Wages,employment, labour turnover and the accessibility of local labour markets

In this paper, we extend a dynamic efficiency wage model to the case of multiple local labour markets that interact through migration. Firms are concerned about turnover costs. The quitting behaviour of workers is a function of local labour market conditions, non-wage income and the costs and benefits of migration to other local labour markets. A synthetic micro sample of 20,302 observations from the 1986, 1991 and 1996 New Zealand Censuses of Population and Dwellings provides evidence supporting the theory. Across subgroups, the wages of workers with relatively inelastic local labour supply and/or lower geographical mobility are relatively more responsive to changes in the local employment rate. The evidence is consistent with the notion that local employers engage in monopsonistic competition with respect to the employment of such workers.     

The effect of unemployment benefits on re-employment rates: Evidence from the Finnish unemployment insurance reform

In January 2003, the unemployment benefits in Finland were increased for workers with long employment histories. The average benefit increase was 15% for the first 150 days of the unemployment spell. At the same time severance pay system was abolished. In this paper we evaluate the effect of the change in the benefit structure on the duration of unemployment by comparing the changes in the re-employment hazard profiles among the unemployed who were affected by the reform to the changes in a comparison group whose benefit structure remained unchanged. We find that the change in the benefit structure reduced the re-employment hazards by on average 17%. The effect is largest at the beginning of the unemployment spell and disappears after the eligibility period for the increased benefits expires.     

Non-wage benefits,corporate ownership and firm performance in post-communist economies: evidence from Ukraine

The economic reforms in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have fundamentally reshaped ownership and governance of economic production, notably through the privatization of former state-owned enterprises. These reforms were expected to transform management practices by displacing ‘cradle-to-grave’ welfare arrangements administered by state-owned enterprises. Using data drawn from two large samples of Ukrainian establishments, we investigate, in two different time points, the relationship between non-wage benefits and firm performance during the period of transition to a market economy (1994–2004). We found that non-wage benefits continued to be a critical feature of HRM practices in Ukraine during this period, and were positively associated with firm performance.     

Government Employment and Wages and Labour Market Performance

Government wage, benefit, and employment decisions are not taken on a profit-maximizing basis, and have a substantial impact on aggregate labour market performance and unemployment. In a two-sector labour market model with free mobility of labour, an increase in government wages or benefits reduces private sector employment, and government employment is not an effective counter-cyclical instrument. Empirical tests for Greece confirm that the expansion of the public sector in the 1980s contributed to the deterioration of labour market performance.     

CARROT AND STICK: HOW RE‐EMPLOYMENT BONUSES AND BENEFIT SANCTIONS AFFECT EXIT RATES FROM WELFARE

To increase the exit from welfare, benefit recipients in the municipality of Rotterdam were exposed to various financial incentives. Once their benefit spell exceeded one year, welfare recipients were entitled to a re‐employment bonus if they found a job that lasted at least 6 months. However, they could also be punished for noncompliance with eligibility requirements and face a sanction, i.e. a temporary reduction of their benefits. We find that the financial sticks in the form of benefit sanctions were effective in stimulating the exit from welfare, while the financial carrots in the form of re‐employment bonuses were not. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT SANCTIONS? LOOKING BEYOND UNEMPLOYMENT EXIT

This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of benefit sanctions on post‐unemployment outcomes such as post‐unemployment employment stability and earnings. We use rich register data which allow us to distinguish between a warning that a benefit reduction may take place in the near future and the actual withdrawal of unemployment benefits. Adopting a multivariate mixed proportional hazard approach to address selectivity, we find that warnings do not affect subsequent employment stability but do reduce post‐unemployment earnings. Actual benefit reductions lower the quality of post‐unemployment jobs both in terms of job duration as well as in terms of earnings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN SPAIN: RELATIVE EFFECTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT AND FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS

ABSTRACT We estimate the effects of unemployment benefit and family situation on the unemployment duration in Spain. Empirical results indicate that the distinctions between the exits into employment and the exits from the labour force and between men and women are important. Although unemployment benefit reduces significantly the job-finding probabilities, its effects are much larger on exits from the labour force. Many people who decide to go out of the labour force delay their exits until they exhaust their unemployment benefits. Family situation also has strong effects on the duration of unemployment in Spain. Household heads have about twice larger job-finding probability than non-heads, and having a working household head or other working household members improves employment probability. This suggests that family connections in the labour market are important determinants of unemployment duration in Spain.     

Managing the Contingent Workforce—Gaining the Advantages, Avoiding the Pitfalls

Part-time employment arrangements constitute a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. labor force. Such employment arrangements offer advantages to both employers and employees. Part-time employees offer employers reduced wage and benefit costs, workforce flexibility, aid for special projects, replacement fill-ins and a chance to preview candidates for full-time employment. Part-time work enables employees to supplement family income, enjoy flexible hours as well as a change in job environment and a chance to substitute for full-time employment when there is no choice. The advantages of contingent employment come at a cost. Employers must comply with laws and give up control over much of the employment relationship in order to avoid co-employment status and to gain the benefits of contingent employment. Employees in contingent work arrangements frequently do not qualify for many of the benefits available to full time employees. Suggestions made for managing contingent workers may reduce some of the problems, but they would also remove some of the advantages.     

On the extent of re-entitlement effects in unemployment compensation

We analyze the implications of two-tier unemployment compensation systems with non-automatic eligibility in an equilibrium matching model with Nash bargaining. As eligibility for UI does not automatically follow from employment, the two types of unemployed workers have different threat points, which delivers equilibrium wage dispersion. The parameters of the model are estimated for France, and the model is also calibrated for Denmark and the U.S. Re-entitlement effects are shown to be sizeable for all three countries. For France, re-entitlement effects lower by 15% the rise in the wage and by 25% the rise in unemployment following a 10% increase in the benefit level. Finally, we show that in all three countries the optimal compensation system is characterized by time-decreasing unemployment benefits and non-automatic eligibility for UI, with higher levels of both UI and UA benefits, a smaller decrease in benefits over time, and a longer employment duration required for UI eligibility than in the current system.     

Change and continuity in Japanese compensation practices: the case of occupational pensions since the early 2000s

This article analyses changes in the provision of Japanese occupational pensions since the early 2000s. It shows how Japanese companies have followed strategies of cost and risk reduction by creating multi-layered benefit systems that offer a combination of defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) plans whose benefits are becoming increasingly performance-oriented. Analysing the reasons behind the resilience of DB schemes in Japan, the article concludes that enterprise union behaviour has had less influence than regulatory issues and continued corporate commitment to long-standing employment practices for regular workers. These findings highlight the embeddedness of Japanese employment practices in their institutional context.     

Employee benefits: Literature review and emerging issues

Many have noted the lack of human resource management research on employee benefits, which is surprising because employer-sponsored benefits are a primary concern of executives and employees alike. Moreover, of special interest to scholars, benefits provide a unique opportunity to examine fundamental theoretical and empirical questions about employee behavior and contemporary employment relationships. This paper provides a foundation for such research by providing an overview of the context from which U.S. employer-provided benefit programs evolved and the contemporary state of benefits research in human resource management. Propositions related to primary employee benefit research are provided.     

浅析施工企业的外部劳务管理

目前,施工企业的改革不断深化,企业的人力资源结构产生了巨大的变动,增加了外部劳务用工队伍,大大削减了职工的数量,企业的人力资源结构的作用越发明显,逐渐成为企业适度扩大规模及追求效益最大化的一个有效的途径。     

Incentive effects of social assistance: A regression discontinuity approach

Before 1989, childless social assistance recipients in Quebec under age 30 received much lower benefits than recipients over age 30. We use this sharp discontinuity in policy to estimate the effects of social assistance on various labour market outcomes using a regression discontinuity approach. We find strong evidence that more generous social assistance benefits reduce employment. The estimates exhibit little sensitivity to the degree of flexibility in the specification, and perform very well when we control for unobserved heterogeneity using a first difference specification. Finally, we show that commonly used difference-in-differences estimators may perform poorly with inappropriately chosen control groups.     

长江中游城市群空间结构效益比较与优化研究

基于OpenStreetMap公路路网和社会经济数据,利用可达性分析及空间相互作用引力模型,从规模效益、距离效益、空间联系效益3个方面对2017年长江中游城市群的空间结构效益进行比较分析。研究发现:武汉城市圈城市紧凑度高,平均可达性最好,内部联系强度大,空间凝聚力强;长株潭城市群在人口及经济规模上具有明显优势,中等联系层面网络趋于完善,一体化程度高,但空间可达性差;环鄱阳湖城市群综合竞争能力弱,空间联系松散且较弱,但空间可达性较好。未来,长江中游城市群的发展可以从重构区域发展空间结构、加强不同等级规模城市梯度建设、构建综合交通运输网、建立区域发展协调机制和促进产业生态绿色发展等方面寻找着力点。     

The timing of retirement — New evidence from Swiss female workers

We investigate the responsiveness of individual retirement decisions to changes in financial incentives. A reform increased women's normal retirement age (NRA) in two steps from age 62 to age 63 first and then to age 64. At the same time retirement at the previous NRA became possible at a benefit discount. Since the reform affected specific birth cohorts we can identify causal effects. We find strong and robust behavioral effects of changes in financial retirement incentives. A permanent reduction of retirement benefits by 3.4% induces a decline in the age-specific annual retirement probability by over 50%. The response to changes in financial retirement benefits varies with educational background: those with low education respond most strongly to an increase in the price of leisure.     

Analysis of the Vocational and Residential Preferences of a Rural Population: Application of an Experimental Technique to Rural Slovenia

Abstract

This study applies choice experiments to the analysis of the relative importance of both monetary and non-monetary determinants of vocational choice and spatial labour supply. It identifies the determinants of individuals’ choice of jobs and places of residence, and provides a better understanding of how rural labour adjustments might be managed in a country in transition. The results indicate that while wages are the most important factor influencing employment choice, other determinants affecting working conditions and residence do have a counterbalancing impact on choice. Results suggest that sample respondents do appear to be relatively immobile between sectors and also in terms of migration and commuting. However, our results do identify a range of non-wage determinants that might be used to stimulate mobility.     

构筑城市物流业开辟大庆经济发展新空间

大庆具有雄厚的经济基础、良好的地理位置、完善的基础设施、丰富的油田企业物资仓储供应资源,不断扩大的经济规模又对物流业有着强烈的需求,发展物流业具有成熟优越的条件。在大庆深化发展物流产业不仅能创建中心城市地位,开辟大庆市新的经济增长点,优化城市的经济结构,还能增加就业机会,对推动大庆市经济发展意义重大。     

Concentration,unionization and the distribution of income in Canadian Manufacturing Industry: Comment

This note comments on a recent article in this journal by Hollander. The principal points made are two. First, if Hollander's regressions are interpreted as representing the determinants of non-wage share of value-added, no evidence is provided by these regressions that monopsony power transfers income from factors in one industry to factors in another. Second, the interpretation of the regressions as representing the determinants of non-wage share of value-added is itself challenged. In so doing the role of capital intensity variables in these types of studies is clarified.     

Financial incentives to postpone retirement and further effects on employment — Evidence from a natural experiment

This paper examines the effect of the introduction of permanent benefit reductions for early retirees (i) on the duration until benefit claiming and (ii) on the duration until exit from gainful employment. I estimate discrete time duration models using different error term specifications. Administrative data containing the full earnings history of the individuals are used. Since the reform implementing the benefit reductions was a natural experiment, under some assumptions a causal effect can be identified. The permanent reduction of retirement benefit amounts causes a postponement of claiming benefits by about 14 months and a delay of employment exit by about 10 months on average.     

Coordinating public utility expansion, industrial siting and pollution control: A workable dynamic programming algorithm

Many rapidly growing regions are faced with the dilemma of wanting to encourage growth in the number of industrial firms located within their boundaries so as to reap the benefits of increased employment and added tax revenue while at the same time being concerned that new industrial development will be costly in terms of air and water pollution and the services of utilities which will be required. This paper presents a procedure for choosing among the applicant firms those to be allowed to settle in the region over the horizon. This choice is made so as to maximize net social benefits over the planning period subject to the relevant air and water quality constraints. Mathematically our procedure is based on two separate dynamic programming models linked through an iterative process which avoids the computational difficulties usually associated with large scale dynamic programming formulations.