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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Bailliu, Jeannine; Han, Xinfen; Kruger, Mark; Liu, Yu-Hsien; Thanabalasingam, Sri |
| Abstract: | The official Chinese labour market indicators have been seen as problematic, given their small cyclical movement and their only-partial capture of the labour force. In our paper, we build a monthly Chinese labour market conditions index (LMCI) using text analytics applied to mainland Chinese-language newspapers over the period from 2003 to 2017. We use a supervised machine learning approach by training a support vector machine classification model. The information content and the forecast ability of our LMCI are tested against official labour market activity measures in wage and credit growth estimations. Surprisingly, one of our findings is that the much-maligned official labour market indicators do contain information. However, their information content is not robust and, in many cases, our LMCI can provide forecasts that are significantly superior. Moreover, regional disaggregation of the LMCI illustrates that labour conditions in the export-oriented coastal region are sensitive to export growth, while those in inland regions are not. This suggests that text analytics can, indeed, be used to extract useful labour market information from Chinese newspaper articles. |
| JEL: | C38 E24 E27 |
| Date: | 2018–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2018_009&r=lab |
| By: | William W. Olney (Williams College); Dario Pozzoli (Copenhagen Business School and the Tuborg Centre for Globalization and Firms) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between immigration and offshoring by examining whether an influx of foreign workers reduces the need for firms to relocate jobs abroad. We exploit a Danish quasi-natural experiment in which immigrants were randomly allocated to municipalities using a refugee dispersal policy and we use the Danish employer-employee matched data set covering the universe of workers and firms over the period 1995-2011. Our findings show that an exogenous influx of immigrants into a municipality reduces firm-level offshoring at both the extensive and intensive margins. The fact that immigration and offshoring are substitutes has important policy implications, since restrictions on one may encourage the other. While the multilateral relationship is negative, a subsequent bilateral analysis shows that immigrants have connections in their country of origin that increase the likelihood that firms offshore to that particular foreign country. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Offshoring |
| JEL: | F22 F16 J61 F23 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2018-02&r=lab |
| By: | Collischon; Matthias |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether personality traits can explain glass ceilings (increasing gender wage gaps across the wage distribution). Using longitudinal survey data from Germany, the UK, and Australia, I combine unconditional quantile regressions with wage gap decompositions to identify the effect of personality traits on wage gaps. The results suggest that the impact of personality traits on wage gaps increases across the wage distribution in all countries. Personality traits explain up to 14.5% of the overall gender wage gap. However, controlling for personality traits does not lead to a significant reduction of unexplained wage gaps in most cases. |
| Keywords: | Non-cognitive skills, personality traits, unconditional quantile regression, gender wage gap, glass ceiling |
| JEL: | C21 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp965&r=lab |
| By: | Scott A. Carson |
| Abstract: | In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner proposed that America’s Western frontier was an economic ‘safety-valve,’ a place where settlers could migrate when conditions in eastern states and Europe crystalized against their upward economic mobility. However, recent studies suggest the Western frontier’s material conditions may not have been as advantageous as Jackson proposed because settlers lacked the knowledge and human capital to succeed on the Plains and Far Western frontier. This study illustrates that current and cumulative net nutrition on the Central Plains improved during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, indicating that recent challenges to the Turner hypothesis are not well supported by net nutrition studies. Net nutrition improve with agricultural innovations and biotechnologies on the western frontier, and rural agricultural workers net nutrition was better than from elsewhere within the US. |
| Keywords: | nineteenth century black and white stature variation, urbanization, US Central Plains |
| JEL: | I10 J11 J71 N31 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6969&r=lab |
| By: | Carole Bonnet; Bertrand Garbinti; Anne Solaz |
| Abstract: | Though shared custody arrangements after divorce are more and more frequent in many countries, little is known about their economic consequences for parents. By relaxing family time constraints, does shared custody help divorced mothers return to work more easily? This article analyses to what extent the type of child custody arrangement affects mothers' labour market behaviours after divorce. Using a large sample of divorcees from an exhaustive French administrative income-tax database, and taking advantage of the huge territorial discrepancies observed in the proportion of shared custody, we correct for the possible endogeneity of shared custody. As it turns out, the probability of being employed is 16 percentage points higher for mothers with shared custody arrangements compared to those having sole physical custody, with huge heterogeneous effects: larger positive effects are observed for previously inactive women, for those belonging to the lowest income quintiles before divorce, for those with a young child, and for those who have three or more children. Shared custody is particularly helpful for women who are far removed from the labour market. |
| Keywords: | Divorce, Child custody, Shared custody, Labour supply |
| JEL: | J12 J18 J22 K36 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sticas:/209&r=lab |
| By: | Avila, Zulum.; Tian, Guangzhe. |
| Abstract: | This paper was prepared by the ILO as part of a global study to look at the emergence of partnerships between public employment services and other providers seeking to promote access to employment. Across the world, such partnerships are becoming instrumental in delivering these services and active labour market programmes (ALMPs) to help employers and job-seekers adapt to change, and to cope with labour market transitions in increasingly complex labour markets. This paper explores the mechanisms and preconditions that are contributing to these emerging partnerships to keep employment situation stable in China.The paper also presents three case studies which cast light on the key factors that prompt the formation of partnerships and the ways in which the challenges of working with external providers have been addressed. The analysis also aims to establish whether there are transferable lessons which could be replicated by other provinces with similar economic conditions and recruitment challenges.This paper intends to help employment services to explore new approaches to service delivery to meet increasing demand. Partnerships should not be a substitute for the proper funding of public employment services. On the contrary: collaborative partnerships offer the possibility of combining the experience, knowledge, and resources of a variety of actors in implementing solutions that respond to local needs. |
| Keywords: | employment service, good practices, case study, China |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:994983593202676&r=lab |
| By: | Lee, Neil; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; von Berlepsch, Viola |
| Abstract: | Does the economic effect of immigrant women differ from that of immigrants in general? This paper examines if gender has influenced the short- and long-term economic impact of mass migration to the US, using Census microdata from 1880 and 1910. By means of ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimations, the analysis shows that a greater concentration of immigrant women is significantly associated with lower levels of economic development in US counties. However, immigrant women also shaped economic development positively, albeit indirectly, via their children. Communities with more children born to foreign mothers and that successfully managed to integrate female immigrants experienced greater economic growth than those dominated by children of foreign-born fathers or American-born parents. |
| Keywords: | Counties; Development; Economic Growth; Gender; migration; US. |
| JEL: | F22 J16 J61 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12878&r=lab |
| By: | Faccini, Renato (Queen Mary University of London); Melosi, Leonardo (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We develop a general equilibrium model to study the historical contribution of TFP news to the U.S. business cycle. Hiring frictions provide incentives for firms to start hiring ahead of an anticipated improvement in technology. For plausibly calibrated hiring costs, employment gradually rises in response to positive TFP news shocks even under standard preferences. TFP news shocks are identified mainly by current and expected unemployment rates since periods in which average unemployment is relatively high (low) are also periods in which average TFP growth is slow (fast). We work out the noise component of the identified TFP news shocks. Noise captures changes in agents' beliefs about future TFP shocks that do not materialize. These autonomous changes in beliefs have induced fluctuations in the unemployment rate within a two-percentage-point range across the post-war recessions and expansions. After the Great Recession, noise about TFP growth has been the most important factor behind the rise in the employment rate. The index of consumer sentiment and the dismal TFP growth in recent years support these predictions. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment rate; hiring frictions; beliefs; the Great Recession; labor market trends; employment gap; Bayesian estimation |
| JEL: | C11 C51 E32 J64 |
| Date: | 2018–04–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2018-06&r=lab |
| By: | Parlow, Anton |
| Abstract: | Increasing female landownership or labor force participation are policies designed to empower women in developing countries. Yet, societies are diverse and I find that across language and ethnic groups not all Pakistani women benefit from these increased economic opportunities in their decision making. I even find negative impacts of labor force participation on empowerment for some groups. This can be explained by different gender expectations along these gendered institutions. |
| Keywords: | Women's Empowerment, Ethnicity, Identity |
| JEL: | J0 J01 O12 |
| Date: | 2018–04–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86331&r=lab |