Analysis of wage differences between native and immigrant workers in Spain

This paper analyses the nature of wage differences between native and immigrant workers in Spain. By estimating separated wage equations for the sub samples of both native and non-native workers and applying the Oaxaca–Blinder method, we observe that the relative unexplained (or discriminatory) component of the wage difference has a decreasing behaviour along the most part of the wage distribution, even becoming negative at the end. So, in this paper we detect the existence of a remarkable wage difference against the group of immigrants with the lowest wages which is not explained by the differences in the productive features of both native and non-native workers. This paper has been funded by the project SEJ2004-04065/ECON. Previous versions of this article have greatly improved thanks to the comments of two anonymous referees and the Managing Editor.     

Threat of grade retention,remedial education and student achievement: evidence from upper secondary schools in Italy

We use a reform in Italy to investigate the effects on academic achievement of more stringent requirements for grade progression at secondary school. Geogr     

Effects of short sale ban on financial liquidity in crisis and non-crisis periods: a propensity score-matching approach

We investigate the impact of banning the short-selling (shorting ban) on liquidity of stocks traded in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) on the basis of the 20 revisions of the designated list of shortable stocks from January 2006 to December 2010. In order to avoid endogeneity due to the liquidity-adaptive implementation of the ban policy, we use the propensity score-matching of shortable and unshortable stocks and apply the double- and triple-difference methods embedded in the fixed effect panel regression for the matched data. Using two outcome variables for illiquidity, the Amihud price-impact measure, and the bid-ask spread, our results suggests that the shorting ban in this market may have a liquidity-supporting effect in terms of the price impact with no regard to market tranquility and in terms of the spread with regard to the 2008–2009 financial crisis.     

户籍制度改革对中国农村劳动力流动的影响

户籍制度曾经是我国劳动力流动的巨大障碍,近年对其进行的改革促进了大量永久移民的形成,这是得到公认的。但是,户籍制度改革对短期劳动力流动的影响则缺乏研究,而这也是城市化进程的重要部分。在1998年中央政府明确了严格控制大城市规模、合理发展中等城市和小城市的改革目标后,户籍制度改革是否起到了引导农村劳动力流动的作用从而为实现这一目标做出贡献,则需要用数据分析。本文对2003—2006年期间发生的大中城市户籍制度改革的效果进行检验,通过双差回归方法在户改对农村劳动力流动总量以及向大中城市而不是省会等特大城市流动的效应方面进行定量研究,发现在此期间,很少有证据显示户籍制度改革对短期劳动力流动产生了显著影响,这意味着当前的户籍制度改革在引导农民工流动方面的作用有限。另外,社会网络、农村收入增加都对农民工外出务工有显著影响。     

The impact of production offshoring on the skill composition of manufacturing firms: evidence from Italy

In this work we explore how the international outsourcing of production impacts the skill composition of employment within Italian manufacturing firms. In particular, our aim is to assess whether the choice to offshore production activities to cheap‐labour countries implies a bias in the employment of skilled workers relative to unskilled ones.

Using a balanced panel of firms covering the period 1995–2003, we set up a counterfactual analysis in which, by using a difference‐in‐differences propensity score matching estimator, we compare the dynamics of skill demand for treated and control firms while addressing the possible problem of selection bias.

Our results identify a ‘potential’ skill bias effect of production offshoring. In particular, we find that treated firms tend to show an upward shift in the skill ratio with respect to the counterfactual sample, but coefficients are not significantly different from zero. When we look at the elements of the skill ratio separately, we find that the skill bias is driven by a fall in the employment of production workers (blue collars), rather than by the increase in the employment of non‐production workers (white collars), thus providing further evidence on the unskilled labour‐saving nature of international outsourcing.     

Migration and labour markets in OECD countries: a panel cointegration approach

This article examines the interaction between immigration and the host labour market of 14 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries using nonstationary panel data methodology. We estimate a trivariate Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and derive causality tests to simultaneously assess the long- and short-term macroeconomic impact of newcomers on wages and unemployment levels in the host country. The results suggest that an increase of migrants is likely to increase wages in the destination countries in the short run but to increase them in the long run. There is no evidence of adverse effects on unemployment due to immigration in short and long-term except for Anglo-Saxon countries in the short term. Our findings also show that immigration is conditioned by levels of unemployment and wages especially in Anglo-Saxon countries.     

The impact of legislation on divorce: a hazard function approach

"The paper examines the impact of the introduction of no-fault divorce legislation in Australia. The approach used is rather novel, a hazard model of the divorce rate is estimated with the role of legislation captured via a time-varying covariate. The paper concludes that contrary to U.S. empirical evidence, no-fault divorce legislation appears to have had a positive impact upon the divorce rate in Australia."     

Length of stay and mental health of the immigrant population in Spain: evidence of the healthy immigrant effect

This article analyses the relationship between how long immigrant populations reside in the country of destination and the state of their mental health. The empirical approach to this relationship relies on data from the Spanish National Health Survey 2011–2012. The results confirm a Healthy Immigrant Effect that tends to decline in accordance with how long the immigrant stays. Immigrants who have been residing for less than 10 years in Spain have better mental health than the national population as a whole. It is important to study health disparities among the foreign population and how these evolve to ensure that it has access to health services and that its health care needs are met.     

服务型制造试点政策对企业服务绩效的影响

服务型制造是制造业转型升级高质量发展的重要方向。国家高度重视服务型制造试点工作,推动服务型制造创新发展。现有研究聚焦企业内部因素和外部市场因素对制造企业服务绩效的影响,对试点政策因素的促进作用缺乏关注。以浙江省经济和信息化厅分别于2017和2018年公布的第一、第二批服务型制造试点企业名单为基础,选取包含试点企业在内的浙江省200家具有服务特征的上市制造企业2013-2019年面板数据,通过双重差分分析,检验服务型制造试点政策对企业服务绩效存在的影响。研究发现,服务型制造试点政策的实施对制造企业服务绩效的提升具有显著正向的影响,并且理论上试点带来的企业声誉可能会进一步增强这种提升作用。此外,试点政策对服务绩效的影响存在异质性特征,其净影响随着试点政策的持续而不断加强。具体表现为从试点第一年到试点第三年,企业服务绩效提升速度逐年提高。研究结论有效验证了浙江省服务型制造试点政策实施效果,为我国服务型制造试点政策的制定、实施与改进提供了启示。     

The impact of minimum wages on employment of low‐wage workers

This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of a minimum wage increase on employment of workers in the formal sector who have wages below the minimum level in Vietnam. Using the difference‐in‐differences with propensity score matching and the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys of 2004 and 2006, the article finds that the minimum wage increase in 2005 reduced the proportion of workers having a formal sector job among low‐wage workers. Most workers who lost formal sector jobs became self‐employed.     

Time-varying effects of fiscal policy in Spain: a Markov-switching approach

How have the effects of Spanish fiscal policy varied over time? Given this starting point, in this article we analyse the regime dependence of fiscal policy in Spain by estimating a vector autoregressive model within a Markov-switching framework. Our results indicate that Spain’s membership of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is the most likely source of time variation in the fiscal outcomes. Accordingly, increases in the primary deficit-to-GDP ratio do not succeed in stimulating economic activity in the first regime; rather, unexpected upsurges in the primary deficit harm economic activity (non-Keynesian effect) in the second regime, which prevails since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.     

The impact of process innovations on firm's productivity growth: the case of Spain

The main aim of this paper is to investigate about the effect that a measure of the process innovation performance of a firm has on its labour productivity growth. This analysis is mainly a consequence of two considerations. The first one results from a clear differentiation of the role that product and process innovations have on a firm's performance. The second one is to assume that the knowledge capital of a firm is mainly composed by its successful research. The study demonstrates that process innovation has a positive and significant effect on firm's productivity growth. Moreover, this result is robust under a wide range of alternative specifications and, in any case, the variable behaves much better than R&D intensity. Following previous research, the detected quadratic relationship between vertical product differentiation and process innovation performance leads to the existence of some firms for which there exist a trade–off between quality and productivity.     

Assessing the impact of taxes on female labor supply using a finite mixture approach

This paper expands the standard analysis of female labor supply to permit preference heterogeneity by using a finite mixture model. Using the extended model, we obtain theory consistent results whereas a traditional model produces a negative substitution effect. We use our model to illustrate the labor supply effects of a tax reform, corresponding to 1983–1992 changes in the Swedish income-tax schedule. The results shows an expected reduction in tax revenues of about 17%. Finally, we use Monte Carlo simulations and show that our proposed mixture model is robust towards different misspecifications. First version received: March 1998/final version accepted: October 1999     

Socio-economic impact of a nuclear power plant: Almaraz (Spain)

An analysis is made of the socio-economic impact in a region in which a nuclear plant is decommissioned. The average age of nuclear power plants around the world is high, so that many are close to the end of their useful life. The issue of this impact will be important in a few years for various reasons, especially because those plants tend to be drivers of the economic activity in the areas in which they are located. The focus of this communication is on these socio-economic effects. Methodologically, socio-economic analysis uses a linear Social Accounting Matrix model that improves traditional Input–Output approaches by covering the induced effects generated from the receptors of income out to other sectors of the economy. The procedure is applied to an empirical analysis of the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant in Spain. This was purposely chosen as sharing many of the general characteristics of nuclear plants around the world. If the plant is closed down, our results suggest that there will be a clear negative impact in terms of employment and added value generation.     

Human capital consequences of violence in schools: Estimating the impact of violence in schools on education outcomes in Brazil

Implementation of policies to reduce the incidence of violence in schools needs a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon and its consequences for the victims, perpetrators, and witnesses alike. However, much of the existing literature either focuses on the impact of violence on victim students or studies the specific cases of violent conflicts. Using Brazilian education data, this paper examines the impact of violence in schools on educational outcomes of the schooling system and emphasizes the human capital consequences of recorded violent incidents in schools. First, the paper establishes the psychological stress–threat mechanism by which violent incidents in schools directly impact students' mathematics test scores as well as school level average of these test scores. Thereafter, the paper demonstrates the reduced learning mechanism by which violence further detriments the quality of education, albeit indirectly, by disengaging the teachers and students from their professional responsibilities. The main results are tested for robustness and policy implications are discussed.     

The determinants of cognitive and non-cognitive educational outcomes: empirical evidence in Spain using a Bayesian approach

This article aims to extend the literature about the role played by socio-economic and family background in educational outcomes by comparing the determinants of two different dimensions of educational output: academic achievement and non-cognitive traits. To do this, we explore the information provided by a self-report survey developed specifically for the purpose of this research. This will provide us with an innovative measure of non-cognitive performance based on particular personal traits, such as responsibility, effort, motivation and critical capacity, as well as a common measure of cognitive proficiency. We use a Bayesian approach to estimate the potential influence of multiple individual and family variables on both dimensions of educational output. From our results, we find that, despite some similarities, there are several important divergences with regard to some socio-economic variables that have been traditionally considered to be the most influential determinants of academic achievement which do not appear to have a significant impact on non-cognitive outcomes.     

The bank lending channel of unconventional monetary policy: The impact of the VLTROs on credit supply in Spain

We assess the impact on the credit supply to non-financial corporations of the two very long term refinancing operations (VLTROs) conducted by the Eurosystem in December 2011 and February 2012 for the case of Spain. To do so we use bank–firm level information from a sample of more than one million lending relationships during two years. Our methodology tackles three main identification challenges: (i) how to disentangle credit supply from demand; (ii) the non-random assignment of firms to banks; (iii) the endogeneity of the VLTRO bids, as banks with more deteriorated funding conditions were more likely both to ask for a large amount of funds and to restrain credit supply. Our findings suggest that the VLTROs had a positive moderate-sized effect on the supply of bank credit to firms. We also find that the effect was greater for illiquid banks and that it was driven by credit to SMEs, as there was no impact on loans to large firms. By contrast, strong firm–bank relationships were less sensitive to the positive liquidity shock caused by the VLTROs, which is consistent with the studies that find that relationship lending is a more stable source of credit than transaction lending. Finally, the VLTROs had no impact on either the degree of loan collateralisation or the probability of making loans to new borrowers, while they decreased the probability of renewing old ones, which suggests that those funds were not used for loan “evergreening”.     

The impact of bank competition and concentration on industrial growth

This paper studies whether bank competition affects growth of non-banking industries. We find that non-cooperative bank competition and stability promote industrial growth robustly. Bank concentration may also affect growth positively; the latter effect increases for higher levels of competition.     

Women Managers and The Gender-Based Gap in Access to Education: Evidence from Firm-Level Data in Developing Countries

A number of studies explore the differences in men's and women's labor market participation rates and wages. Some of these differences have been linked to gender disparities in education access and attainment. The present paper contributes to this literature by analyzing the relationship between the proclivity of a firm having a top woman manager and access to education among women relative to men in the country. The study combines the literature on women's careers in management, which has mostly focused on developed countries, with the development literature that has emphasized the importance of access to education. Using firm-level data for seventy-three developing countries in 2007–10, the study finds strong evidence that countries with a higher proportion of top women managers also have higher enrollment rates for women relative to men in primary, secondary, and tertiary education.     

Cost and learning efficiency drivers in Australian schools: a two-stage network DEA approach

This article explore performance issues in Australian public schools, using a two-stage DEA network model, which accounts simultaneously for both cost and learning efficiency levels. In the cost efficiency stage, different types of expenses and investments are employed to support a given number of students, teachers and administrative staff. In the learning efficiency stage, these groups of individuals help to produce important outputs related to performance in student tests and school rankings. Results indicate that Australian public schools are heterogeneous. Policy implications are also discussed.