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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Holz, Carsten A. (BOFIT) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how wages are being determined in China during the reform period. The paper focuses on the development of the regulatory framework since 1978 and proceeds by examining official regulations regarding labor market institutions and wage setting, and by evaluating their potential implications for actual wage setting. |
| Keywords: | wage determination; labor market institutions; minimum wages; wage classification system; wage level and structure; labor contracts; collective bargaining; public sector wages; wage-performance link |
| JEL: | J30 J31 J41 J45 M52 M54 M55 P23 |
| Date: | 2014–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bofitp:2014_013&r=lma |
| By: | Eliane El Badaoui; Eleonora Matteazzi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the extent to which motherhood affects women's career accomplishments and wages in Italy and the UK. Using the EU-SILC 2009 data, a decomposition of the motherhood wage gap is implemented after accounting for double selection in labor market participation and motherhood. We find evidence of a negative correlation between labor market and fertility decisions. The results show that motherhood has no adverse effects on women's career path in Italy, and that job segregation explains most of the motherhood wage gap in the UK. Empirical findings suggest that the timing of motherhood and job continuity affect significantly the female wage profile. |
| Keywords: | Motherhood, Labor market participation, Wage gap, Career. |
| JEL: | C34 J21 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2014-30&r=lma |
| By: | Cristina Cattaneo (FEEM); Carlo V. Fiorio (University of Milano and Econpubblica); Giovanni Peri (University of California, Davis and NBER) |
| Abstract: | Following a representative longitudinal sample of native European residents, over the period 1995-2001, we identify the effect of the inflows of immigrants on their career, employment and wages. We use the 1991 distribution of immigrants by nationality across European labor markets to construct an imputed inflow of the foreign-born population that is exogenous to local demand shocks. We also control for .fixed effects that absorb individual, country-year, occupation group-year and occupation group-country heterogeneity and shocks. We find that native European workers are more likely to move to occupations associated with higher skills and status when a larger number of immigrants enter their labor market. As a consequence of this upward mobility their wage income also increases with a 1-2 years lag. We find no evidence of an increase in their probability of becoming unemployed. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, Job Upgrading, Mobility, Self-employment, Europe |
| JEL: | J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.54&r=lma |
| By: | Carrington, William J. (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Fallick, Bruce C. (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | The earnings of workers are reduced for many years after being displaced from their jobs, and those workers and their families face increased risk of other problems as well. The ills suffered by displaced workers motivated several recent expansions of government programs, including the unemployment insurance system, and have spurred calls for wage insurance that would provide longerrun earnings replacement. However, while the magnitude of the losses is relatively clear, the theory of why displacement matters is scattered and somewhat undeveloped. Much of the policy discussion appears to interpret displacementinduced losses through the lens of specifi c human capital theory, and there is considerable empirical support for that model. But there are several other theories of why job displacement is costly. This paper reviews theories of costly job displacement and discusses their consistency with the available empirical evidence. We find that theories of human capital and matching are an important perspective on the losses of displaced workers, but we cannot rule out important roles for other theories, some of which suggest different policy responses. |
| Keywords: | Displaced workers; earnings loss; human capital; matching |
| JEL: | D13 D82 I20 J31 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2014–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1405&r=lma |
| By: | Davis, Steven J.; Röttger, Christof; Warning, Anja; Weber, Enzo |
| Abstract: | We develop new evidence on job recruitments and vacancy durations using a rich source of data on individual hires. Our core data set contains 55,000 recruitments into vacant job positions for stratified random samples of German employers from 2000 to 2010. We have information about the employer, the job position and the newly hired worker for all recruitments – including firm size, occupation, qualification requirements, previous labour market status of the new hire, and whether the job is a new position. We measure recruitment duration and the lag from recruitment to first day of work (start lag), which sum to the full vacancy duration. In addition, we link our micro data on recruitments and new hires to additional data on contemporaneous labour market conditions at the regional, occupation and industry levels. Our analysis finds a mean recruitment duration of 49 calendar days or 34 working days and a mean start lag of 27 calendar days and 19 working days, for a total vacancy duration of 76 calendar days and 53 working days, strongly varying between occupations. Hazard functions fit to micro data reveal longer recruitment durations in Eastern Germany and in larger firms and shorter recruitment durations under slack labour market conditions. Highly relevant for the length of the start lag is whether the hiring process goes as planned: If the recruitment duration is longer than the intended total vacancy duration, the start lag is significantly shorter, reflecting the specific efforts of employers in this case to fill the position as soon as possible. The use of Public Employment Services and the hiring of a person previously unemployed show significant effects on the start lag. |
| Keywords: | Recruitment; Vacancy; Duration; Germany |
| JEL: | J23 J63 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bay:rdwiwi:29914&r=lma |
| By: | Günther Fink; B. Kelsey Jack; Felix Masiye |
| Abstract: | Small-scale farming remains the primary source of income for a majority of the population in developing countries. While most farmers primarily work on their own fields, off-farm labor is common among small-scale farmers. A growing literature suggests that off-farm labor is not the result of optimal labor allocation, but is instead driven by households’ inability to cover short-term consumption needs with savings or credit. We conduct a field experiment in rural Zambia to investigate the relationship between credit availability and rural labor supply. We find that providing households with access to credit during the growing season substantially alters the allocation of household labor, with households in villages randomly selected for a loan program selling on average 25 percent less off-farm labor. We also find that increased credit availability is associated with higher consumption and increases in local farming wages. Our results suggest that a substantial fraction of rural labor supply is driven by short-term constraints, and that access to credit markets may improve the efficiency of labor allocation overall. |
| JEL: | J22 O16 Q12 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20218&r=lma |
| By: | Bjuggren, Carl Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | In this study I present empirical evidence that employment in family firms is less sensitive to performance and product market fluctuations, both at the industry and at the firm level. This supports the idea that family firms are able to offer their employees implicit employment protection. Family firms are believed to have longer time horizons, and are as owners more easily identified with their company and its actions. These are features that could make family firms more cautious in terms of adjusting their employment. I confirm previous findings that family firms are less sensitive to sales fluctuations at the industry level and I show that this also holds for fluctuations in value added. I extend the analysis to show that family firms are less sensitive to unanticipated industry shocks by filtering out the trend component. When investigating idiosyncratic shocks to the firm, I find that family firms are less anxious to translate temporary shocks in performance into changes in employment. By using full population data from tax registers, I am able to identify all family firms, both listed and non-listed. This has previously not been feasible. |
| Keywords: | Family Firms; Risk Sharing; Employment Protection; Shocks |
| JEL: | D22 G32 J21 J23 L25 |
| Date: | 2014–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1028&r=lma |
| By: | Mara P. Squicciarini; Nico Voigtländer |
| Abstract: | While human capital is a strong predictor of economic development today, its importance for the Industrial Revolution is typically assessed as minor. To resolve this puzzling contrast, we differentiate average human capital (worker skills) from upper tail knowledge both theoretically and empirically. We build a simple spatial model, where worker skills raise the local productivity in a given technology, while scientific knowledge enables local entrepreneurs to keep up with a rapidly advancing technological frontier. The model predicts that the local presence of knowledge elites is unimportant in the pre-industrial era, but drives growth thereafter; worker skills, in contrast, are not crucial for growth. To measure the historical presence of knowledge elites, we use city-level subscriptions to the famous Encyclopédie in mid-18th century France. We show that subscriber density is a strong predictor of city growth after 1750, but not before the onset of French industrialization. Alternative measures of development confirm this pattern: soldier height and industrial activity are strongly associated with subscriber density after, but not before, 1750. Literacy, on the other hand, does not predict growth. Finally, by joining data on British patents with a large French firm survey from 1837, we provide evidence for the mechanism: upper tail knowledge raised the productivity in innovative industrial technology. |
| JEL: | J24 N13 O14 O41 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20219&r=lma |
| By: | Lars Vilhuber; Kevin McKinney |
| Abstract: | The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the U.S. Census Bureau, with the support of several national research agencies, maintains a set of infrastructure files using administrative data provided by state agencies, enhanced with information from other administrative data sources, demographic and economic (business) surveys and censuses. The LEHD Infrastructure Files provide a detailed and comprehensive picture of workers, employers, and their interaction in the U.S. economy. This document describes the structure and content of the 2011 Snapshot of the LEHD Infrastructure files as they are made available in the Census Bureaus secure and restricted-access Research Data Center network. The document attempts to provide a comprehensive description of all researcher-accessible files, of their creation, and of any modifcations made to the files to facilitate researcher access. |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:14-26&r=lma |