COLLEGE MAJOR CHOICE AND CHANGES IN THE GENDER WAGE GAP

The distribution of college majors changed markedly between the 1970s and 1980s as fewer students completed degrees in low-skill fields such as education and letters and more graduated in high-skill fields such as engineering and business. This shift was most dramatic for females, who previously were concentrated in low-skill fields relative to those of males. This paper examines how this education-related skill upgrade, as represented by changes in the major distribution, affected the gender wage gap for college graduates during the 1980s. The results show that convergence in major distribution between males and females contributed to a decline in the gender wage gap for college graduates.     

THE IMPACT OF PERSONALITY TRAITS ON WAGE GROWTH AND THE GENDER WAGE GAP

This paper considers the impact of personality traits on the change of the gender wage gap. Using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), we first explore how personality traits affect wage growth rates. Then, a decomposition analysis is performed to analyse the dynamic effects of personality traits on the change of the gender wage gap over time. Our empirical results indicate that gender differences in conscientiousness and emotional stability lead to a widening of the wage gap over time. By contrast, gender differences in extraversion lead to a narrowing of the wage gap over time.     

THE GENDER WAGE GAP: WHAT HAS HAPPENED BETWEEN 1973 AND 1990 IN AUSTRALIA?*

The current study examines the change in the gender wage gap in Australia over the period 1973 to 1990. The Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition is used in order to evaluate the role and relative contribution of changes in observed and unobserved skills and their prices. The sensitivity of conclusions to the measure of labour market experience and industry and occupation structure are also examined. The analysis concludes that gender-specific effects are dominant in male-female wage convergence although wage-structure effects also play a minor role.     

WAGE VOLATILITY AND CHANGING PATTERNS OF LABOR SUPPLY

Over the past few decades, the skilled–unskilled hours differential for U.S. men increased when the skill premium rose sharply, in contrast with dominant income effects. Based on PSID data, we show that over the 1967–2000 period, skilled men experienced a three times larger increase in wage volatility than unskilled men. With the rise in wage volatility, our general equilibrium incomplete markets model generates a 2.7 hours increase in the hours differential whereas it increased by 1.4 hours in the data. We find that hours adjustments are important for self‐insurance in the short run, whereas precautionary savings play a crucial role eventually.     

最低工资制度能提高民营企业劳动收入占比吗

本文以民营企业要素投入行为为切入点,探讨最低工资制度对民营企业劳动收入占比的影响。基于2005-2008年和2011-2013年中国工业企业数据库民营企业面板数据的研究发现：最低工资制度提高了劳动密集型和资本密集型行业民营企业的劳动收入占比,降低了技术密集型民营企业的劳动收入占比。通过分解影响机制发现,最低工资制度提高了劳动密集型和资本密集型民营企业的工资水平,带来正向的收入效应,但也导致资本替代劳动,产生负向的替代效应。整体而言,最低工资制度提高了民营企业的劳动收入占比。为发挥最低工资制度对民营企业劳动收入占比的正向作用,继续调整最低工资标准、贯彻相关法规实施、提高劳动者技能水平成为重要措施。     

中国制造业贸易模式变迁的工资差距效应

本文利用中国制造业27个细分行业的面板数据,采用固定效应不变系数的静态面板模型,考察了我国制造业从产业间贸易向产业内贸易的变迁对行业间工资差距的影响及其传导机制。研究结果表明：（1）在制造业贸易模式的变迁中,出口扩大了行业间工资差距,而进口缩小了行业间工资差距。（2）制造业贸易模式变迁主要通过价格机制扩大了行业间的工资差距,而技术机制和个体机制的影响则不显著。     

劳动收入份额、城乡收入差距与中国居民消费

本文建立了一个包含人力资本人口分组的新古典经济增长模型,从理论上分析了劳动收入份额、收入差距与总消费三者之间的关系,然后使用1990—2008年的省际面板数据,采用动态GMM估计方法,重点检验国民收入分配结构、城乡居民收入差距以及它们的交互作用对中国居民消费率的影响,揭示了中国消费率偏低的动态形成机制。研究发现,劳动收入份额和城乡收入差距是居民消费增长缓慢最根本的原因;城市化水平、消费习惯形成和人口年龄结构对居民消费率也有重要的潜在影响;提高劳动要素份额具有缩小城乡收入差距的效应。尽管使用了不同的识别方法与计量技术并控制了其他潜在影响居民消费率的各种因素,本文的结果依然基本稳健。     

UNEMPLOYMENT,LABOR MARKET TRANSITIONS,AND RESIDUAL WAGE DISPERSION

It is commonplace in the debate on Germany's labor market problems to argue that low wage dispersion is a major reason for the high unemployment rate. This paper analyzes the relationship between unemployment and residual wage dispersion for individuals with comparable attributes. In the conventional neoclassical point of view, wages are determined by the marginal product of the workers. Accordingly, increases in union minimum wages result in a decline of residual wage dispersion and higher unemployment. A competing view regards wage dispersion as the outcome of search frictions and the associated monopsony power of the firms. Accordingly, an increase in search frictions causes both higher unemployment and higher wage dispersion. The empirical analysis attempts to discriminate between the two hypotheses for West Germany analyzing the relationship between wage dispersion and both the level of unemployment as well as the transition rates between different labor market states. The findings are not completely consistent with either theory. However, as predicted by search theory, one robust result is that unemployment by cells is not negatively correlated with the within‐cell wage dispersion.     

ON CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE, WAGE INDEXING AND A MONOPOLY UNION

The Rogoff proposition (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 100 (1985), pp. 1169–90) that it is socially optimal to delegate monetary policy to a central banker that is more inflation‐averse than society has been widely accepted and implemented in practice. However, there is a literature that argues that, if there is an inflation‐averse monopoly union in the economy, it is optimal to delegate monetary policy to an ‘ultra‐liberal’ central banker, i.e., a central banker that is interested only in output. In this paper, we examine whether introducing wage indexing into the latter models has any effect on the optimal degree of central bank conservativeness and find that, once a monopoly‐type labour union is introduced, wage indexing does not matter for the determination of the optimal degree of conservativeness of the monetary authority.     

产业内贸易对中国技能 工资差距的影响

本文试图考察产业内贸易对技能工资差距的影响,理论分析表明：它随劳动力条件的变化而变化,在劳动力无限供给条件下它取决于技术劳动力的绝对需求,由于产业内贸易必能刺激技术劳动力的绝对需求,因此必然会扩大工资差距。但在劳动力条件转向有限供给后,它又取决于技术劳动力的相对需求,而产业内贸易未必使之扩大,特别是对两类劳动力替代弹性较大的部门来说,可能会使技术劳动力的相对需求下降,并使技能工资差距收缩。本文基于中国33个产业的5年面板数据验证了上述假说。     

EFFICIENT LEARNING AND JOB TURNOVER IN THE LABOR MARKET

This article nests a continuous‐time learning model la Jovanovic (Journal of Political Economy 92 (1984), 108–22) into a directed on‐the‐job search framework. We prove that the socially efficient allocation is separable, that is, the workers' value functions and optimal controls are independent of both the distribution of workers across their current match qualities and the unemployment rate. We characterize the dynamics of job transitions in the efficient allocation. Furthermore, when the matching technology is linear, our numerical results show that increasing the vacancy creation cost and the speed of learning have ambiguous effects on the unemployment rate and aggregate job transition.     

HOUSEHOLD INEQUALITY AND THE LABOR MARKET IN SOUTH AFRICA

There has been very little detailed exploration of the relationship between wage income and household inequality in South Africa despite the relevance of this issue for many contemporary growth and development policy debates. This article is directed at such an analysis. It uses a decomposition of household income inequality by income components to highlight the dominance of wage income in driving overall income inequality. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the distribution of the unemployed across different wage-earning household categories. Many of the unemployed are seen to depend on wage earners within their households, but a significant percentage of the unemployed, especially in rural areas, have no direct link to labor market earners. In such cases, the creation of employment is essential. The conclusion explores policy implications by linking our empirical findings to South African debates over the quality versus the quantity of employment.     

THE MINIMUM WAGE, WAGE SUBSIDIES, AND POVERTY

In an attempt to augment the lowest wages, the United States and several other countries utilize legal minimum wages. However, the minimum wage has potentially adverse employment effects. The analysis here suggests that an alternative policy that combines a minimum wage and a wage subsidy is superior to either by itself. Such a combination can assist the low wage worker, avoid disemployment effects, and maximize market efficiency.