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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Jeanne Cilliers (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Johan Fourie (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University) |
| 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 social mobility, becoming significant after 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: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers280&r=lab |
| By: | Sandra E. Black; Erik Grönqvist; Björn Öckert |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of birth order on personality traits among men using population data on enlistment records and occupations for Sweden. We find that earlier born men are more emotionally stable, persistent, socially outgoing, willing to assume responsibility, and able to take initiative than later-borns. In addition, we find that birth order affects occupational sorting; first-born children are more likely to be managers, while later-born children are more likely to be self-employed. We also find that earlier born children are more likely to be in occupations that require leadership ability, social ability and the Big Five personality traits. Finally, we find a significant role of sex composition within the family. Later-born boys suffer an additional penalty the larger the share of boys among the older siblings. When we investigate possible mechanisms, we find that the negative effects of birth order are driven by post-natal environmental factors. We also find evidence of lower parental human capital investments in later-born children. |
| JEL: | J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23393&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen R.G. Jones; W. Craig Riddell |
| Abstract: | We analyze changes in unemployment, marginal labor force attachment and participation in Canada and the U.S. Using two complementary decompositions, we show the importance for the comparative evolution of aggregate unemployment of changes in the fraction of the non-employed who are unemployed and in the fraction of the unemployed who ‘want work’. Using microdata we study labor market transition behavior at these margins, finding remarkably consistent results in the two countries, with the marginally attached displaying behavior lying between unemployment and non-attachment. The three non-employment states are distinct from one another in both Canada and the U.S. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2017-07&r=lab |
| By: | Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (San Diego State University); Delia Furtado (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | The yearly cap on H-1B visas became binding for the first time in 2004, making it harder for college-educated foreigners to work in the United States. However, academic institutions are exempt from the cap and citizens of five countries (Canada, Mexico, Chile, Singapore, and Australia) have access to alternative work visas. We exploit those exemptions to gauge how immigrant career choices are affected by the binding visa cap. Among other impacts, the binding cap raises international students’ likelihood of employment in academia, even outside of their field of study, a result consistent with the notion of “settling for academia.†|
| Keywords: | H-1B visas, high-skilled immigration, academic labor market, United States |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1705&r=lab |
| By: | Alan Manning; Barbara Petrongolo |
| Abstract: | This paper models the optimal search strategies of the unemployed across space to characterize local labor markets. Our methodology allows for linkages between numerous areas, while preserving tractability. We estimate that labor markets are quite local, as the attractiveness of jobs to applicants sharply decays with distance. Also, workers are discouraged from searching in areas with strong job competition from other jobseekers. However, as labor markets overlap, a local stimulus or transport improvements have modest effects on local outcomes, because ripple effects in job applications dilute their impact across a series of overlapping markets. |
| Keywords: | job search; local labor markets; place-based policies; ripple effect |
| JEL: | J61 J63 J64 R12 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:78492&r=lab |
| By: | Jonathan J Adams (Department of Economics, University of Florida) |
| Abstract: | Advanced economies undergo three transitions during their development: 1. They transition from a rural to an urban economy. 2. They transition from low income growth to high income growth. 3. Their demographics transition from initially high fertility and mortality rates to low modern levels. The timings of these transitions are correlated in the historical development of most advanced economies. I unify complementary theories of the transitions into a nonlinear model of endogenous long run economic and demographic change. The model reproduces the timing and magnitude of the transitions. Because the model captures the interactions between all three transitions, it is able to explain three additional empirical patterns: a declining urban-rural wage gap, a declining rural-urban family size ratio, and most surprisingly, that early urbanization slows development. This third prediction distinguishes the model from other theories of long-run growth, so I test and confirm it in cross-country data. |
| JEL: | E13 J11 N10 O18 O41 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ufl:wpaper:001001&r=lab |
| By: | Pastore, Francesco (University of Naples II) |
| Abstract: | This essay provides a comprehensive interpretative framework to understand the reasons why the school-to-work transition (SWT) is so slow and hard in Italy. The country is a typical example of the South European SWT regime, where the educational system is typically rigid and sequential, the labor market has been recently made more flexible through two-tier labor market reforms, and the family has typically an important role to absorb the individual and social cost of the passage to adulthood. The main thesis of this essay is that the traditional disorganization of the educational and training system coupled with slow economic growth, rather than the supposedly low degree of labor market flexibility explain high (youth) unemployment. Important reforms of several tiles of the Italian SWT regime – the Jobs Act, important fiscal incentives to hiring youth long term unemployed, the so-called Good School and the related introduction of work-related learning, the European Youth Guarantee and the reform of employment services – have been all recently implemented, which are causing a slow convergence towards the so-called European social model, but it is still too early to draw conclusions as to the impact of such reforms on youth labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | school-to-work transition, youth experience gap, human capital theory, dual principle, European Youth Guarantee, Italy |
| JEL: | H52 I2 I24 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10767&r=lab |
| By: | Altangerel, Khulan (Tilburg University); van Ours, Jan C. (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | The 1986 US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was directed at tackling the problem of growing unauthorized migration through legalization of unauthorized immigrants, increasing border security and sanctioning employers who hired unauthorized immigrants. Our paper investigates how the IRCA affected the migration dynamics of Mexican immigrants focusing on their age of onset of migration and the duration of their first trip. We find that the IRCA had a positive effect in reducing unauthorized migration to the US. Although primarily aiming at unauthorized immigration, the IRCA had substantial effects on legal migration through its legalization program. |
| Keywords: | immigration policy, migrant behavior |
| JEL: | J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10771&r=lab |
| By: | Forte, Giuseppe; Portes, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the determinants of long-term international migration to the UK; we explore the extent to which migration is driven by macroeconomic variables (GDP per capita, unemployment rate) as well as law and policy (the existence of “free movement” rights for EEA nationals). We find a very large impact from free movement within the EEA. We also find that macroeconomic variables – UK GDP growth and GDP at origin – are significant drivers of migration flows; evidence for the impact of the unemployment rate in countries of origin, or of the exchange rate, however, is weak. We conclude that, while future migration flows will be driven by a number of factors, macroeconomic and otherwise, Brexit and the end of free movement will result in a large fall in immigration from EEA countries to the UK. |
| Keywords: | Brexit,EU,Immigration,UK |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:69&r=lab |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A.; Hunt, Jennifer |
| Abstract: | An influential strand of research has tested for the effects of immigration on natives' wages and employment using exogenous refugee supply shocks as natural experiments. Several studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the effects of noted refugee waves such as the Mariel Boatlift in Miami and post-Soviet refugees to Israel. We show that conflicting findings on the effects of the Mariel Boatlift can be explained by a sudden change in the race composition of the Current Population Survey extracts in 1980, specific to Miami but unrelated to the Boatlift. We also show that conflicting findings on the labor-market effects of other important refugee waves can be produced by spurious correlation between the instrument and the endogenous variable introduced by applying a common divisor to both. As a whole, the evidence from refugee waves reinforces the existing consensus that the impact of immigration on average native-born workers is small, and fails to substantiate claims of large detrimental impacts on workers with less than high school. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; instrumental variables; Refugees |
| JEL: | J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12050&r=lab |
| By: | Natalia Danzer; Martin Halla; Nicole Schneeweis; Martina Zweimüller |
| Abstract: | We provide a novel interpretation of the estimated treatment effects from evaluations of parental leave reforms. Accounting for the counterfactual mode of care is crucial in the analysis of child outcomes and potential mediators. We evaluate a large and generous parental leave extension in Austria exploiting a sharp birthday cutoff-based discontinuity in the eligibility for extended parental leave and geographical variation in formal childcare. We find that estimated treatment effects on long-term child outcomes differ substantially according to the availability of formal childcare and the mother's counterfactual work behavior. We show that extending parental leave has significant positive effects on children's health and human capital outcomes only if the reform induces a replacement of informal childcare with maternal care. We conclude that care provided by mothers (or formal institutions) is superior to informal care-arrangements. |
| Keywords: | Parental leave, formal childcare, informal childcare, child development, mater- nal labor supply, fertility |
| JEL: | J13 H52 J22 J12 I38 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2017-11&r=lab |
| By: | Michael E. Waugh |
| Abstract: | This paper shows how the dynamics of the firm yield new insights into the short- and long-run economic outcomes from changes in immigration policy. I quantitatively illustrate these insights by evaluating two policies: an expansion of and the elimination of the H-1B visa program for skilled labor. A change in policy changes firms’ entry and exit decisions as they dynamically respond to changes in market size. The dynamic response of firms amplifies changes in relative wages as labor demand shifts with the distribution of firms. Firms’ responses also lead to the rapid accrual of aggregate gains/losses in output and consumption. The welfare implications of policy changes depend critically on who bears the burden of creating new firms. |
| JEL: | A1 D92 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23387&r=lab |
| By: | Kyyrä, Tomi (VATT, Helsinki); Arranz, José María (Universidad de Alcalá); García-Serrano, Carlos (Universidad de Alcalá) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether part-time work acts as a bridge towards full-time work for unemployed workers in Spain. We follow the timing-of-event approach and estimate the causal effect of part-time work on the exit rate to full-time work using a multivariate duration model. Our findings show that the exit rate to full-time work declines when working part time (lock-in effect) but increases afterwards (stepping-stone effect), implying a trade-off between the two opposite effects. The resulting net effect of part-time work on the expected time until full-time work is positive in most cases, leading to longer spells without full-time work. This undesirable effect has increased over time, so that the value of temporary part-time work as a pathway to full-time work for the unemployed has reduced. |
| Keywords: | part-time employment, work trajectories, unemployment duration, mixed proportional hazard model |
| JEL: | J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10770&r=lab |
| By: | Bingley, Paul (Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI)); Cappellari, Lorenzo (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) |
| Abstract: | Correlations between parent and child earnings reflect intergenerational mobility and, more broadly, correlations between siblings' earnings reflect shared community and family background. These earnings relationships capture important aspects of relations in socioeconomic status more generally. We estimate intergenerational transmission and sibling correlations of life-cycle earnings jointly within a unified framework that nests previous models. Using data on the Danish population of father/first-son/second-son triads we find that intergenerational effects account for on average 72 percent of sibling correlations. This share is higher than all previous studies because we allow for heterogeneous intergenerational transmission between families. Sibling correlations exhibit a U-shape over the working life, consistent with differences in human capital investments between families. |
| Keywords: | sibling correlations, intergenerational transmission, life-cycle earnings |
| JEL: | D31 J62 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10761&r=lab |
| By: | Autor, David; Dorn, David; Katz, Lawrence; Patterson, Christina; Van Reenen, John |
| Abstract: | Abstract The fall of labor's share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well documented but its causes remain uncertain. Existing empirical assessments of trends in labor's share typically have relied on industry or macro data, obscuring heterogeneity among firms. In this paper, we analyze micro panel data from the U.S. Economic Census since 1982 and international sources and document empirical patterns to assess a new interpretation of the fall in the labor share based on the rise of "superstar firms". If globalization or technological changes advantage the most productive firms in each industry, product market concentration will rise as industries become increasingly dominated by superstar firms with high profits and a low share of labor in firm value-added and sales. As the importance of superstar firms increases, the aggregate labor share will tend to fall. Our hypothesis offers several testable predictions: industry sales will increasingly concentrate in a small number of firms; industries where concentration rises most will have the largest declines in the labor share; the fall in the labor share will be driven largely by between-firm reallocation rather than (primarily) a fall in the unweighted mean labor share within firms; the between-firm reallocation component of the fall in the labor share will be greatest in the sectors with the largest increases in market concentration; and finally, such patterns will be observed not only in U.S. firms, but also internationally. We find support for all of these predictions. |
| Keywords: | Labor share; concentration; superstar |
| JEL: | J1 L1 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12041&r=lab |