Labour Demand, Wage Mark-ups and Product Market Integration

Globalization makes it easier to relocate production and thus employment across countries. Therefore, it is often asserted that labour demand becomes more elastic, causing wage mark-ups to fall and thus erode the effective market power of trade unions. We explore this issue in a general equilibrium model where the elasticity of labour demand is endogenized and related to the facility by which production can be relocated across countries. Wages and employment increase unambiguously as a result of product market integration, but it is ambiguous whether wage mark-ups decrease or increase. A numerical illustration suggests that the elasticity effect – even when the wage mark-up falls – is of second order relative to the gains from trade.      

Wage Adjustments and Labour Market Systems: A Cross-Country Analysis*

Evidence is presented on how well alternative systems of wage determination facilitate disaggregate labour market adjustment. Tests of statistical causality are used to relate labour market pressure to relative wage changes. The conclusion is that rates of change of relative wages are determined independently of the microeconomic market balance. This result holds irrespective of the institutional form of the wage-fixing system.     

Wage and Mobility Effects of Trade and Migration on the Austrian Labour Market

This study analyses the effect of trade and migration on wages and labour marketmobility. We estimate wage growth equations and a multinomial logit mobilityequation on an individual data set ranging from 1991 to 1994. We find substantialdifferences in the reactions of white and blue-collar workers wages and mobilityto trade and migration. In Austria exports have a positive and imports a negativeimpact on wage growth only for blue-collar workers. Migrants also reduce onlyblue-collar workers wage growth. Our results indicate that higher imports and aninflow of migrants reduce sectoral mobility of all types workers. The risk of beingout of work by contrast is increased by migration and imports only for blue-collarworkers, but reduced by exports for all types of workers. In general our results suggestenlargement of the EU would have only small effects on the Austrian labour market.     

Labour Quality and Wage Differentials

This paper presents a quality theory for labour. Analytical solutions for the equilibrium demand for labour quality equation and the equilibrium wage equation are computed. Wage differentials can be explained by variations in labour quality. A method that yields consistent estimates for all the parameters of the equilibrium demand for labour quality equation, the labour quality index equation, and the equilibrium wage equation is also presented. To illustrate the methodology an application is presented that focuses on the market for seminars and the wages and quality characteristics of trainers.     

Ethnicity and Job Tenure in a Segmented Labour Market: The Case for New Zealand

The labour market experience of 1984–1992 turned on end the prevailing notion of 'personal security' within New Zealand, founded as it was upon guaranteed employment (and full-employment in the aggregate). This study examines, in a systematic fashion and within a dynamic setting, why job tenure varied consistently over this period between two ethnic groups, the first comprised of European/Pakeha workers, and the second New Zealand Maori and Pacific Islanders.
Econometric analyses of total, voluntary and involuntary separations indicate that the low relative job security of Maori/Pacific Islanders cannot be attributed solely to differential attributes that, on the one hand represent such individuals' gender/age distribution, qualifications, and conditions of employment, and on the other provide controls for the relative competitive positions of their employers. Rather, other factors, such as worker segmentation, are likely operative within the New Zealand labour market, conditions that, on net, work to the disadvantage of non-Europeans.     

中国西部地区劳动力市场发展探讨

加快西部大开发具有重大的经济、政治和社会意义。作者认为，劳动力市场缺乏是西部地区落后的重要原因之一。文章通过对制约西部劳动力市场发展的因素分析，提出了西部劳动力市场的几个设想；发展非公有制经济，加快劳动力市场信息网络建议，以及尽快形成西部地区的区域性劳动力市场。     

对我国城镇居民收入差距的思考

收入差距是经济运行中的重要问题，必须予以足够的重视。我国城镇居民内部巳经产生收入差距，形成了高、低两类收入群体，主要有经济体制，行业差距，非法收入等原因引起收入差距，要缩小收入差距，应该继续完善市场经济建设，消除行业差距，用法制遏制非法收入，发挥财政税收和社会保障的积极作用。     

Labour Market Policies and Long-term Unemployment in a Flow Model of the Australian Labour Market

This paper develops a general equilibrium job matching model, which is used to assess the impact of active labour market policies, reductions in unemployment benefits and reductions in worker bargaining power on long-term unemployment and other key macro variables. The model is calibrated using Australian data. Simulation experiments are conducted through impulse response analysis. The simulations suggest that active labour market programs (ALMPs) targeted at the long-term unemployed have a small net impact and produce adverse spillover effects on short-term unemployment. Reducing the level of unemployment benefits relative to wages and worker bargaining power have more substantial effects on total and long-term unemployment and none of the spillover effects of ALMPs.     

The Labour Market and Inequality

Newspoll reported in 2000 that by a margin of 70 to 28 per cent, Australians would prefer the gap between rich and poor to get smaller rather than have the nation's overall wealth grow as quickly as possible. This article examines the reasons for the increase in the dispersion of earnings, and changes in unemployment and workforce participation, which are central to this concern about inequality. The major finding is that the widening dispersion of earnings and changes in labour force status are principally due to changes in the structure of labour demand in favour of more skilled jobs. The article then considers what this changing job mix implies for policy directed to maintaining income inequality.     

The Intriguing Relation Between Adult Minimum Wage and Child Labour

Because most parents send their children to work when compelled by poverty, one would expect a rise in adult wage to lower child labour. However, if the rise in wage is achieved by a minimum wage law, its impact can be intriguing. It can, for instance, cause some adults to be unemployed and send their children to work, which in turn displaces more adult labour and sends more children to work. The paper solves this process and predicts the incidence of child labour. It shows that, for appropriate parametric configurations, child labour may fall or rise as the adult minimum wage is raised.     

Displacement Effects of Active Labour Market Policy: The Youth Labour Market in Finland

In 1994 the number of workers participating in active labour market programmes in Finland was 299,000. On average there where 125,000 workers in these programmes at any one time, the average length of participation in a programme being about 5 months. In relation to the 2.5 million-strong Finnish labour force, these figures are proportionally large. In 1994 the total expenditure on unemployment amounted to 6.7 per cent of GNP of which the share spent on active labour market programmes was about 25 per cent. The study investigates the displacement effects of active labour market programmes in the youth labour market in Finland. The two age groups analysed are 15-19-year-olds and 20-24-year-olds. The results, based on a VAR analysis of quarterly data from the period 1981.1-1995.2, suggest that the displacement effects of job-creation programmes may be substantial. The study cannot, however, provide any robust estimates of the likely size of such displacement effects on youth employment in Finland. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Interaction Between Efficiency Wage Theories and Labour Turnover Costs

We develop a simple model to illustrate how the effects of turnover costs on wages can be reinforced by an efficiency wage effect. The insider–outsider theory explains why labour turnover costs allow the insiders to earn higher wages than outsiders. According to the efficiency wage theory, higher wages enhance the insiders' productivity. Therefore, the costs of replacing an insider by a low–paid, low–productivity outsider are increased, which allows the insiders to raise their wages further. Again, higher wages increase insiders' productivity, which allows them to earn still higher wages, and so on. Thus, the existence of a link between effort and wages can reinforce the effects of labour turnover costs on wages.     

县级政府财政差距及差距因素分解——基于七省的实证分析

利用GE指数和基尼系数测度出我国7个省份所有县级政府2000—2005年的地区财政差距,这种整体差距可以分解为组内差距和组间差距、省内差距和省间差距。其差距因素分析表明,省内县级政府的财政差距不容忽视,税收返还扩大了县级政府财政差距,一般性转移支付、原体制转移支付和专项补助缩小了县级政府的财政差距。