Evidence on the internal labor market during a process of rapid economic growth

We examine the nature and extent of labor market segmentation in Brazil through a survey of 82 modern sector firms in São Paulo. Hiring, training and promotion patterns are found to differ significantly between occupations and a key to understanding these patterns is the nature of skill acquisition, particularly ‘learning on the job’. Furthermore the presence of skill- specificity and internal labor markets for supervisory personnel provide a possible explanation for why relative wages have widened during Brazil's period of rapid economic growth.     

Formal and Informal Labour Markets: Challenges and Policy in the Central and Eastern European New EU Members and Candidate Countries

The paper aims at comparing the formal and informal labour marketsin the Central and Eastern European new EU Member States andcandidate countries of the European Union. First, the currentsituation of the labour market is described, focusing on therecent developments since the breaking up of the East. Thenthe policy design of these labour markets is depicted and itseffects on formal and informal labour markets. The most importantchallenges for employment policy as well as the effects of enlargementon the labour markets are analysed. The paper ends with a shortsummary. (JEL J21, J23, H26, H11, O17, O57)     

Child Health and Economic Crisis in Peru

The effect of macroeconomic crises on child health is a topicof great policy importance. This article analyzes the impactof a profound crisis in Peru on infant mortality. It finds anincrease of about 2.5 percentage points in the infant mortalityrate for children born during the crisis of the late 1980s,which implies that about 17,000 more children died than wouldhave in the absence of the crisis. Accounting for the precisesource of the increase in infant mortality is difficult, butit appears that the collapse in public and private expenditureson health played an important role.     

The roles of stakeholder support and procedure-oriented management on asset recovery

As the management of returned products is fast becoming a business trend caused by pressure for compliance, asset recovery is increasingly viewed as a fertile area for firms to reduce cost and improve quality. Environmental management is a viable approach for Chinese manufacturers to respond to the escalating international quest for conserving the environment, to tackle the problem of rising raw material costs, and to improve product quality by analyzing returned products. To reach the goals of cost reduction and product quality improvement, manufacturers need to understand how asset recovery can be leveraged through procedure-based practices and stakeholder support to enhance performance. Product type, characterized by different levels of demand uncertainty and time-to-market, may affect the outcomes of asset recovery adoption and should also be taken into account. Drawing on the environmental management and business logistics literature, we provide empirical insights on asset recovery adoption using survey data collected from export-oriented Chinese manufacturers. We find that asset recovery and stakeholder support are complementary in strengthening manufacturers' financial performance regardless of product type. In addition, the performance impact of asset recovery can be substantial when manufacturers' environmental management practices are less procedural, allowing flexibility in the logistics management of product flows.     

以“客房之声”制定运营战略

客户之声的管理方法自20世纪90年代早期进入管理主流以来,现已大大推动了无数产品的设计。越来越多的企业正从其客户那里收集一手资料,然后将这些信息应用于产品开发决策和流程之中,通过这种努力,这些公司获得了决定性的竞争优势。然而,目前只有少数企业将客户之声的信息广泛应用于业务与运营战略的其它方面。     

Channels of employee voice: complementary or competing for space?

This article identifies the existence of employee voice channels and examines how they interact within the context of an overall organisational voice system. In so doing, we can better appreciate the disparities between the micro‐level reality and macro‐level rhetoric of employee voice for highly skilled employees in the knowledge intensive sector. Drawing on an instrumental, inductive case study involving managers and, most notably, employees, the research finds that the plurality of mechanisms provided for voice appears to cause some confusion that leads to a neglect of certain channels and others competing for attention. This raises the issue, which has not received attention thus far, as to whether the availability of multiple voice channels can have counter‐productive effects whereby they start to compete with rather than complement each other.     

The Gender Pay Gap in EU Countries — New Evidence Based on EU-SES 2014 Data

Intereconomics - Gender differences in wages are a persistent pattern in most European countries. This study analyses the earnings divide between men and women and the driving forces behind it in...     

The Complementarity between Tax Avoidance and Manager Diversion: Evidence from Tax Haven Firms

We investigate whether tax avoidance and manager diversion are complementary when the costs of diversion are low by comparing dividend payouts, performance, and overinvestments of tax haven firms versus other multinational firms based in countries with weak and strong investor protections. Desai and Dharmapala (2006, 2009a, b) and Desai et al. (2007) set forth a theory of tax avoidance within an agency framework (the D&D theory) based on the assumption that tax avoidance and manager diversion are complementary when the corporate governance system is “ineffective” (i.e., the manager's expected costs of diversion are low). Tax haven firms are corporate groups whose parent firms are incorporated in tax haven countries that are not the countries where the groups’ headquarters or primary operations are located (i.e., their “base” countries). We argue that tax haven incorporation potentially lowers the costs of diversion for managers of firms based in countries with weak investor protections. Using a sample from 28 base countries, we provide evidence that manager diversion and tax avoidance are complementary for tax haven firms based in countries with weak investor protections but not for tax haven firms based in countries with strong investor protections. Our results are consistent with the complementarity assumption underlying the D&D model and provide additional insights into the potential impact of the decentralization of the global firm.     

Do not swipe the small stuff: A randomized evaluation of rules of thumb-based financial education

We perform the first rigorous test of a rules of thumb-based approach to financial education on consumer behavior and outcomes. We test two rules of thumb that are targeted at reducing credit card revolving and deliver them in a randomized fashion via e-mail, online banner, and physical mailer. Using monthly administrative data and pre and postintervention credit data on almost 14,000 consumers, we find that the “Do not swipe the small stuff” rule of thumb reduces participants' targeted credit card balance by an average of 2% at a cost of around $0.50 per person. The “Credit keeps charging” rule shows a decline as well but the impact is not significant.     

National information and euro area monetary policy: a generalized ordered choice approach

We empirically analyze the influence of inflationary pressure originating from persistent national misalignments on the ECB’s interest rate decisions between 2000 and mid-2010. To do so, we introduce an indicator that summarizes the threat to euro area price stability originating from self-reinforcing expected inflation differentials. The indicator is computed based on persistent deviations of national expected inflation and GDP growth rates from the corresponding euro area aggregate. It thereby captures area-wide excess demand pressure on the euro area inflation rate. In order to determine the information content of this indicator, we add it to an empirical monetary policy reaction function. We then analyze this reaction function in the framework of a generalized ordered choice model that fits the data a lot better than its commonly used, more restricted counterpart. Within this empirical framework, we find that after controlling for several area-wide aggregates, national information does not provide additional information that is indicative of the ECB’s policy rate decision.