Economic liberalization, capital mobility and informal wage in a small open economy: A theoretical analysis

Empirical evidence suggests that the size of the informal sector in the developing countries has increased considerably during the liberalized economic regime. The present paper purports to analyze the consequences of economic reforms on the wellbeing of the informal sector workforce using a three-sector general equilibrium model with two informal sectors. The theoretical analysis finds that different liberalized policies produce diverse effects on the informal wage and that these results are independent of the nature of capital mobility between the informal and the formal sectors. It also shows that labour market reforms, contrary to the common wisdom, are likely to produce favourable effects on the informal wage.     

Wage differentials by sector and gender: a quantile analysis for the Spanish case

This paper analyses existing wage differentials between workers in the public and private sectors and by gender in Spain. This analysis is run throughout the entire earnings distribution and observed wage differentials are decomposed into a part explained by differences in productive characteristics and a part due to differences in returns to such characteristics. Our results show that public sector workers tend to earn higher wages than private employees, although most of this sector wage gap is due to better public workers’ productive characteristics. A wage premium in favour of men is also found in both the public and private sectors, with the gender wage gap greater at the top of the earnings distribution.     

What drives the reversal of the gender education gap? Evidence from Germany

We study the mechanisms that are associated with the gender education gap and its reversal in Germany. We focus on three outcomes, graduation from upper secondary school, any tertiary education and tertiary degree. Neither individual and family background nor labour market characteristics appear to be strongly associated with the gender education gap. There is some evidence that the gender gap in upper secondary education reflects the rising share of single parent households which impacts boys’ attainment more than girls’. The gender education gap in tertiary education is correlated with the development of class sizes and social norms.     

Football players’ career and wage profiles

The objective of this article is to look over football players’ career path, from lower leagues to the first league, and the associated wage profile. The information comes from a Portuguese longitudinal matched employer–employee data set defining several career events according to players’ movement across football clubs and across professional and semi-professional leagues. Our identifying strategy relies on coach changes to reduce the potential bias resulting from players’ moves between clubs. The estimated first-difference wage equations indicate that players can expect a wage premium when they get transferred to new clubs in higher leagues or a wage penalty when moving to lower leagues. Players who stay in the same club after the club being relegated can also expect a wage penalty.     

Capital–Skill Complementarity: Does Capital Composition Matter?

We estimate the effect of capital composition on the size of capital–skill complementarity and the skill wage premium. Disaggregating the capital stock into different types according to technological content, we find that: capital is more of a q‐complement to skilled labor than to unskilled labor; the higher the technological component of capital, the larger the size of the relative q‐complementarity between capital and skilled labor; and replacing non‐technological with technological capital might increase the skill wage premium by about 9 percent. Our results highlight that changes in capital composition matter for understanding changes in the skill wage premium.     

不同出口密集度企业的出口工资溢价——来自中国的证据

在异质性企业理论框架下,运用中国工业企业数据库构建的平衡面板数据研究发现,我国出口工资溢价与不同出口密集度企业密切相关。进一步检验表明,一般出口企业持续出口的工资溢价与民营企业出口有关。因此,促进一般贸易企业出口,降低加工出口企业的比重,特别在一般出口企业中,提高民营企业的出口密集度,推动民营企业的持续出口,将改善我国的出口工资溢价。     

国有部门与非国有部门之间何以存在工资差异？--一个金融的视角

中国的国有部门与非国有部门因劳动力市场的分割而存在一定的工资差异。根据1999～2012年间的省级面板数据研究发现,由于不同所有制部门的融资能力不同,金融发展通过对资本积累过程的影响,显著扩大了国有部门与非国有部门的工资差异,尤其是国有部门与非国有部门中的集体经济部门的工资差异。这一结论说明金融发展不仅没有削弱,反而加强了国有企业相对于非国有企业的融资优势。     

Do financial distress and liquidity crises affect value and size premiums?

This study investigates the impact of liquidity crises on the relationship between stock (value and size) premiums and default risk in the US market. It first examines whether financial distress can explain value and size premiums, and then, subsequently, aims to determine whether liquidity crises increase the risk of value and size premium investment strategies. The study employs a time-varying approach and a sample of US stock returns for the period between January 1982 and March 2011, a period which includes the current liquidity crisis, so as to examine the relationship between default risk, liquidity crises and value and size premiums. The findings indicate that the default premium has explanatory power for value and size premiums, which affect firms with different characteristics. We also find that liquidity crises may actually increase the risks related to size and value premium strategies.     

中国省会城市工资溢价研究——基于分位数回归的空间计量分析

文章利用2000-2006年中国营养与健康调查数据,从微观层面对中国省会与非省会城市之间的工资溢价效应进行研究.借助OLS基准模型发现,具有相似特征的工人,在省会城市工作获得的工资比在非省会城市平均高出14%.运用MundlakChamberlain随机效应模型,控制城市的生活成本,上述省会城市的工资溢价至少减少至7%,因此省会城市的工资溢价部分体现为对较高水平人力资本的回报.余下的工资溢价随着模型加入通勤时间而消失,这一结果和城市经济学空间均衡理论的预测相一致,并确定了省会城市聚集经济效应的存在.考虑到我国近年来工资收入差距的扩大,文章将研究扩展到工资分位数的研究,处于较高工资区间的工人明显享受到更多省会城市带来的优势.这些结果突出了城市劳动力市场微观层面研究的重要性.     

Entry,growth, and survival: The new learning on firm selection and industry evolution

This paper tries to shed some light on the seeming paradox posed by the findings in the industrial organization literature that (1) the bulk of firms in an industry are not only very small, but also sufficiently small so that they are operating at a sub-optimal scale of output, and (2) entrepreneurs are apparently not deterred from starting new firms even in industries where scale economies play an important role. A dynamic view of the process of firm selection and industry evolution is that new firms typically start at a very smal scale of output. Because this level of output may be sub-optimal, the firm must grow in order to survive. The empirical evidence supports such a dynamic view of the evolutionary nature of industries. Viewed through a dynamic lens, the often-observed asymmetric size distribution of firms becomes more understandable. The persistence of an asymmetric firm-size distribution skewed towards small enterprises presumably reflects a continuing process of entry into industries and not necessarily the survival of such small and suboptimal enterprises over a long period of time.     

Minimum Wage: Does it Improve Welfare in Thailand?

We study the causal impact of the minimum wage on labor market outcomes, household consumption, inequality and poverty in Thailand by relying on policy variation in minimum wages over time across provinces. We find that minimum‐wage increases have a large and significant impact on the likelihood of working in the uncovered sector among workers with elementary education. However, the impact is very small and insignificant among other labor market groups. In contrast, the minimum wage has large positive effects on the formal sector wages of low‐earning workers, such as the young, elderly and low educated. Increases in the minimum wage are associated with reductions in household poverty and consumption inequality at the bottom half of the distribution.     

The evolution of wage gaps between STEM and non-STEM graduates in a technological following economy

ABSTRACT

Based on the assumption that the set of skills characterizing different fields of study do not match the new technologies in the same way, we focus on the evolution of wage gaps between university graduates in STEM disciplines and other subjects. An Oaxaca decomposition technique is applied to early wages of Italian graduates after taking into account both the selection into employment and the endogeneity of major’s choice. Our results can hardly be reconciled with the hypothesis of a technological change favouring STEM graduates in Italy, and are more consistent with the worsening in the relative demand for STEM graduates.