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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2008‒04‒21
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Stefan Dercon; Pramila Krishnan |
| Abstract: | Assessing changes in poverty levels over time is bedevilled by problems in questionnaire design, the choice of the poverty line, the exact timing of the survey and uncertainty about the appropriate cost-of-living deflators. In this paper, we focus on testing the robustness of measured changes in poverty to these common problems, using household panel data collected in rural Ethiopia in 1989, 1994 and 1995: in particular, we implement a simple graphical technique for assessing the impact of uncertainity in measured inflation rates. We find that poverty declined between 1989 and 1994, but remained virtually unchanged between 1994 and 1995. However, the last result disguises substantial seasonal fluctuations in 1994. We also find that households with substantial human and physical capital, and better access to roads and towns have both lower poverty levels and are more likely to get better off over time. Human capital and access to roads and towns also reduce the fluctuations in poverty across the seasons. |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces9819&r=ltv |
| By: | Bourdet , Yves (Department of Economics, Lund University); Persson, Inga (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse the changes that have taken place on the supply and demand sides of the Swedish labour market during recent decades, with particular focus on youths and the extent to which Swedish youths have become “overeducated”. We first provide an overview of theoretical and measurement issues related to the concept of overeducation. Against this background we then survey some of the findings from earlier studies of the evolution of the demand and supply of skills in Sweden and of the extent and character of over- and undereducation. We then look specifically at overeducation among Swedish youths during their labour market entrance and early career and discuss the main issues related to overeducation that have been raised in the Swedish public debate. |
| Keywords: | Overeducation; mismatch; wage-premium; youth employment; Sweden |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2008–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2008_008&r=ltv |
| By: | Blanchflower, David G. (Bank of England); Bryson, Alex (Policy Studies Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the demise of unionisation in British private sector workplaces over the last quarter century. We show that dramatic union decline has occurred across all types of workplace. Although the union wage premium persists it is quite small in 2004. Negative union effects on employment growth and financial performance are largely confined to the 1980s. Managerial perceptions of the climate of relations between managers and workers have deteriorated since the early 1980s across the whole private sector, whether the workplace is unionised or not. |
| Keywords: | trade unions, wages, employment growth, financial performance |
| JEL: | J51 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3436&r=ltv |
| By: | Walter Bossert (Department of Economics and CIREQ, University of Montreal); Satya R. Chakravarty (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata); Conchita D’Ambrosio (Università di Milano-Bicocca, DIW Berlin and Econpubblica, Università Bocconi) |
| Abstract: | We examine the measurement of individual poverty in an intertemporal context. In contrast to earlier contributions, we assign importance to the persistence in a state of poverty and we characterize a class of individual intertemporal poverty measures reflecting this feature. In addition, we axiomatize an aggregation procedure to obtain intertemporal poverty measures for entire societies and we illustrate our new indices with an application to EU countries. |
| Keywords: | Intertemporal Poverty Measurement, Equity |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2008-87&r=ltv |