Reinterpreting the performance of immigrant wages from panel data

Immigrants differ from the native born in terms of unobserved factors, such as motivation, and observed factors, including those related to the interruption of labour market activity and earning capacity, which may bias estimates of immigrant integration. Using panel data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, we show that using potential experience, rather than actual experience, exaggerates estimates of the disruption and recovery caused by immigration. More importantly, we find support for omitted variables bias, arising from unobserved fixed effects. Instrumental variable estimates for both pooled and separate samples of immigrant and native born men demonstrate a wage disadvantage for immigrants upon entry that persists through their lifetime. Standard estimates of a modest wage advantage for the children of immigrants also suffer from omitted variables bias arising from unobservables. Contrary to most of the literature to date, our instrumental variable estimates which allow for unobservable fixed effects suggest that immigrants never catch up to otherwise comparable native born workers, but their children do just as well. We would like to thank Statistics Canada for permitting access to the data and solving associated technical problems, the Prairier Centre for Research on Immigration and Integration for financial assistance, and Peter Schnabl for excellent research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 10th International Conference on Panel Data in Berlin, July 5–6, 2002. The authors take sole responsibility for errors, omissions and interpretation of the data.     

最低工资标准的就业效应研究--基于30个省际面板数据的实证分析

通过构建一个由最低工资标准等因素共同决定的劳动力就业函数,从理论层面分析最低工资标准提升等因素对城镇劳动力就业的影响。同时基于中国2004_2011年的省际面板数据,引入技术进步、城镇化、老年抚养比等指标,运用面板分位数回归方法进行实证分析。综合比较来看：现阶段最低工资标准提升与城镇劳动力就业呈显著正相关关系,而技术进步对城镇劳动力就业的影响不能一概而论,具有不确定性。其他控制变量如城镇化发展有利于提高城镇劳动力就业,而老年抚养比、对外开放度的提高却与城镇劳动力就业呈负相关关系。其对策含义为：要充分考虑相关因素对劳动力就业的冲击,理清不同地区、不同企业类型以及不同性别可能存在的有差异的劳动力就业效应,主张通过就业政策和劳动力市场制度的进一步完善,实现劳动力更加充分的就业。     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Vladimir Gimpelson and Douglas Lippoldt, The Russian Labor Market. Between Transition and Turmoil
G.A. Cornia and R. Paniccià, The Mortality Crisis in Transitional Economies
Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Vladimir Popov, (eds.) Transition and Institutions: The Experience of Gradual and Late Reformers
Peter Murrell, (ed.) Assessing the Value of Law in Transition Economies
Michael Schröeder, (ed.) The New Capital Markets in Central and Eastern Europe     

Are low-skill public sector workers really overpaid? A quasi-differenced panel data analysis

Public–private sectoral wage differentials have been studied extensively using quantile regression techniques. These typically find large public sector premiums at the bottom of the wage distribution. This may imply that low skill workers are ‘overpaid’, prompting concerns over efficiency. We note several other potential explanations for this result and explicitly test whether the premium varies with skill, using Australian data. We use a quasi-differenced Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel data model which has not been previously applied to this topic, internationally. Unlike other available methods, this technique identifies sectoral differences in returns to unobserved skill. It also facilitates a decomposition of the wage gap into components explained by differences in returns to all (observed and unobserved) skills and by differences in their stock. We find no evidence to suggest that the premium varies with skill. One interpretation is that the compressed wage profile of the public sector induces the best workers (on unobserved skills) to join the public sector in low wage occupations, vice versa in high wage occupations. We also estimate the average public sector premium to be 6% for women and statistically insignificant (4%) for men.     

Employer-supported training in Canada and its impact on mobility and wages

Using information on job histories and on two training questions contained in Statistics Canada's Follow-Up to the School Leavers Survey, this paper seeks to answer three basic questions: 1) what are the characteristics of the trainees?; 2) Does the receipt of employer-supported training cause an increase in the wage paid to those young workers?; and 3) Does it improve the degree of job attachment?; I find that more educated young people are somewhat more likely to be trained than high school dropouts although there is strong evidence of selectivity as employers clearly seem to support training for those that have the most “favorable” characteristics. Also, controlling for unobserved individual characteristics, I find that training has a sizeable wage impact for men while the effect is much more modest for women. Finally, results using Chamberlain (1985) fixed-effects hazard model show that the conditional probability of the employment relationship being terminated decreases substantially for trainees, which is consistent with the notion that the skills learned by trainees may have a sizeable firm-specific component. First version received: October 2000/Final version received: February 2002  I would like to thank Nathalie Viennot-Briot for excellent research assistance, as well as Claude Montmarquette and an anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions. Financial support from Human Resources Development Canada is gratefully acknowledged.     

The (small) blessing of foreign aid: further evidence on aid’s impact on democracy

In an empirical contribution to the literature of foreign aid, we estimate the impact of foreign aid on democracy in a panel of 93 developing economies during 1971–2010. We find that foreign aid promotes democracy, with the result robust to different estimation methodologies and control variables and to instrumenting for foreign aid.     

Does homeownership promote wealth accumulation?

It is well known that homeowners are richer than renters, even after controlling for observable household characteristics. This is often used as an argument for policies that foster homeownership. However, the causal link between homeownership and wealth is difficult to establish due to many potential sources of endogeneity. Utilizing the Household Finance and Consumption Survey for the Euro area, we correct for endogeneity by using inheriting the household’ s main residence as an instrument. The exclusion restriction is that conditional on the total amount of inheritance, inheriting a home affects the wealth position of the household only through homeownership. For the sample of inheritors we find that the local average treatment effect for households that inherit a home and stay homeowners is negative. Owning a home reduces riches due to sizable reductions in the net holdings of financial and other real wealth of the treated households.