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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Pencavel, John H. (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | The increase in the real wages of British workers over the last one hundred years is often attributed to the growth in labour productivity, but this has rarely been confirmed. In the research reported here, this ascription is confronted with annual observations on wages and productivity spanning more than a century. A positive wage-productivity link is, indeed, found. However, productivity growth alone removes little of the variation over time in real wage changes. When trade union membership was rising, unions were able to direct increases in incomes to the earnings of rank-and-file workers. |
| Keywords: | real wages, labour productivity, trade unions, monopsony |
| JEL: | J31 J42 N14 N34 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17140 |
| By: | Blimpo, Moussa (University of Toronto); Carneiro, Pedro (University College London); Jervis Ortiz, Pamela (Universidad de Chile); Lahire, Nathalie (World Bank); Pugatch, Todd (Oregon State University) |
| Abstract: | We study two early childhood programs in The Gambia for children between 0 and 3 years of age. The basic version of the program, called Baby Friendly Community Initiative (BFCI), provides parents with child health and nutrition information delivered through home visits and community meetings. A second version, called BFCI+, is center-based and adds cognitive stimulation to the basic version of the program through activities with children. Villages were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the program or to a control group that received neither. The BFCI+ program had moderate impacts on parental investments in children in terms of resources and time. Child language development improved for well-off parents or parents in the more well-off region. Poorer parents invested more in time spent with the children, whereas those who were more materially well-off spent more financial resources on the children. The basic version of the program, the BFCI, had no detectable impacts. |
| Keywords: | early childhood development, cognitive stimulation, teacher training, The Gambia, randomized controlled trials, Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool |
| JEL: | I25 I38 O15 O22 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17133 |
| By: | Blouin, Arthur (University of Toronto); Mani, Anandi (University of Oxford); Mukand, Sharun W. (University of Warwick Author-Sgroi, Daniel; University of Warwick & IZA) |
| Abstract: | Can inequality in rewards result in an erosion in broad-based support for meritocratic norms? We hypothesize that unequal rewards between the successful and the rest, drives a cognitive gap in their meritocratic beliefs, and hence their social preferences for redistribution. Two separate experiments (one in the UK and the other in the USA) show that the elite develop and maintain “meritocratic bias” in the redistributive taxes they propose, even when not applied to their own income: lower taxes on the rich and fewer transfers to the poor, including those who failed despite high effort. These social preferences at least partially reflect a selfserving meritocratic illusion that their own high income was deserved. A Wason Card task confirms that individuals maintain their illusion of being meritocratic, by not expending cognitive effort to process information that may undermine their self-image even when incentivized to do otherwise. |
| Keywords: | Inequality ; Meritocracy ; Redistribution ; Populism ; Motivated Reasoning ; Social Preferences |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1509 |
| By: | Biddle, Jeff E. (University of Notre Dame); Hamermesh, Daniel S. (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | We expand the analysis of cyclical changes in labor demand by decomposing changes along the intensive margin into those in days/week and in hours/day. Using large cross sections of U.S. data, 1985-2018, we observe around ¼ of the adjustment in weekly hours occurring through changing days/week. There is no adjustment of days/week in manufacturing; but 1/3 of the adjustment outside manufacturing occurs through days/week. The desirability of bunched leisure implies that secular shifts away from manufacturing have contributed to increasing economic welfare. |
| Keywords: | days, labor demand, work hours, recessions |
| JEL: | J23 E24 J21 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17162 |
| By: | López Bóo, Florencia (Inter-American Development Bank); de la Paz Ferro, Maria (Inter-American Development Bank); Carneiro, Pedro (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Delivering early childhood programs at scale is a major policy challenge. One way to do so is by using existing public infrastructure. This paper experimentally assesses the short-term impacts of a new government home visiting program integrated into health care services. The program changed the allocation of time for community health workers, asking them to carry out early childhood development-related tasks. We find that access to the program has a positive but modest impact on home environment quality and no impact on child development nor on children's health status. Our results point to the importance of workload, supervision and buy-in from delivery actors to enhance fidelity of interventions. |
| Keywords: | early childhood, parenting |
| JEL: | J10 I10 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17130 |