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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Charles Gottlieb; Jan Grobovsek; Alexander Monge-Naranjo |
| Abstract: | We revisit the role of human capital in cross-country income differences. We develop a general equilibrium model where workers of different skill groups sort into occupations by comparative advantage. Wages and employment depend on workers' skill quality, occupation-specific country-embedded productivity, and occupational distortions. Using harmonized microdata for 50 countries, we infer these components from the model's equilibrium conditions. Workers in rich countries exhibit higher skill quality and substantially greater productivity, especially in white-collar occupations. Human capital explains 52 percent of output-per-worker gaps, largely through the complementarity between skill composition and quality, and further amplified by technology choices biased toward skilled labor. Adopting the US distribution of skill groups yields limited gains for poor countries without higher quality. Occupational distortions are more severe in low-income countries, reducing white-collar employment and raising wage premia, but with modest aggregate effects. |
| Keywords: | human capital; development accounting; occupational sorting; country-embedded productivity; wage premia |
| JEL: | O47 O15 J24 J31 E24 |
| Date: | 2025–10–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:101966 |
| By: | Brosch, Hanna (Technical University of Munich); Lergetporer, Philipp (Technical University of Munich); Schoner, Florian (ifo Institute, University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | Firm training is key to meeting changing skill demands, yet little is known about the role of workers’ beliefs in shaping training participation. In a survey of 3, 701 workers in Germany, we document that they expect substantial returns to firm training – both in terms of earnings and non-pecuniary outcomes such as promotion chances, job task complexity, or enjoyment. These beliefs predict actual and intended training participation. Lower-skilled workers anticipate smaller non-pecuniary returns, partly explaining their lower uptake. An information treatment addressing return beliefs significantly increases training intentions among lower-skilled workers, suggesting that targeting beliefs may help narrow participation gaps between lower- and higher-skilled workers. |
| Keywords: | human capital, skill mismatch, firm training, beliefs, survey |
| JEL: | J24 J31 D83 I21 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18186 |
| By: | Huben Liu; Dimitris Papanikolaou; Lawrence D.W. Schmidt; Bryan Seegmiller |
| Abstract: | We use recent advances in natural language processing and large language models to construct novel measures of technology exposure for workers that span almost two centuries. Combining our measures with Census data on occupation employment, we show that technological progress over the 20th century has led to economically meaningful shifts in labor demand across occupations: it has consistently increased demand for occupations with higher education requirements, occupations that pay higher wages, and occupations with a greater fraction of female workers. Using these insights and a calibrated model, we then explore different scenarios for how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are likely to impact employment trends in the medium run. The model predicts a reversal of past trends, with AI favoring occupations that are lower-educated, lower-paid, and more male-dominated. |
| JEL: | J23 J24 N3 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34386 |
| By: | Meisenbacher, Stephen; Nestorov, Svetlozar; Norlander, Peter |
| Abstract: | Data from online job postings are difficult to access and are not built in a standard or transparent manner. Data included in the standard taxonomy and occupational information database (O*NET) are updated infrequently and based on small survey samples. We adopt O*NET as a framework for building natural language processing tools that extract structured information from job postings. We publish the Job Ad Analysis Toolkit (JAAT), a collection of open-source tools built for this purpose, and demonstrate its reliability and accuracy in out-of-sample and LLM-as-judge testing. We extract more than 10 billion data points from more than 155 million online job ads provided by the National Labor Exchange (NLx) Research Hub, including O*NET tasks, occupation codes, tools, and technologies, as well as wages, skills, industry, and more features. We describe the construction of a dataset of occupation, state, and industry level features aggregated by monthly active jobs from 2015 – 2025. We illustrate the potential for research and future uses in education and workforce development. |
| Keywords: | Labor Market Information, Online Job Vacancies, NLP methods, ML, data transparency |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J63 |
| Date: | 2025–10–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126336 |
| By: | Badalyan, Sona (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany ; CERGE-EI) |
| Abstract: | "This paper studies how labor demand factors - specifically worker substitutability and job-specific skills - shape employment responses to a rise in the early retirement age. Using a regression discontinuity design, I exploit a 1999 German reform that eliminated the option for women to retire at age 60. Before the reform, older workers could exit voluntarily, thereby imposing turnover costs on firms. Afterward, firms were better able to retain less substitutable workers for whom turnover costs are higher. At the same time, the loss of early pension eligibility reduced workers’ outside options, allowing firms to offer lower wages, often through partial retirement." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Open-Access-Publikation |
| JEL: | H32 H55 J21 J24 J26 |
| Date: | 2025–10–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202514 |
| By: | Raquel Fonseca; Etienne Lalé; François Langot; Thepthida Sopraseuth |
| Abstract: | We develop a general-equilibrium OLG model of human capital to study the dynamics of the U.S. college premium and lifetime wage profiles between 1940 and 2020. The model features endogenous education and on-the-job training, along with exogenous aggregate (skill-neutral and skill-biased) shocks and cohort-specific trends in initial human capital endowments and learning capabilities. The estimated model replicates the W-shaped evolution of the college premium and the flattening then steepening of lifetime wage profiles. We show that changes in labor efficiency, rather than changes in relative skill prices, are the main driver of these dynamics. We quantify the contribution of estimated exogenous drivers and find a key role for the deterioration of human capital endowments and learning abilities among more recent cohorts. Crucially, endogenous adjustments in educational attainment and skill prices serve as powerful equalizing forces. Without these market mechanisms, the gap between the lifetime wage profiles of skilled and unskilled workers would widen and the college premium double. |
| Keywords: | College premium, Life-cycle wage profile, On-the-job training, Human capital, Technological progress. |
| JEL: | E24 E25 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:creeic:2503 |
| By: | Burdin, Gabriel (University of Siena); Landini, Fabio (University of Parma) |
| Abstract: | Why does capital typically hire labor rather than the other way around? Employee-owned firms with majority workforce control—such as worker cooperatives—remain rare in market economies, despite evidence that they perform at least as well as investor-owned firms across various contexts. In this paper, we examine whether beliefs help explain this puzzle by shaping policy preferences and willingness to work in such organizations. In a preregistered experiment guided by a detailed pre-analysis plan, we randomly exposed 2, 000 young adults to information from an international expert survey. Respondents held more pessimistic prior beliefs about worker cooperatives compared to experts. Information exposure led to more optimistic beliefs and increased support for pro-cooperative policies. Text analysis of open-ended responses reveals fewer negative and more positive first-order concerns about cooperatives in the treatment group. We also find suggestive evidence of a relative re-ranking of career intentions in favor of worker cooperatives. |
| Keywords: | cooperatives, employee ownership, preferences, job attributes, career intentions, beliefs, information experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D83 J24 J54 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18196 |
| By: | Baktash, Mehrzad B. (University of Trier); Heywood, John S. (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee); Jirjahn, Uwe (University of Trier) |
| Abstract: | Using German survey data, we show conflicting influences of performance pay on overall life satisfaction. The overall influence reflects a strong positive influence through domains of life satisfaction associated with the job (job satisfaction, individual earnings satisfaction and household earning satisfaction) and a strong negative influence through domains away from the job (health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction and family life satisfaction). This trade-off between work and home generalizes and helps explain many previous studies examining much more specific consequences of performance pay. Finally, controlling for the mediating role of the domains, the direct influence on life satisfaction is positive for women and insignificantly different from zero for men. |
| Keywords: | well-being, life satisfaction, performance pay, satisfaction domains, gender |
| JEL: | D10 J22 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18181 |
| By: | Chiswick, Carmel U. (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | The goal of economic development is to raise standards of living in LDCs, to be achieved by accumulating both human and non-human capital so as to maximize production net of the cost of these investments. An LDC economy is modelled with two sectors, modern and traditional, each of which uses its own type of human and non-human capital in production. Sector-specific human capital is specified as an attribute embodied in its workers, who have agency to choose their sector of employment and level of education. Earnings of labor are the sum of two components: recovery of human capital investment costs (e.g., student loan repayments) and an economic rent (i.e., profit) available for current consumption. The consumption-maximizing resource allocation equalizes rates of return to investments in all types of capital and allocates workers between the two sectors so that labor rents (i.e. consumption levels) are the same in both. Policy implications emphasize removing economic, social and cultural barriers to economic mobility for all resources. |
| Keywords: | human capital, growth, economic development, LDCs, labor rents |
| JEL: | I25 I26 J21 J24 O00 O15 O41 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18182 |
| By: | Maré David (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Richard Fabling (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | We estimate relative wage discrimination for ethnic and migrant groups in New Zealand, using linked employer-employee and firm-level productivity data, and comparing each group’s contribution to output with their share of their firm’s wage bill. We find that wage discrimination is relatively favourable for European migrants and Asian/MELAA employees, and relatively unfavourable for M?ori, Pacific, and NZ-born European employees, with variation across NZ-born, recent migrants, and longer-term migrants. We present pooled and firm-fixed effects estimates of discrimination, highlighting distinct within-firm and between-firm patterns. |
| Keywords: | Earnings; productivity; M?ori; ethnicity |
| JEL: | J30 J15 J71 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:25_08 |
| By: | Valerio Dionisi |
| Abstract: | Industry dimension is increasingly dominant to investigate the upward trend of inequality. This paper examines the key drivers of U.S. wage inequality through a general equilibrium model, emphasising the role of heterogeneous capital-labour substitution elasticities across industries in shaping wage dispersion. Key is the distinction of a quantity effect (changes in the composition of capital and labour inputs) and a structural effect (reflecting technological transformations in inputs substitutability) from Skill-Biased Technological Change (SBTC). Findings suggest that industry-level transformations on the labour side − differentials in job tasks substitutability and workforce composition − constitute the principal drivers of real wage inequality, overshadowing the contribution of capital-side adjustments. A structural estimation of the model reveals that trend-asymmetries in the elasticities of substitution between ICT capital, routine and non-routine workers account for 94% of observed wage variance, while stronger sorting and segregation effects further exacerbate such dispersion. Upon neutralising structural differences between industries, SBTC reckons merely 6-15% of the observed wage inequality. |
| Keywords: | wage inequality, structural transformations, industry, tasks, labour force composition, elasticity of substitution |
| JEL: | E24 J31 J82 L16 O33 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:558 |
| By: | Oriana Bandiera; Ananya Kotia; Ilse Lindenlaub; Christian Moser; Andrea Prat |
| Abstract: | We study the micro sources and macro consequences of worker–job matching across countries with large income differences. Using internationally comparable data on over 120, 000 individuals in 30 countries, we document that workers' skills align more closely with their jobs' skill requirements in higher-income countries, indicative of more meritocratic labor market matching. We interpret this fact through an equilibrium matching model with cross-country differences in three fundamentals: (i) endowments of worker skills and job requirements determining match feasibility; (ii) technology determining the returns to matching; and (iii) idiosyncratic frictions capturing how nonproductive traits affect matching. A development-accounting exercise based on the model, estimated separately for each country, shows that variation in matching frictions explains only a small share of cross-country output gaps. However, improved worker–job matching substantially amplifies the gains from adopting frontier endowments and technology. |
| Keywords: | multidimensional skills, sorting, matching, misallocation, development accounting |
| JEL: | E24 J24 O11 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12208 |
| By: | Bičáková, Alena; Cortes, Guido Matias; Foley, Kelly |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Current Population Survey's Education Supplement for 1977-2023, we explore two important, yet understudied facets of the pattern of countercyclical post-secondary education (PSE) enrollment in the U.S. First, we show that economic downturns are associated with higher enrollment probabilities at both 2- and 4-year colleges among young men, but only at 2-year institutions among young women. Second, we show that the overall increase in enrollment propensities during downturns is primarily driven by persistence (i.e., changes in enrollment among individuals with prior PSE participation), rather than matriculation (i.e., new enrollments). However, higher unemployment rates increase matriculation probabilities at 2-year colleges among 18- year-old men and women, and at 4-year colleges among individuals in their early 20s. Our findings improve our understanding of the dimensions along which aggregate economic fluctuations induce changes in human capital acquisition. |
| Keywords: | College Enrollment, Business Cycles, 2- and 4-Year Institutions, Persistence |
| JEL: | I23 J24 E32 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:clefwp:330185 |
| By: | Lehner, Lukas; Massenbauer, Hannah (University of Zurich); Parolin, Zachary (The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford); Pintro Schmitt, Rafael (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of minimum wage (MW) increases on poverty and food hardship in the United States from 1981–2019 using stacked difference-in-differences models and the Supplemental Poverty Measure. A $1 MW increase reduces poverty by 0.3–0.7 percentage points among all working-age adults and 1.2–1.7 percentage points among likely MW workers, while also reducing food insufficiency by 1.5 percentage points for this group. Effects on poverty are partially offset by higher living costs in MW-increasing states. MW increases meaningfully reduce poverty and food hardship for the workers most directly affected but deliver modest improvements for the broader working-age population. |
| Keywords: | minimum wages, poverty, food hardship, stacked difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | I32 I38 J23 J38 J88 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2025-23 |
| By: | Bosco, Bruno Paolo; Bosco, Carlo Federico; Maranzano, Paolo |
| Abstract: | Ignoring the possible hierarchical clustering of the data that frequently characterises the structure of labour markets implies that studies of the effects of income tax changes on labour supply use less than necessary information on the variability of the labour response. Estimation efficiency is reduced and relevant relationships affecting the agents’ reaction to net wage changes remain undetected. Motivated by the desire to implement an estimation procedure that accommodates a nested hierarchical statistical structure of labour supply macro data into of a causal-effect framework, we propose a novel multilevel DiD model that can estimate labour responses to exogenous tax hikes taking the above hierarchical structure into consideration. Using Italy as a case study, we examine the labour response to exogenous income tax changes using a hierarchical DiD model modified to account for the existence of different sources of variation of the data (regional and provincial labour markets) as well as for various possible clustering of the data (territorial, age and gender). We compare results obtained from various nested and non-nested procedures and show that our multilevel variant of the DiD model generates gains in efficiency with respect to approaches that ignore the clustering nature of the labour data. The hierarchical multilevel DiD procedure permits to qualify labour response in terms of cluster membership and to shed light on aspects of the tax issues not highlighted by current literature. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, Research Research Methods/Statistical Methods |
| Date: | 2025–10–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemwp:373337 |
| By: | Benoit Dostie; Todd Morris |
| Abstract: | This paper leverages an original linkage between data from the Pension Plans in Canada (PPIC)—a census of all employer pension plans in Canada—and tax data on employers and employees from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamic Database (CEEDD) to examine three interrelated questions. First, how have pension plans and coverage evolved between 2001 and 2020? Second, how much do workers value jobs with pension plans? Third, how do these pensions impact employee mobility? Additionally, we analyze how these effects vary depending on the characteristics of the pension plan, such as defined benefit versus defined contribution plans, profit-sharing arrangements, and other structural differences. |
| Keywords: | Pensions, Earnings differentials, Mobility, Linked employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J26 J32 J38 J63 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:irersi:18 |
| By: | Bhattacharya, Leena; Van Soest, Arthur |
| Abstract: | How married couples allocate their time across activities has been studied in developed countries, but remains an open question in many developing countries. We pool the 2019 and 2024 waves of the India Time Use Survey (TUS), the two most recent nationally representative surveys, to analyze the time spent on paid work, household production, child care, and several other activities. We focus on the role of spouses' relative education level - which has been seen as a measure of within-household bargaining power - as well as each partner's own education level and a measure of patriarchy in the state. We find that, compared to women with lower or the same education level, women with higher education than their husbands are more likely to participate in and spend more time on paid work, at the cost of time spent on household production, leisure, childcare, and sleep. Surprisingly, men with more educated wives also spend somewhat more time on paid work than other men. In addition, they more often engage in household production and childcare activities, which leads to reduced intrahousehold inequality in time spent on unpaid activities. Combined with the relations between time use and wives' and husbands' own education or patriarchy, our results suggest that the impact of relative education is more complex than its role for intrahousehold bargaining power would suggest. |
| Keywords: | relative education, time allocation, gender, bargaining power |
| JEL: | J22 J16 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1680 |
| By: | Grund, Christian (RWTH Aachen University); Nießen, Anna (RWTH Aachen University) |
| Abstract: | We explore the moderating role of job autonomy for the link between the use of performance appraisals and employees’ job satisfaction. Results based on German linked employer-employee panel data show that performance appraisals are linked to higher job satisfaction at moderate levels of job autonomy, whereas this positive relationship weakens at both low and high levels of autonomy. Moreover, the interplay between performance appraisals and job autonomy appears sensitive to broader institutional and contextual factors, such as the existence of employee representation, perceived job security, and design of the performance appraisals. Our findings highlight the complex role of job autonomy in shaping employee responses to performance management, underscoring the need for context-aware human resource practices. |
| Keywords: | job satisfaction, performance appraisals, job autonomy, German Linked Personnel Panel |
| JEL: | M12 M5 J28 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18191 |
| By: | Luisa Alamá-Sabater (Department of Economics and IIDL, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain); Joan Crespo (Department of Economic Structure, Universidad de Valencia, Spain); Miguel Ángel Márquez (Department of Economics, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain); Emili Tortosa-Ausina (IVIE, Valencia and IIDL and Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain) |
| Abstract: | We empirically evaluate how the efficiency of Spanish public universities impacts regional economic performance in Spain during the period 2010–2019. Efficiency is measured using activity analysis methods that attempt to capture reflect how universities perform in their respective missions—namely, teaching, research, and knowledge transfer. We analyse the geography of higher education by examining efficiency at the provincial (NUTS3) and regional (NUTS2) levels, as well as for groups of regions (NUTS1). Our results offer several key insights. First, we find that geography plays a differential role primarily when knowledge transfer activities are considered, while geographical patterns are similar for teaching and research activities. Second, the impact of universities’ efficiency on regional economic activity varies across different outcome measures. While provinces with more efficient public university systems show higher labor productivity and capital intensity levels, there is no significant relationship with per capita income. The spatial analysis indicates that efficiency gains generate indirect and positive spillovers, particularly for capital intensity, suggesting that improvements in university performance can benefit broader regional areas. Additionally, institutional quality, measured through regional government performance indicators, reinforces these effects. Our findings suggest that policies aimed at enhancing university efficiency should prioritise the research mission. Among the three university missions, research has the greatest impact on improving productive processes and is the most effective in fostering regional economic development. |
| Keywords: | bias-corrected efficiency; capital intensity; higher education institutions; regional growth; productivity |
| JEL: | C61 J24 R11 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2025/09 |
| By: | Ruixue Jia; Gaurav Khanna; Hongbin Li; Yuli Xu |
| Abstract: | China’s unprecedented expansion of higher education in 1999, increased annual college enrollment from 1 million to 9.6 million by 2020. We trace the global ripple effects of that expansion by examining its impact on US graduate education and local economies surrounding college towns. Combining administrative data from China’s college admissions system and US visa data, we leverage the centralized quota system governing Chinese college admissions for identification and present three key findings. First, the expansion of Chinese undergraduate education drove graduate student flows to the US: every additional 100 college graduates in China led to 3.6 Chinese graduate students in the US. Second, Chinese master’s students generated positive spillovers, driving the birth of new master’s programs, and increasing the number of other international and American master’s students, particularly in STEM fields. And third, the influx of international students supported local economies around college towns, raising job creation rates outside the universities, as well. Our findings highlight how domestic education policy in one country can reshape the academic and economic landscape of another through student migration and its broader spillovers. |
| JEL: | F22 I23 J23 J24 J61 O15 O38 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34391 |
| By: | Joern Block (Trier-University, Erasmus-University Rotterdam, University Witten/Herdecke); Miriam Gnad (Trier-University); Alexander S. Kritikos (DIW Berlin, University of Potsdam, IZA Bonn, GLO Essen, CEPA); Caroline Stiel (DIW-Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Despite substantial research on job satisfaction in self-employment, we know little about the specific consequences for the venture when job satisfaction declines after an external shock. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of an external shock and drawing on a sample of nearly 7, 000 self-employed individuals living in Germany, we investigate how declines in job satisfaction are related to investment decisions of self-employed individuals. Having separated job satisfaction into its financial and non-financial aspects, we build in our analysis on two complementary behavioral perspectives to predict how reductions in financial and non-financial job satisfaction relate to investments in venture development. Our results show that decreasing financial job satisfaction is positively related to time investments. This finding provides support for the performance feedback perspective, where negative performance, in terms of reduced financial job satisfaction, induces higher search efforts to improve the business situation. Moreover, we also observe that reductions in non-financial job satisfaction are negatively associated with both time and monetary investments. This supports the broadening-and-build perspective in that negative experiences – in the form of reduced non-financial job satisfaction – narrow the thought-action repertoire, thus hindering resource deployment. Implications of reduced job satisfaction on investment behavior are discussed. |
| Keywords: | job satisfaction, investment decisions, self-employment and entrepreneurship, performance feedback perspective, broadening-and-build perspective, behavioral economics, economic psychology, Germany |
| JEL: | L26 J28 G11 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:cepadp:93 |
| By: | Sarullo, Nicolas (University of California at Berkeley); Gorodnichenko, Yuriy (University of California, Berkeley); Deryugina, Tatyana (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); Hodson, James (AI for Good); Sologoub, Ilona (VoxUkraine); Fedyk, Anastassia (University of California at Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | Using household survey data on expenditures and incomes, we construct an objective measure of corruption in the public sector for a broad spectrum of countries. Specifically, we focus on the consumption-income gap for public sector workers relative to private sector workers to gauge the extent of hidden income (bribes) in the government. After validating our data and documenting properties of the consumption-income gap, we compare our measure with popular corruption perception indices. We find that i) the relationship between our measure and the alternatives is nonlinear; ii) available indices appear to be only weakly (and sometimes “wrongly”) correlated with the consumption-income gap at high frequencies; iii) the available indices appear to have a low weight on the relative consumption-income gap in the public sector. |
| Keywords: | consumption, public sector, bribery, corruption, wage premium |
| JEL: | D73 H1 J3 J4 O1 P2 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18195 |
| By: | David Boisclair; Xavier Dufour-Simard; Pierre-Carl Michaud |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we paint a portrait of the evolution of retirement incomes over the last 20 years, and highlight some of the burning policy questions we think are important and deserve in our view more research. We also discuss the potential outlook for retirement incomes in decades to come under the current retirement income system. Our analysis leads us to conclude that seniors have done well in the last decades and that the retirement income system has met both its income replacement and poverty alleviation objectives quite well, but that the changing landscape will soon expose cracks which policymakers should address now rather than later. |
| Keywords: | income replacement rates, poverty, pensions, savings, retirement |
| JEL: | J14 J26 H55 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:irersi:19 |
| By: | Steven N. Durlauf; David McMillon; Scott Page |
| Abstract: | We analyze the potential for complexity theory to produce insights that elucidate the evolution of socioeconomic inequality and point toward effective policies. We position complexity theory as a complement to more traditional economic approaches. Economic models of inequality can fall into four broad categories: models based on individual attributes and technologies, social interaction models, intergenerational models of transfer, and models of institutional and social structure. Within each of these categories, complexity theory can enhance traditional theory. It is of particular value in helping to distinguish between bottom-up systemic and top-down structural causes of inequality. Complexity theory can further enrich our understanding of economic inequality by adopting a complex adaptive system of systems approach in which economic, social, political, and psychosocial systems interact with one another and with institutional and social structures to produce robust inequality, particularly on racial lines. |
| JEL: | D01 D3 D5 J7 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34381 |