Racialization and Rescaling: Post‐Katrina Rebuilding and the Louisiana Road Home Program

This article examines the interlocking nature of racialization and rescaling in post‐Katrina New Orleans, focusing specifically on the implementation of the Louisiana Road Home program, the largest housing recovery program in US history. Based on interviews and long‐term ethnographic fieldwork, I conceptualize the Road Home program as a racialized spatial strategy to revalorize disaster‐devastated spaces and enhance the exchangeability of damaged property. I trace the logic of rescaling in post‐Katrina New Orleans and reveal the ways in which state policies to accelerate the turnover time of flood‐damaged housing reflect and reinforce the racialization of space. New Orleans stands as a valuable laboratory for the study of government intervention under conditions of widespread upscaling, downscaling and outscaling processes, pushing trends found elsewhere to their limits while revealing the negative consequences of rescaling for local institutions and residents. The article illustrates the localized dynamics of rescaling in times of crisis and offers a novel processual account of the drivers and consequences of rescaling processes in a disaster‐impacted territory.     

The British Home Stores pension scheme: privatised looting?

On entering administration, British Home Stores owed its pension scheme £571 million—a significant employment relations issue of historical wage theft by investor–owner managers. The article locates ‘lawful’ looting of business assets in a framework that builds on Ackerlof and Romer's theory of bankruptcy for profit and connects this to an empirical narrative on business re‐structuring at British Home Stores towards administration.     

How do workers decide their jobs? The influence of income,wage and job characteristics

This paper provides results on the economic decision‐making process of Spanish workers, who decide their jobs from the effects of variations in the non‐wage income, the wage and the prices of non‐pecuniary job characteristics. To that end, we formulate a non‐separable generalization of the Linear Expenditure System (NLES) as a joint model of labor supply and job characteristics demand, estimated separately for both males and females, using a 1991 Spanish survey. The main results show that: (i) some job characteristics have a positive effect on the wage, whereas others have a negative effect; (ii) the average percentage effect of employer size and the complexity index are higher for males than for females, with the fatal accident risk displaying similar values; (iii) if the non‐wage income of every worker increases, these individuals will prefer to devote less hours to work, and will also prefer jobs in smaller companies and with a lower risk; and (iv) if the wage and hedonic prices of non‐pecuniary job characteristics increase, then both males and females will prefer to reduce their labor supply, and devote their available time to jobs in bigger firms, with a higher risk and complexity. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flexibility bites back: the multiple and hidden costs of flexible employment policies

Flexible labour markets are increasingly regarded as the answer to a wide spectrum of labour market and societal challenges from creating jobs to reducing segmentation and welfare dependency, improving public finances and supporting workforce diversity and innovation. The contention is that, contrary to these claims, flexible labour markets generate fundamental contradictions and unsustainable long‐term trends. The jobs miracle is exaggerated and based on low productivity jobs, outsiders often lose most from competition, claimants must work flexibly but still secure a full‐time wage, low‐wage employment is shrinking the fiscal base, jobs are not being adjusted to accommodate workers' changing needs and capacities and the disposable labour model is undermining long‐term productivity.     

The Significance of the Living Wage for US Workers in the Early Twenty-First Century

This article provides an introduction to the importance of the living wage for low-wage workers in the United States. Described as a wage based on an estimation of the official poverty threshold for a family of four, the living wage, as an alternative to the minimum wage, is based on the notion that people working at full-time jobs, and their families, should not have to live in poverty. After discussing the emergence and growth of living wage campaigns in the United States, this essay discusses the coverage and provisions of living wage statutes, the economic effects of living wage ordinances as well as additional benefits provided to workers and unions from living wage statute implementation. The article concludes that due to the current economic conditions in the United States, the struggle to attain a living wage will become increasingly relevant in the coming years.     

The making of the German minimum wage: a case study of institutional change

In the more recent dualistic theories, Germany is cited as an example of a less solidaristic equilibrium, in which ‘producer coalitions’ between core workforces supposedly unaffected by deregulation and their employers prevented the introduction of a minimum wage. The present article shows that such an equilibrium never existed. Core workforces are being threatened by the outsourcing of jobs to the low‐wage sector. This threat created the breeding ground for a joint campaign by manufacturing and service unions for a minimum wage, which made it possible to amalgamate the unions' considerable resources at company level, their strength being derived from the German system of codetermination. Under pressure from the manufacturing unions in particular, the arrangements for the minimum wage follow, as far as possible, the traditions of free collective bargaining. As a result, the social partners in Germany have a considerably stronger influence on the minimum wage than those in the UK.     

Youth minimum wage reform and the labour market in New Zealand

This paper analyses the effects of a large reform in the minimum wages affecting youth workers in New Zealand since 2001. Prior to this reform, a youth minimum wage, applying to 16–19 year-olds, was set at 60% of the adult minimum. The reform had two components. First, it lowered the eligible age for the adult minimum wage from 20 to 18 years, and resulted in a 69% increase in the minimum wage for 18 and 19 year-olds. Second, the reform raised the youth minimum wage in two annual steps from 60% to 80% of the adult minimum, and resulted in a 41% increase in the minimum wage for 16 and 17 year-olds over a two-year period. We estimate the impact of this reform by comparing average outcomes for these two groups of teenagers, before and after the change, to those for 20–25 year-olds, who were unaffected by the reform. We find no evidence of adverse effects on youth employment immediately following the reform, but some weak evidence of employment loss by 2003. We also find evidence of a 10–20% increase in hours worked following the reform for employed 16–17 year-olds, and up to a 10% increase for employed 18–19 year-olds, depending on the specification adopted. Combined, wage, hours, and employment changes lead to significant increases in labour earnings and total income of teenagers relative to young adults. However, we also find evidence of a decline in educational enrolment, and an increase in unemployment, inactivity, and benefit receipt rates, suggesting that while the minimum wage reform increased the labour supply of teenagers, this increase was not matched by as large an increase in employment.     

Voting with a Hand on the Bible and Not on the Wallet: The 1996 Video Poker Referendum in Louisiana

Abstract . The 1996 gambling referendum in Louisiana provided a unique opportunity to study voters' preferences. At the time of the referendum, video poker machines legally operated in all of Louisiana's 64 parishes (counties). Video poker was voted down in 31 parishes and retained in 33 parishes. Voters also allowed the New Orleans land‐based casino and 15 riverboat casinos to continue their operations. The extant horse racing and pari‐mutuel betting were not voted on. We examine the economic, demographic, and religious factors that influenced how people voted on the issue of legalized video poker. This study is of interest because in recent years, legalized gambling has been expanding around the world. We know of no other referendum on gambling that covered an area as large as an entire U.S. state—all of Louisiana—and offered voters control over gambling in their locality. Months before the 1996 referendum, the news media suggested several factors that might determine the outcome of the vote. The media concluded that concern over jobs would be the major influence on the outcome. Other important factors included a campaign against gambling by Southern Baptist churches and the simultaneous national presidential election. We investigate whether these factors, along with demographic factors such as age and education, influenced the results of the gambling referendum. Surprisingly, we found no clear evidence that the economic health of a parish or the preexisting size of its gambling industry determined the vote. The presence of Southern Baptists in a parish increased the likelihood that gambling would be voted down. Democratic voters tended to vote for gambling, as did black voters. Age and education levels of voters did not appear to influence their votes on gambling. Voters in parishes that bordered other states were more likely to retain gambling. Overall, it appeared that personal values were more important in determining voter behavior than financial considerations. People were voting with their hearts, not their pocketbooks.     

Returns to Skills and the Distribution of Wages: Spain 1995–2010

In contrast to the pattern observed in other developed countries, the Spanish wage distribution compressed between 1995 and 2006 and became more disperse afterwards, so that in 2010 wage inequality was roughly similar to 1995. In this paper, we analyze the role of supply and demand factors when accounting for these facts. We start by decomposing observed wage changes into changes in the composition of the labour force and changes in the returns of workers' and jobs' characteristics. The results indicate that the compression of the wage distribution between 1995 and 2006 is largely explained by changes in returns, and particularly, by a decrease in the returns to education. We show that both the increase in the supply of high‐skilled workers and the increasing weight of low‐skilled occupations are related to the decreasing trend in the skill premium over this period. In contrast, the widening of the wage distribution after 2006 is largely explained by an increase in the relative demand for high‐skilled workers generating an increase in the school premium.     

Supply of skilled labour and organizational change

The paper develops a model where the structure of organizations is a choice variable for firms and depends on conditions in the labour market. It shows that an increase in the supply of skilled labour may lead firms to adopt organizations with less hierarchical levels. This organizational change increases firms' demand for skilled agents and qualitatively modifies their jobs (i.e. the set of tasks assigned to skilled employees) thus increasing the skilled wage premium.     

The interrelated dynamics of unemployment and low‐wage employment

This paper examines the extent of state dependence in unemployment and the role played in this by intervening low‐wage employment. A range of dynamic random and fixed‐effects estimators are compared. Low‐wage employment is found to have almost as large an adverse effect as unemployment on future prospects and the difference in their effects is found to be insignificant. Evidence is presented that low‐wage jobs act as the main conduit for repeat unemployment and considerably increases its probability. Obtaining a higher‐wage job reduces the increased risk of repeat unemployment to insignificance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of minimum wages on wages,work and poverty in Nicaragua

In this paper we use an individual- and household-level panel data set to study the impact of changes in legal minimum wages on a host of labor market outcomes including: a) wages and employment, b) transitions of workers across jobs (in the covered and uncovered sectors) and employment status (unemployment and out of the labor force), and c) transitions into and out of poverty. We find that changes in the legal minimum wage affect only those workers whose initial wage (before the change in minimum wages) is close to the minimum. For example, increases in the legal minimum wage lead to significant increases in the wages and decreases in employment of private covered sector workers who have wages within 20% of the minimum wage before the change, but have no significant impact on wages in other parts of the distribution. The estimates from the employment transition equations suggest that the decrease in covered private sector employment is due to a combination of layoffs and reductions in hiring. Most workers who lose their jobs in the covered private sector as a result of higher legal minimum wages leave the labor force or go into unpaid family work; a smaller proportion find work in the public sector. We find no evidence that these workers become unemployed.Our analysis of the relationship between the minimum wage and household income finds: a) increases in legal minimum wages increase the probability that a poor worker's family will move out of poverty, and b) increases in legal minimum wages are more likely to reduce the incidence of poverty and improve the transition from poor to non-poor if they impact the head of the household rather than the non-head; this is because the head of the household is less likely than a non-head to lose his/her covered sector employment due to a minimum wage increase and because those heads that do lose covered sector employment are more likely to go to another paying job than are non-heads (who are more likely to go into unpaid family work or leave the labor force).     

Should managerial delegation contracts be made before or after union wage setting? A game‐theoretic analysis

This paper analyzes a multiple‐stage game in which, at the final stage, two (managerial) firms compete over quantities in the product market. Prior to this stage, firm‐specific unions set the workers' wages, while the owners of both firms hire managers and provide them with incentive contracts. Owners can freely decide to arrange the managerial contract before or after the (non‐managerial) wage determination stage. Hence, the endogenous choice of the incentive contract stage is derived. The possibility of multiple equilibria arises, where both owners choose managerial contracts before or after unions' wage setting, crucially depending on unions' preferences. Such results also prove to be true for a remarkable degree of asymmetry in preferences over wages vis‐à‐vis employment across unions.     

Within Occupation Wage Dispersion and the Task Content of Jobs

Most analyses linking task content of jobs to income inequality focus on the effects between occupations, e.g. the growing dispersion between lousy and lovely jobs. The theory, meanwhile, provides insights on links between task content of jobs and inequality also within occupations: models predict compression of wages in more routine jobs, that is those where capital is a direct substitute for labour, and an increase in dispersion in jobs where capital and labour are complements. I document that within occupations dispersion of wages is empirically relevant, as it represents around half of total wage inequality across Europe. I then link wage inequality to the task content of jobs. Using matched employee–employer data from Europe for the period 2002–14, I show that occupations where tasks complement newer technologies exhibit higher wage dispersion. This relationship is robust to adjusting for a variety of confounding and mitigating channels.     

Blame the baby boomers for depressed wage growth

• ? While ‘blame’ may sound harsh, the reality is that in an ageing society, the over‐60s accounting for a bigger share of the workforce equals lower wage growth. This is particularly pertinent for the eurozone right now with the baby boomer generation entering the last phase of their working life. Our analysis shows that the very sizeable over‐60 cohort is depressing aggregate wage growth by up to 0.3 ppts annually. That may also help explain why inflation is still subdued .
• ? European policy makers are scratching their heads about why wage growth has not picked up in line with economic growth over the past two years. For the ECB this is relevant as it tries to understand why inflation remains low. While much of the debate centres around unemployment and the Phillips curve, this article looks at the impact of an ageing society on wage growth.
• ? Even though this is more of a structural, rather than a cyclical, perspective, it is particularly important for the eurozone economies right now, because the large post‐World War II baby boomer generation is strongly pushing up the elderly share of employment (measured as those aged 60 and above). As the share of the over 60s in total employment grows, so does their weight in aggregate wage growth.
• ? The crucial point is that wages increase with age, but at a decreasing rate, and stay essentially flat above 55. The main reasons are that the elderly invest much less in continued education and are less inclined to switch to better‐paying jobs.
• ? Our analysis shows how substantial the negative impact of an ageing workforce is on wage growth in the eurozone. By simulating an alternative demographic scenario, we estimate that wage growth in 2015–17 would have been 0.3 ppts per year higher had it not been for the ageing baby‐boomers. Similarly, forecasts for 2018–20 not accounting for the baby‐boomers may overstate wage growth by some 0.2 ppts or more annually.

     

Embedded entrepreneurs and post-disaster community recovery

Entrepreneurs can and do play an important role in promoting community recovery after disasters. Research, however, has not adequately explored the behavior and practices of post-disaster entrepreneurs or acknowledged the role of entrepreneurs in overall disaster recovery. We attempt to fill this gap by highlighting the behavior and practices of entrepreneurs who contribute to recovery, specifically, we argue that post-disaster entrepreneurs: (a) supply needed resources to disaster victims, (b) leverage social capital to navigate extreme uncertainty, (c) are motivated by high place attachment, and (d) exhibit both commercial and social goals. They are able to successfully perform these functions because of the embedded nature of entrepreneurship. We offer evidence based on fieldwork conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina and following the tornadoes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri.     

Inter-city wage differentials and intra-city workplace centralization

We explore the interaction of inter-city and intra-city wage differentials by occupation. The paper makes two main contributions. 1) We construct an occupation-specific index of workplace centralization that accounts for the difference between average employment density from the perspective of employees in each occupation and average employment density from the perspective of all employees. 2) We provide empirical evidence that relative wages of central to non-central occupations increase with city size, or equivalently, the elasticity of wages with respect to city size increases with occupational centrality. We conjecture that this empirical regularity arises because, as city size increases, workers in more central occupations face an increasingly less desirable locus of housing prices and commuting times relative to workers who have jobs in residential areas. The results are robust to the inclusion of individual-specific human capital variables and city-specific fixed effects.     

Skill: the solution to low wage work?

During the UK Labour government's 13 years in power, raising skill levels was seen as the principal mechanism to improve the position of workers stuck in low wage jobs. This article draws together research undertaken in low wage sectors to question the assumptions that underlay Labour's approach to low pay.     

City of talents? Berlin's regional economy,socio‐spatial fabric and ‘worst practice’ urban governance

Berlin's reinstatement as the capital of Germany has raised great expectations of its transformation into a major economic centre of the European urban system. However, the city has not been able to fulfil these expectations. Today, Berlin is being hit by a financial crisis with dramatic consequences for the city's future development prospects. This article outlines the main outcomes of Berlin's socio‐economic restructuring in the 1990s: a tremendous loss of jobs in traditional industries has contributed to rising unemployment and the spread of urban poverty. The city has been a prime playground for speculative real estate investment, which has left behind a huge amount of unoccupied office space. On the other hand, new islands of economic growth have been developing in Berlin, particularly in knowledge‐intensive economic activities and the media industry. This development is related to the city's functioning as a highly attractive living place for the ‘creative class’ in Germany. At the same time, the city is an outstanding example of ‘worst practice’ urban governance, which has led to a financial crisis with truly catastrophic effects. The current financial consolidation policy may damage the prospects of Berlin's few growth sectors in the field of knowledge‐intensive economic activities. Le rétablissement de Berlin en capitale de l'Allemagne a suscité d'énormes attentes quant à sa transformation en centre économique majeur du réseau urbain européen, espoirs qui se sont révélés vains. Aujourd'hui, Berlin est frappée par une crise financière aux conséquences dramatiques pour les perspectives de développement de la ville. Cet article présente les principaux aboutissements de la restructuration socio‐économique de la capitale dans les années 1990: une terrible déperdition d'emplois dans les industries traditionnelles a nourri une progression du chômage et de la pauvreté urbaine; devenue terrain de jeu privilégié des spéculateurs immobiliers, la ville compte désormais une multitude d'espaces de bureaux inoccupés. En revanche, ont éclos des îlots de croissance économique, notamment dans les médias et les domaines où le savoir est important. Cette évolution tient au fonctionnement de la capitale comme lieu de vie particulièrement attrayant pour les ‘créatifs’ en Allemagne. Parallèlement, la ville constitue un remarquable cas de ‘pire pratique’ de gouvernance urbaine ayant amené une crise financière aux effets réellement catastrophiques; pour finir, la politique de consolidation financière actuelle va peut‐être entraver l'avenir des rares secteurs berlinois en expansion dans les sphères d'activités économiques demandeuses de savoir.     

The strategic use of contingent workers in Hong Kong's economic upheaval

This research examines strategy in the use and purposes of contingent employment in four retail firms under different economic conditions in Hong Kong. Data from in‐depth qualitative case studies found that the four firms – three Japanese and one British – had different organisational responses to the economic conditions caused by the increase of sales before the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the shrinkage of sales afterwards. One such response concerned the companies' employment policies, especially in their use of contingent workers. Some tended to have an ad hoc opportunistic approach to the use of contingent workers, while others were more strategic and incorporate long‐term planning in their labour utilisation strategy. Implications are drawn relating to companies' use of contingent employment to changes in the contextual environment regarding their long‐term development.