What Do We Know About Worker Displacement in the U.S.?

Each year during the eighties, plant closings in the U.S. displaced roughly one-half million workers with three-plus years on the job. The recent data and empirical research reviewed here show that wage cuts lower only slightly the probability that a plant will close. Average earnings losses due to long spells of unemployment and to subsequent reduced wages are substantial. Minorities suffer an above-average rate of displacement, but their earnings losses are not unusually high. Women and older workers are no more likely than others to become displaced or to suffer greater earnings losses, but high-tenure workers lose more.     

Race and Post-Displacement Earnings Among High-Tech Workers

This study examines racial variations in post-layoff earnings among a cohort of workers displaced in 1985 from Silicon Valley's high-technology industries. The analysis shows that blacks and Hispanics suffered greater earnings losses than non-Hispanic whites, and that this racial disparity occurred both among those who found other jobs within the high-tech sector and among those who were reemployed outside the high-tech sector. There were no statistical differences in outcomes between Asians and non-Hispanic whites.     

Import Competition, Employment Risk, and the Job-Search Outcomes of Trade-Displaced Manufacturing Workers

This study examines the underlying relationships that exist among import competition, employment risk, and worker earnings. In addition, we consider how such competitiveness and risk experienced on a prior job will affect, under both equilibrium and disequilibrium interpretations of the labor market, alternative postdisplacement job-search outcomes. Econometric models of predisplacement earnings and postdisplacement outcomes (jobless duration, reemployment, and earnings) provide insights on these relationships and in turn on the comparative job-search success of trade-displaced and "other" displaced workers.     

Duration of Joblessness Following Displacement

This paper examines the duration of joblessness for workers displaced from full-time nonagricultural jobs between 1979 and 1981. Although nearly one-half of these workers found jobs within 14 weeks of displacement, many experienced very long spells of joblessness. A Weibull model of jobless spell duration is estimated that identifies demographic characteristics and labor market conditions significantly affecting the expected duration of joblessness. The results indicate that many displaced workers become structurally unemployed.     

Why Do Earnings Fall with Job Displacement?

Displaced workers experience reduced earnings for many years. While this empirical phenomenon is well established, the theory of displacement‐induced earnings loss is scattered. Policy discussion often interprets displacement‐induced losses through the lens of specific human capital theory but there are other credible theories with different causal mechanisms and different interpretations. This paper reviews theories of costly job displacement and discusses their consistency with the available empirical evidence for the United States. We find that specific human capital theory and matching theory have considerable but far from conclusive empirical support. We suggest avenues for better discriminating among theories.     

Labor Market Conditions and the Economic Status of Black Men: A Note

I study the effects of local employment to population ratios on the relative position of blacks to evaluate whether tight labor markets reduce the differences in economic status between young blacks and whites. I find evidence that blacks receive greater employment advantages than whites in tight labor markets, but the effect is small. Blacks with 12 or fewer years of education experience higher earnings in tight labor markets, but this effect is also small.     

Sectoral Productivity and the Distribution of Wages

Policy reports suggesting that productivity growth will raise the earnings of low-wage workers are based on the concept that gains from productivity will trickle down to raise the wages of workers at the lower end of the wage distribution. The compensation and employment systems of American industry do strongly link gains in industry productivity to wage increases for most workers. However, this analysis finds that the linkage of productivity change to wage change for the workers at the lower end of the distribution is virtually nonexistent. The empirical results of this study suggest that productivity increases have no effect on the wage change of workers at the lowest 10th percentile of the distribution and widen the dispersion in industry wages.     

提升总体劳动收入份额过程中的结构优化问题研究——基于产业与部门的视角

基于收入法GDP和资金流量表核算的劳动收入份额数据,本文在探讨劳动收入份额构成、波动性并进行结构分解的基础上,研究了总体劳动收入份额稳步提升中的结构优化问题。在提升总体劳动收入份额过程中,在保持产业(部门)结构相对稳定时要重视产业(部门)内部劳动收入份额的结构优化,在维持产业(部门)劳动收入份额相对稳定时要重视不同产业(部门)增加值比重提高过程中的产业(部门)结构优化;还要重视产业(部门)内部效应和产业(部门)结构效应的协同对稳步提升总体劳动收入份额的综合效应。在优化结构时稳定维持第一产业(企业部门)劳动收入份额和努力增加第三产业(住户部门)增加值占国民经济的比重对提升总体劳动收入份额至关重要。     

What Can Explain the Increase in Earnings Inequality Among Males?

Increases in the inequality of earnings among male workers since the late sixties have been attributed primarily to shifts in employment from goods-producing to service-producing activities and the baby-boom cohort's entry into the labor market. This paper provides empirical estimates of the magnitude of these and other potential causes of the increase in earnings inequality from 1967 to 1985. The results show that changes related to the age composition of the labor force and to the industrial composition of the labor force account for only a portion of the increase in inequality. Most of the increase in unexplained by either factor. Other contributing factors include a rise in the return to education, a change in the relationship between age and education among males, and a decline in the marriage rate among younger males.     

Earnings Losses of Injured Men: Reported and Unreported Injuries

This paper revisits the earnings losses following a workplace injury, accounting for injured workers who did not apply for workers' compensation and a comparison group of uninjured workers. Selection of the injured group and the comparison group is important. Excluding those who do not apply for benefits overstates the earnings losses, while using less severely injured workers as a comparison group underestimates the earnings losses. Additionally, differentiating whether the injury resulted in a work-limiting disability highlights that it is not the injury event, but rather the subsequent disabilities that drive the earnings losses.     

Methodology in the "Job Quality" Debate

This paper critically examines the use of the earnings distribution of net employment gains in the analysis of "new jobs." The paper explains why this measure of economic performance is not robust and why it can be misleading. Alternative analyses, based on industry and/or accupation, are more robust and may be more informative. Illustrative results show that the new job growth has been concentrated in industries with generally lower wages than the industries where jobs have been lost.     

工业机器人应用对制造业劳动生产率的影响研究——基于欧美13个国家数据的经验分析

本文从制造业细分行业的角度实证分析了工业机器人对劳动生产率的影响,并对西方国家整个制造业就业人数的减少做出解释。实证结果显示工业机器人的应用显著提升了制造业的劳动生产率,针对不同细分行业本身的特点,这种影响存在差异,工业机器人应用存在边际促进效应递减的趋势;从地域层面来说,工业机器人应用量大的国家,对制造业劳动生产率的提升作用更加明显,就整体而言,工业机器人的应用减少了制造业从业人员的比例,即制造业所能容纳的工人数量在逐渐减少。     

Union Representation Elelctions and Firm Profitability

Union representation elections are associated with significant declines in firm profitability. In addition to the significant mean effect of union elections on the equity value of firms, there exists substantial variation in the magnitude of equity losses across individual election events. Cross-sectional variation in shareholder equity losses can be explained by the labor intensity of the firm, the size of the union wage premium and fraction of workers organized in "the firm's industry,." the presence or absencse of right-to-work lows in the state where the election is held, the member of workers covered in the representaion election, and the number of previous union representation election in the firm. The empirical results indiacte the equity losses are the greatest in industries where union wage gain are the highest and unionization rates are the largest, and in the most labor-intensive firms, independent of the size of the bargaining unit involved in the election. The latter result indicates the presence of union spillover effects.     

产业转移特征及其与企业亏损、劳动力转移关系研究

本文采用比较分析方法,基于纺织业,纺织服装、鞋帽制造业和化学纤维制造业2001～2010年统计数据,分析产业转移特征与趋势,并进一步探讨与企业亏损及劳动力转移的关系。研究结论表明:(1)从2001～2010年10年来看,纺织业和纺织服装、鞋帽制造业由东部向中西部转移,而化学纤维制造业由中部向东西部转移;(2)从2001～2010年10年内不同时间阶段来看,纺织业等三大产业在2001～2004年间都由中西部向东部转移,2004年后纺织业和纺织服装、鞋帽制造业转为由东部向中西部转移,而化学纤维制造业2004年后由中部向东西部转移;(3)纺织业等三大产业转移特征与产业内企业亏损数量及劳动力转移是紧密相联系的。这些对于我们正确认识产业转移是我国工业化过程中的客观现象,以及只有加快产业有序转移,才有利于促进区域经济协调可持续发展,具有重要的现实意义。     

Redundancies in Chinese State Enterprises: A Research Report

This article examines how the problem of surplus labor isbeing dealt with in some of China's state-owned enterprises. Primarily using interview data from the period 1995-1997, as well as published sources, the article looks at the main methods employed by large state-owned enterprises to reduce the level of surplus labor in their workforce. It also considers how smaller state-owned enterprises are coping in an era where mergers, closures, and bankruptcies are becoming much more common as a means of dealing with loss-making firms, resulting in widespread redundancies in the state-owned enterpriseworkforce. The article illustrates that the potential political repercussions of job losses, as well as direct intervention by local authorities, continue to hinder the freedom of enterprise management to adjust employment levels in the interests of efficiency and productivity. The article also notes the importance of how decisions about downsizing and redundancy are communicated and justified to employees if resistance and social instability are to be minimized. The employment treatment of production workers will be considered separately from that of cadres, since these two groups are subject to different employment regulations and political constraints.     

Immigration and Informal Labor

We develop state‐level proxies for informal employment using differences between measures of self‐reported employment and officially sanctioned employment. In construction and landscaping, industries associated with under‐the‐table labor, we develop proxies for informal work based on productivity per officially sanctioned worker. We relate each set of proxies for informal employment to changes in immigrant population and composition. We find some evidence that immigration is associated with informal employment generally and in the construction industry when prevailing wages are low. States with high concentrations of low‐skilled male immigrants have higher levels of informal employment in the landscaping industry.     

Earnings Growth Among Young Less-Educated Business Owners

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), I examine the earnings patterns of young less-educated business owners and make comparisons with young less-educated wage/salary workers. Estimates from fixed-effects earnings regressions indicate that the self-employed experience faster earnings growth on average than wage/salary workers after a few initial years of slower growth. I also find some evidence suggesting that a relatively high percentage of less-educated business owners, especially men, experience either rapid earnings growth or large annual losses.     

中国对外直接投资逆向技术溢出效应研究——基于Malmquist指数和我国行业面板数据的实证研究

本文利用2004～2011年我国行业的面板数据,用非参数的Malmquist指数的方法测算中国八大行业的全要素生产率,通过GMM方法分析我国对外直接投资传导的国际研发存量和我国的研发存量以及两者的交互项对这8个行业的全要素生产率的影响,以便了解对外直接投资的逆向技术溢出效应。实证结果表明：现阶段国内各相关行业通过对外直接投资途径传导的国外逆向技术有一定的溢出效应,但对技术进步的影响并不显著;只有在国内研发和其他方面的投入跨越一定的门槛值后,才能使我国对外直接投资产生逆向技术溢出效应。      

Long‐Term Earnings Inequality,Earnings Instability and Temporary Employment in Spain: 1993–2000

This article provides a longitudinal perspective on changes in Spanish male earnings inequality for the period 1993–2000 by decomposing the earnings covariance structure into its permanent and transitory parts. Cross‐sectional earnings inequality of male full‐time employees falls over the second half of the 1990s. Such decline was determined by a decrease in earnings instability and an increase of the permanent earnings component. Given the marked decline in temporary employment over the sample period, we also examine the effect of the type of contract on earnings variance components and find that workers on a fixed‐term contract face, on average, more instability than workers on a permanent contract. This evidence suggests that the decline in temporary employment is responsible for the decreasing earnings instability.     

Production Technology and the Interindutry Wage Structure

This paper presents a model in which production technology (scale and capital-intensity) explains interindustry differences in the earnings of workers with similar skill in similarly attrative jobs. The empirical analysis shows that manufacturing industires fall into three segments with broadly similar production technologies, and that prodcut market and employment characteristics vary as expected across these segments. Capital intensity and job-skill requirements are found to have positive wage effects for the full set of industries, but the resluts by segment suggest that the capital-intensity effect increases, and the skill effects decreases, with the capital-intensity of prodcution.