RELATIONAL GOODS, MONITORING AND NON-PECUNIARY COMPENSATIONS IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR: THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN SOCIAL SERVICES

ABSTRACT ** :  This paper investigates the nonprofit wage gap suggesting a theoretical framework where, like in Akerlof (1984) , effort correlates not only with wages, but also with non-monetary compensations. These take the form of relational goods by-produced in the delivery of particular services. By paying higher non-pecuniary compensations, the nonprofit sector attracts intrinsically similarly skilled, but more motivated workers, able to provide in fact a similar (or potentially higher) level of effort than their counterparts in the forprofit sector. On an empirical ground, the paper provides a number of econometric tests that confirm the main predictions of the model in Italy's case. It adds to the available empirical literature by introducing in the analysis direct measures of non-pecuniary compensations and job satisfaction.     

Wage Determination in Rural Russia: A Stochastic Frontier Model

This article examines wages in rural Russia after the first decade of economic transition using data from a nationally representative household survey. The stochastic frontier analysis reveals that Russia's rural labour markets place high value on human capital. The overall level of rural wages, however, is very low, with the median wage 10% below the official subsistence level. The gender pay gap severely depresses women's wages. A woman with the same skills as a man is paid only 47% of the man's wage. Rural workers who receive income from their personal plots accept significantly lower wages. Private firms pay considerably higher wages than state or collectively owned firms, but account only for one fifth of rural workers.     

最低工资标准提升的就业效应——一个基于自然实验的经验研究

本文以最低工资标准提升作为自然实验,应用回归调整的差中差方法分析了最低工资标准提升对青年和中年低技能劳动力就业的影响。研究结果表明,最低工资标准提升对低技能群体中的男性和青年女性的就业没有产生显著影响;但对低技能群体中的中年女性就业却产生显著的消极影响,且最低工资标准提升幅度越大,对就业的消极影响越大。因此,政府适当的提升最低工资标准将有助于低技能劳动力整体工资水平的增长。     

Natural groups and economic characteristics as driving forces of wage discrimination

We investigate whether the origin of an employee provides different motives for wage discrimination in gift-exchange experiments with students and migrant workers in China. In a lab and an internet experiment, subjects in the role of employers can condition their wages on the employees׳ home provinces. The resulting systematic differences in wages can be linked to natural groups and economic characteristics of the provinces. In-group favoritism increases wages for employees who share the same origin as the employer, while an increased probability of being matched with an employee with a different ethnicity reduces wages. Furthermore, wages in the laboratory increase with the actual wage level in the employees׳ home province. Nevertheless, employees׳ effort is not influenced by these variables; only the wage paid in the experiment influences effort.     

Equilibrium Wage Dispersion,Firm Size,and Growth

This paper analyzes a model of equilibrium wage dynamics and wage dispersion across firms. It considers a labor market where firms set wages and workers use on-the-job search to look for better paid work. It analyzes a perfect equilibrium where each firm can change its wage paid at any time, and workers use optimal quit strategies. Firms trade off higher wages against a lower quit rate, and large firms (those with more employees) always pay higher wages than small firms. Non-steady-state dispersed price equilibria are also analyzed, which describe how wages vary as each firm and the industry as a whole grow over time. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D43, J41.     

CONSEQUENCES OF MINIMUM WAGE INDEXING

During the 1980s, the minimum wage fell relative to prices and average wages in the U.S. economy. If the minimum to average wage ratio had been constant at the level maintained through the 1970s, the minimum wage would have been $5.51 in 1993. If the 1993 minimum wage had increased to $5.51, payments to minimum wage workers would have increased by an estimated $20.3 billion, and the number of people earning that wage would have risen from 2.0 million to 14.7 million. Elasticity estimates generated from other studies indicate that employment would have fallen 240,000 (4.4%) among 16–19 year olds and 349,000 (3.0%) among 20–24 year olds. Wage payments to minimum wage workers would have substantially increased, but the effect on family income distribution would have been small. Many minimum wage workers are children living with parents or adults in a family with other earners. Consequently, 75% of minimum wage workers account for less than half of their family's income.     

REAL WAGE CYCLICALITY IN THE PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS

Previous studies of real wage cyclicality have made only sparing use of the micro-data detail that is available in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The present paper brings to bear this additional detail to investigate the robustness of the previous results and to examine whether there are important cross-sectional and demographic differences in wage cyclicality. Although real wages were procyclical across the entire distribution of workers from 1967 to 1991, the wages of lower-income, younger, and less-educated workers exhibited greater procyclicality. However, workers' straight-time hourly pay rates have been acyclical, suggesting that more variable pay margins such as bonuses, overtime, late shift premia, and commissions have played a substantial if not primary role in generating procyclicality.     

数字经济背景下互联网使用是否缩小了性别工资差异*——基于中国综合社会调查的经验分析

本文基于2010年、2013年、2015年中国综合社会调查（CGSS）的数据，考察了数字经济背景下互联网使用对性别工资的影响及工资差异分解，探讨了不同年龄段群体互联网使用对性别工资差异变动的异质性及内在影响机理。本文研究发现，互联网使用对总体工资水平有显著正向影响，随年份推进其影响程度呈逐渐减小趋势，互联网使用显著缩小了性别工资差异。随分位点数提升，性别工资总差异呈先下降后上升的U型变化趋势；随年份推进，在相同分位点上性别工资总差异呈逐年缩小趋势，且禀赋特征差异逐渐缩小了中等收入者性别工资总差异。互联网使用对80后群体工资正向影响显著更高，70后群体次之，60后及以上群体相对较低，呈现较明显的年龄异质性。     

数字经济背景下互联网使用是否缩小了性别工资差异*——基于中国综合社会调查的经验分析

本文基于2010年、2013年、2015年中国综合社会调查（CGSS）的数据，考察了数字经济背景下互联网使用对性别工资的影响及工资差异分解，探讨了不同年龄段群体互联网使用对性别工资差异变动的异质性及内在影响机理。本文研究发现，互联网使用对总体工资水平有显著正向影响，随年份推进其影响程度呈逐渐减小趋势，互联网使用显著缩小了性别工资差异。随分位点数提升，性别工资总差异呈先下降后上升的U型变化趋势；随年份推进，在相同分位点上性别工资总差异呈逐年缩小趋势，且禀赋特征差异逐渐缩小了中等收入者性别工资总差异。互联网使用对80后群体工资正向影响显著更高，70后群体次之，60后及以上群体相对较低，呈现较明显的年龄异质性。     

Assessing the Possible Antipoverty Effects of Recent Rises in Age‐Specific Minimum Wages in New Zealand

Real minimum wages increased by nearly 33 percent for adults and 123 percent for teenagers in New Zealand between 1999 and 2008. Where fewer than 2 percent of workers were being paid a minimum wage at the outset of this sample period, more than 8 percent of adult workers and 60 percent of teenage workers were receiving hourly earnings close to the minimum wage by the end of this period. These policy changes provide a unique opportunity to estimate the effects of the minimum wage on poverty. Although minimum wage workers are more likely to live in the poorest households, they are relatively widely dispersed throughout the income distribution. This is particularly true of teenage minimum wage workers. Furthermore, low‐income households often do not contain any working members. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in minimum wages, even without a loss in employment or hours of work, would lower the relative poverty rate by less than one‐tenth of a percentage point.     

DIRECTED SEARCH ON THE JOB AND THE WAGE LADDER*

We model a labor market where employed workers search on the job and firms direct workers' search using wage offers and employment probabilities. Applicants observe all offers and face a trade‐off between wage and employment probability. There is wage dispersion among workers, even though all workers and jobs are homogeneous. Equilibrium wages form a ladder, as workers optimally choose to climb the ladder one rung at a time. This is because low‐wage applicants are relatively more sensitive to employment probability than to wage and thus forgo the opportunity to apply for a high wage, with a lower chance of success.     

Female labour force participation in an era of organizational and technological change

Abstract The supply of skilled female labour increased significantly at the beginning of the twentieth century as women assumed positions in the newly created clerical workforce. Evidence suggests that despite this increase in labour supply, the wage paid to female clerical workers increased over the period and that the ratio of female clerical wages to male manufacturing wages was roughly constant. These labour market facts can be accounted for in a dynamic general equilibrium model in which an exogenous increase in human capital induces an increase in demand for skilled clerical workers. While induced technological change that favours skilled workers may account for the observed increase in female real wages, explaining the stagnate relative weekly wages paid to female clerical workers requires a framework that includes organizational change.     

GENDER WAGE DIFFERENCES IN AUSTRALIA, SWEDEN AND THE UNITED STATES

In this paper I use microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study t s investigate the contributions of industrial structure, occupational mix and personal and family characteristics to observed gender differences in wages in Australia, Sweden and the United States. A particular effort is made to analyse differences in distribution as well as level of wages. The conclusion reached is that different factors determine the wages of low- and high-wage workers. For higher-wage workers, personal and family characteristics are important explanations for wage variation. For lower-wage workers, occupation plays a more significant role.     

Earning Curves and Wage Curves

Using British county data for full-time male manual workers we extend earlier work to investigate wage and earning curves. We distinguish between total earnings and hourly wages for standard hours, uncontaminated by overtime premium. Using data from 1980–1995 we find that earnings behaviour is dominated by volatile hours in the short run, while wage growth is highly sensitive to the level of unemployment as in the classical Phillips curve with macro data. Macro evidence for sticky wages is thus confirmed at the local level, and the wage curve of rapid adjustment is rejected for normal hourly wages.     

Wages in a growing Russia

The robust Russian economic recovery after the 1998 financial crisis raised the economic standing of the population, especially for lowly paid workers, most of whom are women. In this paper I use the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey from 1996 through 2002 to ask whether this helped to reduce the gender wage gap. I first focus on those whose wages are paid in full. Next, I ask about the gender composition of wage arrears as the overall extent of wage arrears dropped from 60 to 20 per cent after the 1998 crisis. I show that a temporary widening of the overall gender wage gap in 2000 is due to low‐wage women becoming more likely to receive their wages in full than low‐wage men. Except for this effect, the male–female pay difference in Russia exhibits a stable pattern.     

产业政策对企业间工资差距的影响—来自中国工业企业的经验证据

中国产业政策的执行对企业间工资差距有何影响?文章首先考虑加入了产业政策因素的异质性企业模型,从理论上将产业政策对企业工资影响分解为补贴转移效应与竞争效应两种机制,并提出如下假说:企业将部分政策补助用于生产,此时支付的更多工资等同于财政的直接补贴;同时,企业工资水平也取决于企业的生产效率,产业政策通过促进或抑制行业竞争改变企业效率,从而对企业的工资水平产生一种间接影响,即竞争效应.使用1998?2007年中国工业规模以上企业数据对理论假说进行实证检验,可以发现:"中国式"产业政策抑制企业效率带来的负向竞争效应超过了正向的补贴转移效应,最终造成了企业工资水平下降;然而,一旦产业政策的施行促进了行业竞争,竞争效应则为正,那么企业的工资水平也会随之提高.文章研究的结论有助于理解经济改革过程中产业政策对企业工资的影响,对推进企业工资体制改革也具有启示意义.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF SKILL MEASUREMENT FOR GROWTH ACCOUNTING

In a growth accounting context one usually constructs a quality adjusted index of labor services by aggregating over predefined groups of workers, using the groups' relative wage bills as weights. In this article we suggest a method based on decomposing individual predicted wages into a skill‐related part and a part unrelated to skill, where the former consists of both observed and unobserved components. The predicted wages, associated with individual skill attributes, are sorted and classified into deciles. The median predicted skill‐related wage in each decile is used to construct an alternative skill‐adjusted index of labor services. We find that total factor productivity (TFP) growth decreases significantly when using the latter method. This means that when using the alternative method one explains more of the growth in labor productivity than what a more traditional labor quality adjustment procedure does.     

SHIRKING,STANDARDS AND THE PROBABILITY OF DETECTION

By relaxing the common efficiency wage assumption of exogenous shirking detection probabilities, we demonstrate how standards and efficiency wages are related. In a more general setting where the probability of detection depends upon the equilibrium effort level of non‐shirkers, we show that the uniformly positive (negative) supply‐side relationship between wages (unemployment insurance) and effort is no longer guaranteed. Profit maximization on the part of the firm, however, ensures that effort will depend positively (negatively) on wages (unemployment insurance) in equilibrium.     

The impact of minimum wages on employment of low‐wage workers

This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of a minimum wage increase on employment of workers in the formal sector who have wages below the minimum level in Vietnam. Using the difference‐in‐differences with propensity score matching and the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys of 2004 and 2006, the article finds that the minimum wage increase in 2005 reduced the proportion of workers having a formal sector job among low‐wage workers. Most workers who lost formal sector jobs became self‐employed.     

Do Immigrants Affect Firm‐Specific Wages?*

We propose and test a novel effect of immigration on wages. Existing studies have focused on the wage effects that result from changes in the aggregate labour supply in a competitive labour market. We argue that if labour markets are not fully competitive, immigrants might also affect wage formation at the most disaggregate level – the workplace. Using linked employer?employee data, we find that an increased use of low‐skilled immigrant workers has a significantly negative effect on the wages of native workers at the workplace – also when controlling for potential endogeneity of the immigrant share using both fixed effects and instrumental variables.