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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2021‒06‒21
eight papers chosen by |
| By: | Baum, Christopher F; Lööf, Hans; Stephan, Andreas; Zimmermann, Klaus F |
| Abstract: | Refugee workers start low and adjust slowly to the wages of comparable natives. The innovative approach in this study using unique Swedish employer-employee data shows that the observed wage gap between established refugees and comparable natives is mainly caused by occupational sorting into cognitive and manual tasks. Within occupations, it can be largely explained by differences in work experience. The identification strategy relies on a control group of matched natives with the same characteristics as the refugees, using panel data for 2003-2013 to capture unobserved heterogeneity. |
| Keywords: | Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition; coarsened exact matching; correlated random effects model; Employer-employee data; Refugees; wage earnings gap |
| JEL: | C23 F22 J24 J6 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14917&r= |
| By: | Jenkins, Stephen P.; Rios-Avila, Fernando |
| Abstract: | Meijer, Rohwedder, and Wansbeek (MRW, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 2012)develop methods for prediction of a single earnings figure per worker from mixture factormodels fitted using earnings data from multiple linked data sources. MRW apply theirmethod using parameter estimates of Kapteyn and Ypma’s mixture factor model (KY,Journal of Labour Economics 2007) fitted to earnings data for Swedish workers aged 50+.First, we replicate MRW’s empirical analysis using the Swedish model estimates. Second, wecheck the generality of their empirical finding with a new application. Using estimates of aKY model fit to a linked dataset on earnings for UK employees of all ages, we confirm thatMRW’s principal findings about the performance of their various predictors of true earningsalso hold in this different setting. |
| Keywords: | earnings prediction; measurement error; mixture factor model; labour earnings; Kapteyn-Ypma model; Wiley deal |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2021–03–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108951&r= |
| By: | Martin Ravallion (Department of Economics, Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | Low response rates among rich households are thought to be a serious problem in many applications using household surveys. The paper discusses the various ways the problem can be dealt with, and makes some recommendations for practice, including in developing countries. Under certain conditions, income-selective non-compliance with an initially randomized assignment can be corrected by reweighting the data. This requires that the surveys pick up at least some top incomes. If not, then income tax records can help, including in estimating distributional national accounts. However, tax data come with their own concerns including tax avoidance/evasion, weak coverage of informal sectors and illicit incomes, and concerns about construct validity, given the limitations of taxable income as a basis for inter-personal comparisons of economic welfare. An appropriately weighted survey-based distribution of an acceptable measure of economic welfare need not be less reliable for most purposes of distributional analysis than income-tax records, including in combination with surveys. The choice will depend on the question to be addressed, and country-specific circumstances. These measurement issues warrant further research across multiple settings. Classification-D63, I32, H31 |
| Keywords: | Inequality, top incomes, surveys, nonresponse, national accounts |
| Date: | 2021–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~21-21-15&r= |
| By: | Merike Blofield; Nora Lustig (Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Department of Economics, Tulane University, Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ).); Mart Trasberg |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyze the COVID-19 policy responses in socialprotection and evaluate to what extent have these measures potentially mitigated the impact of pandemic on inequality and poverty in the region’s four largest countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. There is a considerable variation in the governments’ policy responses and in terms of speed, breadth, and size. All nations put in place some measures to protect the livelihood of formal workers, which included prohibition of layoffs, salary and work hours reductions, and furloughs. Argentina, Brazil and Colombia launched programs to subsidize formal sector employment in companies that were hard hit by the crisis, and Mexico provided loans to small and medium size enterprises. All countries maintained intact their existing non-contributory transfer programs, and Argentina, Brazil and Colombia launched new emergency cash transfer programs, while Mexico did not. Substantial expansions of existing socialassistance or entirely new programs have been able to offset a significant share of the poverty caused by the crisis in Argentinaand Brazil, and to a lesser extent, Colombia. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, social protection, poverty, inequality, health, education, Latin America |
| JEL: | D31 I14 I31 I32 I38 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tul:ceqwps:104&r= |
| By: | Anna Adamecz-Völgyi (Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (KRTK KRTI), Toth Kalman u. 4, 1097 Budapest andUCL Social Research Institute, University College London, 27 Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AA); Morag Henderson (UCL Social Research Institute, University College London, 27 Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AA); Nikki Shure (UCL Social Research Institute, University College London, 27 Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AA and Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, D-53113 Bonn.) |
| Abstract: | We examine how first in family (FiF) graduates (those whose parents do not have university degrees) fare on the labor market in England. We find that among women, FiF graduates earn 7.4% less on average than graduate women whose parents have a university degree. For men, we do not find a FiF wage penalty. A decomposition of the wage difference between FiF and non-FiF graduates reveals that FiF men earn higher returns on their endowments than non-FiF men and thus compensate for their relative social disadvantage, while FiF women do not. We also show that a substantial share of the graduate gender wage gap is due to, on the one hand, women being more likely to be FiF than men and, on the other hand, that the FiF wage gap is gendered. We provide some context, offer explanations, and suggest implications of these findings. |
| Keywords: | socioeconomic gaps, intergenerational educational mobility, higher education, labor market returns, gender economics |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2127&r= |
| By: | Macpherson, David A. (Trinity University); Hirsch, Barry (Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | Union, nonunion, and overall wages, plus regression-based union wage gap estimates, are provided annually, beginning in 1973 using the Current Population Surveys (CPS). The estimates are presented economy-wide by demographics and sectors (private/public, industries). Union wage gaps are higher in the private than in the public sector, higher for men than women, roughly similar for black and white men, and much higher for black than for white women. We estimate mean weekly earnings above CPS topcodes by gender and year, assuming a Pareto distribution in the right tail of the distribution. The database is online and will be updated annually. |
| Keywords: | earnings, union wage gaps, CPS topcodes |
| JEL: | J31 J51 C81 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14398&r= |
| By: | Roman, Monica (Bucharest University of Economic Studies); Zimmermann, Klaus F. (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, GLO, CEPR); Plopeanu, Aurelian-Petrus (Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi) |
| Abstract: | Under communism, identity-providing religion was suppressed, but today religiosity is strong even among the youth in post-communist countries. This provides an appropriate background to investigate how external and internal religiosity relates to addictive behaviours like smoking, drinking and drugs among the young. This study shows that not religion as such or internal religiosity, but largely observable (external) religiosity prevents them from wallowing in those vices. |
| Keywords: | addictive behaviour, Orthodox, external and internal religiosity, youth, smoking, drinking, drugs, Romania |
| JEL: | I12 N34 Z12 |
| Date: | 2021–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2021027&r= |
| By: | Aronsson, Thomas (Dept of Economics, Umeå School of Business, Umeå University, Sweden); Johansson-Stenman, Olof (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Wendner, Ronald (Dept of Economics, University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes optimal taxation of charitable giving to a public good in a Mirrleesian framework with social comparisons. Leisure separability together with zero transaction costs of giving imply that charitable giving should be subsidized to such an extent that governmental contributions are completely crowded out, regardless of whether the government acknowledges warm glows of giving. Stronger concerns for relative charitable giving and larger transaction costs support lower marginal subsidies, whereas relative consumption concerns work in the other direction. A dual screening approach, where charitable giving constitutes an indicator of wealth, is also presents. Numerical simulations supplement the theoretical results. |
| Keywords: | Conspicuous consumption; conspicuous charitable giving; optimal taxation; public good provision; warm glow; multiple screening |
| JEL: | D03 D62 H21 H23 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0807&r= |