Gender discrimination in China: Experimental evidence from the job market for college graduates

This paper examines employment-related gender discrimination during the initial stages of a hiring process. It specifically focuses on recent college graduates in China. By examining firms’ responses to fictitious resumes with randomly generated information on gender and other key attributes of applicants (e.g., school reputation, student's academic achievement, and leadership experiences), this study is able to separate the effect of gender on a student's potential for getting an on-site interview from the confounding effects of other factors. The findings reveal that, with all other factors remaining constant, female applicants, on average, are less likely to be invited by hiring firms to on-site interviews as compared with their male counterparts. Furthermore, gender discrimination in computer and mathematics, architecture and engineering, and sales occupations appears to be driving the results of this study. The qualitative evidence based on interviews with firm recruiters suggests that the findings of this study are generally consistent with the role congruity theory of prejudice in psychology literature. While the finding that the quality of a job candidate (academic achievement and leadership experience) does not reduce gender discrimination offers some evidence to support a taste-based discrimination view, we do not have enough evidence to support a statistical discrimination view.     

Discrimination Against Migrant Job Applicants in Austria: An Experimental Study

This paper presents the results of an experimental study that examined the employment opportunities of Austrians with and without a migration background when applying for job openings. Previous experiments used applicants’ names as indicators for different ethnicities, but this signal may not always be perceived as intended by the experimenters. In this study, a novel approach was applied that signals ethnic background using carefully matched photos as distinct visual cues. While the results document employment discrimination against all groups with a migration background, it is most pronounced for applicants with African heritage. To determine why and when discrimination occurs, an array of firm‐ and job‐specific characteristics were examined. However, they offer little help in explaining the level of employment discrimination in Austria.     

Race in relation to bank depositors and mortgage applications

Data associated with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) are often studied for evidence of discrimination in terms of minority applicants or for home location in minority neighborhoods, with mixed results. The present analysis utilizes a data set covering 2014–2016, combining characteristics of home location and applicants from the HMDA data with information on depositor characteristics from the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation's Summary of Deposits data and the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Consistent with predictions from the red-lining literature, loan acceptance rates are adversely influenced by high minority locations, although the effect is larger for minority applicants. The relationship banking literature predicts that community banks will yield higher rates of loan acceptance, and the results support that hypothesis. That same literature suggests that familiarity in terms of similar race/ethnicity characteristics for depositors and home location or loan applicants will yield a loan acceptance advantage; and that hypothesis is not supported. Subsidiary analyses suggest that market competition improves loan acceptance rates for minority applicants, consistent with models of discrimination. Additionally, minority depositors are associated positively with loan acceptance rates, which may reflect higher levels of bank risk, and a risk premium, in those markets.     

Discrimination and Job Quality: the youth labour market in the 1980s

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which discrimination early in one's career can have lasting effects on job quality even after the discrimination itself disappears. The results show that for young workers in the 1980s, discrimination is a short run phenomenon, and furthermore, the effects disappear relatively quickly. This research makes two contributions to the existing empirical literature on labour market discrimination. First, we broaden the measure of discrimination beyond wages by utilizing the Duncan Index of job quality to measure differences in labour market outcomes. Second, most empirical work has been concentrated on the effects of discrimination at a point in time using cross-sectional data. We develop a dynamic model to measure changes in job quality over time as workers gain experience over their first three years in the permanent labour market. From the results found in our empirical work, we are able to analyze the long run impact of initial discrimination. In other words, our methodology allows us to examine time dependent effects that are not observed in cross-sectional studies.     

DIRECTED SEARCH WITH PHANTOM VACANCIES

When vacancies are filled, the job ads often remain, creating phantom vacancies. Older listings more likely represent phantoms. We assume job seekers direct their search based on listing age. Forming a match with an age-a vacancy creates an age-a phantom with probability β and generates an externality affecting vacancies aged a and older. Thus, the externality decreases with the match's listing age. Relative to efficient behavior, job seekers overapply to younger listings. We calibrate using U.S. data. The contribution of phantoms to inefficiency is large, but, given their existence, the planner cannot improve much on the directed search allocation.     

Worker Absenteeism in Search Equilibrium*

In this paper we introduce a general equilibrium model of search unemployment that incorporates absence from work as a distinct labor force state. Absenteeism is driven by random shocks to the value of leisure that are private information to the workers. Firms maximize profits while recognizing that the compensation package may affect the queue of job applicants and the absence rate. The analysis provides results concerning the effects of social insurance benefits and other determinants of workers' and firms' behavior. The normative analysis identifies externalities associated with firm‐provided sick pay and examines the welfare implications of alternative policies.     

Job search and unemployment insurance: New evidence from time use data

This paper provides new evidence on job search intensity of the unemployed in the U.S., modeling job search intensity as time allocated to job search activities. The major findings are: 1) the average U.S. unemployed worker devotes about 41 min to job search on weekdays, which is substantially more than their European counterparts; 2) workers who expect to be recalled by their previous employer search substantially less than the average unemployed worker; 3) across the 50 states and D.C., job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits, with an elasticity between ?1.6 and ?2.2; 4) job search intensity for those eligible for Unemployment Insurance (UI) increases prior to benefit exhaustion; and 5) time devoted to job search is fairly constant regardless of unemployment duration for those who are ineligible for UI.     

Consumer stated purchasing preferences and corporate social responsibility in the wood products industry: A conjoint analysis in the U.S. and China

The impacts of disclosed level of corporate social responsibility (CSR), domestic versus imported origin and type of construction on consumers' stated wood product purchasing preferences were examined in the U.S. and China. Hierarchical logit models based on a Bayesian framework were utilized to test the magnitude and statistical significance of each wood product attribute using survey data. Results indicate that U.S. and Chinese respondents: (a) were more likely to choose products from manufacturing companies with a higher level of CSR rating compared with an unknown one; (b) preferred domestically manufactured wood products compared to imported ones; and (c) expressed higher interest in wood products made of solid wood compared with composites. In terms of demographics, respondents' higher education levels corresponded with higher preferences for products from companies with the highest (five-star) CSR rating in the U.S. Statistically-significant income effects were detected only in the Chinese sample when respondents indicated their purchasing preferences for wood products with three-star or five-star CSR levels. Implications for improving wood products companies' managerial performance and suggestions for future studies are provided.     

DIRECTED SEARCH ON THE JOB AND THE WAGE LADDER*

We model a labor market where employed workers search on the job and firms direct workers' search using wage offers and employment probabilities. Applicants observe all offers and face a trade‐off between wage and employment probability. There is wage dispersion among workers, even though all workers and jobs are homogeneous. Equilibrium wages form a ladder, as workers optimally choose to climb the ladder one rung at a time. This is because low‐wage applicants are relatively more sensitive to employment probability than to wage and thus forgo the opportunity to apply for a high wage, with a lower chance of success.     

What is the right profile for getting a job? A stated choice experiment of the recruitment process

We study the recruitment behaviour of Swedish employers using data from a stated choice experiment. In the experiment, the employers are first asked to describe an employee who recently and voluntarily left the firm and then to choose between two hypothetical applicants to invite to a job interview or to hire as a replacement for their previous employee. The two applicants differ with respect to characteristics such as gender, age, education, work experience, ethnicity, religious beliefs, family situation, weight, and health, but otherwise have similar characteristics as the previous employee. Our results show that employers prefer not to recruit applicants who are old, non-European, Muslim, Jewish, obese, have several children, or have a history of sickness absence. We also calculate the reduction in wage costs needed to make employers indifferent between applicants with and without these characteristics, and find that wage costs would have to be reduced by up to 50 % for applicants with some characteristics.     

Wage posting without full commitment

Wage posting models of job search typically assume that firms can commit to paying workers exactly the posted wage. We relax this assumption and impose “downward” commitment; firms can commit only to paying at least their advertised wage. As each firm can only commit to pay at least their advertised wage, workers may demand that the firm pay more than the advertised wage. In labor markets with a finite number of workers and firms, the strategic interaction between firms makes it costly for firms to provide applicants the incentive not to demand wages in excess of the advertised wage. In equilibrium, firms may settle for running job auctions at the cost of losing control of the number of applicants that they can attract. When this strategic interaction between firms vanishes, workers never choose to demand more than the advertised wage.     

Trademark Protection or Protectionism?*

This paper explores the extent to which discrimination against foreign applicants in the trademark registration process can be used as a “behind‐the‐border” barrier to imports. Prima‐facie evidence shows that in some developing countries the ratio of trademark registrations to applications is much higher for national than for foreign applicants, which is consistent with the notion of discrimination against foreign firms. A simple model is developed that suggests that incentives to discriminate are stronger when foreign firms manufacture products that are close in quality to the goods produced by domestic firms. This hypothesis is then tested and empirically confirmed in three of the four countries in our sample, suggesting that discretion and discrimination in the trademark registration process can sometimes be used as a protectionist tool.     

U.S. Welfare Reform: What's Relevant for Europe?

This paper reviews the U.S. welfare reform efforts over the1990s and the effects of these reforms to date. Seven "lessons"of potential interest to European observers are discussed, withparticular attention to the conclusions of more recent research.Such research indicates, for example, that more effective programscontain both positive and negative incentives, utilise work-firstas well as job training programs, and provide some importantsupports beyond just job and work skills. The paper ends withsome speculations about why European policy-makers are becomingmore interested in U.S. welfare reform experiments than theyhave been in the past. (JEL I3, J2, H1)     

ESTABLISHMENT DYNAMICS,VACANCIES, AND UNEMPLOYMENT: A NEOCLASSICAL APPROACH

This article introduces and analyzes a Walrasian model of worker flows, job flows, vacancies, and unemployment. Calibrating the model to U.S. data, the article finds that all variables comove with output quite well but that they fluctuate too little. However, the failure is not as bad as in “Shimer's puzzle.” Interestingly, the article also finds that introducing establishment dynamics into the model, while realistic, is irrelevant for understanding unemployment and vacancy fluctuations: The business cycles of the model with establishment dynamics are virtually the same as those of a version with a representative firm.     

The Effect Of Statistical Discrimination On Black–White Wage Inequality: Estimating A Model With Multiple Equilibria*

This article presents the structural estimation of the parameters of a statistical discrimination model. Although the model is capable of displaying multiple equilibria, an estimation strategy that identifies both the model parameters and the equilibrium selected by the economic agents is developed and empirically implemented. A comparison between the selected equilibria and the other potential equilibria reveals that the decline in wage inequality experienced in the U.S. economy cannot be attributed to changes in the equilibrium selection. Nonetheless, a counterfactual experiment shows that in a color‐blind society blacks' wage would have been on average more than 20% higher.     

Impact of the economic downturn on nursing schools

The challenges posed by the economic downturn on baccalaureate nursing schools in the southeast as it relates to their perceptions of changes in the number of applicants, acceptance rates, employer recruitment efforts, and student clinical and job placement were explored. Responses from deans and program directors indicated nursing schools are experiencing negative effects of the economic downturn in the form of graduates having difficulty finding employment, decreased recruitment efforts from prospective employers, difficulty locating clinical placements for students, and no change in faculty applicants despite an increase in undergraduate student applicants as well as graduate student applicants. These multiple factors combined could signal the death knell for programs that are ill-prepared to deal with such a crisis. Programs need to be aggressive in their efforts to draw health care recruiters as well as qualified faculty applicants to their campuses. Nursing schools must be able to clearly show why their graduates are superior to other programs' graduates when competing for both highly qualified faculty applicants and prospective student employers.     

War versus peace: does military officer quality adjust?

In this study, we demonstrate the quantity–quality trade-off between the size of the U.S. military force and the quality of its junior military leaders. We employ a difference-in-differences methodology and compare measures of job performance before and after to show that in periods of military force expansion, the average quality of U.S. Marine officers decline; the converse holds in times of relative peace. This has implications for both military effectiveness and understanding labour market dynamics.     

Vacancy durations - a model for employer's search

This paper investigates a Dutch data set on vacancy durations and numbers of applicants to enquire employers' search strategies. A nonsequential search process assumes that most vacancies are filled from a pool of applicants, which is formed shortly after the posting of the vacancy. The time spent on recruiting applicants and the duration of the selection process are estimated with a proportional hazard model, via the arrival and attrition rates of applicants.     

Understanding the recent Sino-U.S. trade conflict

ABSTRACT

To understand Sino-U.S. trade relations, this article interprets the trade imbalance between China and the United States from the Trump administration’s perspective. The Trump administration claims that the Chinese government’s subsidies and high import tariffs cause the Sino-U.S. trade deficit, resulting in job losses in the U.S. The Trump administration therefore argues that imposing high tariffs on Chinese exports can resolve the deficit. The article finds that U.S. statistical accounting overestimates the deficit. Reducing China’s imports cannot increase U.S. employment, and China provides the United States with low-price and high-quality products. Chinese investors tend to invest the surplus by purchasing U.S. Treasury bonds. In addition, the United States limits Chinese investments due to ‘national security’ concerns. China’s upgrading to the high end of the global value chain is a consequence of economic development. Therefore, the two countries should rebalance Sino-U.S. trade by seeking economic and trade cooperation via trade negotiations.     

Gender Differences in Recruitment Outcomes

The paper tests the hypothesis that female applicants have a lower probability of being hired from a pool of applicants than their male counterparts. The results indicate that male and female candidates have about the same probability of being hired independently of the type of vacancy. The probability of hiring a candidate of a certain sex is therefore determined by the gender composition of the pool of applicants who have selected themselves on the basis of job characteristics, hiring standards and the type of sector. This indicates that male and female job-seekers select themselves in such a way that they have equal probabilities of being accepted.