|
on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
|
Issue of 2015‒06‒13
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Calero, Carla; Gonzales, Veronica; Soares, Yuri; Kluve, Jochen; Corseuil, Carlos Henrique |
| Abstract: | This paper provides findings of a small-scale, innovative labor training program that uses expressive arts and theatre as a pedagogical tool. The corresponding life skills training component is combined with a technical component teaching vocational skills. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of a training program constructed around expressive arts. Using a randomized assignment of favela youth into program and control groups, we look at the short-run treatment effects on a comprehensive set of outcomes including employment and earnings as well as measures of personality traits and risk behavior. We find positive short-run employment and earnings impacts five months after the program finalized; no impacts are found for shorter periods. These short-run impacts are economically very large, compared to those typically found in the literature: a 33.3 per cent increase in the probability of being employed, and a 23.6 per cent increase in earnings. We find no evidence of significant program impacts on other outcomes, including personality-related traits, providing evidence that these traits may not be malleable for young adults in the short-run. We argue that the estimated labor market impacts are due to a combination of both skills formation and signaling of higher quality workers to employers. |
| Keywords: | labor market training,youths,randomized controlled trial,life skills |
| JEL: | J24 J68 I38 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:486&r=ltv |
| By: | Gary S. Fields; Robert Duval-Hernández; George Jakubson |
| Abstract: | We reconcile, both theoretically and empirically, changes in inequality with panel income changes over periods of economic growth and decline. We also explore what factors account for the trends of short-run inequality and of inequality in individual average earnings. Finally, we explore what factors account for the equalization brought about by economic mobility. Using panel earnings data from Mexico we find that earnings changes are convergent, irrespective of whether inequality rises or falls. This is caused by a small fraction of individuals experiencing large and convergent earnings changes. The equalization that earnings changes bring over a year is mainly driven by changes in the employment and sector of workers. |
| Keywords: | Equality and inequality, Income, Income distribution |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2015-026&r=ltv |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Ufuk Akcigit; Antonin Bergeaud; Richard Blundell; David Hémous |
| Abstract: | In this paper we use cross-state panel data to show a positive and significant correlation between various measures of innovativeness and top income inequality in the United States over the past decades. Two distinct instrumentation strategies suggest that this correlation (partly) reflects a causality from innovativeness to top income inequality, and the effect is significant: for example, when measured by the number of patent per capita, innovativeness accounts on average across US states for around 17% of the total increase in the top 1% income share between 1975 and 2010. Yet, innovation does not appear to increase other measures of inequality which do not focus on top incomes. Next, we show that the positive effects of innovation on the top 1% income share are dampened in states with higher lobbying intensity. Finally, from cross-section regressions performed at the commuting zone (CZ) level, we find that: (i) innovativeness is positively correlated with upward social mobility; (ii) the positive correlation between innovativeness and social mobility, is driven mainly by entrant innovators and less so by incumbent innovators, and it is dampened in states with higher lobbying intensity. Overall, our findings vindicate the Schumpeterian view whereby the rise in top income shares is partly related to innovation-led growth, where innovation itself fosters social mobility at the top through creative destruction. |
| JEL: | D63 J14 J15 O30 O31 O33 O34 O40 O43 O47 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21247&r=ltv |
| By: | Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina); Ozturk, Orgul Demet (University of South Carolina); Wang, Si (Hunan University) |
| Abstract: | This paper updates the major study by Macpherson and Hirsch (1995) of the effect of the gender composition of occupations on female (and male) earnings. Using large representative national samples of employees from the Current Population Survey, cross-sectional estimates of the impact of proportion female in an occupation (or feminization) on wages are first provided, paying close attention to the role of occupational characteristics. Specification differences in the effects of feminization across alternative subsamples are examined as well as the contribution of the feminization argument to the explanation of the gender wage gap. An updated longitudinal analysis using the CPS data is also provided. This examination of two-year panels of individuals is supplemented using information from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth which has the advantage of offering a longer panel. Analysis of the former suggests the reduction in gender composition effects observed for females in cross section with the addition of controls for occupational characteristics becomes complete after accounting for unobserved individual heterogeneity. This is not the case for the latter dataset, most likely reflecting heritage effects of discrimination in what is an aging cohort. |
| Keywords: | occupational segregation, gender wage gap |
| JEL: | J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9078&r=ltv |
| By: | Sarah Flèche; Richard Layard |
| Abstract: | Studies of deprivation usually ignore mental illness. This paper uses household panel data from the USA, Australia, Britain and Germany to broaden the analysis. We ask first how many of those in the lowest levels of life-satisfaction suffer from unemployment, poverty, physical ill health, and mental illness. The largest proportion suffer from mental illness. Multiple regression shows that mental illness is not highly correlated with poverty or unemployment, and that it contributes more to explaining the presence of misery than is explained by either poverty or unemployment. This holds both with and without fixed effects. |
| Keywords: | Mental health, life-satisfaction, wellbeing, poverty, unemployment |
| JEL: | I1 I3 I31 I32 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1356&r=ltv |
| By: | Plug, Erik (University of Amsterdam); van der Klaauw, Bas (VU University Amsterdam); Ziegler, Lennart (University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether children are better off if their parents have stronger social networks. Using data on high-school friendships of parents, we analyze whether the number and characteristics of friends affect the labor-market outcomes of children. While parental friendships formed in high school appear long lasting, we find no significant impact on their children's occupational choices and earnings prospects. These results do not change when we account for network endogeneity, network persistency and network measurement error. Only when children enter the labor market, we find that friends of parents have a marginally significant but small influence on the occupational choice of children. |
| Keywords: | social networks, occupational choice, informal job search, intergenerational effects |
| JEL: | A14 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9074&r=ltv |
| By: | Leonardo Gasparini (CEDLAS - UNLP); Mariana Marchionni (CEDLAS - UNLP) |
| Abstract: | This book contributes to the understanding of female labor force participation in Latin America by documenting the changes that took place over the last two decades, exploring their determinants, analyzing their consequences on labor and social outcomes, and discussing implications for public policy. The book highlights a potentially worrisome finding: after around half a century of sustained growth, there are signs of a widespread and significant deceleration in the entry of women into the Latin American labor markets. A version of this paper will be published as Chapter 1 of Gasparini and Marchionni (eds.) (2015). Bridging gender gaps? The rise and deceleration of female labor force participation in Latin America. |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0185&r=ltv |