A new look at the benefits of diversification: lessons from Central America

Recent trends of export diversification in Central America may lower foreign exchange earnings instability there. Four countries–Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala–are analysed across a twenty-year period. The paper uses United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics to explain why Costa Rica and Honduras have enjoyed greater earnings stability in recent years, despite the fact that Honduras has not greatly diversified its export products and markets. Despite the growth of new agricultural and manufacturing goods, traditional primary products still dominate the countries' export portfolios. Specific products within each of the four broad product category groups contribute to the varied country outcomes. Summary statistics from the United Nations (panel) data suggest newer agricultural exports have not stabilized Guatemalan and Salvadoran export earnings, while Honduras has enjoyed relatively stable banana export revenues and Costa Rica has benefited from the smooth flow of microelectronic products. Further panel data regression analysis shows country size and intangible country effects also explain parts of the detrended earnings deviation in addition to product base and level of diversification.     

Jobs specialization versus unemployment: more on the productivity effect of unemployment benefits

We use the Marimon and Zilibotti (Econ J 109: 266–291, 1999) circle model and we endogenize the choice of the degree of specialization of jobs. We show that an increase in unemployment benefits not only reduces the mismatch of talents (as in Marimon and Zilibotti), but it also raises the degree of specialization of jobs. This reinforces the productivity enhancing effects of unemployment benefits.      

The role of unemployment in wage determination: further evidence on the wage curve from Turkey

This paper presents an empirical estimation of the correlation between wages and regional unemployment rates in Turkey, more specifically it explores the role of regional unemployment rates in wage determination. The analysis builds upon a series of recent empirical studies on the wage-unemployment relationship, now commonly known as ‘the wage curve’, a downward sloping curve in wage-unemployment space. The existing studies are for most part in advanced market economies, while this paper presents one of the few attempts at a wage curve analysis within the context of a developing market economy. A cross-sectional estimation of micro level individual wage data for the Turkish labour market in 1994, suggest a statistically significant negative correlation between wages and regional unemployment rates. Separate regressions for men and women, however, show a wage curve to exist only in the male labour market. The study also presents the results on other variables of wage determination such as returns to schooling, returns to age, job tenure, gender, industrial and occupational affiliation of the worker, economic sector and union status.     

Closing the gap: The employment and unemployment effects of minimum wage policy in Puerto Rico

This paper examines the dynamic effect of minimum wage policy on employment and unemployment using multivariate time series techniques. The particular minimum wage policy being considered occurred in Puerto Rico in 1974 when it was decided to close the minimum wage gap between the island and the United States incrementally by 1980. Multivariate transfer functions are specified with the intent of distinguishing between minimum wage policy effects and structural changes brought about by the post-1974 recessions. The results suggest that minimum wage policy gave rise to more significant unemployment than disemployment effects. The pattern of labor mobility supports that suggested by the development literature in which labor flows from uncovered to covered sectors. However, given the structure of welfare programs on the island, it is likely that flows from the covered to the non-market sector also took place.     

The effects of age and unemployment percentage on the duration of unemployment: Evidence from aggregate data

In this paper models for the duration of unemployment are estimated using aggregate data on incomplete unemployment spells. In particular the elasticities of the probability of leaving unemployment with respect to age and unemployment percentage are estimated. Special attention is paid to the time dependence of the re-employment probability and to the effect of omitted regressors. Because models are fitted for male and female unemployed separately, these groups can be compared. We find that their position on the labour market is different.     

Minimum wage,on-the-job search and employment: On the sectoral and aggregate equilibrium effect of the mandatory minimum wage

We study the impact of a minimum wage in a segmented labor market in which workers are at different stages of their careers. At the end of a learning-by-doing period, workers paid the minimum wage quit “bad jobs” for better-paying “good jobs”, following an on-the-job search process with endogenous search intensity. A rise in the minimum wage reduces “bad jobs” creation and prompts workers to keep their “bad jobs” by reducing on-the-job search intensity. The ambiguous impact on unqualified employment replicates and explains the findings of several empirical studies. However, a minimum wage rise reduces overall employment and output.     

Import competition,employment and wage in US manufacturing: new evidence from multivariate panel cointegration analysis

This paper examines whether employment and wages in the US manufacturing sector exhibit any long-run relationship with import competition. The results based on a multivariate panel cointegration analysis of observations on 12 two-digit SIC manufacturing industries over the period from the third quarter of 1982 to the fourth quarter of 1992 indicate that US manufacturing employment does not bear a long-run relationship with import competition but manufacturing wage does. While the long-run correlation between import price and manufacturing wage is found to be sector sensitive panel estimation reveals a highly significant negative correlation between import price and manufacturing wage.     

Bounds analysis of competing risks: a non-parametric evaluation of the effect of unemployment benefits on migration

By reexamining the effect of unemployment benefits on reemployment probabilities we make two contributions to the literature: first, we estimate separate effects for reemployment in the local or a distant region. Second, we address the problem of incomplete duration within a competing risks model. Our results confirm that missing data problems at first preclude any meaningful result even though we have access to daily individual data on 50 % of the male workforce in Germany. When we impose additional assumptions, we obtain evidence that the treatment effect depends on the household context, the treatment intensity and the destination state.     

Reopening the convergence debate: A new look at cross-country growth empirics

There are two sources of inconsistency in existing cross-country empirical work on growth: correlated individual effects and endogenous explanatory variables. We estimate a variety of cross-country growth regressions using a generalized method of moments estimator that eliminates both problems. In one application, we find that per capita incomes converge to their steady-state levels at a rate of approximately 10 percent per year. This result stands in sharp contrast to the current consensus, which places the convergence rate at 2 percent. We discuss the theoretical implications of this finding. In another application, we perform a test of the Solow model. Again, contrary to prior reults, we reject both the standard and the augmented version of the model.     

The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate

This paper introduces a new argument into the theoretical literature on labor market effects of changes in working hours and labor force participation. We advance a general equilibrium model in which increased labor supply reduces unskilled unemployment via consumer demand: longer work hours and higher labor force participation imply higher incomes and less (leisure) time. In consequence, home production is reduced in favor of outsourcing domestic tasks to the market, shifting consumer demand toward unskill-intensive goods. Relative demand for unskilled labor rises and unemployment falls.     

The effect of minimum wage on firm markup: Evidence from China

Our paper examines the impact of minimum wage on firm markup in China. We find that minimum wage generates a positive effect on firm markup. More value-enhancing innovative activities, TFP improvement, and efficient labor resource allocation are the potential channels. Further, the positive influence of minimum wage is more pronounced for privately-owned firms, for firms with higher labor intensity and firms with less financial constraints. Besides, these findings are generally robust to different estimation methods. Our results provide new insights into understanding the channels through which labor regulation may cause the change of markup for the emerging markets countries.     

The impact of benefits on unemployment in Britain in the interwar period: Some further empirical evidence

Smyth's (1983) model of the labor market is modified to allow for real wage rather than money wage adjustment. The results reported by Smyth are robust with respect to this change in specification.     

Wages,selectivity, and vacancies: Evaluating the short-term and long-term impact of the minimum wage on unemployment

Using a circular matching model (Marimon R, Zilibotti F. Unemployment vs. mismatch of talents: Reconsidering unemployment benefits. Economic Journal 1999;109; 266–291), where the wage setting is similar to Weiss (Weiss A. Job queues and layoffs in labor markets with flexible wages. Journal of Political Economy 1980; 88; 526–538), we reexamine Card and Krueger's (Card, D., Krueger, A. Myth and Measurement, the New Economics of the Minimum Wage. Princeton University Press; 1995) intuition on the impact of the minimum wage on unemployment. In the short term, a rise in the minimum wage increases the employment level by making firms less selective. In the long term, numerical simulations show that, despite the reduction of job creation, introducing a minimum wage may lower unemployment as soon as workers and jobs are sufficiently differentiated. However, beyond some limit, the wage increase raises unemployment whatever the degree of differentiation is.