirdly, the paper looks at mobility as a channel of economic adjustment by means of a VAR analysis in the vein of Blanchard and Katz (1992). Results indicate that mobility absorbs about a quarter of an asymmetric shock within 1 year. Movements in response to shocks have almost doubled since the introduction of the euro. Real wages have also become more responsive to asymmetric shocks during the same period. |
| Keywords: | Labour mobility; geographic mobility; migration; gravity; adjustment; asymmetric shocks; optimal currency areas; European Union |
| JEL: | J61 J64 |
| Date: | 2016–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:396&r=lab |
| By: | Pashchenko, Svetlana; Porapakkarm, Ponpoje |
| Abstract: | Should asset testing be used in means-tested programs? These programs target low-income people, but low income can result not only from low productivity but also from low labor supply. We aim to show that in the asymmetric information environment, there is a positive role for asset testing. We focus on Medicaid, one of the largest means-tested programs in the US, and we ask two questions: 1) Does Medicaid distort work incentives? 2) Can asset testing improve the insurance-incentives trade-off of Medicaid? Our tool is a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents that matches many important features of the data. We find that 23% of Medicaid enrollees do not work in order to be eligible. These distortions are costly: if individuals' productivity was observable and could be used to determine Medicaid eligibility, this results in substantial ex-ante welfare gains. When productivity is unobservable, asset testing is effective in eliminating labor supply distortions, but to minimize saving distortions, asset limits should be different for workers and non-workers. This work-dependent asset testing can produce welfare gains close to the case of observable productivity. |
| Keywords: | health insurance, Medicaid, labor supply, asset testing, general equilibrium, life-cycle models |
| JEL: | D52 D91 E21 H53 I13 I18 |
| Date: | 2016–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72413&r=lab |
| By: | Daniel MacDonald (California State University, San Bernadino); Eric Nilsson (California State University, San Bernadino) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the price pass-through effect of the minimum wage and use the results to provide insight into the competitive structure of low-wage labor markets. Using monthly price series, we find that the pass-through effect is entirely concentrated on the month that the minimum wage change goes into effect, and is much smaller than what the canonical literature has found. We then discuss why our results differ from that literature, noting the impact of series interpolation in generating most of the previous results. We then use the variation in the size of the minimum wage change to evaluate the competitive nature of low-wage labor markets. Finally, we exploit the rich variation in minimum wage policy of the last 10–15 years—including the rise of state and city-level minimum wage changes and the increased use of indexation—to investigate how the extent of price pass-through varies by policy context. This paper contributes to the literature by clarifying our understanding of the dynamics and magnitude of the pass-through effect and enriching the discussion of how different policies may shape the effect that minimum wage hikes have on prices. |
| Keywords: | Minimum wage, pass-through effect, monopsony, public policy |
| JEL: | J3 J48 J11 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:16-260&r=lab |
| By: | Jeanne Cilliers and Johan Fourie |
| Abstract: | In the absence of historical income or education data, the change in occupations over time can be used as a measure of social mobility. This paper investigates intergenerational occupational mobility using a novel genealogical dataset for settler South Africa, spanning its transition from an agricultural to an early industrialized society (1800–1909). We identify fathers and sons for whom we have complete information on occupational attainment. We follow a two-generation discrete approach to measure changes in both absolute and relative mobility over time. Consistent with qualitative evidence of a shift away from agriculture as the economy’s dominant sector, we see the farming class shrinking and the skilled and professional classes growing. Controlling for changes in the structure of the labor market over time, we find increasing upward social mobility, becoming significant following the discovery of minerals in 1868. We find this mobility particularly for semi-skilled workers but virtually no improved mobility for sons of farmers. We also test hypotheses related to the mobility prospects for first-born sons and sons of immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility, Social Mobility, resource curse, industrialization, colonialism, longitudinal data |
| JEL: | J60 J61 J62 N30 N37 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:617&r=lab |
| By: | Anastasia Semykina (Florida State University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an estimation approach that addresses the problems of sample selection and endogeneity of fertility decisions when estimating the effect of young children on women's self-employment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, 1982-2006, we find that ignoring self-selection and endogeneity leads to underestimating the effect of young children. Once both sources of biases are accounted for, the estimated effect of young children more than doubles when compared to uncorrected results. This finding is robust to the several changes in specification and to the use of a different data set. |
| Keywords: | self-employment, fertility, endogeneity, sample selection |
| JEL: | J13 J22 C33 C34 C35 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fsu:wpaper:wp2016_07_02&r=lab |
| By: | Bertoli, Simone (CERDI, University of Auvergne); Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); Keita, Sekou (CERDI, University of Auvergne) |
| Abstract: | The effect of immigration on host and origin countries is mediated by the way migrants take their labor supply decisions. We propose a simple way of integrating the traditional random utility maximization model used to analyze location decisions with a classical labor demand function at destination. Our setup allows us to estimate a general upper bound on the elasticity of the migrant labor supply that we take to the data using the evolution of the numbers and wages of temporary overseas Filipino workers between 1992 and 2009 to different destinations. We find that the migrant labor supply elasticity can be very large. Temporary migrants are very reactive to economic conditions in their potential destinations. |
| Keywords: | labor supply elasticity, temporary migration, international migration, multilateral resistance to migration |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J38 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10031&r=lab |
| By: | Michele Battisti; Giovanni Peri; Agnese Romiti |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the size of co-ethnic networks at arrival affected the economic success of immigrants in Germany. Applying panel analysis with a large set of fixed effects and controls, we isolate the association between initial network size and long-run immigrant outcomes. Focusing on refugees – assigned to an initial location independently of their choice – allows a causal interpretation of the estimated coefficient. We find that immigrants initially located in places with larger co-ethnic networks are more likely to be employed at first, but have a lower probability of investing in human capital. In the long run they are more likely to be mis-matched in their job and to earn a lower wage. |
| JEL: | J24 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22389&r=lab |
| By: | Faruk, Balli; Syed Abul, Basher; Rosmy, Jean Louis; Ahmed Saber, Mahmud |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine possible macro-level determinants underlying the number of trips emigrants make back home by exploiting a panel of data comprising 25 countries over the period 1995-2010. To guide the empirical work, we first construct a simple model of the decision by emigrants to visit their home country. The model predicts, among other things, that the effects of distance on the frequency of visiting home are negative but the impact of the host country's wage on the decision to visit home is ambiguous: it depends on the legal status of the emigrants in the host country. Our empirical results based on a pooled estimator support these predictions. First, the number of trips back home is inversely related to distance but positively related to income and institutional quality. Second, emigrants living in Africa and North America are less likely to visit home, whereas emigrants living in the Arabian Gulf countries visit home more often. The results from cross-sectional estimations provide very similar results, indicating that our results are robust to alternative estimation approaches. |
| Keywords: | International Migration; Geographic Labor Mobility; Tourism; Panel Data. |
| JEL: | C23 F22 J61 L83 |
| Date: | 2016–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72291&r=lab |
| By: | Domina, Thurston; McEachin, Andrew; Hanselman, Paul; Agarwal, Priyanka; Hwang, NaYoung; Lewis, Ryan |
| Abstract: | Schools utilize an array of strategies to match curricula and instruction to students' heterogeneous skills. While generations of scholars have debated "tracking" and its consequences, the literature fails to account for diversity of school-level sorting practices. In this paper we draw upon the work of Sorenson (1970) to articulate and develop empirical measures of five distinct dimensions of school cross-classroom tracking systems: (1) the degree of course differentiation, (2) the extent to which sorting practices generate skills-homogeneous classrooms, (3) the rate at which students enroll in advanced courses, (4) the extent to which students move between tracks over time, and (5) the relation between track assignments across subject areas. Analyses of longitudinal administrative data following 24,000 8th graders enrolled in 23 middle schools through the 10th grade indicate that these dimensions of tracking are empirically separable and have divergent effects on student achievement and the production of inequality. |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ran:wpaper:1155&r=lab |
| By: | Di Tommaso, Maria Laura (University of Turin); Mendolia, Silvia (University of Wollongong); Contini, Dalit (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Gender differences in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines are widespread in most OECD countries and mathematics is the only subject where typically girls tend to underperform with respect to boys. This paper describes the gender gap in math test scores in Italy, which is one of the countries displaying the largest differential between boys and girls according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we use data from an Italian national level learning assessment, involving children in selected grades from second to tenth. We first analyse the magnitude of the gender gap using OLS regression and school fixed-effect models for each grade separately. Our results show that girls systematically underperform boys, even after controlling for an array of individual and family background characteristics, and that the average gap increases with children's age. We then study the gender gap throughout the test scores distribution, using quantile regression and metric-free methods, and find that the differential is small at the lowest percentiles of the grade distribution, but large among top performing children. Finally, we estimate dynamic models relating math performance at two consecutive assessments. Lacking longitudinal data, we use a pseudo panel technique and find that girls' average test scores are consistently lower than those of boys at all school years, even conditional on previous scores. |
| Keywords: | math gender gap, education, school achievement, inequalities, cross-sectional data, pseudo panel estimation, quantile regression |
| JEL: | J16 I24 C31 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10053&r=lab |
| By: | Chen, Xi (Yale University); Wang, Tianyu (Beijing Academy of Social Sciences) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the impact of receiving pension benefits on mental well-being using China's New Rural Pension Scheme launched in 2010, the largest pension program in the world. More than four hundred million Chinese have enrolled in the program, and the program on average amounts to one fifth of pensioners' earned income. We find a salient increase in pension benefits and poverty alleviation around the pension eligibility age cut-off. Employing an instrumental variable approach to a national sample of the China Family Panel Studies, our empirical strategy overcomes the endogeneity of pension receipt that prevents us from identifying the causal effect of income change on mental health as measured by the full version of CES-D and depressive symptoms. Results reveal a sizeable reduction in depression susceptibility due to pension income. The improvement in mental health is larger for vulnerable populations with financial and health constraints. We further discuss potential pathways through which pension may affect mental health. |
| Keywords: | pension income, depression, mental health, older populations |
| JEL: | H55 I18 I38 J14 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10037&r=lab |
| By: | Michalopoulos, Stelios; Putterman, Louis; Weil, David |
| Abstract: | Does a person's historical lineage influence his or her current economic status? Motivated by a large literature in social sciences stressing the effect of an early transition to agriculture on current economic performance at the level of countries, we examine the relative contemporary status of individuals as a function of how much their ancestors relied on agriculture during the pre-industrial era. We focus on Africa, where by combining anthropological records of groups with individual-level survey data we can explore the effect of the historical lifeways of one's forefathers. Within enumeration areas and occupational groups, we find that individuals from ethnicities that derived a larger share of subsistence from agriculture in the pre-colonial era are today more educated and wealthy. A tentative exploration of channels suggests that differences in attitudes and beliefs as well as differential treatment by others, including differential political power, may contribute to these divergent outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Africa; agriculture; Culture; Development; Ethnicity |
| JEL: | J6 N37 O15 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11366&r=lab |
| By: | Carolyn Chisadza and Manoel Bittencourt; Manoel Bittencourt |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effects of different socioeconomic indicators on fertility rates in 48 sub-Saharan African countries between 1970 and 2012. The results, based on panel analysis with fixed effects and instrumental variables, show that initially income per capita and infant mortality explain a signiÂ…cant part of the fertility decline in the region. However, the introduction of technology as an instrument augments the effect of education in reducing fertility. The results also provide signiÂ…cant evidence for fertility declines through increased female education. These results support empirical evidence of the uniÂ…ed growth theory which emphasises the role of technology in raising the demand for education and bringing about a demographic transition during the Post-Malthusian period. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | I25 J13 O55 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:620&r=lab |
| By: | Ran Abramitzky; Leah Platt Boustan; Katherine Eriksson |
| Abstract: | Using two million census records, we document cultural assimilation during the Age of Mass Migration, a formative period in US history. Immigrants chose less foreign names for children as they spent more time in the US, eventually closing half of the gap with natives. Many immigrants also intermarried and learned English. Name-based assimilation was similar by literacy status, and faster for immigrants who were more culturally distant from natives. Cultural assimilation affected the next generation. Within households, brothers with more foreign names completed fewer years of schooling, faced higher unemployment, earned less and were more likely to marry foreign-born spouses. |
| JEL: | J15 N32 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22381&r=lab |
| By: | Zacchia, Giulia |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of recent changes in Italian economic thought by examining them from a gender perspective. Following a popular international trend, the use of bibliometric indicators for the purposes of personnel selection has been introduced in Italy, creating a more competitive environment heavily founded on rigid standardized indexes of “scientific productivity”. In this context, recent studies analyze gender differences by considering the willingness to enter competition. By contrast, we aim at describing what were the strategies adopted by men and women economists in terms of research fields, at different stages of their careers. We find that women progressively have converged to the research interests of their male colleagues. Specifically, we find that the decrease in non-mainstream publications, in particular in the fields of heterodox approaches and history of economic thought, is larger among female economists. Systematic follow-up is essential, in particular the creation of specific committee or observatory embodying a gender perspective in all aspects of the academic and research activity in economics in Italy. |
| Keywords: | recent economic thought; women; research evaluation |
| JEL: | A14 B40 J16 |
| Date: | 2016–06–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72279&r=lab |
| By: | Willman, Paul (London School of Economics); Bryson, Alex (University College London); Forth, John (National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)) |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the financial resources of trades unions in the UK, both updating previous work and attempting to understand the management of first and second order collective action problems. First order problems refer to the problems of initiating collective action and second order problems refer to the management of collective action organisations. Unions are 'cost disease' organisations in which expenditure outstrips inflation but revenue may not. Their economic model cannot survive without some form of external subsidy. Both aggregate and case study data – from the largest UK union, Unite – are presented to illustrate the cost disease problem and to suggest options for its management. |
| Keywords: | trade unions, collective action |
| JEL: | J51 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10043&r=lab |
| By: | Haile, Getinet Astatike (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Using data from two comprehensive national labour force surveys conducted in 2005 and 2013, this paper examines the extent of intergenerational mobility in Ethiopia using monetary and non-monetary measures. Quantile regression and OLS based results suggest there is moderate level of "stickiness" in income mobility across generations. Sons are found to be more mobile than daughters both in monetary and non-monetary terms, although the mobility gap appears to have narrowed recently. There is virtually no evidence on intergenerational mobility in the context of low income countries in general and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. The paper thus provides valuable insights into issues of intergenerational mobility in a low income country setting. The mixed approach used addresses possible measurement error in income, as well as offering a broader scope in examining intergenerational mobility. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, income, education, occupation, Ethiopia |
| JEL: | J62 D31 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10047&r=lab |
| By: | Lauren L. Schmitz; Dalton Conley |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether draft-lottery estimates of the causal effect of Vietnam-era military service on schooling vary by genetic propensity toward educational attainment. To capture the complex genetic architecture that underlies the bio-developmental pathways behavioral traits and evoked environments associated with educational attainment, we construct a polygenic score (PGS) for the Vietnam-era cohort in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) that aggregates thousands of individual loci across the human genome, weighted by effect sizes derived from a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) for years of education. Our findings suggest veterans with below average PGSs for educational attainment completed fewer years of schooling than comparable non-veterans with the same PGS, primarily due to fewer years of college education. On the other hand, we do not find any difference in the educational attainment of veterans and non-veterans with above average PGSs. Results show that public policies and exogenous environments may induce heterogeneous treatment effects by genetic disposition. |
| JEL: | I20 I24 I26 J01 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22393&r=lab |
| By: | Gang, Ira N. (Rutgers University); Gatskova, Kseniia (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg); Landon-Lane, John (Rutgers University); Yun, Myeong-Su (Inha University) |
| Abstract: | We examine vulnerability to poverty in Tajikistan during the global financial crisis, focusing on the roles played by international migration and remittances, using a formal, practical, and easily decomposable vulnerability measure. Our strategy is to estimate a Markov transition probability matrix with the aim of identifying the vulnerability of households to poverty. Importantly, by introducing the index of vulnerability as the weighted probability of a household falling into poverty over a given time horizon, we can use the estimated dynamics to assess the short, medium and long-run vulnerability. We find that during the "recession transition" almost all households were vulnerable to poverty while almost none were during the "recovery period". Overall, urban households, more educated households and households receiving remittances from international labor migrants were less vulnerable to poverty. While households with a current or very recent migrant did not have a significantly lower measured vulnerability to poverty, those households receiving remittances from migrants had a lower vulnerability to poverty. Our findings stress that the international labor migration from Tajikistan may not be considered as a reliable means of welfare security for the households because external economic shocks and internal political decisions may negatively affect Russian economy and lead to a reduction of remittances flow to Tajikistan. |
| Keywords: | mobility measurement, vulnerability, poverty, inequality, measurement, Tajikistan |
| JEL: | J60 D63 I32 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10049&r=lab |
| By: | Hazan, Moshe; Weiss, David; Zoabi, Hosny |
| Abstract: | Property rights are at the heart of capitalism's ability to efficiently allocate resources. Historically, married women have been one of the groups with the greatest legal disabilities in this regard, to the benefit of their husbands. Starting in the second half of the 19th century, common law countries, which were entirely dominated by men, gave married women property rights. Before this ``women's liberation,'' married women were subject to the laws of coverture. Coverture had detailed laws as to which spouse had ownership and control over various aspects of property both before and after marriage. These laws created a strong disincentive for women to invest in financial assets, such as stocks, bonds, and even bank deposits. This paper develops a general equilibrium model with endogenous determination of women's rights in which these laws affect portfolio choices, leading to inefficient allocations. We show how technological advancement eventually leads to men granting rights, and in turn how these rights affect development. Exploiting cross-state variation in the timing of rights, we show that increases in non-agricultural TFP predict the granting of rights. The granting of rights in turn leads to a dynamic labor reallocation towards the non-agricultural sector, representing further development. Finally, we show that women's rights are associated with lower interest rates and greater financial intermediation, consistent with an increase in the supply of credit. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth; financial innovation; investor protection; political economy |
| JEL: | E02 E44 G11 J12 K11 K36 N11 N21 O11 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11371&r=lab |