Wage inflation and labour conflicts in the Netherlands : An empirical investigation using the co-integration approach

The ‘wage space’, which is defined as the sum of price inflation and labour productivity growth, has played a major role as an indicator of allowable wage increases in the post-war wage negotiations in the Netherlands. This paper shows that: (a) wages and the wage space are co-integrated; (b) the deviation between wages and the wage space may act as an error correction term in the wage equation when both variables are identified as I(2); and (c) political consensus and the threat of labour conflicts (rather than actual strike activity) may be identified as the ‘mechanism’ behind this error correction in the wage equation.     

An iteration process for calculating labour market flows

This article presents a technique for calculating labour market flows, given labour market stocks of workers and nonemployed agents at the beginning and at the end of a certain period of time. I build a system of equations that define the stocks as a product of the flows. For a vector of stocks Y and a vector of flows X, the system of equations is defined as Y = A*X. However, the system is not solvable (the flows cannot be identified) due to singularity of the matrix A. I suggest an iteration process that enables us to solve the system and identify the flows given a chosen negligible deviation from the true flows.     

Employers' recruitment behaviour and vacancy duration: an empirical analysis for the Dutch labour market

The functioning of labour markets from a demand-side perspective is examined. In particular, the determinants of vacancy duration are studied in the context of a model of employers' search behaviour. A model for the choice of the recruitment strategy at the start of the search process and the corresponding recruitment duration is developed in which allowance is made for different patterns of duration dependence for each recruitment strategy. This model is applied to data on employers' search behaviour in the Dutch labour market. It is found that employers prefer advertisements as the first recruitment channel when applicants are required to have work experience. Moreover, employers prefer to start searching via the labour exchange office when jobs in the secondary segment of the labour market have to be filled. It is also found that - when advertisements are used as the first recruitment strategy - employers need some time to acquire a pool of applicants and to select candidates from this pool. It is interesting as a contrast that applicants seem to be evaluated rather quickly if employers start searching via informal contacts.     

Temporary employment and segmentation in the Spanish labour market: An empirical analysis through the study of wage differentials

We aim to add empirical evidence to the already studied field of wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers in Spain. Our goal is to find out which determinants of wage differentials are relevant when explaining such differences. Furthermore, the endogeneity of such feature (the type of contract) is controlled for. The same exercise is done with two data sets: the ECHP and the Structure of Earnings Survey. Results show that wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers are explained by the differences in the distribution of personal and job characteristics in both groups, but not by differences in the rewards for those characteristics. These results remain mostly unchanged during the second part of the 1990s, using information from five waves of the ECHP, and are robust to different changes in the econometric specification.JEL Classification: J31, J41The authors would like to thank the participants in the 3rd Summer School of Labour Economics (organised by IZA in Amersee, Munich), in a seminar in the University of Alcalá and in another seminar in the European University Institute in Florence and especially Alison Booth, Luis Toharia, Juan F. Jimeno, Juan José Dolado and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. Florentino Felgueroso kindly helped us with the handling of data. The usual disclaimer applies. The ECHP is being used on behalf of the contract reference ECHP/15/00 between the University of Alcalá and EUROSTAT.     

Literacy and labour market outcomes: self-assessment versus test score measures

This paper looks at the determinants of literacy and the relation between literacy and labour market outcomes while focusing on comparisons of self-assessment versus test score measures of literacy. The test score measure performs considerably better than the self-assessments when literacy is treated as an outcome variable in terms of the overall fit of the model and the specific coefficient estimates, with the self-assessments sometimes actually generating wrongly signed parameters. The test score measure also performs much better as an explanatory variable in the employment models, with the self-assessment variable generating significant underestimates of the effects of literacy on the probability of being employed. Finally, the test score is also superior in the income models, although the self-assessment measure is at least a reasonably good performer in this regard, suggesting that the main results reported in much of the existing literature (based on such measures) should perhaps be taken as good representations of the true underlying relationships.     

Filling vacancies: an empirical analysis of the cost and benefit of search in the labour market

This paper investigates empirically the factors that affect the cost–benefit ratio of employers’ search. The empirical analysis is based on a small Dutch data set containing individual information on filled vacancies. It is found that firms that use advertisements during recruitment are sensitive to labour market conditions; their search cost per applicant rises (drops) in tight (slack) labour markets because of the diminished ability of advertisements to generate applicants in tight labour markets. Furthermore, it is found that the high search cost incurred by posting identical vacancies is more than compensated for by the benefits from having a larger flow of applicants.     

The market for labour in Israel

Using annual observations for 1960–89, a complete economic model of the Israel labour market is estimated in which the demand for labour varies inversely with real wages, participation varies directly with the real wages and real wages are explained by a phillips curve in which the natural rate of unemployment is a variable. The model suggests that while wages are far from flexible, unemployment shocks die away fairly rapidly. we were unable to model the behaviour of public sector pay and employment.     

An explorative empirical analysis of the influence of labour flows on wage formation

This study presents an explorative econometric analysis of the influence of labour market flows on wage formation. It applies the vector cointegration and common trends methodology of Johansen (Likelihood-based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregresssive Models, OUP, Oxford, 1995). According to this approach, a combination of the flow of layoffs (flow from employment to unemployment) and the flow of filled vacancies (successful matches) appears to be an adequate alternative to the unemployment rate as indicator of labour market tightness in the wage equation for The Netherlands.     

中国房地产市场非有效性:理论与实证

本文以国外房地产市场非有效性的研究为经验背景,首先从理论上对房地产市场非有效性的形成机理做出探讨,继而基于中国房地产市场发展实践,对其房地产市场非有效性进行检验.认为:经过二十多年的发展,中国房地产市场仍然是一个非有效的市场,房地产价格对信息的反映程度很低,且房地产市场存在超额利润,表现在房地产价格与价值存在一定程度的背离.     

信息对波动性的影响：基于上海股市的实证检验

股票市场上的信息通过改变交易者的预期，使股票价格发生变化，从而对波动性产生影响。本文以上海股票市场为例，选择合适的ARCH族模型检验了市场上每一天的所有信息对市场波动性总的影响。研究结果表明，不论是基于总样本还是各个子样本，信息对市场波动性均有统计上显著的影响。但是，在各个子样本期间，信息对波动性的影响是有差异的。在早期实行严格的涨跌幅限制期间，信息对波动性影响的持续时间较短，不存在波动性的非对称效应，即“好消息”与“坏消息”对波动性的影响没有显著差异。而在放开涨跌幅限制和重新实施＋-10％的涨跌幅限制期间，信息对波动性的影响会持续相当长的时间，而且出现集中而强烈的新信息冲击的概率很大。但是前者仍然不存在波动性的非对称效应，后者却存在“杠杆效应”，即“坏消息”比“好消息”更能增加市场波动性。     

An empirical note on Euro market interest rates,domestic interest rates and the expectations theory of the term structure

An empirical analysis of recent monthly data for 8 currencies indicates that the performance of the expectations theory to explain the short term maturity spectrum of Euro interest rates is rather good in most cases and that it is not related to the degree of integration of Euro and domestic markets.     

Offshoring, labour market institutions and the elasticity of labour demand

This paper analyses the evolution of the elasticity of labour demand and the possible role of offshoring therein using industry-level data for a large number of OECD countries. The first main finding is that the wage elasticity of labour demand has increased substantially since 1980, although some of this increase may reflect a trend increase in the speed of adjustment rather than an increase in the long-run wage elasticity. The evidence on the potential contribution of offshoring to raising labour demand elasticity is mixed. No association is found between increases in offshoring and demand elasticity during the second half of the 1990s, but there is a significant cross-sectional association between higher average offshoring intensity during this period and higher demand elasticity. We also find some evidence that strict employment protection legislation weakens the cross-sectional association between offshoring and higher labour demand elasticity, suggesting that the relationship between offshoring and the labour demand elasticity may depend on the national institutional environment.     

Caste discrimination in the Indian urban labour market: An econometric analysis

This paper uses Degree Holders and Technical Personnel Survey of India to examine the wage gap between Non-Scheduled Castes/Tribes(NSC) and Scheduled Castes/Tribes(SC/ST). Separate wage equations, corrected for selection bias, are estimated for NSC and SC/ST. The parameter estimates of the wage equations were decomposed into ‘endowment’ and ‘treatment’ components using the familiar Oaxaca Decomposition Method. A separate account was also made to analyze the interaction between occupational attainment and the wage differential using the extended decomposition method. The main conclusion from the econometric results are: (a) the endowment difference is higher and discrimination causes 15 per cent lower wages for SC/ST as compared to NSC; (b) the discrimination coefficient is negative in the public sector whereas it is positive in the private sector; (c) intraoccupational wage effects dominate. The higher endowment difference in developing countries like India implies that the pre-market discriminatory practice with respect to education, health and nutrition are more crucial than labour market discrimination. (JEL: J3)     

Risk and regulation: An empirical test of the relationship

The relationship of the variance of rates of return and estimates of systematic risk to the nature of the regulatory paradigm is examined for Bank Holding Companies in Australia. Strong evidence is found to support the hypothesis that shareholder risk is negatively related to the intensity of regulation.     

And the winner is... An empirical evaluation of unitary and collective labour supply models

An empirical evaluation is presented of two competing flexible labour supply models. The first is a standard unitary model, while the second is based on the collective approach to household behaviour. The evaluation focuses on the testing of the model’s? theoretical implications and on their ability to identify structural information, like preferences and the intrahousehold allocation process. Models are applied to Dutch microdata from the DNB Household Survey. The unitary model cannot be rejected for male and female singles, while it is rejected for a sample of couples. The alternative collective model cannot be rejected for the same sample, allowing identification of individual preferences and an intrahousehold sharing rule that can be used as a basis for welfare economic policy evaluations.     

关于中国铝期货市场套期保值绩效的实证研究

套期保值是企业利用期货市场进行风险控制的重要过程。利用金融衍生产品进行风险管理的关键问题是确定套期保值比率。通过对中国沪铝期货套期保值绩效的实证研究发现基于DVECH-GARCH的动态套期保值比基于OLS的静态套期保值避险效果好。选择一定的套保模型进行对冲交易,铝加工企业能够有效地分散铝现货的市场风险,稳定企业生产经营。     

Weight discrimination in the German labour market

We explore the effects of higher body mass index (BMI) or obesity on different labour market outcomes. We extend the present literature by investigating the effect of obesity on (i) promotion likelihood and (ii) unemployment duration, in addition to the effect on (iii) wages and (iv) probability of being employed. We find an obesity penalty on wages, employment likelihood, promotion likelihood and unemployment duration among females in Germany taking into account of endogeneity of BMI and sample selection. We are also able to identify an unexplained effect of obesity on wages, employment and promotion likelihood for females using decomposition techniques that can be attributed to weight discrimination.