Do volatile firms pay volatile earnings? Evidence from linked worker-firm data

Despite the importance of earnings instability, little is known about its correlates or causes. This article seeks to better understand earnings instability by studying whether volatile firms pay volatile earnings and is the first to directly test the relationship using US linked employer–employee data. The article finds a positive and statistically significant relationship using within-firm variation. In addition, this article finds that lower earning workers are passed significantly more volatility from their employing firms than are higher earning workers.     

Central Government versus private sector wages and cognitive skills: evidence using endogenous switching regression

The importance of estimation techniques that allow for nonrandom selection of workers into the public and private sectors has been established in the theoretical and empirical literature. A separate body of work has explored the contribution of cognitive and other basic skills to earnings. This article brings together these two strands of empirical literature using Adult Literacy and Lifeskills (ALL) survey data for Norway and Bermuda. In the case of Norway, results from both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and a switching regression model agree that cognitive skills are rewarded more in the public sector and that, in both sectors, the main effect is the direct effect of skills on earnings. In the case of Bermuda, however, switching regression estimates are substantially different with respect to the how skills affect earnings; furthermore, controlling for cognitive skills changes the nature of selection and, hence, the estimates of sector wage differentials.     

经验收入曲线:生产力还是制度作用?——高校教师收入的经验分析

经验收入曲线向上倾斜的原因是人力资本理论中教育、培训带来的较高生产力还是其他制度因素?由于个人产出品衡量上的困难,文章选择学术劳动力市场作为研究对象,利用M incer(1979)的经验收入方程对中国某一高校教师收入进行经验分析,结果验证了人力资本理论的同时并不排除制度因素的作用,在其他条件不变的情况下,经验对收入大于产出对收入的影响;教师职称对收入有较大的影响。     

Education,occupation and earnings: A recursive approach for France

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between education, occupation and earnings with an emphasis on the role of occupation in the determination of the effect of education on earnings. At the same time, several forms of human capital and other exogeneous variables are examined. The model is a recursive nature, and it was applied for French individual data. The result tells that despite very strong relationship between education and occupation, and between occupation and earnings, the relative significance of these relationships is greatly modified by different occupations (or classes). It was found also that men and women are considerably different not only as for the relationship between education, occupation and earnings, but also for several exogenous variables.     

论“农户-龙头企业”的农产品渠道关系稳定性——基于演化博弈视角的分析

研究发现，基于“农户-龙头企业”的农产品渠道关系演化结果将受到合作创造的额外收益、为合作而付出的合作成本、合作收益与合作成本的比值、农户与龙头企业之间的相对收益与相对成本比值以及农户与龙头企业各自的贴现因子等因素的影响。提高渠道合作收益、降低合作成本、建立公平的利益分配机制和利益补偿机制、建立良好的信任机制。将有助于渠道关系的稳定。     

Career, experience and returns to human capital: is the dual labour market hypothesis relevant for the UK?

This paper investigates the relationship between career status, labour market experience and returns to human capital accumulation in the context of a two-tier, career and non-career labour market. Using micro data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), this study detects wage and employment mechanisms that differ between these two tiers of workers. The paper finds no support for the hypothesis of strict duality, by which the returns to education are expected to differ across labour market segments, with the returns in career employment being high and positive and the returns in the non-career sector being close to zero. The paper, however, finds support for significant returns to current tenure only in the career sector and also for the scarring hypothesis, according to which part-time employment and unemployment experience have a negative effect on participation and earnings in the career sector. Finally, there is evidence that only non-career earnings are significantly affected by local demand conditions, in contrast to earnings in the career sector. Career status is modelled as an endogenous variable subject to an initial job choice.     

Analysing wage differentials when workers maximize the return to human capital investment

The analysis of the determinants of differences in wages across workers has traditionally relied on the estimation of average earnings functions. In this article, we propose a new theoretical model where it is the workers who decide the amount they wish to invest in human capital, taking into account the costs of acquiring those skills, for the purpose of maximizing earnings. In this model, both human capital and marginal productivity are likely to be influenced by the individual’s (unobserved) characteristics such as ability or motivation, potentially giving rise to endogeneity problems. In this context, the empirical implementation of our theoretical model allows us, under certain assumptions, to obtain consistent estimates even under the assumption of endogeneity. We present an empirical application to the education sector using data from the Spanish Structure of Earnings Survey 2010. Our results show that females and workers in the private education sector face more difficulties in achieving their maximum potential wage.     

How to promote R&D-based growth? Public education expenditure on scientists and engineers versus R&D subsidies

This paper compares the positive and normative implications of two alternative measures to promote R&D-based growth: R&D subsidies to firms and publicly provided education targeted to the development of science and engineering (S&E) skills. The model accounts for the specificity of S&E skills, where individuals with heterogeneous ability choose their type of education. Although intertemporal knowledge spillovers are the only R&D externality, the analysis suggests that R&D subsidies may be detrimental to both productivity growth and welfare. Moreover, they raise earnings inequality. In contrast to R&D subsidies, publicly provided education targeted to S&E skills are found to be unambiguously growth-promoting and neutral with respect to the earnings distribution.     

Female Earnings and Divorce Rates: Some Australian Evidence

The purpose of this article is to examine whether female earnings have influenced divorce rates in Australia, using state‐level data for the past four decades. Following a recent study by Ressler and Waters (2000), which concludes from comparable US data that female earnings and divorce rates may be jointly endogenous, initial testing is performed to identify whether female earnings can be treated as exogenous. A Hausman specification error test finds no evidence of a simultaneous relationship in the Australian data, in contrast to the findings of Ressler and Waters. The test result supports the hypothesis that other underlying factors affect female earnings, of which higher divorce rates are merely another symptom. A divorce rate equation is estimated. In accordance with much of the literature, the rise in female earnings over the past four decades is found to have increased Australian divorce rates.     

Technological change,occupational tasks and declining immigrant outcomes: Implications for earnings and income inequality in Canada

The earnings and occupational task requirements of immigrants to Canada are analyzed. The growing education levels of immigrants in the 1990s have not led to a large improvement in earnings as one might expect if growing computerization and the resulting technological change was leading to a rising return to non‐routine cognitive skills and a greater wage return to university education. Controlling for education, we find a pronounced cross‐arrival cohort decline in earnings that coincided with cross‐cohort declines in cognitive occupational task requirements and cross‐cohort increases in manual occupational task requirements. The immigrant earnings outcomes had only a small effect on overall Canadian earnings inequality.     

INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN EARNINGS AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE: THE CASE OF INDIAN MEN

The paper associates inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by predetermined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion, and place of birth. The non‐parametric estimates using parental education as a measure of circumstances reveal that the opportunity share of earnings inequality in 2004–05 was 11–19 percent for urban India and 5–8 percent for rural India. The same figures for consumption expenditure inequality are 10–19 percent for urban India and 5–9 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates (parametric) of earnings inequality due to circumstances, including caste, religion, region, parental education, and parental occupation, vary from 18 to 26 percent for urban India, and from 16 to 21 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates for consumption expenditure inequality are close to the earnings inequality figures for both urban and rural areas. The analysis further finds evidence that the parental education specific opportunity share of overall earnings (and consumption expenditure) inequality is largest in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.     

高管变更、继任来源与盈余管理

高管变更与盈余管理之间的关系历来是盈余管理领域关注的热点问题之一,但我国对这一问题的经验文献却相对较少。以中国资本市场2001年到2006年的A股上市公司为样本,实证检验了高管(董事长或总经理)变更和高管的继任来源两个因素对于盈余管理的影响。在控制了其他可能影响盈余管理的因素之后,实证研究结果表明:高管变更导致了显著的负向盈余管理行为;外部继任者的上市公司相对于内部继任者的上市公司而言更倾向于进行显著的负向盈余管理。附加检验也揭示,高管离职的原因会给继任高管的盈余管理行为带来不同的影响。研究表明,高管变更和继任来源是盈余管理行为的重要影响因素,为理解中国资本市场盈余管理的机会主义行为动机提供了新的经验证据。     

On hourly wages and weekly earnings in the current population survey

This paper examines hourly wages and weekly earnings in the Outgoing Rotation Group (ORG) and the March Supplement of Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1998 to 2004. The findings suggest that the ORG contains less errors than the March CPS, and that weekly earnings contain less errors than hourly wages. The paper further finds that earnings differ systematically in the ORG and in the March CPS by gender and education levels.     

Challenging the Human Capital Orthodoxy: The Education-Productivity Link Re-examined*

The human capital orthodoxy has it that education is an investment, not only for the individual undertaking it but also for society when it devotes scarce resources to it The return to society on that investment is seen mainly in terms of the enhanced productive contribution made by more-educated workers. The measure of that greater contribution most often used by economists is the extra earnings the more-educated on average receive This paper re-examines the available evidence of links between education and productivity (and between earnings and productivity) and finds it to be inconclusive.     

Returns to Education and Skills in the Labor Market: Evidence from Japan and Korea

This study investigates the determinants of skill proficiency, and the impact of adult skills on earnings, in Japan and Korea. Using the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey data, it shows that Japanese adults perform better than Korean respondents, on average, on skill proficiency tests. A decomposition analysis shows that the score gap in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving skills between the two countries is mostly due to different returns to individual characteristics such as upper‐secondary and tertiary education. Adult skills have a positive and significant impact on individual earnings and employment probability, in both countries. In Japan, the returns to literacy, numeracy, and problem‐solving skills increase significantly with experience, and tend to fall with formal education, suggesting employer learning or human capital accumulation through career progression. In contrast, in Korea, the returns to literacy and numeracy skills do not seem to increase with experience.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL TRAINING AND EARNINGS PREMIUMS IN TAIWAN

Abstract

International capital mobility and economic restructuring have brought training and skills acquisition to the forefront of policy dialogues. Taiwan has gone beyond most countries in promoting vocational education and setting strict quotas for schooling. Although the education plans do not have separate targets for men and women, they have gendered outcomes. Estimates of earnings premiums using ordinary least squares and quantile regression techniques indicate that only men have gained consistently higher premiums from vocational school compared to general schooling. Women who were denied access to the university system have forgone college premiums that exceed those of men. Also, the commerce track, in which women cluster, yields an earnings penalty compared to general schooling, while the technical track, in which men predominate, yields an earnings premium. Policy reforms based on relaxing education quotas and enforcing equal opportunity legislation would provide women with more rewarding education and career options.     

On the Estimation of Skill Coefficients for Heterogeneous Labor

Many economists have questioned the existence of a solution to the problem of reducing the value of skilled to unskilled labor, consistent with the assumptions of the labor theory of value. This article presents a model to account quantitatively for an important component of the reduction—the relation between skills and earnings. The model contains an educational attainment graph and a multivariate linear function, which maps time to labor content. We then compare the resulting relative skill coefficients to earnings relative to an unskilled labor reference. The predictions of the model substantially agree with the empirical data.     

Earnings Dynamics and Profile Heterogeneity: Estimates from Japanese Panel Data

The recent empirical work on earnings processes using US panel data finds that ignoring heterogeneity in earnings profiles among individuals leads to an upward bias in the autoregressive parameter of earnings shocks. It then argues that the existing assumptions in incomplete markets and heterogeneous‐agent models, almost all of which require highly persistent earnings shocks and no individual‐specific and group‐specific differences in earnings growth rates, may be inappropriate. This paper investigates the applicability of this US data‐based debate to other developed countries by using a panel of Japanese male earnings. The results indicate that it is possible to corroborate the recent US arguments, despite some differences in the estimates.     

Returns to skills around the world: Evidence from PIAAC

Existing estimates of the labor-market returns to human capital give a distorted picture of the role of skills across different economies. International comparisons of earnings analyses rely almost exclusively on school attainment measures of human capital, and evidence incorporating direct measures of cognitive skills is mostly restricted to early-career workers in the United States. Analysis of the new PIAAC survey of adult skills over the full lifecycle in 23 countries shows that the focus on early-career earnings leads to underestimating the lifetime returns to skills by about one quarter. On average, a one-standard-deviation increase in numeracy skills is associated with an 18 percent wage increase among prime-age workers. But this masks considerable heterogeneity across countries. Eight countries, including all Nordic countries, have returns between 12 and 15 percent, while six are above 21 percent with the largest return being 28 percent in the United States. Estimates are remarkably robust to different earnings and skill measures, additional controls, and various subgroups. Instrumental-variable models that use skill variation stemming from school attainment, parental education, or compulsory-schooling laws provide even higher estimates. Intriguingly, returns to skills are systematically lower in countries with higher union density, stricter employment protection, and larger public-sector shares.     

Large shareholders’ shareholding and earnings’ longitudinal persistence

This paper is the first to adopt longitudinal data analysis methods, such as the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis model, hierarchical linear model and Cox proportional hazards regression model, to investigate the relationship between large shareholders’ shareholding and earnings persistence. We find that large shareholders’ shareholding has a negative effect on corporate longitudinal persistence. The large shareholders’ shareholding will increase the risk of earnings decline and strengthen the declining trend of earnings. The effects of large shareholders’ shareholding on earnings’ longitudinal persistence for SOEs are different from those for non-SOEs, the effects in the pre-crisis period are also different from those in the post-crisis period. These findings contribute to the literature by adopting longitudinal data analysis methods and present new empirical evidence on the economic consequences of large shareholders’ shareholding.