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Higher labor costs (higher wage rates and employee benefits) make workers better off, but they can reduce companies' profits, the number of jobs, and the hours each person works. The minimum wage, overtime pay, payroll taxes, and hiring subsidies are just a few of the policies that affect labor costs. Policies that increase labor costs can substantially affect both employment and hours, in individual companies as well as in the overall economy.

This paper analyzes fiscal policy under fiscal rules in a New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions and distortionary taxation. The model is estimated with US data including detailed information on fiscal instruments. Several findings stand out. First, fiscal rules enhance the positive effects of discretionary fiscal policy on output and unemployment if they influence the expected future path of interest rates. However, effects are smaller as suggested in the existing literature. Second, spending and consumption tax cuts have the largest multipliers. Third, multipliers for labor tax cuts are small. These results originate from the labor market friction and persist in an economy where the friction is more severe. Demand side disturbances explain the majority of labor market dynamics.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the cost of child care in the U.S. has increased substantially over the past few decades. This paper marshals data from a variety of sources to rigorously assess the issue. It begins by using nationally representative survey data to trace the evolution in families' child care expenditures. I find that the typical family currently spends 14 percent more on child care than it did in 1990. This is less than half the increase documented in previous work. Interestingly, low-income families spend the same amount or less on child care, while their high-income counterparts spend considerably more. Despite this divergence, families at all income levels allocate the same share of income to child care as they did several decades ago. The next section of the paper draws on establishment- and individual-level data to examine trends in the market price of child care. The evidence suggests that after persistent, albeit modest, growth throughout the 1990s, market prices have been essentially flat for at least a decade. In the paper's final section, I analyze several features of the child care market that may have implications for prices, including the demand for child care, the skill-level of the child care workforce, and state regulations. A few findings are noteworthy. First, I show that child care demand stagnated around the same time that market prices leveled-off. Second, although the skill-level of the child care workforce increased in absolute terms, highly-educated women increasingly find child care employment less attractive than other occupations. Finally, child care regulations have not systematically increased in stringency, and they appear to have small and inconsistent effects on market prices. Together, these results indicate that the production of child care has not become more costly, which may explain the recent stagnation in market prices.

We examine changes in inequality and instability of the combined earnings of married couples over the 1980-2009 period using two U.S. panel data sets: Social Security earnings data matched to Survey of Income and Program Participation panels (SIPP-SSA) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Relative to male earnings inequality, the inequality of couples' earnings is both lower in levels and rises by a smaller amount. We also find that couples' earnings instability is lower in levels compared to male earnings instability and actually declines in the SIPP-SSA data. While wives' earnings played an important role in dampening the rise in inequality and year-to-year variation in resources at the family level, we find that marital sorting and coordination of labor supply decisions at the family level played a minor role. Comparing actual couples to randomly paired simulated couples, we find very similar trends in earnings inequality and instability.

This paper adds to the empirical literature on health as an important determinant of employment at older ages by exploring the role in the health-employment nexus of the wage rates of 50 to 64-year-old workers. To do so, we use individual-level panel data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to estimate a system of equations for health, wages and employment. Our model also takes into account both the potential for measurement error in the health variable and selectivity issues related to the wage equation. We find that for men (women) a one-unit (one standard deviation) increase in health yields, on average, a 7 (8) percentage higher hourly wage rate, resulting in a 2 (4) percentage point higher employment probability. We also show a direct impact of health on employment: a similar increase in health raises the employment probability of men (women) by 16 (13) percentage points. As regards differences between European countries, our findings suggest that for all country groups, the mediating role of wages in the health-employment nexus is relatively small while the direct impact of health on employment is relatively large and rather similar. Overall, our findings indicate only a minor role for disability income policies likes wage subsidies to encourage the employment of (older) workers with health limitations, but an instrumental role for policy aimed at helping employers accommodate these workers on the job and keep them employed at older ages.

The primary goal of our paper is to quantify the importance of imperfect competition in the U.S. labor market by estimating the size of rents earned by American firms and workers from ongoing employment relationships. To this end, we construct a matched employeremployee panel data set by combining the universe of U.S. business and worker tax records for the period 2001-2015. Using this panel data, we describe several important features of the U.S. labor market, including the size of firm-specific wage premiums, the sorting of workers to firms, the production complementarities between high ability workers and productive firms, and the pass-through of firm and market shocks to workers’ wages. Guided by these empirical results, we develop, identify and estimate an equilibrium model of the labor market with two-sided heterogeneity where workers view firms as imperfect substitutes because of heterogeneous preferences over non-wage job characteristics. The model allows us to draw inference about imperfect competition, compensating differentials and rent sharing. We also use the model to quantify the relevance of non-wage job characteristics and imperfect competition for inequality and tax policy, to assess the economic determinants of worker sorting, and to offer a unifying explanation of key empirical features of the U.S. labor market I denne artikkelen kvantifiseres betydningen og omfanget av ufullkommen konkurranse i det amerikanske arbeidsmarkedet ved å estimere størrelsen på monopolprofitten som bedrifter og arbeidstakere tjener på løpende ansettelsesforhold. For dette formålet benytter vi administrative data med skatteopplysninger for samtlige amerikanske virksomheter og arbeidstakere i perioden 2001-2015 til å konstruere et paneldatasett med koblinger mellom arbeidstakere og arbeidsgivere. Vi beskriver og kvantifiserer flere viktige karakteristikker ved det amerikanske arbeidsmarkedet, som størrelsen på bedriftsspesifikke lønnspremier, sortering av arbeidstakere til bedrifter, produktivitetskomplementariteter mellom arbeidstakere og bedrifter, og overføringen av bedrifts- og markedsspesifikke sjokk til arbeidstakernes lønninger. Med utgangspunkt i disse empiriske resultatene utvikler, identifiserer og estimerer vi en likevektsmodell for et arbeidsmarked med tosidig heterogenitet, hvor arbeidstakerne ser på bedrifter som imperfekte substitutter på grunn av heterogene preferanser for ikke-pekuniære former for avlønning. Modellen tillater oss å trekke slutninger om graden av ufullkommen konkurranse, kompenserende lønnsforskjeller, og fordelingen av monopolprofitt mellom bedrifter og arbeidstakere. Videre bruker vi modellen til å kvantifisere betydningen av ikke-pekuniære former for avlønning og ufullkommen konkurranse for inntektsulikhet og skattepolitikk, til å studere de økonomiske mekanismene bak sorteringen av arbeidstakere til bedrifter, og til å utarbeide en helhetlig forklaring på sentrale empiriske kjennetegn ved det amerikanske arbeidsmarkedet.

This paper examines the causal effects of a major change in the German parental leave benefit scheme on fertility. I use the unanticipated reform in 2007 to assess how a move from a means-tested to an earnings-related benefit affects higher-order births. By using the German Mikrozensus 2010, I find that the reform significantly affected the timing of higher-order births in the first three years. Overall, mothers initially reduce childbearing, thereby extending their birth spacing, but eventually fully compensate for the earlier losses. The negative effects are largely driven by lowest-income mothers who also do not display any catch-up effects. I also find a substantial heterogeneity inWest and East Germany. Because the reform aimed at parents with strong labor market attachment, the positive effects in the East suggest that the economic incentives essentially perform well, but their impact may be hampered by unfavorable institutional and cultural conditions in the West.

The aim of this paper is to analyse both in theory and in practice fiscal policy effects on the employment rate. For example, even if taxation is one of the main instruments of fiscal policy of the government in reducing unemployment, high taxes reduce disposable incomes of consumers, which automatically leads to lower consumption and when consumers buy less, increases the odds that the unemployment increase. To highlight this we used the comparison of a dynamic influence of fiscal policy on macroeconomic variables with the empirical results from an identified multidimensional model. Data shows a positive conditional correlation between government expenditures increase and labour force supply.

Previous research has shown a detrimental effect of low task meaning on individual work output. This paper analyzes whether peer settings are able to counteract this negative effect of low task meaning. First, our results confirm that a low level of task meaning decreases individual output when working alone. However, this effect vanishes completely when working in the presence of a peer. Our analysis implies that organizing work in peer settings might be particularly beneficial in work environments with a low level of task meaning.

In many Dutch cities there are Geert Groote schools. This is no coincidence, because Geert Groote's (1340-1384) ideas form the foundation of modern education in the Netherlands and many other countries. Much less known is that his investments, and those of his followers, have put the Netherlands on the pathway towards the Golden Age. In this study, we describe the mechanism by which the influence of Groote so impressive. Furthermore, we present econometric estimates that indicate a long-lasting legacy. This research provides an explanation for high literacy, economic growth and societal developments in the Netherlands in the period before the Dutch Republic. We establish a link between the Brethren of the Common Life (BCL), a religious community founded by Geert Groote in the city of Deventer in the late fourteenth century, and the early development of the Netherlands. The BCL stimulated human capital accumulation by educating Dutch citizens without inducing animosity from the dominant Roman Catholic Church or other political rulers. Human capital had an impact on the structure of economic development in the period immediately after 1400. The educated workforce put pressure on the Habsburg monarchy leading to economic and religious resentment and eventually to the Revolt in 1572. The analyses show that the BCL contributed to the high rates of literacy in the Netherlands. In addition, there are positive effects of the BCL on book production and on city growth in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Finally, we find that cities with BCL-roots were more likely to join the Dutch Revolt. These findings are supported by regressions that use distance to Deventer as an instrument for the presence of BCL. The results are robust to a number of alternative explanations. The statistical programme used for the regression analysis and the data used for this research can also be downloaded below (attachment, if necessary rename the file as a .zip).

Ab dem Jahr 2016 wird in Deutschland eine feste Geschlechterquote für die Aufsichtsräte von paritätisch mitbestimmungspflichtigen und gleichzeitig börsennotierten Unternehmen gelten. Die Festlegung einer selbstverpflichtenden Quote für die weiteren oberen Führungsebenen verlangt der Gesetzgeber bereits bis zum 30. September 2015 - auch für die Unternehmen, bei denen nur eines der beiden Kriterien erfüllt ist. Im Zuge der Implementierung dieses Gesetzes wurden vielfach Befürchtungen geäußert, die von einer Einschränkung der Unternehmensperformance über die Diskriminierung von Männern, einer Einschränkung der Qualität des Talentpools bis hin zu einer Stigmatisierung von Frauen durch die Quote reichten. Der vorliegende Bericht prüft auf der Basis von wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen diese zentralen Kritikpunkte. Im Ergebnis dürften die Vorteile einer Geschlechterquote die Befürchtungen entkräften, da die Quote langfristig zum Abbau von Geschlechterstereotypen beiträgt und sich somit deren negativer Einfluss bei der Auswahl der Besten für Führungspositionen reduzieren lässt. In 2016, a fixed gender quota will come into force in Germany, affecting the supervisory boards of listed companies that also have employee representation (full codetermination). By as early as September 30, 2015, however, all companies will be obliged to set a self-imposed target quota-even companies that meet just one of these criteria; i.e., either listed or subject to codetermination. A variety of concerns have been expressed about the implementation of this law, including fears that the quota will impair company performance and the quality of the talent pool, or the belief that it discriminates against men and stigmatizes women. The present article examines these key criticisms on the basis of research findings to date. In conclusion, the advantages of a gender quota should allay these concerns since, in the long term, it contributes to dismantling gender stereotypes and consequently also mitigates the negative impact these stereotypes have on the selection of the best candidates for senior management positions.

The article finds that productivity in Belgium has tended to slow down over the past three decades. After controlling for that fundamental tendency, the relationship between persons in employment and economic activity appears generally stable over time throughout the business cycle and is generally unaffected by recessions. In Belgium in particular, in terms of deviation from their respective trends, a 1 % rise in GDP brings a 0.5 % increase in employment. That figure is in line with the European average. The downward trend in productivity is accompanied by a shift to the tertiary sector of the economy. That is also one of the factors behind the decline in average working time. Although the relationship between employment and GDP is very stable throughout the business cycle, the recent financial crisis differs from previous recessions in a general tendency to protect jobs at first, in all twelve economies studied in the article. However, that soon came to an end and the situation returned to normal ; if employment is struggling to pick up, that is essentially because of the weakness of the economic recovery. Finally, it is very clear that firms initially respond to fluctuations in the economy by adjusting the hours worked. In Belgium, the elasticity of those hours to economic activity is about 50 % greater than the elasticity of the number of persons employed in all sectors sensitive to the business cycle.

The term organizational stress appeared with people’s lifestyle and job evolution and it is used to show the direct link between the work environment and the employee’s wellbeing or health. This concept exists in all countries, and measures taken to decrease its effects are becoming increasingly more obvious. Such measures are being implemented in Romania also and, given the country’s high spa tourism potential, treatment programs in spa resorts would be the most obvious measures to decrease organizational stress and recover employee productivity. This study aims to address the main concepts related to organizational stress and to present the main benefits related to treatment of organizational stress in Romanian spa resorts. This research was carried out on 101 retail store employees of a supermarket chain. This job, due the requirements, is associated with high levels of stress. The data were processed using the Epi Info statistical software. From the analysis we conducted resulted that the employees we questioned have a low degree of personal satisfaction – in 57% of cases, declaring that their lifestyle since employment as retail store employees is less healthy, with fewer outdoor recreational activities - 65%. In regards to the presence of organizational stress, there are various associated symptoms, with correlation between headaches and increased heart rate (p value=0, 003), insomnia (p value = 0, 006) or back pain (p value=0, 042).

In this paper, I use data from the Canadian Labour Force Surveys (LFS), and the 2001 and 2006 Canadian Censuses to estimate the impact of an important labor supply shock on the earnings of young high-school graduates. The abolition of Ontario’s Grade 13 generated a ‘double’ cohort of high-school graduates that simultaneously entered the Ontario labor market, generating a large and sudden increase in the labor supply. This provides a rare occasion to measure the impact of cohort size on earnings without the supply shock being possibly confounded with unobserved trends—a recurring problem in the literature. The Census findings suggest that the effect of the supply shock is statistically and economically important, depressing weekly earnings by 5 to 9 percent. The findings from Census are supported by the LFS results which suggest that the immediate impact of the supply shock—measured about six months after high-school graduation—is also important.

The Bulgarian labour market adjustment during the economic crisis stands out by significant job losses, but at the same time strong average wage growth. The predominance of job cuts over wage cuts is most problematic for vulnerable groups, sectors and regions. Wage adjustments have hardly helped limiting unemployment. Strong increases in unit labour costs (ULC) and real effective exchange rates (REER) seem not (yet) to have eroded external competitiveness as exports have remained strong. This can be explained by economic convergence, lower wage growth in tradable sectors and possibly only temporarily favourable export price developments on world markets. Rapid wage growth is influenced by a combination of factors. At first sight the institutional features of the Bulgarian labour market seem rather flexible. Some factors only impact the statistical average even without actual wage increases (like job cuts being concentrated in low paid jobs and a reduction in undeclared wages). However, actual wages have probably also increased, impacted by convergence from the lowest wage levels in the EU, skills and regional mismatches. One of the key features identified in this paper is a unique system of hundreds of different minimum income thresholds across sectors and occupations applied for the calculation of social security taxes. These thresholds are set close to the average wages prevalent in the same sectors and occupations, especially for the low-wage segment where unemployment is also the highest. To minimise the negative implications for employment, the minimum social security thresholds might usefully be reviewed. Recalibration of the thresholds could be combined with a wider set of labour market measures (ALMPs, training and education policies) to improve the employability of crisis-hit employees.

Given the UK finance sector is one of the largest in the world, it provides the perfect setting for a study into the nature of the finance sector wage premium. We reveal the pervasiveness of this premium, across all sub-sectors of finance, and across all occupations within finance, and with the very highest rewards going to 40-49 year old men working in London. Moreover, the UK premium has continued to rise despite the recent financial crisis. Consequently, this study uses rich data from the UK to investigate potential explanations. We find that the financial sector is more skill intensive but also that financial sector workers have higher childhood test scores vis-à-vis non-finance workers. So we investigate to what extent these higher qualifications and higher cognitive skills can explain the financial pay differential. We then go on to consider whether the financial premium is a consequence of differences in job characteristics and thus whether technological change can explain the growth in the premium. While each of these factors has some role to play, we find that none can fully explain the wage premium found in the financial sector, which we find to be pervasive across 17 OECD countries, including the US. We therefore attribute to this to rent-sharing.

US regional variation shows a positive correlation between the size of the service economy and female market hours, which is partially driven by different tax regimes. Based on this fact, this paper develops a multi-sector model to: (1) quantify the effect of different tax regimes in incentivizing woman to enter the labor force, and (2) estimate the feedback effect from women entering the labor force on the service sector size. Counterfactual results suggest that tax progressivity has a stronger effect than tax levels on married female market hours and the speed of structural transformation. In addition, married households react more to progressivity increases and single households are more sensitive to level changes. These results highlight that models ignoring tax structures (levels and progressivity) and household heterogeneity (dual versus single earning households) could lead to erroneous policy conclusions.

The current economic crisis has been lasting too long, and particular examples of economic growth and unemployment reduction in some countries have not been the accelerator sufficient for the global recovery. The general level of demand is low, hence so are the investments, although the most powerful economic factors, i.e. the highly developed countries and transnational companies, have the capacities for new investment cycles. This work analyses the causes and effects of decrease in demand, as well as the options available for removal of those causes and revitalization of the effects. One of the main causes of decrease in demand in a long run is the asymmetrical distribution of income which has led to a reduction in purchasing power of a large number of consumers, high debt level and change in demand structure. An additional problem, which can be regarded also as a cause of decline in demand in the short run, is the austerity policy which is being implemented both where necessary and conditioned and where voluntary albeit not necessary. In order to overcome the problem, it is necessary to increase and maintain demand, first initially and then permanently, which is where the state plays an important role.

In this paper, I propose a new framework to study the intertemporal labor supply hypothesis. I use an exogenous source of variation in maternal net earning opportunities, generated through school entrance age of children, to study intertemporal labor supply behavior. Employing data from the 1980 US Census and the NLSY, I estimate the effect of a one year delay in school attendance on long run maternal labor supply. To deal with the endogeneity of school attendance age, I exploit the variation in child month of birth and state kindergarten entrance age laws. IV estimates imply that having a 5 year old enrolled in school increases labor supply measures for married women, with no younger children, by between 7 to 34 percent. In contrast to the results for married mothers, I do not find any statistically significant effect on labor market outcomes for single mothers or mothers of 5 year olds with additional younger children. Further, using a sample of 7 to 10 year olds from the NLSY, I investigate persistence in employment outcomes for a married mother whose child delayed school entry. The estimates suggest that delayed school enrollment has long run implications for maternal labor supply. Results point towards significant intertemporal substitution in labor supply. Rough calculations yield an uncompensated wage elasticity of 0.76 and an intertemporal elasticity of substitution equal to 1.1.

The paper aims to promote a better understanding of the determinants of wage skill premiums in developing countries, with emphasis on the role of firm heterogeneity as well as global production sharing. An interplant, cross-sectional analysis of the Thai manufacturing sector is undertaken. Our key finding is in line with the theoretical postulation of the established firm heterogeneity literature—i.e., tariff cuts have different effects on firms depending on the mode by which firms are globally integrated. We also find that outsourced economic activities to developing countries are skills intensive. Our finding has implications for the management of economic globalization. First, reluctance to continue trade policy reform could inflate demand for unskilled workers and eventually jeopardize the competitiveness of exporting firms. Second, participation in global production sharing provides not only lucrative business opportunities, but also the chance to move up to a higher rung on the technology ladder. In addition, increasing economic globalization by participating in global production sharing could bring adverse effects to unskilled workers. Social safety net programs must be put in place to mitigate such adverse effects. © 2013 Asian Development Bank and Asian Development Bank Institute.

The transposition into national law of Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements of companies, expected by no later than July 2015, could alter the statistical obligations on small firms in connection with the filing of their annual accounts. In any case, the social balance sheet can no longer form an integral part of their accounts. Nevertheless, it contains original information whose usefulness is highlighted, on the basis of the social balance sheets for 2012, by examining the individual behaviour of firms and how that behaviour varies according to the firms’ size. The analysis reveals wide variations in the specialisation and location of firms according to their size : small and very small firms, active mainly in trade and transport, construction and industry, are decidedly regional. Their workforce is generally more homogenous than that of larger firms : there is less gender diversity, and they employ fewer graduates. They also display greater uniformity of working arrangements and employment contracts. The annual working time is longer on average in small and very small firms, but there are greater variations in individual practice. On the other hand, their hourly labour costs are lower on average than those of large firms. It is also shown that, even though the proportion of training firms is lower among small entities, the level of their training indicators is not systematically lower. Employment contracted slightly between the end of 2012 and the end of 2013. The workforce declined in all three of Belgium’s Regions and in almost all branches of activity; nonetheless, there was a clear increase in the staff registered in the “health and social work” and “business services” branches. In firms that file full-format accounts, the use of temp agency staff declined considerably in 2013. They also recorded larger numbers of staff leaving than in the previous year owing to a rise in the number of expiring temporary contracts and redundancies; conversely, there were fewer spontaneous departures. The proportion of workers receiving formal training expanded, but there was a decline in the rate of participation in informal and initial training. Similarly, the volume of hours devoted to training was up in the case of formal training but down in the other two cases. The indicator of the financial effort devoted to training declined because the formal and informal training budgets did not keep pace with the rise in staff costs, and there was a reduction in expenditure on initial training.

I analyze the welfare implications of child labor restriction using an overlapping generations model with two-sided altruism. Efficient allocation of child time generally results in a positive level of child labor. Without a policy intervention, the steady state consists of an inefficiently high level of child labor because each generation discounts the value of the other generations' schooling more than the social optimal. A moderate restriction of child labor always improves future generations' welfare, but may lower the current adult generation's welfare. In general, the current adult generation always prefers less stringent restriction than the future generations, and an intergenerational conflict arises in terms of a policy intervention.

La conférence a mis en évidence la diversité des domaines où les données individuelles et les études économétriques peuvent contribuer à mieux cerner des mécanismes d’ajustement en période de crise : démographie des entreprises, ajustements du marché du travail, investissement, financement et positionnement des entreprises sur les marchés d’exportation.

In this paper, the authors investigate the determinants of weight for leisure in preferences. First, using a dynamic general equilibrium model, they back out the weight for leisure for an unbalanced panel of 52 countries over the period from 1950 to 2009. Then, the authors perform several panel data regressions using the backed-out values of the preference for leisure as the dependent variable. Estimation results imply that trade openness, GDP per-capita and average temperature positively affect the weight for leisure in preferences in a robust manner. They also find some evidence about the effect of unionization and unemployment.

El presente documento tiene como propósito estudiar el impacto de diferentes factores externos sobre el empleo en el sector manufacturero colombiano, a través del enfoque de flujos de empleo. En particular, se analizan los efectos de la tasa de cambio real, la inversión extranjera directa y el grado de apertura de las firmas sobre la creación y la destrucción de empleo. Se encuentra que un aumento en la tasa de cambio real incrementa la creación y disminuye la destrucción de empleos, lo que sugiere un impacto positivo en el crecimiento neto del empleo en el sector. Asimismo, las firmas manufactureras que comercian activamente con el exterior magnifican el efecto que tiene la tasa de cambio real sobre los flujos de empleo. Finalmente, el empleo en el sector manufacturero es afectado negativamente por el fenómeno de la enfermedad holandesa. The aim of this paper is to study the impact of external factors on employment in the manufacturing sector in Colombia, using the job flows approach. In particular, we analyze the effects of the real exchange rate, foreign direct investment and the degree of openness of firms on job creation and destruction. We find that an increment in the real exchange rate increases job creation and decreases job destruction, suggesting a positive impact on net employment growth in the sector. Also, manufacturing firms that trade actively in the international market magnify the effect of the real exchange rate on employment flows. Finally, manufacturing employment is negatively affected by the Dutch disease phenomenon. Cet article étudie l'impact des facteurs externes sur l'emploi dans le secteur manufacturier colombien à travers l'approche des flux d'emplois. En particulier, nous étudions les effets du taux de change réel, de l'investissement direct étranger et le degré d'ouverture des entreprises sur la création et la destruction d'emplois. On constate que l'augmentation du taux de change réel augmente la création tandis qu'une diminution favorise la destruction d'emplois, un résultat qui suggère un impact positif sur la croissance nette de l'emploi dans le secteur. En outre, les entreprises manufacturières qui ont des échanges avec l'étranger accentuent l'effet du taux de change réel sur les flux de travail. Enfin, l'emploi dans le secteur manufacturier est touché négativement par le phénomène de la maladie hollandaise.

The problem of employment in rural areas facilitates the increasing migration of young generation to the central part of the Republic of Karelia and other regions of the Russian Federation. In the situation occurred, a promising area for regional development to enable solving social and economic problems and be a key factor in preservation and renewal of natural, cultural and historical potential of the Republic of Karelia will be rural tourism. Increasing population self-employment, providing growth in household incomes, enhancing a sense of local community pride of the area they live in, the tourism can also encourage the locals, especially young people, to get bound to rural areas. However, the overall development of tourism will only be possible providing that there exist the young understanding of importance and prospects of this area economic activity development. The purpose of this study is to determine the role and importance of rural tourism in solving the problem of youth employment and improving the social and economic situation in the region. In the article there have been examined the living conditions of young people in the Republic of Karelia. The reasons for mobility of this population category have been determined and the current situation in the labor market has been analyzed. According to the authors, one of the main ways to solve the social and economic problems in the region and increase employment of young generation is the development of rural tourism.

En este documento se estima la duración del desempleo en Lima Metropolitana y se estudian sus principales determinantes. Se encuentra que la duración del desempleo es aproximadamente 3 meses, indicador que reporta una tendencia decreciente consistente con la mayor generación de empleo y el crecimiento económico registrados en el Perú en el periodo en consideración. Se sugiere que la informalidad laboral, el autoempleo y la inactividad son los principales elementos detrás de la reducida duración del desempleo, ya que estos sectores son de fácil acceso ante la ausencia de mecanismos formales y masivos de seguro que financian periodos largos de desempleo. Finalmente, la baja duración del desempleo en el Perú es consistente con la existencia de una relación positiva entre la tasa de riesgo de dejar el desempleo y la duración del desempleo para desempleados recientes.

Exchange rate plays an important role in any economy as it also exchanges all the transactions in the international market. This paper studies the relationship of exchange rate to the Gross Domestic Product of Pakistan. Time series data from 1980 to 2012 has been employed in the study. Data set has been taken from the website of UNCTAD. GDP and exchange rate are the variables in the study. Objective of the paper is to find long run integration and to check the causality between these variables. The Granger Causality test has been applied on the data to find the objective of the study. Long run relationship has been found in these variables however, causality has not been found at any lag in exchange rate and Gross Domestic product. Devaluation has been found contractionary.

Hiring inexperienced workers generates information about their abilities. If this information is public, workers obtain its benefits. If workers cannot compensate firms for hiring them, firms will hire too few inexperienced workers. I determine the effects of hiring workers and revealing more information about their abilities through a field experiment in an online marketplace. I hired 952 randomly-selected workers, giving them either detailed or coarse public evaluations. Both hiring workers and providing more detailed evaluations substantially improved workers' subsequent employment outcomes. Under plausible assumptions, the experiment's market-level benefits exceeded its cost, suggesting that some experimental workers had been inefficiently unemployed. (JEL J23, J24, M51)

The present paper describes the modelling approach of regional labour markets taken in the newly developed dynamic spatial general equilibrium model RHOMOLO, where the labour market equilibrium is determined by firms’ labour demand, a wage-curve with unemployment, and inter-regional labour migration. The RHOMOLO model is parameterised by estimating the key structural parameters econometrically. In order to illustrate the potential of the proposed dynamic spatial general equilibrium approach to inter-regionally integrated labour markets, we carry out simulations showing the effects of a reduction in transportation cost, and assess the impact on regional labour markets. Our results confirm that wages and unemployment are by far the most important channels of adjustment to macro-economic and policy shocks in the EU. In contrast, labour migration plays a secondary role in labour market adjustments in the EU. Our results also suggest that the relationship between market access, labour demand and labour supply is non-linear and spatially inter-dependent, which underlines the importance of the proposed dynamic spatial general equilibrium approach., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

Under the conditions of an moderate economic growth measured by GDP growth rate, both at national and at European level, it is required an analysis of the potential internal production and its concentration in order to cover in a larger extent the domestic consumption and to increase the market competitiveness of economic goods produced. Such an analysis entails identifying the relative advantages of the Romanian economy both as a whole, and at sectoral level, compared to the EU economy. This may lead to the identification of efficient branches whose exploitation to generate, on the one hand, competitive advantages, and, on the other hand, the achievement of an optimal level of production that would confer a certain level of well-being.

The labor market is an important component of the entire economic system and for social-economic development. However, the labor market is known as the most inflexible of markets, the existence of the phenomenon of permanent labor mobility. After 1990, the Romanian society has experienced a series of economic and social transformation, new reforms covering all areas of activity. Increasing labor resources was accompanied by a continued reduction in employment and increase in unemployment. The government tried to initiate programs, including external funding to create jobs, but compared to the massive layoffs that occurred following the restructuring of sectors, the number of new jobs created has proved insufficient. The paper presents a multiple regression model for employment and prognosis for this until 2020.

The study addresses the mismatch between labor supply and labor demand in Kosovo and how this is related to employability skills. Self-report questionnaires were used for collecting data from two groups of respondents, employees and employers, in order to consider both sides of the labor. The within and between groups analyses were conducted using paired sample t-test in the level of skills acquisition and skills requirement. Results indicate that there is a mismatch between labor supply and demand for both groups. The study investigated also the effects of personal attributes in the transition of young graduates from education to employment. The backward stepwise regression analysis showed that personal attributes partially predicted the job gain and job maintenance. The discussion focuses on the practical implications of the study results and guiding study limitations for future research.

This research provides an economic model of the way people behave during an IQ test. We distinguish a technology that describes how time investment improves performance from preferences that determine how much time people invest in each question. We disentangle these two elements empirically using data from a laboratory experiment. The main findings is that both intrinsic (questions that people like to work on) and extrinsic motivation (incentive payments) increase time investments and as a result performance. The presence of incentive payments seems to be more important than the size of the reward. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation turn out to be complements. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Este documento analiza las características y dinámicas de los flujos de empleo en el sector manufacturero colombiano, durante el periodo 1994-2009. El estudio realiza una caracterización desagregada de la creación, destrucción, crecimiento neto y reasignación del empleo a nivel de grupos industriales y categorías ocupacionales. Los resultados sugieren altos movimientos de creación y destrucción del empleo en las firmas del sector manufacturero, que generalmente no se evidencian en las cifras de empleo neto. En particular, el crecimiento neto promedio del empleo del sector de -0.32, se explica por tasas de creación y destrucción del empleo, cercanas al 10%, durante el periodo de análisis. Así mismo, se encuentra que los movimientos de creación y destrucción del empleo son persistentes, teniendo en cuenta que en promedio de 10 nuevos empleos que se crean, 6.8 empleos sobreviven en el siguiente año y de 10 empleos que se destruyen, 7.6 empleos no se vuelven a crear. Los resultados a nivel desagregado indican diferencias significativas por grupo industrial y categoría ocupacional.

In a recent paper Alesina et al. (2011) construct a model in which different labor supply elasticities for men and women emerge endogenously from intra-household bargaining. In this paper I explore the optimal tax implications of their model in an economy with both singles and couples and inequality across as well as within households. In the model, the welfare of married women can be improved by lowering taxes for single women. Moreover, if single men earn more than single women, the welfare of married women can alternatively be improved by a gender-neutral tax scheme which taxes singles at a higher rate. Because the government is concerned not only with equalizing utilities within families, but also with the redistribution between high income and low income households, gender-based adjustments in the income tax must be weighed against the welfare consequences of changing the progressivity of the tax system. I find that larger lump-sum transfers to women is always optimal. Interestingly, marginal tax rates, on the other hand, should be lower for women only if the exogenous bargaining power of men is moderate. The welfare gains of gender based taxation are sizable and the welfare gains of having tax instruments which depend on household composition are even larger.

In this article, we use a stylized model of the labor market to investigate the effects of three alternative and well-known bargaining solutions. We apply the Nash, the Egalitarian and the Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining solutions in the small firm's matching model of unemployment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt that has been made to implement and systematically compare these solutions in search-matching economies. Our results are twofold. First from the theoretical/methodological viewpoint, we extend a somewhat flexible search-matching economy to alternative bargaining solutions. In particular, we prove that the Egalitarian and the Kalai -Smorodinsky solutions are easily implementable and mathematically tractable within search-matching economies. Second, our results show that even though the traditional results of bargaining theory apply in this context, they are generally qualitatively different and quantitatively weaker than expected. This is of particular relevance in comparison with the results established in the earlier literature.

Earnings inequality declined rapidly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile during the 2000s. A reduction in the experience premium is a fundamental driver of declines in upper-tail (90/50) inequality, while a decline in the education premium is the primary determinant of the evolution of lower-tail (50/10) inequality. Relative labor supply is important for explaining changes in the skill premiums. Relative demand trends favored high-skilled workers during the 1990s, shifting in favor of low-skilled workers during the 2000s. Changes in the minimum wage, and more importantly, commodity-led terms of trade improvements are key factors behind these relative skill demand trends.

Although the sectors and fraction of workers covered are small given the low rates of formality and urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), as the number of covered workers grows wage regulation will become increasingly significant. We find that higher minimum wage values are associated with higher GDP per capita. Importantly, however, we find that the minimum wage relative to the mean wage is higher in low income countries than in lower- and upper-middle income countries. Indeed, SSA as a whole reflects a bias towards a more aggressive minimum wage policy compared to the rest of the world. There is limited research on the employment effect of minimum wages in SSA, but the few findings are consistent with the broad summary of global research. By and large, introducing and raising the minimum wage has a small negative impact or no measurable negative impact. However, there is significant variation around this average finding – the employment elasticities are not constant nor linear. Where increases in a minimum wage are large and immediate, this can result in employment losses, but more modest increases usually have very little observably adverse effects and may have positive impacts on wages. The great variability in findings on employment could be due partly to the great variation in the detail of the minimum wage regimes and schedules country by country, but also by the variations in compliance. We find that higher Kaitz indices are associated with higher levels of non-compliance. The release of country-level earnings and employment data at regular intervals lies at the heart of a future country-focused minimum wage research agenda for Africa.

In this article, we analyse old-age retirement decisions of Slovenian men and women, eligible to retire in the period 1997-2003. In comparison to established market economies, we find relatively high hazard rates of retirement that decline with age. This unusual pattern can partly be attributed to weak incentives to work, inherent in the design of the pension system and reflected in predominantly negative values of accruals, and to transition-specific increase in wage inequality in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is reflected in low wages and relatively high pensions of less productive (skilled) workers and vice versa. We find that the probability of retirement decreases with option value to work and net wages, although the response to the former, when controlling for the latter, is rather weak. Our results also imply that less educated individuals and individuals with greater personal wealth are more likely to retire.

The process of economic globalisation and liberalisation during the last two decades has reshaped the labour norms in India. As a result, the share of the informal workers in total employment has increased tremendously. During this period, a significant part of the incremental employment is being generated in the unorganised sector, where working conditions are far away from being satisfactory. Most of these workers are poor and vulnerable. Even after two decades of growth in the country, the quality of employment has been deteriorating which has led to a huge gap in productive employment. In this perspective, in this paper, an attempt has been made to explore such deficits among different types of workers as well as various sectors and regions of the economy. It has been observed that this gap is wider in the sectors/states where the informality quotient is higher. The workers in these sectors/states are largely poor and vulnerable and have no access to social security benefits while they are the neediest one. We can observe a strong positive association between the poverty of the workers (deficit in productive employment) and lack of social security. Therefore, it is suggested that on the one hand, there should be strong steps to remove (or reduce) the deficit in productive employment in every sector and region of the economy and on the other hand, the poor workers should be adequately covered with some social security benefits and for any poverty removal strategy, there should be due emphasis on provision of certain social protection to these workers.

A new form introduced in 2012 for firms and associations filing full-format accounts paved the way for a new kind of analysis, such that a distinction could be made between the situations of women and men employed by these firms. A population of 8 862 firms formed the basis for assessing the gender pay gap in the light of a) the staff costs per employee and b) the costs per hour of work, in order to factor in the differences in working hours. Undertaken separately for employees working full-time or those working reduced hours, the second indicator pointed to a sizeable pay gap within this population (9% and 14% for full-time and part-time employees respectively). There are also proportionally more women in the lowest pay grades and in companies where male staff costs are higher on average than women’s wages, notwithstanding a higher average qualification level for women. Employment trends between 2011 and 2012 were analysed on the basis of a constant population of 48 385 firms. Against the background of output contraction, the slower employment growth rate during the year resulted in a stabilisation of staff levels between late 2011 and late 2012, affecting the whole population of firms and each of the country’s three Regions. However, contrasting patterns were reported depending on size and the fields of activity of enterprises and depending on the staff profile. Within this same constant population, there was an upturn in the number of companies providing training, while the percentage of employees receiving formal or informal training rose to 43.5% and 26.3% respectively. Conversely, the rate of participation in initial training, which is only marginal, showed little change. On an upward path owing to a sharp increase in the informal training budget, training-related expenditure accounted for 1.84 % of overall staff costs.

This paper develops a model with overlapping generations, where the household's optimal fertility, child labour, and education decisions depend on the parents’ expectations or beliefs about the return to education. It is shown that there exists a range of parental income where the fertility rate is high and children participate in the labour market and receive an incomplete education if a parent believes the return to education is low. The act of participating in the labour market reduces the child's ability to accumulate human capital; thus, the action of sending a child into the labour market is sufficient to ensure that the parents’ initially pessimistic expectations are fulfilled. It is then shown that a one-time policy intervention, such as banning child labour and mandatory education, can be enough to move a country from the positive child labour equilibrium to an equilibrium with no child labour. Rationalite limitee, anticipations et travail des enfants. Ce memoire developpe un modele de chevauchement des generations ou la fecondite optimale du menage, le travail des enfants et les decisions a propos de l’education dependent des anticipations des parents ou de qu'ils croient etre le rendement sur l'education. On montre qu'il existe un eventail de revenus des parents pour lequel le taux de fecondite est eleve, et les enfants participent au marche du travail et recoivent une education incomplete, si un parent croit que le rendement sur l'investissement en education est faible. Le fait d'entrer sur le marche du travail reduit la capacite de l'enfant a accumuler du capital humain, et donc le fait de l'envoyer sur le marche du travail est suffisant pour s'assurer que les anticipations pessimistes du parent se realisent. On montre qu'une intervention ponctuelle de politique publique a un moment donne – comme bannir le travail des enfants ou imposer l'education obligatoire – peut suffire pour deplacer un pays d'un equilibre avec travail des enfants vers un equilibre sans travail des enfants.

In this study, the organizational commitments of employees working at hotel enterprises were reviewed. The employees working at five-star hotel enterprises in Marmaris / Mugla region were selected as samples. The data were obtained by using questionnaire technique on 266 employees of eight five-star hotel enterprises. According to findings, the organizational commitment levels of participants are positive. The highest type of commitment detected is related with the affective commitment. This is followed by normative commitment and continuance commitment respectively. However, significant differences were identified between some demographic variables of employees and organizational commitment dimensions in terms of statistics.

This paper uses matched employee-employer data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 to examine the determinants of employee job anxiety and work-related psychological illness. Job anxiety is found to be strongly related to the demands of the job as measured by factors such as occupation, education and hours of work. Average levels of employee job anxiety, in turn, are positively associated with work-related psychological illness among the workforce as reported by managers. The paper goes on to consider the relationship between psychological illness and workplace performance as measured by absence, turnover and labour productivity. Work-related psychological illness is found to be negatively associated with several measures of workplace performance.

In this paper we investigate the bias due to non observable factors in the estimating of return to schooling for the case of Chile. Using the data from the Casen Survey panel 1996-2001, we estimate a difference model. We find a return to schooling around 9%, which is 2 to 5 percents points lower than found in previous studies., El presente trabajo examina la magnitud y dirección del sesgo por no observables en la estimación del retorno de la educación. Usando el panel Casen 1996- 2001, la magnitud y dirección del sesgo fueron establecidas comparando las tasas de retorno obtenidas a través de MCO, Heckman y un modelo en diferencias. Los resultados del modelo en diferencias muestran una tasa de retorno a la educación de 9%, 2 a 5 puntos porcentuales inferior a las obtenidas con los métodos tradicionales.

Real earnings have increased for all demographic and skill groups within China’s urban labor market from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. This paper analyzes these changes in earnings with respect to the relative supply and demand changes of each of the imperfectly substitutable labor inputs. These movements are found to be consistent with real earnings increases for some of the input groups but are inconsistent for others. This implies that China has transitioned closer to a free labor market from its planned origin. In addition, labor supply is shown to be moving towards a more educated workforce, and firm privatization and international trade are found to play significant roles in determining the labor demand movements.

This paper reflects theoretical and empirical interrogations regarding concepts which gain interest in recent research in relation to school results and school-to-work transition of high education graduates: school-engagement, valorization of work, work ethics and school social capital. The initiative of such approach is linked to the identification of the obstacles and implicitly the mechanisms which facilitate an easier school-to-work transition of high education graduates of economic studies. In the current research we followed which are the motivations regarding work, and the measures of school engagement, identifying that students with higher academic engagement present greater interest in general criteria related to work and are less intrinsically motivated. The research findings in this area on the one hand confirm the importance of school-engagement for the students from tertiary education. On the other hand, it suggests, besides the mediated effect on school results on the successful insertion on the labor market, also a direct impact on their work engagement of these graduates. In addition to these aspects less visible and less studied, research in this field revealed other obstacles that occur in the successful integration of graduates in the workplace. It was found that both employers and young graduatesâ€(tm) employees assigned increased importance for the success in the workplace to transversal skills that are considered less developed through tertiary educational system. In addition, experience at the workplace, the practical training and voluntary involvement in different actions can also be useful tools in preparing students for the labor market. The data, both qualitative and quantitative, analyzed in this paper were collected within the project "Practical training of economists students. Inter-regional partnership in the labor market between universities and the business environment†. PRACTeam project is coordinated by University of Oradea - Faculty of Economic Studies, financed through European Social Fund - “Investing in People!†Contract no. POSDRU/90/2.1/S/64150.

This research examines the economic origins of ethnolinguistic diversity. The empirical analysis constructs detailed data on the distribution of land quality and elevation across contiguous regions, virtual and real countries, and shows that variation in elevation and land quality has contributed significantly to the emergence and persistence of ethnic fractionalization. The empirical and historical evidence is consistent with the proposed hypothesis, according to which heterogeneous land endowments generated region specific human capital, limiting population mobility and leading to the formation of localized ethnicities and languages. The research contributes to the understanding of the emergence of ethnicities and their spatial distribution and offers a distinction between the natural, geographically driven, versus the artificial, man-made, components of contemporary ethnic diversity.