The wages of motherhood: better or worse?

Data from two British cohort studies show that women with childrenhave lower wages than childless women. We develop an innovativedecomposition of this 'family gap'. The crude pay gap betweenmothers and childless women in their thirties was similar in1978 and 1991, but low pay in part-time work became more importantin explaining this gap, and human capital less so. We find that,among full-time employees, women who broke their employmentat childbirth were subsequently paid less than childless women.In contrast, mothers who maintained employment continuity wereas well paid as childless women, but neither were as well remuneratedas men.     

Profit-sharing versus interest-taking in the Kaldor–Pasinetti theory of income and profit distribution

Abstract

This paper reformulates the Kaldor–Pasinetti model of income and profit distribution by introducing the interest rate from the very outset of the model but maintaining other Kaldor–Pasinetti assumptions intact. It is shown that the profit rate and the share of profits in national income are not independent from either the capitalists' or workers' propensity to save. Many contributors to the theory of income and profit distribution have erred in attributing a potentially positive impact of the interest rate upon profits. The interest rate is always and everywhere a tax on functional and personal incomes together. This result explains Schumpeter's observation that ‘Interest acts as a tax upon profit.’ In an alternative model, workers receive a share of profits instead of fixed contractual interest. It is shown that the profit rate and share are not independent from either propensity to save. Furthermore, the workers' share of profits has a positive impact on the rate and share of profits. This implies that a profit sharing regime could be more conducive to capital accumulation and job creation. It is found that Pasinetti's Cambridge Equation is more akin to a profit sharing regime.     

Lost in translation? The relative wages of immigrants in the Portuguese labour market

This article examines the wage gaps between immigrant and Portuguese workers using matched employer–employee data for the 2002–2008 period. We found that most of the wage gap is not due to the worst endowments of the immigrants but to differences in the returns to those characteristics and to the immigrant status effect. In particular, immigrants’ education and foreign experience are significantly less valued in the Portuguese labour market. Overall, the wages of immigrants do not fully converge to those of comparable natives as domestic experience increases. The assimilation rates tend to be stronger in the first years after migration and for immigrants with higher levels of foreign experience. Total immigrants are a heterogeneous group of different nationalities, with immigrants from the EU15 and China starring as the two extreme cases.     

The distribution of income in Sri Lanka in 1969–1970 and 1980–1981: A decomposition analysis

In 1977 the Sri Lankan government implemented a comprehensive policy of economic liberalization, removing many government controls on the economy and providing incentives for both foreign and domestic investment. The previous policies were often justified as necessary to maintain an equitable distribution of income. Income data from 1969–1970 and 1980–1981 surveys indicate that inequality has increased, but these data are shown to be unreliable for drawing conclusions on changes in the distribution of income. Expenditure data from the same surveys indicate that inequality has declined in the 1970's, both in the economy as a whole and within all sectors and ethnic groups.     

The dynamics of retirement saving — theory and reality

Pension problems and reforms are in the foreground of public interest and political action in many countries, yet economic theory offers inadequate support for finding viable solutions, because it is heavily loaded with simplifying concepts and unrealistic assumptions. These concepts and assumptions are briefly summarized in Chapter 1, while a generalized framework based on them is presented in Chapter 2. The basic stationary assumption is then relaxed in Chapter 3 what results in the conclusion that a profound, not just technical, but conceptual innovation is required. Chapter 4 outlines a few major issues and concepts for a more realistic pension economics. A summary is given in Chapter 5.     

The Books of Crisis and Tooke–Newmarch excerpts: a new aspect of Marx's crisis theory in MEGA

Abstract

The paper explores a new aspect of the development of the Books of Crisis: the fact that Marx’s empirical research on the 1857 crisis in these notebooks was undertaken as the direct continuation of his study of Thomas Tooke and William Newmarch's A History of Prices. Our investigation will provide clues to better understand the structure and contents of the documents. Particularly, we provide new evidence for why Marx started his research on the 1857 crisis with the French economy, which managed to steer clear of the crisis, rather than with England, which was already acutely affected by it.     

The impact of EEOC enforcement on the wages of black and white women: does class matter?

The procedures used by the EEOC have been broadly criticized. The critiques are that the EEOC does not completely investigate all charges, and does not apply the law to the fullest benefit of discrimination victims. This paper contributes to these critiques with a finding that, among women, benefits from EEOC enforcement are funneled to white women and black women with relatively high levels of education. This distribution of benefits is due to the EEOC’s investigation procedures.     

State limits in the early twenty‐first century: Observations on form and function

It is dangerous to draw too many conclusions about the form and function of state borders in the early twenty‐first century. Marked regional differences are developing and, with a few exceptions such as Europe, there is scarcity of empirical evidence about the changes taking place. Some trends, however, seem clear. There are likely to be more states and more land and maritime boundaries in future, and states will continue to regard the establishment and protection of their territorial limits as a priority. As the power and influence of states seem to diminish in response to globalisation, the reassertion of territoriality by governments is both legitimate and is often popular with the people. While many boundaries will become more permeable, some will remain as significant barriers to people and goods, although not to ideas and information on the Internet. Attention is drawn to the emerging political and economic blocs that may create striking regional contrasts in boundary form and function by mid‐century.     

Credit money and Kaldor’s ‘institutional’ theory of income distribution

This paper combines two major contributions by Kaldor: the view that the supply of money, ensuing mainly from bank credit, is endogenous, and the framework which assigns a crucial role to the saving and investment behaviour of corporations in determining the general rate of profit (the neo‐Pasinetti theorem). Bank loans are introduced as another means of financing investment by firms, in addition to retained profits and the new issuance of shares. The proposed model provides a convenient framework in which two different approaches in the money‐endogeneity view are classified. Kaldor’s neo‐Pasinetti theorem is shown to hold for only one of these approaches and is then extended to include the influence of banks.     

Investment–productivity dynamics and distribution dynamics in a multisector economy: some theory and an application to Italian regions

In this paper, we study the investment–productivity dynamics in the Framework Space, presented by Böhm and Punzo [Cycles, Growth and Structural Change, Routledge, London (2001) 47], as the distribution dynamics of the production sectors of an economy. We apply such theoretical framework to data from Italian regions to identify differences in sectoral behaviors both within and across regions. Our main findings are: sectors within a region generally follow different regime dynamics; Southern Italian regions are generally characterized by higher degrees of heterogeneity in sectoral growth behaviors and of regime instability. Also, we find support to the hypothesis of a positive relation between this type of instability and unemployment, as argued by the Neo-Austrian theory of structural dynamics.     

The Rise and Fall of Foreign Direct Investment in Laos, 1988‐2000

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has played an important role in the development of Laos since the country embarked on an economic transition and business liberalisation programme in the late 1980s. However, in recent years Laos has witnessed a marked contraction in its cumulative FDI inflows. This article provides a profile of FDI activity in Laos over the past decade and identifies the various factors behind the rise, and subsequent decline, in foreign investment inflows during the 1990s. The article concludes by suggesting some of the ways in which Lao policy makers might seek to revive the country's flagging FDI sector.     

Does performance explain mutual fund flows in small markets? The case of Portugal

We study the performance reaction of investors in a specific small market context. Our sample includes all Portuguese open-end equity funds that invested in stocks issued by Portuguese companies in the period December 1993–June 2009. Instead of the convex flow–performance relationship usually documented for the US, we find an absence of reaction to past performance. We find no evidence to support the “smart money effect”, given that capital flows do not favour next period performance winners. We also document persistence of fund flows. Our results are consistent with the idea that large financial intermediaries have the capacity “to drive” their customers to funds with larger fees.     

The nature and limits of Gary Becker’s theory of racial discrimination

To what extent does Gary Becker’s model of discrimination capture “the essence of prejudice and discrimination”? After providing a general outline of Becker’s original model and summarizing some subsequent developments, this paper takes a critical perspective on the model to suggest that the absence of imperfect information in his approach unhelpfully limits its explanatory power. Instead, an approach that allows for the possibility of genuine error and draws on Adam Smith’s analysis of the impact of markets on one’s moral sense offers a deeper, more realistic understanding of what it means for people to express their prejudice (or not) through their choices.     

The effects of human resource management on small firms’ productivity and employees’ wages

This paper analyses whether employees and firms differently benefit from particular human resource (HR) practices. The focus is on small firms that may be badly informed on the impact of HR practices on firm performance. In this study on Dutch pharmacies, it is found that firms do not reward employees’ skills according to their contribution to firms’ productivity, as (1) employees are over-rewarded for their sector-specific skills and under-rewarded for the productivity enhancing effect of their computer skills and (2) employees’ work experience positively affects their wages but does not have real productivity effects. Moreover, it is found that training employees in case of vacancy problems seems to be an adequate HR practice, since it increases productivity without affecting the average wage level. The opposite holds for offering higher wages to newly recruited employees. Furthermore, we find that only the employees benefit from performance evaluation interviews, whereas employing many employees by temporary contracts appears to have a negative effect on productivity, without affecting the wage level.     

Reconsidering the modernization hypothesis: The role of diversified production and interest‐group competition

The modernization hypothesis attributes democracy to higher incomes. The hypothesis has been controversial with claims of no relationship or opposite causality. Using data on a large sample of countries over the period from 1995 to 2015, we show empirically that the hypothesis is valid by studying the role of diversified production and interest-group competition. Increases in income associated with production diversification foster the emergence of competing organized interest groups representing the different diversified sectors. The interest-group competition underlies democracy by restraining rent seeking for benefits that would otherwise be sought through single-decision-maker authoritarian government.     

The cost of capital,finance and high‐tech investment

Investment is the most volatile component of aggregate demand and it is often considered central to business cycles fluctuations. The responsiveness of business investment to changes in its price is thus crucial to our understanding of economic activity. In spite of the key role played by the user cost of capital in economic analysis, there is little empirical support for the existence of substantial user cost elasticity. However, most of the evidence to date is based on aggregate user cost data, which may have introduced downward biases in the estimated user cost. This paper contributes to the literature by constructing a disaggregated, industry‐specific micro user cost variable and focusing on a special class of firms – the high‐tech firms. To provide a benchmark for the results, the user cost estimates for the high‐tech sector are compared with those for the rest of the manufacturing sector. The results suggest that there is little response of investment to variations in its user cost. The findings also suggest that high‐tech firms’ investment behavior is not, after all, that different from the rest of the manufacturing sector.