从“工荒”看企业的根植性

企业根植性理论提供了一个联系企业内部和外部的视角。劳动密集型企业对“无限供给”的劳动力市场的依赖表现为企业内部制度的某种缺陷,即中国劳动密集型企业不像科斯等所言,要与雇员签定较为长期稳定的劳动合同。一旦外部环境发生了变化,即劳动力市场出现了不确定性,内部制度的缺陷就会暴露出来,于是出现了“工荒”。企业外部环境对企业内部制度产生重要影响,这是企业根植性的又一具体表现。构建劳动力市场三方机制是经济社会发展的必然要求。     

Chasing the carrot – actual working hours of fixed-term employees

Fixed-term contracts can serve as a screening device to reveal the true ability of workers. To achieve promotion to a permanent position, fixed-term employees have an incentive to prove themselves by providing higher effort than competing co-workers by means of longer working hours. Applying fixed effects estimation to the German register data, we find that employees work longer hours on fixed-term contracts. This effect is stronger for labour market entrants and employees that are newly hired. We further show that actual hours of work are particularly large when there is competition among co-workers to receive promotion to a permanent position.     

The condition of the Turking class: Are online employers fair and honest?

Critics of online labor markets claim that employer abuses are endemic in these markets. Surveying a sample of workers, I find that, on average, workers perceive online employers to be slightly fairer and more honest than offline employers.     

THE ESTIMATION OF THE INCIDENCE OF EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIAL SECURITY IN JAPAN*

The present paper estimates the incidence of the employer portion of social security contributions in Japan. One of the purposes of the paper is to examine whether the employer portion is shifted entirely or partly in many industrialized countries. The paper concludes, based on our estimation method, that there is very little apparent backwards shifting on to employees and, therefore, employers bear nearly all of their portion of social security contributions. Firms in Japan could use their contributions to social security for other purposes to reduce the financial burden on firms.     

Why the incidence of shirking varies across employers

Existing models of shirking are not consistent with the underlying behavior of employers and employees. In these models, either shirking does not occur in equilibrium or it may occur but the offending employee is immediately dismissed. These conclusions conflict with evidence that shirking is sometimes ignored by firms for many years. To resolve this conflict, the author models the interaction between employer and employees as a finite repeated game, and introduces the quasi-fixed costs of dismissing and replacing an employee. Shirking is distinguished from more serious malfeasant behavior by the criterion of imposing current period costs on the employer that are less than the cost of dismissing and replacing a shirking employee. When both the employer and the employees are rational and there are no informational asymmetries, shirking is not deterred by threat of dismissal. Introducing informational asymmetries leads to an equilibrium where shirking is deterred, to a great extent, by the dismissal threat. Comparative static analysis of the model yields testable implications on the incidence of shirking across firms, and contributes to our understanding of other labor market issues.     

The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity*

In this paper, we investigate how social comparison information about referent others (i.e., learning what similar others do, and how they are treated) affects reciprocal relationships. Using three‐person gift‐exchange games, we study how employees’ reciprocity towards an employer is affected by pay comparison information (what co‐workers earn) and effort comparison information (how co‐workers perform). We find strong evidence of the effects of effort comparison: employees are more willing to reciprocate by choosing high effort in response to a high wage if they observe others doing so. In our setting, we find somewhat weaker evidence of the effects of pay comparison.     

The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate

This paper introduces a new argument into the theoretical literature on labor market effects of changes in working hours and labor force participation. We advance a general equilibrium model in which increased labor supply reduces unskilled unemployment via consumer demand: longer work hours and higher labor force participation imply higher incomes and less (leisure) time. In consequence, home production is reduced in favor of outsourcing domestic tasks to the market, shifting consumer demand toward unskill-intensive goods. Relative demand for unskilled labor rises and unemployment falls.     

DYNAMIC CONTRACTS WITH WORKER MOBILITY VIA DIRECTED ON‐THE‐JOB SEARCH

This article proposes a model with dynamic incentive contracts and on‐the‐job search in a frictional labor market. The optimal long‐term contract exhibits an increasing wage–tenure profile. With increasing wages, worker effort also increases with tenure. These two features imply that the probabilities of both voluntary and involuntary job separation decrease with both job tenure and the duration of employment. Given these results, workers experience differing labor market transitions—between employment, unemployment, and across different employers—and the equilibrium generates endogenous heterogeneity among ex ante homogeneous workers.     

Recruitment channel use and applicant arrival: An empirical analysis

This paper focuses on the recruitment behaviour of firms at the extensive margin; we empirically explore the relationship between employer search strategies and the number of applicants by means of (reduced form) two-equations simultaneous models. The empirical analysis is carried out on a rich micro data set on Dutch employer recruitment behaviour. Our empirical analysis reveals that the economic conditions prevailing on the labour market influence employer search activity at the extensive margin. In particular, we see that in tight (slack) labour markets characterised by excess demand (supply) of labour, the flow of applicants is smaller (larger). Employers react to the shortage (excess) of applicants by using more (less) often advertisements. This recruitment channel appears to trigger a significantly larger flow of applicants. First version received: December 1997/Final version received: June 2000     

Your employment brand: is it working for or against you?

The ability to attract and retain hard-to-find professionals is vitally connected to the perceptions of your organization both internally and externally. Many organizations confuse their employment brand with branding and all too often put considerable effort and often scarce resources against ineffective initiatives. Most health care organizations do not consistently allocate the necessary resources needed to build and sustain a strong employer brand. The relationship between employers and employees to and among each other and the values you strive for collectively are the cornerstones of your employment brand. It is imperative for nurse leaders to create and sustain an environment where employees are inherently positive and connected to their organization.     

Working Time and the Impact of Policy Institutions: Reforming the Overtime Hours Law and Regulation

This paper analyzes implications for worker well-being if legislation in the U.S. Congress is passed permitting employers and non-supervisory employees who agree to substitute future compensatory time off in lieu of premium pay for overtime work, calculated over an 80-hour two-week standard. The impact on worker welfare is predicted applying augmented worker utility and employer demand for hours functions. Plausible inter-temporal scenarios suggest that unless workers gain more control over the timing of their overtime and comp time hours, they are likely to experience a net loss in welfare. This will occur to the extent employers use the new overtime regulation to vary work hours and schedules more closely with fluctuations in output demand as opposed to better customizing work hours to fit workers' needs to balance work with competing demands on their time, that is, adopting a short rather than longer-run time horizon regarding the restraint of labor costs. Alternative policies are more likely to raise welfare.     

Golden cages for showy birds: Optimal switching costs in labor contracts

Under what circumstances do workers sign contracts with high quitting penalties? Our answer points to market transparency. When the worker's performance is privately observed by the incumbent firm, alternative employers face an adverse selection problem. As a result, efficient separations can only take place through involuntary layoffs and there is no role for quitting fees. In contrast, when performance is public, quitting fees are useful devices to appropriate the surplus from workers’ reallocation. Separations are amicable and take the form of quitting after downwardly renegotiating the fees. Qualitative features of contracts are independent of the distribution of ex-post bargaining power. The impact of switching costs on total welfare and its distribution depends on the degree of market transparency and the ex-ante distribution of market power.     

Termination of dynamic contracts in an equilibrium labor market model

In an equilibrium model of the labor market, workers and firms enter into dynamic contracts that can potentially last forever, but are subject to optimal terminations. Upon termination, the firm hires a new worker, and the worker who is terminated receives a termination contract from the firm and is then free to go back to the labor market to seek new employment opportunities and enter into new dynamic contracts. The model permits only two types of equilibrium terminations that resemble, respectively, the two kinds of labor market separations that are typically observed in practice: involuntary layoffs and voluntary retirements. The model allows for the simultaneous determination of a large set of important labor market variables including equilibrium unemployment and labor force participation. An algorithm is formulated for computing the model's equilibria. I then simulate the model to show quantitatively that the model is consistent with a set of important stylized facts of the labor market.     

关于我国企业职工权益保护状况的调研报告

由于全球劳工形势和企业所有制结构的不利变化以及我国劳动力市场供过于求和供需结构性矛盾等因素的影响,目前我国企业职工享有的权益处于较低水平,企业职工权益保护状况呈现出层次性、差异性和复杂性.强化企业职工权益保护,应构建适应社会主义市场经济本质要求的新型劳动关系,明确劳动者权益保护的基本原则,进一步完善我国的劳动法律体系,健全劳动者权益保护的有效机制,充分发挥政府主导作用和工会、雇主组织的积极作用,平衡劳资双方的力量与权益.     

Demand disruption and coordination of supply chain via effort and revenue sharing

This article explores the equilibrium behaviour of a basic supplier–retailer distribution channel under demand disruption via effort and revenue sharing contract. This differs from the traditional supply chain coordination model. Firstly, demand is simultaneously affected by retail price and nonprice marketing effort from manufacturers and retailers. Secondly, when the demand is disrupted, this article considers disruptions in the market scale and price sensitivity coefficient. Thirdly, the supply chain coordination model is proposed via effort and revenue sharing contract. In this way, the manufacturer reduces the wholesale price as an incentive for the retailer to share revenue. Finally, the total supply chain profit is greater with contract than no contract. This also constitutes another incentive for the players to follow the effort and revenue sharing contract.     

Job search and academic achievement

The paper develops a structural model for the labor market behavior of students entering the labor market. We explicitly model the trade-off between devoting effort to studying and to job search. Furthermore, we allow for on-the-job search. The model is estimated using a unique data set of individuals who completed undergraduate education in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2001. Our estimation results show that labor market returns of high grades are low. Wage increases between jobs are explained by labor market friction rather than returns of early work experience. Our results indicate that a 1 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate increases wage offers on average by 3 percent, but that the amount of job search effort is not very sensitive to business cycle fluctuations. Policy simulations show that study effort and hence academic achievement are much more sensitive to financial incentives than job search effort and labor market outcomes.     

Multinational firms,acquisitions and job tasks

We revisit the question how inward FDI and multinational ownership affect relative labor demand. Motivated by the recent literature that distinguish between skills and tasks, we argue that the impact of multinational and foreign ownership on the demand for labor is better captured by focusing on job tasks rather than education. We use Swedish matched employer–employee data and find that changes of local firms to both foreign and Swedish multinationals increase the relative demand for non-routine and interactive job tasks in the targeted local firms. Hence, in a high-income country, both inward and outward FDI have a task upgrading impact on local firms. The effect is primarily driven by wage effects leading to increased wage dispersion for workers with different non-routine and interactive task intensity. We also show that the effect is not the same as skill upgrading since dividing employees by educational attainment does not capture changes in the relative labor demand. Hence, our results suggest a new aspect of the labor market consequences of FDI.     

Inequity Aversion and Team Incentives

We study optimal contracts in a simple model where employees are averse to inequity, as modeled by Fehr and Schmidt (1999) . A "selfish" employer can profitably exploit envy or guilt by offering contracts which create inequity off-equilibrium, i.e., when employees do not meet his demands. Such contracts resemble team and relative performance contracts. We derive conditions for inequity aversion to be in itself a reason to form work teams of distributionally concerned employees, even in situations in which effort is contractible.     

The estimation of a disequilibrium real wage equation for Britain

An aggregate wage equation is formulated based on a disequilibrium labor market model. The specification allows for an important special case to be tested, namely the equilibrium hypothesis that real wages move instantaneously to equate the demand for and supply of labor. The hypothesis that the British labor market has been in equilibrium is rejected. The adjustment path for real wages is monotonic and dominated by demand factors. Real wages move quickly to eliminate excess demand but the results contradict the monetarist contention that the aggregate labor market is continuously in a temporary, if not full, equilibrium.     

市场互联性、关系型合约与经济转型

本文通过将单一市场的关系型合约推广到互联的关系型合约,刻画了社会分工程度(市场范围)与微观治理机制(基于关系型合约的治理还是基于正式合约的治理)之间的互动关系:基于何种合约来治理受市场范围的影响,市场范围越小,关系型合约越重要,正式合约越不重要;反之则反是。特别地,从这个视角看,计划经济向市场经济转型的过程,是劳动分工不断深化和市场范围不断扩大的过程,在微观治理上是一个从互联的关系型合约不断向正式合约过渡的过程。中国的渐进式改革之所以成功,很大程度上是由于渐进式改革使原来自我实施的关系型合约没有受到很大程度的破坏,在正式合约缺位时,关系型合约仍然能够维持社会经济的运行;俄罗斯的激进式改革几乎在一夜之间破坏了自我实施的关系型合约的可维持性,而短期内又不可能建立依赖正式合约的治理模式,出现了微观治理失效。本文还解释了中国经济在缺乏正式的法律和产权体系下取得骄人绩效的“悖论”,即由于关系型合约的自我实施性,因而并不需要相应的正式制度安排。本文总体上支持“后华盛顿共识”的渐进改革路径,并为其提供了动态的微观机制。