|
on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Andrews, Martyn J. (University of Manchester); Gill, Leonard (University of Manchester); Schank, Thorsten (University of Mainz); Upward, Richard (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Positive assortative matching implies that high productivity workers and firms match together. However, there is almost no evidence of a positive correlation between the worker and firm contributions in two-way fixed-effects wage equations. This could be the result of a bias caused by standard estimation error. Using German social security records we show that the effect of this bias is substantial in samples with limited inter-firm movement. The correlation between worker and firm contributions to wage equations is unambiguously positive. |
| Keywords: | linked employer-employee panel data, fixed effects, limited mobility bias |
| JEL: | J20 J30 C23 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6662&r=lma |
| By: | Seltzer, Andrew (Royal Holloway, University of London) |
| Abstract: | The late 19th and early 20th century British labour market experienced an influx of female clerical workers. Employers argued that female employment increased opportunities for men to advance; however, most male clerks regarded this expansion of the labour supply as a threat to their pay and status. This paper examines the effects of female employment on male clerks using data from Williams Deacon's Bank covering a period 25 years prior and 25 years subsequent to the initial employment of women. It is shown that within position women were substitutes for men, although the degree of substitutability was less for older men than for juniors. In addition, the employment of women in routine positions allowed the Bank to expand its branch network, creating new higher-level positions, which were almost always filled by men. |
| Keywords: | clerical labour markets, female employment, spill over effects, internal labour markets |
| JEL: | N3 J3 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6663&r=lma |
| By: | Thomas Sampson |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of trade integration on wage inequality when there is heterogeneity across both workers and firms. By incorporating labor assignment into the heterogeneous firms literature I develop a model in which positive assortative matching between worker skill and firm technology explains the employer size-wage premium and the exporter wage premium. Under trade, fixed export costs cause the selection of high productivity, high skill firms into exporting and an upwards shift in the firm technology distribution. Consequently, the demand for skill and wage inequality increase in all countries, both on aggregate and within the export sector. This result holds both when firms' technologies are determined by a random draw and when technology is endogenous to firm level R&D. With endogenous technology, the increased demand for skill caused by trade liberalization results from technology upgrading by new exporters. |
| Keywords: | Wage inequality, matching, technology, skills, trade |
| JEL: | F16 J31 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1152&r=lma |
| By: | Johnston, David W. (Monash University); Schurer, Stefanie (Victoria University of Wellington); Shields, Michael A. (University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, we investigate the role of maternal gender role attitudes in explaining the differential educational expectations mothers have for their daughters and sons, and consequently their children's later educational outcomes and labour supply. We find that mothers' and children's gender role attitudes, measured some 25 years apart, are significantly correlated, equally so for sons and daughters. Moreover, daughters are significantly more likely to continue school beyond the minimum school-leaving age, participate in the labour force, and work more hours, if their mothers held non-traditional (pro-gender-equality) beliefs, even if they were not working themselves. Consistent with the hypothesis that maternal gender role attitudes affect daughters' economic opportunities only, we find no effect on sons' education outcomes and labour supply. However, we find that mothers' attitudes are significantly correlated with sons' partners' (daughter-in-law) labour supply. All these results suggest that the intergenerational transmission of non-traditional attitudes from mothers to their children explain a substantive part of gender inequalities in economic opportunities, and that attitudes and outcomes persevere across generations through assortative mating. |
| Keywords: | maternal gender role attitudes, intergenerational transmission, labour supply, human capital investment, expectations, cohort data |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6656&r=lma |
| By: | Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina); Teixeira, Paulino (University of Coimbra); Evers, Katalin (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Bellmann, Lutz (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | It is sometimes claimed that the coverage of collective bargaining in Germany is considerably understated because of orientation, a process whereby uncovered firms profess to shadow the wages set under sectoral bargaining. Yet importantly, at a time when collective bargaining proper has been in retreat, little is known of corresponding trends in the frequency of indirect coverage, still less of the degree to which wages are aligned in practice. Using nationally representative data for 2000-2010, this paper charts the extent of orientation in the uncovered sector, and tracks average wages across bargaining regimes as well as changes in wages from switches in regime. It is reported that orientation is growing with the decline in sectoral bargaining and that orienting firms do pay higher wages than their counterparts in the collective bargaining free zone. Yet in neither case – frequency nor remuneration – is the degree of 'compensation' recorded other than partial. |
| Keywords: | orientation, erosion of collective bargaining, uncovered sector, sectoral bargaining, wages, regime shifts |
| JEL: | J31 J5 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6658&r=lma |
| By: | D'Amuri Francesco; Giovanni Peri (Department of Economics, University of California Davis) |
| Abstract: | n this paper we analyze the impact of immigrants on the type and quantity of native jobs. We use data on fifteen Western European countries during the 1996-2010 period. We find that immigrants, by taking manual-routine type of occupations pushed natives towards more "complex" (abstract and communication) jobs. Such positive reallocation occurred while the total number of jobs held by natives was unaffected. This job upgrade was associated in the short run to a 0.6% increase in native wages for a doubling of the immigrants' share. These results are robust to the use of two alternative IV strategies based on past settlement of immigrants across European countries measured alternatively with Census or Labor Force data. The job upgrade slowed, but did not come to a halt, during the Great Recession. We also document the labor market flows behind it: the complexity of jobs offered to new native hires was higher relative to the complexity of lost jobs. Finally, we find evidence that such reallocation was significantly larger in countries with more flexible labor laws and that his tendency was particularly strong for less educated workers. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Jobs, Task specialization, Employment Protection Laws, Europe |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2012–06–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cda:wpaper:12-15&r=lma |
| By: | Andrews, Martyn J. (University of Manchester); Gerner, Hans-Dieter (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Schank, Thorsten (University of Mainz); Upward, Richard (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Increases in standard hours have been a contentious policy issue in Germany. Whilst this might directly lead to a substitution of workers by hours, there may also be a positive employment effect due to reduced costs. Moreover, the response of firms differs between firms which offer overtime and those which do not. For a panel of German plants (2001-2006), we analyse the effect of increased standard hours on employment. Using difference-in-difference methods we find that, consistent with theory, overtime plants showed a significant positive employment response, whilst for standard-time plants there is no difference at all between plants which increased standard hours and those which did not. |
| Keywords: | working time, employment, plant-level data, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | C23 J23 J81 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6652&r=lma |