Reinterpreting the convict labour market

The convicts transported to NSW between 1817 and 1840 were young, fit, highly literate and brought occupational skills which were broadly representative of the British and Irish working classes. In the colonial labour market where convicts were coerced, more labour was forthcoming and at a lower wage than in a free labour market. The assignment of convict labour in the colony was efficient; skilled urban and construction tradesmen were employed in the same jobs in NSW as they had held in Britain. Domestic servants and unskilled urban workers whose skills were not suited to the needs of the colony experienced job restructuring. The organization of convict workers into teams and gangs in Australia was similar to the way work was organized in free labour Britain, and a mbc of incentives and rewards characterized the extraction of work from convicts. The human capital of the transportees and the labour system within which they worked help to explain the rapid growth of the colonial economy before 1840.     

The Supervision of Convict Gangs in New South Wales 1788–1830

Despite its significance as a mechanism for controlling and extracting productivity from a workforce, the nature and character of convict supervision has been largely ignored by historians. To redress this neglect, this article establishes the character of the supervision of male convicts employed in government labour gangs. It is concluded that supervision was, until at least 1822, a critically important strategy for the extraction of labour effort from convict gangs and that it was rationally designed, systematically structured and effectively performed. After 1822 supervision was much more concerned with discipline and control although it was no less sophisticated or complex.     

Convict Transportation to New South Wales, 1787–1849: Mortality Rates Reconsidered

Previous research into Australian convict transportation has concluded that a significant downturn in mortality rates occurred with the appointment of naval surgeons as superintendents in 1815. Statistical analysis of convict ships sent to New South Wales between 1787 and 1849 shows a more significant downturn occurred in 1800, following the introduction of closer supervision of ships' surgeons. The contracting system established by the Navy Board in 1786 for the transportation of convicts to New South Wales could be made to work as long as government maintained an effective system of inspection and supervision.     

The Western Australian Convicts

British convicts transported to Western Australia between 1850 and 1868 were not as positively selected regarding their human capital as early historical accounts suggest. The heights of the convicts were not statistically different from those of British prisoners who were not transported. While few were skilled, the proportion of construction workers was higher than expected, consistent with selection for the needs of the colonial government's works on infrastructure. Data on inmates of Fremantle Prison allow validation of height measurements and occupational statements in the convict list. Australian-born prisoners were taller than those who came from Britain as free immigrants.     

Books and publications received

ABSTRACT

Economic theory predicts that regional wages will converge as transport and communication technologies bring labour markets together. An exploration of this transition from labour market segmentation to unification requires long-term evidence of nominal wages and cost of living by region. This paper presents new evidence of wages for male manufacturing workers and cost-of-living indices across 24 Swedish counties between 1860 and 2009. Our findings indicate that the Swedish regional wage differentials were a great deal larger in the 1860s than in the 2000s. Most of the compression took place between the 1860s and World War I, as well as in the 1930s and during World War II. Differences in expenditures on housing impact on our assessment of convergence in the post-World War II decades: the nominal measure declines, while the real one stays constant. Our concluding discussion engages with the assumption that before World War I, regional wage convergence was associated with labour mobility, spurred by improved communication and transportation technologies as well as by the implementation of modern employment contracts. In the 1930s and 1940s, in contrast, regional wage convergence can be traced to high unionisation and centralised collective bargaining in the labour market, two distinguishing features of the Swedish Model.     

‘To help keep the home going’: female labour supply in interwar London

Most prior work on historical female labour supply has been confined to looking at the female labour force participation decision. This article uses the detailed information on weekly hours of work and wages contained in the New Survey of London Life and Labour (NSLLL) (1928–32) to provide the first estimation of both the participation and the hours‐of‐work decisions for female workers prior to the Second World War. The main finding is that the labour supply curve was negatively sloped—women worked longer hours at lower wages. It is also possible to compare the determinants of the labour force participation decision and the hours of work decision among females in the NSLLL. It appears that the labour force participation decision was more strongly related to household income level than to own wages, while the hours of work decision among working women was more strongly related to the wage level than to household income. Finally, the article also examines the differential labour market behaviour of married women, female household heads, and young single women; most striking among these results is the evident added‐worker effect on married women of the onset of the Great Depression in 1930.     

Institutional wage-setting,labour demand and labour supply: Causal estimates from a South African pseudo-panel

Unemployment in South Africa has multiple causes. This article uses a district pseudo-panel to estimate the elasticity of labour demand, labour supply and unemployment with respect to wages. We assess whether hiring decisions are more sensitive to increases in wages of low-paid workers than high-paid workers, and whether wage growth prompts entry into the labour market. These channels combine to result in the positive causal effect of wage growth on unemployment. The research investigates whether these effects are dominated by districts in which unionisation rates are high and employment is concentrated in large firms. Wage growth of middle-paid to highly paid workers – as opposed to low-paid workers – reduces local labour demand and raises local unemployment. Bargaining arrangements correspond closely to the spatial wage distribution; in turn, a large part of the impact that wage growth has on labour market outcomes is determined by these wage-setting institutions.     

Cyclical Quality Adjustment in the Labor Market

Various reasons have been put forward to explain the stylized fact that the wages of job starters are more procyclical than the wages of workers who don't change jobs. I explore the theoretical and empirical basis for one such reason: firms adjust the quality of workers assigned to jobs over the business cycle. I show that there is evidence that quality adjustment is an important feature of cyclical adjustment in labor markets. New hires of any particular ability level get lower quality jobs in recessions than in booms. The results indicate that about half of the wage procyclicality of new hires can be ascribed to variation in the matches between firms and workers over the business cycle. These systematic changes in assignment imply that government policy aimed at high-skill sectors can have positive effects on low-skill individuals by increasing the probability that they upgrade occupation and industry.     

Labour market response to globalisation: Spain, 1880–1913

This paper analyses the impact of globalisation (trade and migration) on the Spanish labour market between 1880 and 1913 by examining the influence that globalisation factors had on agricultural and industrial wages. Our results show that the nineteenth century grain invasion had a negative impact on agricultural wages, whereas the fall in wheat prices did not benefit industry workers. We also found that migration pushed up real agricultural and industrial wages. As agriculture was the main sector in the economy, the final impact was a wage decrease. The negative impact of trade on agricultural and industrial labour markets partly explains the trade policy response of “integral protection”. However, other alternatives that would have been effective in raising living standards, such as migration policy, were not used.     

Educational mismatches versus skill mismatches: effects on wages, job satisfaction, and on-the-job search

Education-job mismatches are reported to have serious effectson wages and other labour market outcomes. Such results areoften cited in support of assignment theory, but can also beexplained by institutional and human capital models. To testthe assignment explanation, we examine the relation betweeneducational mismatches and skill mismatches. In line with earlierresearch, educational mismatches affect wages strongly. Contraryto the assumptions of assignment theory, this effect is notexplained by skill mismatches. Conversely, skill mismatchesare much better predictors of job satisfaction and on-the-jobsearch than are educational mismatches.     

Wage misalignment in CFA countries: were labour market policies to blame?

Wage rigidity, stemming from highly distortive labour marketpolicies, is a natural candidate to explain the overvaluationof the CFA franc after the adverse external shocks of the 1980s.This paper uses a variety of data sources to assess wage rigidityin CFA countries until the 1994 devaluation, and to analysewhether it was due to labour market policies. The paper showsthat wages were high in CFA countries, compared with both wagesin similar countries and the labour earnings of similar individualswithin the same countries. It also shows that wages were rigidin real terms, in the sense of following closely the fluctuationsof government wages and consumer prices, but it finds no evidenceof nominal wage rigidity, though. From an international perspective,minimum wages were not high enough to account for the observedwage misalignment. Moreover, their adjustment over time washighly responsive to real shocks. Private sector unions, inturn, seemed more instrumental in achieving wage moderationthan wage drift. Their members usually had lower wages thansimilar, non-unionised workers, which probably reflects the'subordinate' nature of the labour movement. The most likelycandidates to explain wage misalignment and real rigidity inCFA countries in the 1980s and early 1990s are therefore governmentpay policies and (possibly) limited competition in product markets.     

Are Older Workers Disadvantaged in the Hong Kong Labour Market?

Using data collected from two surveys on the labour market in Hong Kong, this paper shows that older workers on average are more likely to be unemployed than younger ones. Unemployed workers aged above 45 tend to face a longer spell of unempoyment, receive fewer job offers and expect lower future wages than the unemployed younger workers. Older employed workers may also be disadvantaged. This paper compares the promotion and training opportunities available to olderand younger employed workers. We found that older workers are less likely to bepromoted or selected for training.     

MINIMUM WAGE POLICY AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT IN THE URBAN FORMAL SECTOR

Since the late 1980s, minimum wages have become an important plank of the Indonesian government's labour policy. Their levels have increased faster in real terms than those of average wages and per capita gross domestic product and, as a result, minimum wages have become binding for the majority of formal sector workers. This study finds that the imposition of minimum wages has a negative and statistically significant impact on employment in the urban formal sector. The disemployment impact is greatest for female, young and less educated workers, while the employment prospects of white-collar workers are enhanced by increases in minimum wages. Some workers who lose jobs in the formal sector and have to relocate to the informal sector face lower earnings and poorer working conditions.     

Effect of Participation of Foreign Migrant Workers in Labour Market on Native Workers: Evidence Based on Change Noticed in College Premium in Taiwan ROC

Using Manpower Utilization Survey data for 14 years from 1999 to 2012, we applied the DDDD (Differences–in–differences–in–differences–in–differences) estimation method to check if rising presence of foreign migrant workers in Taiwan’s domestic labour market had any impact on employment opportunities and wages earned by native Taiwanese workers over time. We used the data capturing the effect of college premium (viz., the additional cost to be borne for getting admission into college) paid by the natives on domestic wage rate during this period. College premium is an indicator of demand and supply for educated labour and we intend to see if the premium has grown with time when influx of foreign migrant workers has grown too. From the results, two interesting phenomena caught our attention. First, labour policy adopted by the Government in Taiwan has played an important role in increasing the influx of foreign workers into domestic labour market, which resulted in significant change in college premium paid by the natives. And, this effect lasted even when instances of strikes and reported cases of labour disputes were relatively higher. Second, the effect of the policy has been varying across genders as our data shows that policy on employment of foreign workers has affected job opportunities of native men workers more than it affected job opportunities of their female counterpart.     

On the puzzling slowdown of wage and productivity growth in Taiwan: evidence from a comparison with South Korea

Since the early 2000s, the growth rate of real wages in Taiwan has been very low, even negative for high‐skilled workers. This paper sheds light on the potential causes of this puzzling development through a comparison of Taiwan's performance with that of South Korea. In many dimensions, most notably wages and labour productivity, both economies developed quite similarly between 1995 and 2001–02, but diverged thereafter. We relate the development of wages and labour productivity in the two economies to sectoral structural change and to sectoral differences in labour productivity growth, skills upgrading, and foreign trade.     

Pieces of eight,pieces of eight: seamen's earnings and the venture economy of early modern seafaring†

Historians have generally argued that between the medieval period and the eighteenth century seafarers transformed from collaborative adventurers with a share in their vessel to the first international wage‐earning proletariat. This interpretation has drawn upon relatively limited statistical analysis of mariners’ wages, and underestimates the variety of seafarers’ remuneration and economic activities besides wages themselves. This article undertakes a more sustained analysis of seventeenth‐century wage data drawn from the papers of the English High Court of Admiralty, and uses the same evidence to examine other forms of income, both customary payments as part of shipping, and small‐scale trade. Seafarers of all ranks carried their own commodities on all shipping routes, offering an opportunity to increase their income considerably. This evidence confirms that the maritime labour market was hierarchical, and that very often seafarers were poor labourers facing economic insecurity of many kinds. However, it refines the previous interpretation by emphasizing the presence of skilled workers even among the lower levels of this labour market, and by introducing a new dimension to mariners’ economic agency: they were not simply wage‐workers, but also independent participants in a venture economy.     

Unemployment in LDCs: Worker heterogeneity, screening, and quantity constraints

Unemployment in many less developed countries is characterized by a significant urban-rural wage differential coexisting with high urban unemployment. This may be consistent with optimization when there is imperfect information about a worker's ability, and abilities are heterogeneous. Firms know only the average quality of workers in the labour pool. High urban wages induce immigration of workers from rural areas, improving the average quality of the urban labour pool which has been depleted of high ability workers by previous screening. Hence, both sides of the market way find high non-market-clearing wages optimal. Quantity constraints from imperfect capital markets may strengthen this effect.     

The question of land access and the Spanish land reform of 1932

Spanish land reform, involving the breakup of the large southern estates, was a central issue during the first decades of the twentieth century, and was justified on economic and political grounds. This article employs new provincial data on landless workers, land prices, and agrarian wages to consider whether government intervention was needed because of the failure of the free action of markets to redistribute land. Our evidence shows that the relative number of landless workers decreased significantly from 1860 to 1930, before the approval of the 1932 Land reform during the Second Republic (1931–6). This was due to two interrelated market forces: the falling ratio between land prices and rural wages, which made plots of land cheaper for landless workers to rent and buy; and structural change that drained the rural population from the countryside Given that shifts in factor prices were already helping workers gain access to land by the 1930s, the economic arguments for introducing reform at that time remain unclear.     

Wages,Productivity and Labour's Declining Income Share in Post‐Apartheid South Africa

The Marikana incident in 2012, as well as the protracted strikes by platinum miners, metal and postal workers in 2014 suggest that not all is well in the South African labour market. Even though those in employment are better off than the unemployed poor, macroeconomic data indicate that labour's share in gross value added has declined significantly during the first two decades following the first democratic election in 1994. A falling share of labour in income also means, by definition, that average labour productivity growth outstrips real wages growth. Data for South Africa suggest that productivity has indeed increased faster than wages in South Africa. This article argues that financialisation and more aggressive returns‐oriented investment strategies applied by for instance large investment institutions translated into higher required rates of return on capital, which in turn caused an increased implementation of capital‐augmenting labour‐saving technology that reduces labour's share in income.     

Labour Market Flexibility,Wages and Incomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa in the 1990s

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of how African labour markets have performed in the 1990s. It is argued that the failure of African labour markets to create good paying jobs has resulted in excess labour supply in the form of either open unemployment or a growing self‐employment sector. One explanation for this outcome is a lack of labour market ‘flexibility’ keeping formal sector wages above their equilibrium level and restricting job creation. We identify three attributes of labour market flexibility. First, whether real wages decline over time; secondly, the tendency for wages to adjust in the face of unemployment; and thirdly, the extent of wage differentials between sectors and/or firms of various size. Recent research shows that real wages in Africa during the 1990s may have been more downwardly flexible than previously thought and have been surprisingly responsive to unemployment rates, yet large wage differentials between formal and informal sector firms remain. This third sense of the term ‘inflexibility’ can explain a common factor across diverse African economies — the high income divide between those working in large firms and those not. Those working in the thriving self‐employment sector in Ghana have something in common with the unemployed in South Africa — both have very low income opportunities relative to those in large firms.