nep-lab New Economics Papers
on Labour Economics
Issue of 2020‒09‒14
23 papers chosen by
Joseph Marchand
University of Alberta

  1. Obstacles to Labour Market Participation among Arab Women in Israel By Miaari, Sami H.; Khattab, Nabil; Sabbah-Karkabi, Maha
  2. How Do Restrictions on High-Skilled Immigration Affect Offshoring? Evidence from the H-1B Program By Britta Glennon
  3. Does gender matter for promotion in science? Evidence from physicists in France By Mairesse, Jacques; Pezzoni, Michele; Visentin, Fabiana
  4. Teaching Labor Laws: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial in South Africa By Bertrand, Marianne; Crépon, Bruno
  5. Occupational Dualism and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in the Rural Economy: Evidence from China and India By Emran, M. Shahe; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Jiang, Yajing; Sun, Yan
  6. Genetic Fortune: Winning or Losing Education, Income, and Health By Hyeokmoon Kweon; Caper A.P. Burik; Richard Karlsson Linner; Ronald de Vlaming; Aysu Okbary; Daphne Martschenko; Kathryn Paige Harden; Thomas A. DiPrete; Philipp D. Koellinger
  7. The cross-occupational effects of immigration on native wages in the UK By Marco Alfano; Ross McKenzie; Graeme Roy
  8. Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment By Schmieder, Julia
  9. Convergence Over Time or Not? U.S. Wages by Sexual Orientation, 2001-2018 By Jepsen, Christopher; Jepsen, Lisa
  10. A Structural Analysis of Mental Health and Labor Market Trajectories By Jolivet, Grégory; Postel-Vinay, Fabien
  11. Divergence in Labour Force Growth: Should Wages and Prices Grow Faster in Germany? By Beissinger, Thomas; Hellier, Joël; Marczak, Martyna
  12. License to Fire? Unemployment Insurance and the Moral Cost of Layoffs By Keum, Daniel; Meier, Stephan
  13. Labor Market Effects of COVID-19 in Sweden and Its Neighbors: Evidence from Novel Administrative Data By Steffen Juranek; Jörg Paetzold; Hannes Winner; Floris Zoutman
  14. The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: Continued Losses and the Partial Rebound in May 2020 By Robert W. Fairlie
  15. Trade, Unemployment, and Monetary Policy By Matteo Cacciatore; Fabio Ghironi
  16. Projecting Unemployment Durations: A Factor-Flows Simulation Approach With Application to the COVID-19 Recession By Gabriel Chodorow-Reich; John Coglianese
  17. Reconciling Occupational Mobility in the Current Population Survey By vom Lehn, Christian; Ellsworth, Cache; Kroff, Zachary
  18. Welfare while working: How does the life satisfaction approach help to explain job search behavior? By Wolf, Tobias
  19. This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in a Pandemic Recession By Alon, Titan; Doepke, Matthias; Olmstead-Rumsey, Jane; Tertilt, Michèle
  20. Assessing the Role of Women in Tourism Related Sectors in the Caribbean By Pastore, Francesco; Webster, Allan; Hope, Kevin
  21. The Labour Market for Native and International PhD Students: Similarities, Differences, and the Role of (University) Employers By Tani, Massimiliano
  22. Household savings, capital investments and public policies: What drives the German current account? By Ruppert, Kilian; Stähler, Nikolai
  23. Households and entrepreneurship in England and Wales, 1851-1911 By Smith, Harry; Bennett, Robert J.; van Lieshout, Carry; Montebruno, Piero

  1. By: Miaari, Sami H. (Tel Aviv University); Khattab, Nabil (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies); Sabbah-Karkabi, Maha (University of Haifa)
    Abstract: This study investigates the factors that underlay the low labour force participation rate among Palestinian-Arab women in Israel relative to Jewish women despite the high educational attainment among this group. We focus on four factors that could explain this pattern: (i) socioeconomic factors such as age and education, (ii) culture factors such as the religiosity of the individual-woman and her family, (iii) family structure and related public policies, and (iv) the early retirement of Arab women from the labour market. We find that all four of these factors affect the probability of Palestinian-Arab women participating in the labour market. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for labour market policies.
    Keywords: labour market participation, Arab women, public policy, gender, nationality, religiosity, early retirement
    JEL: J01 J15 J13 J18 J26
    Date: 2020–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13572&r=all
  2. By: Britta Glennon
    Abstract: Skilled immigration restrictions may have secondary consequences that have been largely overlooked in the immigration debate: multinational firms faced with visa constraints have an offshoring option, namely, hiring the labor they need at their foreign affiliates. If multinationals use this option, then restrictive migration policies are unlikely to have the desired effects of increasing employment of natives, but rather have the effect of offshoring jobs. Combining visa data and comprehensive data on US multinational firm activity, I find that restrictions on H-1B immigration caused foreign affiliate employment increases at the intensive and extensive margins, particularly in Canada, India, and China.
    JEL: F16 F22 F23 J61 O3
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27538&r=all
  3. By: Mairesse, Jacques (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, EHESS and NBER); Pezzoni, Michele (GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur, OST, HCERES, and ICRIOS, Bocconi University); Visentin, Fabiana (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University)
    Abstract: In this study, we investigate what are the factors of the promotion of female and male scientists at the French Institute of Physics (INP) at CNRS, one of the largest European public research organisations. We construct a long panel of INP physicists combining various data sources on their research activities and careers. Using event history analysis, we find that female and male physicists have the same rate of promotion from junior to senior positions when controlling for research productivity and a variety of other promotion factors. Our results also suggest that promotion factors such as family characteristics, mentoring, professional network, research responsibilities have different impacts on female and male researchers.
    Keywords: Gender disparity, Promotion, Research productivity, Family characteristics, Research Responsibilities, Mentoring activities, Panel Data, Event history analysis
    JEL: I23 J16 O15 O34
    Date: 2020–09–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2020039&r=all
  4. By: Bertrand, Marianne (University of Chicago); Crépon, Bruno (CREST)
    Abstract: We assess whether imperfect knowledge of labor regulation hinders job creation at small and medium-sized firms. We partner with a labor law expert that provides information about labor regulation via newsletters and access to a specialized website. We randomly assign 1800 firms to get access to this service for a 21-week period. Six months later, the average employment level at treatment firms was 12% higher than at control firms. The intervention decreased the perception that labor regulation is a constraint to hiring and increased optimal employment level.
    Keywords: labor demand, labor laws
    JEL: J23 J63 J64 J68
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13513&r=all
  5. By: Emran, M. Shahe (George Washington University); Ferreira, Francisco H. G. (London School of Economics); Jiang, Yajing (Charles River Associates); Sun, Yan (World Bank)
    Abstract: This paper extends the Becker-Tomes model of intergenerational educational mobility to a rural economy characterized by farm-nonfarm occupational dualism and provides a comparative analysis of rural China and rural India. The model builds a micro-foundation for the widely used linear-in-levels estimating equation. Returns to education for parents and productivity of financial investment in children's education determine relative mobility, as measured by the slope, while the intercept depends, among other factors, on the degree of persistence in nonfarm occupations. Unlike many existing studies based on coresident samples, our estimates of intergenerational mobility do not suffer from truncation bias. The sons in rural India faced lower educational mobility compared with the sons in rural China in the 1970s to 1990s. To understand the role of genetic inheritance, Altonji et al. (2005) biprobit sensitivity analysis is combined with the evidence on intergenerational correlation in cognitive ability in economics and behavioral genetics literature. The observed persistence can be due solely to genetic correlations in China, but not in India. Father's nonfarm occupation was complementary to his education in determining a sons' schooling in India, but separable in China. There is evidence of emerging complementarity for the younger cohorts in rural China. Structural change in favor of the nonfarm sector contributed to educational inequality in rural India. Evidence from supplementary data on economic mechanisms suggests that the model provides plausible explanations for the contrasting roles of occupational dualism in intergenerational educational mobility in rural India and rural China.
    Keywords: educational mobility, rural economy, occupational dualism, farm-nonfarm, complementarity, coresidency bias, China, India
    JEL: O12 J62
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13550&r=all
  6. By: Hyeokmoon Kweon (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Caper A.P. Burik (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Richard Karlsson Linner (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Ronald de Vlaming (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Aysu Okbary (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Daphne Martschenko (Stanford University); Kathryn Paige Harden (University of Texas at Austin); Thomas A. DiPrete (Columbia University); Philipp D. Koellinger (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
    Abstract: We study the effects of genetic endowments on inequalities in education, income, and health. Specifically, we conduct the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of individual income, using data from individuals of European ancestries. We find that ≈10% of the variance in occupational wages can be attributed to genetic similarities between individuals who are only very distantly related to each other. Our GWAS (N = 282,963) identifies 45 approximately independent genetic loci for occupational wages, each with a tiny effect size (R2 smaller than 0.04%). An aggregated genetic score constructed from these GWAS results accounts for ≈1% of the variance in self-reported income in two independent samples (N = 29,440) and improves upon the variance captured by a genetic score obtained from previous GWAS results for educational attainment. A one-standard-deviation increase in our genetic score for occupational wages is associated with a 6–8% increase in self-reported hourly wages. We exploit random genetic differences between ~35,000 biological siblings to show that (i) roughly half of the covariance between our genetic score and socioeconomic outcomes is causal, (ii) genetic luck for higher income is linked with better health outcomes in late adulthood, and (iii) having a college degree partly mediates this relationship. We also demonstrate that the returns to schooling remain substantial even after controlling for genetic confounds, with an average of 8–11% higher hourly wages for each additional year of education obtained in a US sample. Thus, the implications of genetic endowments are malleable, for example, via policies targeting education.
    Keywords: Income, education, health, inequality, heritability, genetics, polygenic score
    JEL: J00 I20 I10
    Date: 2020–08–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20200053&r=all
  7. By: Marco Alfano (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde); Ross McKenzie (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde); Graeme Roy (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde)
    Abstract: This paper estimates the effect of immigration into an occupation on the wages of natives working in other, better paid occupations. Using Annual Population Survey data from the UK we rank occupations by real hourly wage and _find that increasesin the migrant/native ratio raise average wages of natives working in the next higher paid occupation by around 0.13 percent. We find that these effects operate through migrants' higher educational attainments raising workplace productivity more broadly and supporting specialization in tasks. Our findings have important implications for policy and public discourse. They suggest that debates over the economic impacts of migration often ignore the potential spill-over benefits that a migrant can bring to the outcomes for native workers elsewhere in the wage distribution, particularly in lower wage occupations.
    Keywords: immigration, impact, wage distribution
    JEL: J21 J31 J61
    Date: 2020–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:str:wpaper:2011&r=all
  8. By: Schmieder, Julia (DIW Berlin)
    Abstract: Based on findings from high-income countries, typically economists hypothesize that having more children unambiguously decreases the time mothers spend in the labor market. Few studies on lower-income countries, in which low household wealth, informal child care, and informal employment opportunities prevail, find mixed results. Using Mexican census data, I find a positive effect of an instrument-induced increase in fertility on maternal employment driven by an increase in informal work. The presence of grandparents and low wealth appear to be important. Econometric approaches that allow extrapolating from this complier-specific effect indicate that the response in informal employment is non-negative for the entire sample.
    Keywords: fertility, female labor supply, middle-income countries, informality
    JEL: J13 J16 J22 J46
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13496&r=all
  9. By: Jepsen, Christopher (University College Dublin); Jepsen, Lisa (University of Northern Iowa)
    Abstract: An extensive literature on labor-market outcomes by sexual orientation finds lower wages for gay men compared to heterosexual men and higher wages for lesbians compared to heterosexual women. Recent work looking over multiple time periods provides suggestive evidence, however, that the wage penalty for gay men is heading toward zero. Using data from the American Community Survey on individuals in couples from the 2001 to 2018, we find that the annual wage/salary penalty for gay men is stable since 2008. Although the annual wage/salary premium for lesbians declines slightly, convergence to heterosexual female earnings at the current rate would not occur for at least 15 years. The persistence of a wage penalty for gay men in the face of anti-discrimination policies and rising overall tolerance by Americans is concerning.
    Keywords: wages, employment, sexual orientation, discrimination
    JEL: D10 J10 J12 J70
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13495&r=all
  10. By: Jolivet, Grégory (University of Bristol); Postel-Vinay, Fabien (University College London)
    Abstract: We conduct a joint dynamic analysis of individual labor market and mental health outcomes. We allow for a two-way interaction between work and mental health. We model selection in and out of employment as well as between jobs on a labor market with search frictions, where we account for the level of exposure to stress in each job using data on occupational health contents. We estimate our model on British data from Understanding Society combined with information from O*NET. We produce structural estimates of health dynamics as a function of job characteristics and of the effects of health and of job stress content on labor market decisions. We use our model to quantify the effects of job loss or health shocks that can propagate over the life cycle through both health and work channels. We also estimate the (large) values workers attach to health, employment or non-stressful jobs. Lastly, we investigate the consequences of structural labor market changes by evaluating the impact on health, employment and inequality of changes in the distribution of job health contents.
    Keywords: mental health, job search, life cycle
    JEL: I12 I14 J62 J64
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13518&r=all
  11. By: Beissinger, Thomas (University of Hohenheim); Hellier, Joël (LEMNA - University of Nantes); Marczak, Martyna (University of Hohenheim)
    Abstract: We develop a model which shows that wages, prices and real income should grow faster in countries with low increase in their labour force. If not, other countries experience growing unemployment and/or trade deficit. This result is applied to the case of Germany, which has displayed a significantly lower increase in its labour force than its trade partners, except in the moment of the reunification. By assuming that goods are differentiated according to their country of origin (Armington's hypothesis), a low growth of the working population constrains the production of German goods, which entails an increase in their prices and in German wages. This mechanism is magnified by the low price elasticity of the demand for German goods. Hence, the German policy of wage moderation could severely constrain other countries' policy options. The simulations of an extended model which encompasses offshoring to emerging countries and labour market imperfections suggest that (i) the impact of differences in labour force growth upon unemployment in Eurozone countries has been significant and (ii) the German demographic shock following unification could explain a large part of the 1995-2005 German economic turmoil.
    Keywords: population growth, labour force, inflation, wages, Germany
    JEL: E24 F16 J11 O57
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13538&r=all
  12. By: Keum, Daniel (Columbia Business School); Meier, Stephan (Columbia University)
    Abstract: Expanding unemployment insurance (UI) not only reduces the burden for the unemployed but also the moral cost of layoffs to firms and their managers. Using staggered expansions of UI across US states, we show that expanding UI leads to larger layoffs in firms experiencing negative economic shocks. The effects are stronger in weakly governed and financially unconstrained firms, where managers have greater discretion to avoid moral cost. This study presents moral cost as a novel microeconomic channel through which UI affects layoff decisions, which can compromise its effectiveness as a social insurance program and an automatic stabilizer.
    Keywords: unemployment insurance, layoffs, managers, prosocial behavior
    JEL: D04 D91 J65
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13497&r=all
  13. By: Steffen Juranek; Jörg Paetzold; Hannes Winner; Floris Zoutman
    Abstract: This paper studies the labor market effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the Nordic countries which showed one of the highest variations in NPIs despite having similar community spread of COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic: While Denmark, Finland and Norway imposed strict measures (‘lockdowns’), Sweden decided for much lighter restrictions. Empirically, we use novel administrative data on weekly new unemployment and furlough spells from all 56 regions of the Nordic countries to compare the labor market outcomes of Sweden with the ones of its neighbors. Our evidence suggests that the labor markets of all countries were severely hit by the pandemic, although Sweden performed slightly better than its neighbors. Specifically, we find the worsening of the Swedish labor market to occur around 2 to 3 weeks later than in the other Nordic countries, and that its cumulative sum of new unemployment and furlough spells remained significantly lower during the time period of our study (up to week 21 of 2020).
    Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown, labor market effects
    JEL: I18 J64
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8473&r=all
  14. By: Robert W. Fairlie
    Abstract: Social distancing restrictions and demand shifts from COVID-19 shuttered many small businesses and entrepreneurs in the first month of widespread shelter-in-place restrictions. Fairlie (2020) finds that 22 percent of small business owners were inactive in April 2020 with disproportionate impacts on African-American, Latinx, immigrant, and female business owners. What happened in the second month of social distancing restrictions? Were there further closures or a rebound? This paper provides the first analysis of impacts of the pandemic on the number of active small businesses in the United States using nationally representative data from the May 2020 CPS – the second month capturing effects from mandated restrictions. The number of active business owners in the United States is down by 2.2 million or 15 percent from February 2020, but up 7 percent since the low in April. The continued losses in May and partial rebound from April were felt across nearly all industries and were not sensitive to using alternative restrictions on hours worked and measures. African-American business owners continue to be the hardest hit by COVID-19 experiencing a drop of 26 percent in business activity from pre-COVID-19 levels. Latinx business owners fell by 19 percent, and Asian business owners dropped by 21 percent. Immigrant business owners experienced substantial losses of 25 percent. Simulations indicate that industry compositions partly placed black, Latinx and immigrant businesses at a higher risk of losses. All of these demographic groups, however, experienced partial rebounds in business activity from April lows. These findings of the continued early-stage losses to small businesses have important policy implications and may portend longer-term ramifications for job losses and economic inequality.
    JEL: J0 J15 J16 L26
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27462&r=all
  15. By: Matteo Cacciatore; Fabio Ghironi
    Abstract: We study how trade linkages affect the conduct of monetary policy in a two-country model with heterogeneous firms, endogenous producer entry, and labor market frictions. We show that the ability of the model to replicate key empirical regularities following trade integration---synchronization of business cycles across trading partners and reallocation of market shares toward more productive firms---is central to understanding how trade costs affect monetary policy trade-offs. First, productivity gains through firm selection reduce the need of positive inflation to correct long-run distortions. As a result, lower trade costs reduce the optimal average inflation rate. Second, as stronger trade linkages increase business cycle synchronization, country-specific shocks have more global consequences. Thus, the optimal stabilization policy remains inward looking. By contrast, sub-optimal, inward-looking stabilization---for instance too narrow a focus on price stability---results in larger welfare costs when trade linkages are strong due to inefficient fluctuations in cross-country aggregate demand.
    JEL: E24 E32 E52 F16 F41 J64
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27474&r=all
  16. By: Gabriel Chodorow-Reich; John Coglianese
    Abstract: We propose a three-step factor-flows simulation-based approach to forecast the duration distribution of unemployment. Step 1: estimate individual transition hazards across employment, temporary layoff, permanent layoff, quitter, entrant, and out of the labor force, with each hazard depending on an aggregate component as well as an individual's labor force history. Step 2: relate the aggregate components to the overall unemployment rate using a factor model. Step 3: combine the individual duration dependence, factor structure, and an auxiliary forecast of the unemployment rate to simulate a panel of individual labor force histories. Applying our approach to the July Blue Chip forecast of the COVID-19 recession, we project that 1.6 million workers laid off in April 2020 remain unemployed six months later. Total long-term unemployment rises thereafter and eventually reaches more 4.5 million individuals unemployed for more than 26 weeks and almost 2 million individuals unemployed for more than 46 weeks. Long-term unemployment rises even more in a more pessimistic recovery scenario, but remains below the level in the Great Recession due to a high amount of labor market churn.
    JEL: E27 J64
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27566&r=all
  17. By: vom Lehn, Christian (Brigham Young University); Ellsworth, Cache (Columbia Business School); Kroff, Zachary (U.S. Census Bureau)
    Abstract: Measuring occupational mobility from the Current Population Survey using recall (retrospective) or linked panel responses (longitudinal) generates substantially different outcomes, both in levels and trends. Using a generalized method of moments technique, we estimate the actual level of occupational mobility and the measurement error in both of these measures for 1981-2018. Measurement error in longitudinal measures is large and has been worsening over time. However, actual occupational mobility is approximately 70% higher than retrospectively measures. Our estimated corrections imply workers in tradable occupations are less likely to switch occupations than previously believed, implying potentially lower welfare gains from trade.
    Keywords: occupational switching, worker mobility, current population survey, measurement error, trade adjustment
    JEL: J62 C83 F16
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13509&r=all
  18. By: Wolf, Tobias
    Abstract: This paper examines the role of life satisfactioninthe labor market behavior of workers receiving welfare benefits while working. Welfare stigma and other hard-to-observe factors may affect outcomes as on-the-job search and the duration until leaving welfare status. We utilize life satisfaction to track such factors. The German PASS-ADIAB dataset combines administrative process data with individual survey data offering a rich database that allows conditioning on changes in household income, time-stable individual traits, employment biographies and local labor market effects.Given a broad set of further covariates, we find that life satisfaction of in-work benefit recipientsis negatively associated with job search, whereas the duration until the exit from welfare is hardly affected. Focusing on heterogeneity among workers suggests that life satisfactions' role for choice depends on the institutional setting, rendering marginally employed workers specifically prone to life satisfaction.
    Keywords: life satisfaction,job search,in-work benefits,welfare stigma
    JEL: J60 J62 I31 I38
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:202014&r=all
  19. By: Alon, Titan (University of California, San Diego); Doepke, Matthias (Northwestern University); Olmstead-Rumsey, Jane (Northwestern University); Tertilt, Michèle (University of Mannheim)
    Abstract: In recent US recessions, employment losses have been much larger for men than for women. Yet, in the current recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the opposite is true: unemployment is higher among women. In this paper, we analyze the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. We argue that women have experienced sharp employment losses both because their employment is concentrated in heavily affected sectors such as restaurants, and due to increased childcare needs caused by school and daycare closures, preventing many women from working. We analyze the repercussions of this trend using a quantitative macroeconomic model featuring heterogeneity in gender, marital status, childcare needs, and human capital. Our quantitative analysis suggests that a pandemic recession will i) feature a strong transmission from employment to aggregate demand due to diminished within-household insurance; ii) result in a widening of the gender wage gap throughout the recovery; and iii) contribute to a weakening of the gender norms that currently produce a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in home work and childcare.
    Keywords: COVID-19, pandemics, recessions, business cycle, gender equality, school closures, childcare, gender wage gap
    JEL: D13 E32 J16 J20
    Date: 2020–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13562&r=all
  20. By: Pastore, Francesco (Università della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli); Webster, Allan (Bournemouth University); Hope, Kevin (Caribbean Development Bank)
    Abstract: This study contributes to the rapidly growing literature on women in tourism. It focuses on a group of 13 Caribbean countries. The study analyses the impact of women in apical positions within firms (top manager or owner) on firm performance – productivity, profitability and female employment. For this both a decomposition model and the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) estimator are used. The analysis finds that opportunities for women in these positions in the Caribbean are constrained to less productive and profitable firms, as elsewhere. However, those firms with females at the top employ more women, particularly in management roles.
    Keywords: gender differences, tourism, propensity score matching, IPWRA, Caribbean
    JEL: D22 J16 L26 L83 Z32
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13486&r=all
  21. By: Tani, Massimiliano (University of New South Wales)
    Abstract: This paper studies the labour market outcomes of native and foreign PhD graduates staying as migrants in Australia, using data on career destinations over the period 1999-2015. Natives with an English-speaking background emerge as benefiting from positive employer discrimination, especially if graduating in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), for which they receive a premium that is unrelated to observed characteristics such as gender, age, and previous work experience. In contrast, foreign PhD graduates with a non-English speaking background experience worse labour market outcomes, especially if they work in the university sector. Acquiring education in the host country does not appear to eliminate uneven labour market outcomes between natives and foreigners.
    Keywords: PhD graduates, wage decomposition, discrimination, international students
    JEL: I26 J24 J31 J61
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13536&r=all
  22. By: Ruppert, Kilian; Stähler, Nikolai
    Abstract: In this article, we present a model that can account for the changes in the Germancurrent account balance since the 2000s. Our results suggest that an array of struc-tural tax and labor market reforms (Agenda 2010), population aging and pensionreforms led to an increase in the household savings rate in Germany until about2010. As domestic investment opportunities could not absorb these additional sav-ings, they were partly invested abroad. The German current account-to-GDP ratiorose. After 2010, private savings remained rather stable, but opportunities to investin Germany declined further. Our simulations suggest that a tight fiscal stance inGermany (combined with an expansionary stance in the rest of the world), under-investment in the corporate sector and productivity gains in emerging economiesafter 2010 significantly contributed to this.
    Keywords: Global Imbalances,Population Aging,Labor Market Reforms,Fiscal Policy,DSGE Modelling
    JEL: H2 J1 E43 E62
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdps:412020&r=all
  23. By: Smith, Harry; Bennett, Robert J.; van Lieshout, Carry; Montebruno, Piero
    Abstract: This article uses the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs (BBCE) to examine the relationship between the household and entrepreneurship in England and Wales between 1851 and 1911. The BBCE allows three kinds of entrepreneurial households to be identified: those where an entrepreneur employs co-resident family members in their business, those where two or more household members are partners in the same firm, and households with two or more entrepreneurs resident who are running different firms. The article traces the number of these different households across the period and examines their sector and gender breakdowns as well as their geographical distribution. The article demonstrates that these different kinds of entrepreneurial households served different purposes; co-resident family businesses were used in marginal areas where other sources of labour and capital were scarce and the incidence of such firms decreased over this period. In contrast, household partnerships and co-entrepreneurial households were used to share risk or diversify; they were found throughout England and Wales at similar levels during this period.
    Keywords: Entrepreneurship; household; census; England and Wales; economic history
    JEL: D1 J1 L26 N83
    Date: 2020–08–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:102647&r=all

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