What Have We Learned about the Employment Effects of Severance Pay? Further Iterations of Lazear Et al.

In this study we examine the effect of severance pay on employment and unemployment, using data on industrialized OECD countries. Our starting point is Lazear’s [(1990) Quarterly Journal of Economics 105, 699–726] dictum that severance payment requirements unfavorably impact the labor market. We extend his sample period and add to his parsimonious specification a variety of fixed and time-varying labor market institutions. While the positive effect of severance pay on unemployment garners some support, there is no real indication of adverse effects in respect of the other employment outcomes identified here, namely, the employment-population ratio, the labor force participation rate, and long-term unemployment. Moreover, with the possible exception of collective bargaining coordination, the role of institutions is also more muted than suggested in the literature. We thank, without implicating, an anonymous referee for most helpful comments on the first draft of this paper.     

Another look at mass migration and unions in Western Europe

The paper analyses implications of unions' strategy for employment in western European countries that are baffled with mass migration of unskilled workers from neighboring poor countries. Unions' strategy in this paper includes bargaining for non-wage benefits together with monetary compensation for workers. It is shown that unions' strategy generates employment, raises the ratio of skilled to unskilled workers and raises national income. This suggests that even when migration acts as a competitive fringe, instead of using controversial migration policy as a covert anti-union tool, policy makers should encourage this type of bargaining which will have both economically and politically favorable effects.     

Does consumption respond to predicted increases in cash-hand availability?: Evidence from the Italian “severance pay”

We examine whether Italian household consumption exhibits excess sensitivity to “severance pay”, a sizable lump-sum that workers receive at job termination. We find no evidence of excess sensitivity of non-durable expenditure to this anticipated cash-in-hand change.     

论降低缴费率对养老金给付的影响——基于现收现付制度的视角

在现收现付制中,当前养老金缴费的减少对养老金的给付不一定有消极的影响。由于养老金的给付水平取决于资本份额的分配和跨主观贴现因子,利用简化的戴蒙德的叠代模型证明,当生产资本权重较高和主观贴现因子较低时,当前年轻一代缴费率的减少会提高养老金的给付水平。     

Severance Pay and Corporate Finance: Empirical Evidence from a Panel of Austrian and Italian Firms

This paper examines the empirical link between severance pay and corporate finance. Severance pay is an economic debt of the employer and hence should be taken into account by the market in its assessments of risk. Using a hand-collected dataset of accounting data from Italy and Austria we find there is only a limited relationship between severance pay and market risk indicators. This suggests that arguments that severance pay systems destroy corporate value may need to be reassessed.     

The contribution of minimum wage valorization policy to the decline in household income inequality in Brazil: A decomposition approach

There is a vast literature that estimates the effect of the minimum wage on wage inequality in various countries. However, as the minimum wage directly affects nonlabor income of families in some countries (in the Brazilian case via the benefits of the pension system and of certain social programs), this article extends the empirical analysis by studying the effects of the minimum wage on the level of inequality of household income as a whole. To accomplish that we employ a decomposition method that gauges the contribution of the increases in the minimum wage that occurred in recent decades in Brazil through the labor and nonlabor sources of household income. The results show that the minimum wage had a contribution of 64 percent to the observed fall in income inequality between 1995 and 2014 and that pensions were the most relevant channel over this period.     

刍议中国劳动力价格与经济增长路径转变

改革开放以来,中国经济取得了令世人瞩目的成就,与此同时,经济运行中不和谐的因素也日益增加.投资和消费的比例关系失衡,表现为投资率偏高而消费率偏低.从劳动者收入入手研究投资、消费比例问题,在研究中国劳动力价格的现状后得出结论:相对于居民生活密切相关的粮价、油价、水电费、通讯费、教育费、医疗费来说,中国劳动力价格太低,因此,提高劳动力价格,增加其收入才是破解投资消费失衡的"密钥",也是促进中国经济从依赖投资的增长方式向依靠消费拉动经济增长方式的增长路径转变的"治本之道".     

Valuing the Arsenic Contamination of Groundwater in Bangladesh

The use of groundwater in Bangladesh has in the past been promoted as a means of avoiding waterborne diseases associated with the consumption of untreated surface water. Unfortunately, the recent discovery of high levels of naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater in Bangladesh used for drinking purposes has led one international agency to describe the situation as a major public health emergency. Arsenic ingestion is associated with an elevated risk of various cancers. Epidemiological dose–response functions combined with survey estimates of arsenic concentrations in groundwater, and the number of households in Bangladesh relying on groundwater for drinking are used to derive an estimate of annual mortality and morbidity cases attributable to arsenic contamination. The estimated health impacts include 6500 fatal cancers and 2000 non-fatal cancers. Aggregate willingness to pay to avoid these health impacts is estimated to be $2.7 billion annually using purchasing power parity exchange rates. The methodology and results presented in this paper may have application to other countries.     

农民工大量占用城市公共资源了吗——基于上海市1 446个调查样本的实证分析

基于上海市1 446份农民工调查样本,应用描述性统计分析方法,从公共交通、医疗卫生、子女教育以及文化娱乐等方面,对农民工占用城市公共资源情况做了实证分析。研究发现,大量涌入城市的农民工确实占用了部分城市公共资源或公共服务,但这种占用是有限的,农民工并没有大量占有或公平享有城市的公共资源或公共服务。因此,完善制度设计,逐步实现农民工较公平、充分的享有城市公共资源,对于从根本上解决中国农民工“候鸟式”迁移以及城镇化战略的实现,都具有重要意义。     

Notional defined contribution pension schemes: why does only Sweden distribute the survivor dividend?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of the survivor dividend in notional defined contribution (NDC) pension schemes. At present, this feature can only be found in the Swedish defined contribution scheme. We develop a model that endorses the idea that the survivor dividend has a strong basis for enabling the NDC scheme to achieve financial equilibrium and that not including the dividend is a non-transparent way of compensating for increases in longevity and/or legacy costs from old pension systems. We also find that the average effect of the dividend remains unchanged for any constant annual rate of population growth, that contributors who reach retirement age always get a higher return than the scheme does, and that population growth enables cohorts with more years of contributions to benefit to a greater extent from the dividend effect.     

How Much is Transfer and How Much is Insurance in a Pay‐as‐you‐go System? The German Case

Pay-as-you-go pension systems provide insurance against longevity-related old-age poverty and related risks. They are commonly also used as instruments for redistribution. This paper provides several estimates of the insurance and transfer share of the German public pension system. Estimating these shares is important because they are indicative of taxation-related deadweight losses and influence public acceptance of the pension system. We also disentangle intragenerational from intergenerational transfers. Although our estimate of intragenerational transfers is smaller than recent semi-official estimations, such transfers create substantial deadweight losses. Intergenerational transfers are much larger, thereby contributing to strong negative participation incentives for the younger generation.
JEL classification : H 55; J 26