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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2012‒07‒01
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Arndt, Channing; Distante, Roberta; Hussain, M. Azhar; Osterdal, Lars Peter; Huong, Pham Lan |
| Abstract: | We develop an approach for making welfare comparisons between populations with multidimensional discrete well-being indicators observed at the micro level. The approach is rooted in the concept of multidimensional first order dominance. It assumes that, f |
| Keywords: | ordinal; welfare; multi-dimensional poverty measurement; first order dominance; Mozambique; Vietnam |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-36&r=ltv |
| 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=ltv |
| 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=ltv |
| By: | Margolis, David Naum (World Bank); Navarro, Lucas (Universidad Alberto Hurtado); Robalino, David A. (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the potential impacts of introducing unemployment insurance (UI) in middle income countries using the case of Malaysia, which today does not have such a system. The analysis is based on a job search model with unemployment and three employment sectors: formal and informal wage employment, and self employment. The parameters of the model are estimated to replicate the structure of the labor market in Malaysia in 2009 and the distribution of earnings for informal, formal and self employed workers. The results suggest that unemployment insurance would have only a modest negative effect on unemployment if benefits are not overly generous. The main effect would be a reallocation of labor from wage into self employment while increasing average wages in the formal and informal sectors. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance, informal sector, self employment, job search |
| JEL: | J64 J65 O17 J23 J31 J21 J62 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6660&r=ltv |
| By: | Anderson, Gordon |
| Abstract: | Aphorisms that "Rising tides raise all boats" or that material advances of the rich eventually "Trickle Down" to the poor are really maxims regarding the nature of stochastic processes that underlay the income/wellbeing paths of groups of individuals. This paper looks at the implications for the empirical analysis of wellbeing of conventional assumptions regarding such processes which are employed by both micro and macro economists in modeling economic behavior. The implications of attributing different processes to different groups in society following the club convergence literature are also discussed. Various forms of poverty, inequality, polarization and income mobility structures are considered and much of the conventional wisdom afforded us by such aphorisms is questioned. To exemplify these ideas the results are applied to the distribution of GDP per capita in the continent of Africa. -- |
| Keywords: | Stochastic processes,poverty,inequality,wellbeing measurement |
| JEL: | C22 D63 D91 I32 O47 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201228&r=ltv |
| By: | Luebker, Malte |
| Abstract: | Based on the standard axiom of individual utility maximization, rational choice has postulated that higher income inequality translates into greater redistribution by shaping the median voter?s preferences. While numerous papers have tested this propositi |
| Keywords: | income distribution, redistribution, median voter theorem, behavioural economics |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-44&r=ltv |
| 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=ltv |