Choosing Skilled Foreign‐Born Workers: Evaluating Alternative Methods for Allocating H‐1B Work Permits

The H‐1B program allows highly educated foreign‐born labor to temporarily work in the United States. Quotas restrict the number of H‐1B recipients. In many years, all available work permits were allocated by random lottery. This paper argues that an alternative distribution method based upon ability would increase output, output per worker, and wages paid to less‐educated workers. Baseline estimates suggest that a change in allocation policy could result in a $26.5 billion gain for the economy over a 6‐year period. This estimate grows when H‐1B demand rises.     

Earnings and Occupational Attainment among Immigrants1

This paper examines the determinants of occupational attainment and the impact of occupation on earning among foreign‐born men using the U.S. 2000 Census. Years of schooling and proficiency in English are the key factors determining access to high‐paying occupations among immigrants. Foreign labor market experience, however, has a negative impact on current occupational status, especially among those in high‐status jobs, due to the limited international transferability of skills acquired on the job.     

The Structure of the Permanent Job Wage Premium: Evidence from Europe

Using individual longitudinal European Community Household Panel data for thirteen countries during 1995–2001 and fixed‐effects models, I find for men, the permanent job wage premium is higher for younger workers and those who were noncitizens or foreign born; for women, the premium is higher for young workers, short‐tenure workers, and those who were noncitizens or foreign born. Thus, the gain to permanent employment is higher for those with less experience in the domestic labor market.     

The Impact of Wage Bargaining Regime on Firm‐Level Competitiveness and Wage Inequality: The Case of Ireland

This paper uses a linked employer‐employee dataset to analyze the impact of institutional wage bargaining regimes on average labor costs and within‐firm wage dispersion in private sector companies in Ireland. The results show that while centralized bargaining reduced labor costs within both the indigenous and foreign‐owned sectors, the relative advantage was greater among foreign‐owned firms. The analysis suggests that there are potentially large competitiveness gains to multinational companies that locate in countries implementing a centralized bargaining system. Furthermore, the results provide additional support to the view that collective bargaining reduces within‐firm wage inequality.     

A path to value creation for foreign entrepreneurs

Research summary : Firms founded by foreign entrepreneurs constitute an influential and growing part of the world economy. Yet, the existing research has given little consideration to the strategies of foreign entrepreneurs beyond their decisions to start a firm. In this article, we address this gap by examining how foreign entrepreneurs may bring value to their firms as firm managers. We argue that foreign owner‐managers may benefit their firms by having access to home‐country resources. We demonstrate that, compared to hired local managers, foreign owner‐managers reduce firms' operating costs by disproportionately hiring home‐country labor when this labor is more cost‐efficient. This effect is larger for labor‐intensive industries and for entrepreneurs from less wealthy countries. Managerial summary : Foreign entrepreneurs represent an important part of the world economy. Yet, we know little of how foreign entrepreneurs manage their firms. In this article, we examine whether foreign entrepreneurs and domestic managers hire different employees. We find that when foreign entrepreneurs manage their firms personally, they hire a larger number of foreign workers, and such workers are cheaper and more productive than the local labor. Conversely, domestic managers tend to hire local employees, despite their higher relative wages. Foreign owner‐managers are particularly valuable in labor‐intensive industries and when their home‐country labor is inexpensive. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Task Polarization in the Japanese Labor Market: Evidence of a Long‐Term Trend

By quantifying the various skills required for different occupations, we examine the long‐term trend in labor‐market polarization in Japan in terms of tasks from 1960 to 2005. We find that the input share of nonroutine tasks has consistently and gradually increased, while that of routine tasks has decreased. With regard to nonroutine tasks, we observe an increase in the input shares of both high‐skilled analytical and interactive tasks and low‐skilled manual tasks. While we also find that the polarization depends on the introduction of technology, the progress of polarization is slower and smaller in Japan than in other countries.     

Foreign‐Born Academic Scientists and Their Interactions with Industry: Implications for University Technology Commercialization and Corporate Innovation Management

This study examines and characterizes the way foreign‐born academic scientists interact with private firms. Using status characteristics theory, this inquiry explores how foreign‐born tenured and tenure‐track academic scientists in the 150 most research‐intensive U.S. universities interact with the private sector by means of six discrete interaction modes. The study further investigates whether foreign‐born academic scientists' interactions with private firms are more of a formal or informal nature vis‐à‐vis those of native‐born scientists'. The empirical analysis indicates that foreign‐born academic scientists have lower odds of having been approached by private firms to ask about their research activities, lower odds of having served as a paid consultant to firms, and lower odds of having been engaged in the joint transfer and commercialization of technologies with private firms relative to their U.S.‐born counterparts. In contrast, foreign‐born academic scientists have significantly higher odds of having coauthored scientific articles with private firms than their U.S.‐born counterparts. The paper discusses the implications for university technology commercialization and innovation management in firms.     

A behavioural measure of information work

Information work is defined from a behavioural perspective, as the manipulation of information, when performed by workers. A set of activities characterizing information work are identified, drawing on Blooms Taxonomy as the reference source. Using this measure, the 1977 Dictionary of Occupation Titles was content analysed to identify those occupations which could be behaviourally classified as information work. 40% of all occupations were determined to be informational in work behaviour. These occupations were found across all sectors, although they were concentrated in the service sector. Many occupations, old and new, have taken on an informational character.     

The Effect of Labor Relations Laws on Unionization Rates within the Labor Force: Evidence from the Canadian Provinces

We examine the potential of labor‐relations reforms to address wage inequality by relating an index of the favorableness to unions of Canadian provincial labor‐relations laws to changes in industry, occupation, education, and gender‐specific provincial unionization rates. While we find some evidence of larger unionization gains among high‐school–educated workers, the differences across groups are small and in some cases suggest larger gains among professionals. Overall, the results suggest a limited potential for reforms in labor‐relations laws to mitigate growing labor‐market inequality.     

Hispanic Immigration and Labor Market Segmentation

This paper investigates the wage and employment effects of Hispanic immigration on native-born, low-skilled urban workers. The study develops a multiquation model to counter simultaneity bias, isolates the impact of recent illegal aliens from that of settled immigrants and of native interstate movers, calculates separate estimates for female and male employees, subdivided by race and Spanish origin, and tests both conventional and dual labor market theories. The results indicate that recent immigration has not had substantial adverse wage or employment effects.     

Do Employers Prefer Overqualified Graduates? A Field Experiment

We test whether employers prefer overqualified to adequately qualified job candidates. To this end, duos of fictitious applications by bachelor's and master's graduates are sent to real job openings with a bachelor's degree as a minimum requirement. For the overall sample, we find that overqualified master's graduates are 19 percent more likely to be directly invited for a job interview and 11 percent more likely to get any positive reaction. This relative advantage for overqualified workers is found to be higher for bottleneck occupations. Relative preferences also differ across employers within labor‐market segments.     

The Effects of Minimum Wages on Low‐Skilled Immigrants’ Wages,Employment, and Poverty

Raising the minimum wage has been advanced as complementary policy to comprehensive immigration reform to improve low‐skilled immigrants’ economic well‐being. While adverse labor demand effects could undermine this goal, existing studies do not detect evidence of negative employment effects. We re‐investigate this question using data from the 1994 to 2016 Current Population Survey and conclude that minimum wage increases reduced employment of less‐educated Hispanic immigrants, with estimated elasticities of around –0.1. However, we also find that the wage and employment effects of minimum wages on low‐skilled immigrants diminished over the last decade. This finding is consistent with more restrictive state immigration policies and the Great Recession inducing outmigration of low‐skilled immigrants, as well as immigrants moving into the informal sector. Finally, our results show that raising the minimum wage is an ineffective policy tool for reducing poverty among immigrants.     

Does the digital economy generate a gender dividend for female employment? Evidence from China

Using data from the China General Social Survey, the China Family Panel Studies, and a unique dataset of enterprises' online recruitment, this research examines the effect of the digital economy on female employment. The empirical results suggest that the digital economy significantly promotes female employment. Consistent with our theoretical analysis, the estimates indicate that this relationship holds because the digital economy promotes the formation of egalitarian gender perspectives, promotes the use of digital technology, and increases labor demand emphasizing the necessity for female-preference occupations. The dividend of the digital economy is tilted toward vulnerable groups in the labor market, including the low-skilled, older, and rural workforce, and only exerts an employment promotion effect on women without parenting burden. Further examination reveals evidence that digitalization has not led to a holistic improvement in the quality of female employment. Digitalization lengthens the working hours of severely underemployed female workers, and improves women's occupational status and job satisfaction; however, it has a minimal impact on protecting employees' rights and interests or reducing overtime workers' work intensity. Nonself-employed, full-time, and part-time workers all benefit from the development of the digital economy, while self-employed workers do not. In addition, a weakening effect of digitalization on the gender employment gap is not evident, which relates to the digital economy generating a female dividend in terms of promoting gender equality and increasing labor demand but resulting in a digital gender divide in the use of digital technology.     

Affirmative Action and the Occupational Advancement of Minorities and Women During 1973–2003

The share of minorities and women comprising high‐paying skilled occupations such as management, professional, and technical occupations has been increasing since the 1960s, while the proportion of white men in such occupations has been declining. What has been the contribution of affirmative action to the occupational advancement of minorities and women from low‐wage unskilled occupations into high‐wage skilled ones in U.S. firms? I examine this by comparing the occupational position of minorities and women at firms holding federal contracts, and thereby mandated to implement affirmative action, and noncontracting firms, over the course of 31 years during 1973–2003. I use a new longitudinal dataset of over 100,000 large private‐sector firms across all industries and regions uniquely suited for the exploration of this question obtained from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. My key findings show that the share of minorities and women in high‐paying skilled occupations grew more at federal contractors subject to affirmative action obligation than at noncontracting firms during the three decades under study, but these advances took place primarily during the pre‐ and early Reagan years and during the decade following the Glass Ceiling Act of 1991.     

劳动力外移、国际贸易与产业结构调整——基于1984—2004年中国数据的协整分析与格兰杰因果检验

伴随着经济全球化进程的不断加快,劳动力外移的浪潮不断高涨,对世界经济和国际贸易的发展带来了巨大的促进作用。近年来中国劳动力外移的数量同样迅猛增加,对中国经济的作用日趋彰显。本文在总结前人观点的基础上,利用1984—2004年的数据对中国的劳动力外移和对外贸易进行了协整分析和格兰杰因果检验,得出结论:我国劳动力外移和对外贸易之间的原因视不同的产业分别呈替代和互补关系,从而对我国产业结构的调整提出了不同的要求与发展思路。     

Minimum Cash Wages,Tipped Restaurant Workers,and Poverty

This is the first study to examine the effect of increases in the tipped minimum cash wage—the wage employers must pay to tipped employees—on poverty. Using March Current Population Survey data (1988–2014), we find that tipped minimum cash wage increases are associated with declines in the risk of a tipped restaurant worker living in a poor family (elasticities around –0.2). However, we find little evidence of poverty‐alleviating effects when using the household rather than the family as the sharing unit. This result is consistent with evidence that a substantial share of tipped workers who live in a poor family live in a nonpoor household with persons unrelated by blood, marriage, or adoption who contribute to the household's income. Furthermore, we find that tipped minimum cash wage hikes are associated with increases in the risk of a younger, less‐educated individual living in a poor family or household. Adverse labor demand effects that redistribute income among low‐skilled individuals drive these results. We conclude that raising the tipped minimum cash wage is a poorly targeted policy to deliver income to poor restaurant workers.     

Poverty,Legal Status,and Pay Basis: The Case of U.S. Agriculture

U.S. farmworkers primarily are paid either on a piecerate or on a timerate basis. This article studies relationships among wage contracts, legal status, and poverty using a representative survey of employed farmworkers, which includes detailed information on legal status, including whether a worker is illegal. Results indicate that while piecerate workers earn more per hour on average, they work fewer hours and face greater poverty risk than their timerate counterparts. Furthermore, foreign‐born workers, especially those who are undocumented, are overrepresented in piecerate positions, and analysis shows that the effect of piecerate pay on poverty is positive and correlated with being foreign‐born.     

Autonomy at work in the gig economy: analysing work status,work content and working conditions of independent professionals

This paper offers a critical perspective on the debate surrounding autonomy at work for a specific category of non‐standard workers: independent professionals. The increasing numbers now working this way as well as their spread into all sectors, industries and occupations, mean that their work arrangements can no longer be dismissed as non‐standard or atypical. Defining them by what they are not is quite simply no longer an option. Our paper examines the various components intertwined behind the taken‐for‐granted concept of autonomy. Drawing on debates from the legal through to the sociological and HR literatures, we identify three underlying dimensions to autonomy. When combined, they provide the basis for an analytical matrix that may assist policy makers, practitioners and individual workers to understand the challenges and opportunities linked to new ways of working.     

Computer Use,Job Tasks and the Part‐Time Pay Penalty

Using data from the UK Skills Surveys 1997–2012, we show that the part‐time pay penalty (PTPP) for women within low‐ and medium‐skilled occupations has decreased significantly. The convergence in computer use and non‐routine job tasks between part‐time and full‐time workers explains a large share of the decrease in the PTPP. This convergence took place mainly within occupations, and was not driven by changes in occupational segregation between the two groups of workers. The lower PTPP is also related to changes in the returns to job tasks. Relative changes in the importance of and returns to computer use and job tasks together explain more than 50 per cent of the decrease in the PTPP.     

What Explains the Union Membership Gap between Migrants and Natives?

This article explores the differences in unionization rates between migrant and native‐born workers in 23 European countries. It explores whether individual characteristics or contextual factors explain the variation across countries in the degree of trade unions’ inclusion of migrant workers. The analyses show that individual characteristics cannot explain the variation in the difference between migrant and native unionization rates. Characteristics of the industrial relations regime in the country of destination, in particular the institutional embeddedness of trade unions, affect the likelihood that migrants join trade unions as compared to native workers.