The health capacity to work at older ages in urban China

Tapping into the older workforce is a potential economic solution to population aging, but its feasibility depends on the health capacity to work among older people. Existing estimations in OECD countries involve establishing the relationship between work and health on a younger cohort, extrapolating the relationship to older individuals, and deriving the excess health capacity as the difference between predicted and actual employment rates. However, benchmarking on the younger cohort is sub-optimal because the observable retirement-health relationship changes with age. The dual nature of the Chinese social security system provides us with a relatively neat benchmark, allowing us to estimate the excess health capacity among urban workers benchmarking on rural residents in the same age range. Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this choice, combined with other fine-tuning, yields significantly lower but still substantial excess capacity among older urban workers than benchmarking against younger cohorts. Altogether, among urban Chinese aged 45–69, 31.2 million extra workers can potentially be added to the workforce.     

Are Older Workers Harmful for Firm Productivity?

This paper investigates the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity of large Belgian firms. More precisely, it examines different scenarios of changes in the proportion of young (16–29 years), middle-aged (30–49 years) and older (more than 49 years) workers and their expected effects on firm productivity. Using detailed matched employer–employee data, we find that young workers are significantly more productive than older workers. Yet, results also show that age structure effects on productivity: (i) have substantially decreased over time and (ii) are much stronger in ICT than in non-ICT firms.     

Productivity-Wage Gaps Among Age Groups: Does the ICT Environment Matter?

This paper disentangles the age-productivity-wage nexus by estimating productivity and wage equations with longitudinal employer-employee panel data for Belgium. Results indicate that workers above 49 years are significantly less productive than their younger colleagues. Moreover, while relative productivities across age groups are not found to differ significantly between ICT and non ICT firms, the upward sloping age-wage profile appears to be somewhat steeper in ICT firms. Yet, whatever the ICT environment, findings show that young workers are paid below and older workers above their marginal productivity. This pattern is in line with the deferred payment model developed by Lazear (J Polit Econ 87:1261–1284, 1979).     

Can older workers stay productive? The role of ICT skills and training

This paper quantitatively examines the effects of aging on labor productivity using individual worker data in Korea. We find that information and communications technology (ICT) skills and participation in job-related training can help older workers stay productive. The estimation results present that ICT skills, a measure incorporating an individual’s proficiency in ICT skills and their utilization in the workplace, has a positive effect on the wages of the older workers aged 50–64 with a high level of education or in a skill-intensive occupation. Job training also has a significant positive effect on the wages of older workers. These results imply that compared to younger workers, well-educated older workers can obtain greater productivity increase through ICT skill attainment and their adequate use, and job-training. The evidence suggests that a productivity decrease in line with the aging process can be mitigated by training aging workers to equip themselves with ICT skills.     

Effects of cohort size on college premium: Evidence from China's higher education expansion

In this paper, we document the lesser-known heterogeneous trends of college/non-college earnings premium across age groups from 1995 to 2013 in China. Specifically, the college premium in 2013 for the younger group (age 25–34) was about 30 percentage points, similar to the level in 1995, while the college premium in 2013 for the older group (age 45–54) increased to 50 percentage points, nearly double that of 1995. To attribute these divergent trends of the college premium to the changes in the relative size of college workers, we use the model by Card and Lemieux (2001), which incorporates imperfect substitution between similarly educated workers in different age cohorts. Due to the distinctions of these trends in China, our identification is free of the overestimation issue that the existing studies suffer. Our results are similar to those in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Japan. Holding the age cohort and survey year constant, a one unit increase in log relative size of college workers is associated with about 10 percentage points decrease in college/non-college premium and about 18 percentage points decrease in college/high school premium. We further find that the negative effect is much more substantial among the new entrants (age 25–29) than experienced workers (age 30–54). By this pattern, we demonstrate that the new labor market entrants are more sensitive to their own cohort size and argue that the confounding ability composition effect should not be a serious issue.     

Indeterminacy with small externalities: The role of non-separable preferences

In this paper we consider a Ramsey one-sector model with non-separable homothetic preferences, endogenous labor and productive external effects arising from average levels of capital and labor. We show that indeterminacy cannot arise when there are only capital externalities but that it does occur when there are only labor external effects. We prove that sunspot fluctuations are fully consistent with small market imperfections and realistic calibrations for the elasticity of capital–labor substitution (including the Cobb-Douglas specification) provided the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption and the elasticity of labor supply are large enough.     

The Impact of Energy Prices on Growth and Welfare in a Developing Open Economy

This paper analyzes the impact of an increase in the price of energy (oil) on the growth and welfare of a small developing economy. We consider the extent to which the impacts of energy price shocks depend upon the economy’s internal production structure and its access to the world financial market. We find that the effect on the long-run growth rate depends heavily on the former and is independent of the latter. The effect of accessibility to the world financial market on long-run welfare depends heavily on the elasticity of substitution in production. We supplement the formal analysis with numerical simulations, thereby enabling us to characterize the short-run dynamics. Overall, the simulations can replicate much of the empirical evidence used to characterize the effects of the recent oil price increases on the economy. They also highlight the sensitivity of the effect of the energy price to the elasticity of substitution.     

Firm and industry elasticities of substitution: The two factor case

Summary For the industry composed of single output, two factor firms, industry elasticity of demand for one of the factors with respect to the price of the other is negative or positive as the elasticity of demand for industry output is greater or less thanindustry elasticity of substitution between the factors. Using isoclines, vectors, isoquants, and isoscales, it is shown that, where firm isoquants are non-homothetic, industry elasticity of substitution for constantindustry output allows for adjustment of the level of firm output, and thus exceeds firm elasticity of substitution for constantfirm output.He wishes to thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

技术溢出、技术创新和对外贸易——基于一般均衡视角的一个理论分析框架

文章从微观经济主体的最优化行为出发构建模型,分析技术溢出对技术创新等的影响发现:在封闭经济条件下,创新部门对非创新部门技术溢出的变化对实际工资和消费具有正向效应,而对技术创新的影响则取决于产品替代弹性的大小。在开放经济条件下,任一国技术溢出的变化均会对两国的实际工资和消费产生正向效应;外国对本国技术溢出的变化,对两国的技术创新均具有正向效应,一国创新部门对非创新部门技术溢出的变化会对另一国的技术创新具有正向效应,但对其国内技术创新的影响则取决于产品替代弹性的大小;两国经济地位的变化取决于两国技术进步速度对比的变化。     

Employers' Responses to Demographic Changes in Rural Labour Markets: The Case of Dumfries and Galloway

Employers in many rural areas are facing the problem of a declining workforce due to demographic changes in the population. These demographic changes are a result of a combination of population ageing, the in-migration of mainly retired people, out-migration and low fertility rates. This paper examines how employers are adjusting to demographic changes in Dumfries and Galloway, a rural local authority in south west Scotland. The area has one of the highest proportions of older people in the UK, and as such provides a useful insight into employers' responses to population ageing. Fifty locally based employers were questioned concerning the labour market impact of population ageing and their responses to this situation. The paper argues that in order to ensure the medium-term economic viability of the local economy, employers will need a set of strategies both to attract workers to the area and to increase the participation and retention of older workers resident in the area.     

Retirement of Older Workers and Employment of the Young

Policy makers have often argued that an additional benefit of facilitating early retirement is that it creates employment for the young. This may happen if older and younger workers are substitutes. Nowadays policies are aimed at increasing employment of older people to counter the economic consequences of an aging population. Opponents of such policies argue that these will adversely affect youth employment. This paper revisits the nexus between employment of older and younger workers, if only to put any concerns for adverse effects of later retirement on youth employment to rest. To empirically investigate this issue we estimate a dynamic model of employment of the young, prime age and old people using panel data of 22 OECD countries over the time period 1960–2008. Our empirical analysis does not support the hypothesis that employment of the young and old are substitutes and finds some minor complementarities. This suggests that encouraging later retirement will have no adverse effect on youth employment.     

Gender differences in job search among young workers: A study using displaced workers in the United States

This article investigates gender differences in job search, job tenure, and wages, whether these differences vary over the early part of the life‐cycle, and whether they are associated with fertility decisions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths on highly attached displaced workers aged 20 to 45, we find that 20‐ to 29‐year‐old women and women older than 40 experience longer spells of displacement than comparable men, but that time to a new job is similar by gender for those between 30 and 39 years of age. The age pattern in male–female wage differences in the post‐displacement job is similar, with the largest differences occurring at ages 20 to 29 and over 40. We find no gender differences in tenure in the post‐displacement job. We interpret the differences for the younger ages to be related to fertility and we provide evidence that supports this view.     

Skill complementarities and returns to higher education: Evidence from college enrollment expansion in China

We find that the increased supply of college graduates resulting from college enrollment expansion in China increases college premiums for older cohorts and decreases college premiums for younger cohorts. This finding is inconsistent with the canonical model that assumes substitution among workers of different ages. We subsequently build a simple model that considers complementarities among workers of different ages and different skill levels. Our model predicts that the college premium of senior workers increases with the supply of young college graduates when skill is a scarce resource. The model's predictions are supported by empirical tests.     

Technological Progress and Youth Employment in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the extent to which technology progress and youth employment are related. In doing so, we divide workers into two groups – young workers and old (prime-aged) workers - and then estimate the elasticity of substitution between (physical) capital and workers à la Jaimovich et al. (2013. “The Demand for Youth: Explaining Age Differences in the Volatility of Hours.” American Economic Review 103 (7): 3022–3044) by using the Korean labour market data between 2000 and 2014. Our findings indicate that the elasticity of substitution is greater (or at least not smaller) for young workers than for old workers.     

Changing Elasticities of Labor Demand in U.S. Manufacturing

This paper provides a link between long-standing labor demand elasticity estimates in U.S. manufacturing and recent studies of wage patterns and labor demand shifts in response to technical change and international trade. We document asymmetric changes in labor demand elasticities including an absolute and relative increase in own-wage elasticity of demand for production workers. Separate estimates of substitution and scale responses imply that skill-biased technical change dominates increased product market competition as a source of the observed changes in labor demand elasticity.     

互联网信息技术的年龄偏向性特征检验——基于CHIP和CLDS数据的实证分析

年龄结构和技术背景是影响经济发展的两个重要因素，这两者都会对劳动者的产出效率产生重要的影响。分别采用了CHIP2002、CHIP2007、CLDS2012、CLDS2018四个年份上的横截面数据，对互联网信息技术和年龄产出关系特征进行了纵向对比分析。通过改进的明瑟方程，选定具体的子样本以保证产出效率和工资率的一致性，并对组群效应进行控制。结果表明，互联网信息技术的年龄偏向性特征主要发生在2012-2018期间。这表现为劳动者黄金年龄整体前移，老年劳动者相对年轻和中年群体的相对产出效率显著下降。需要制定灵活化的退休年龄标准，还应充分考虑各职业和岗位上的劳动供求关系。     

Inventories and real rigidities in New Keynesian business cycle models

Kryvtsov and Midrigan (2008) study the behavior of inventories in an economy with menu costs, fixed ordering costs and the possibility of stockouts. This paper extends their analysis to a richer setting that is capable of more closely accounting for the dynamics of the US business cycle. We find that the original conclusion survives in this setting: namely, the model requires an elasticity of real marginal cost to output approximately equal to the inverse intertemporal elasticity of substitution in consumption in order to account for the countercyclicality of the aggregate inventory-to-sales ratio in the data.     

The role of new media on teen sexual behaviors and fertility outcomes—the case of 16 and Pregnant

This article investigates the 2009 premiere of 16 and Pregnant as a shock to teen information sets and potential influence on sexual activity and fertility. The program, chronicling teen pregnancy and providing educational links on sex/contraception, began a continuing stream of teen pregnancy reality shows. My conceptual framework considers how such programs alter the expected (dis)utility or perceived risk of becoming pregnant. I test for differential effects across ages, state‐sex education requirements, and viewership levels in a quasi‐difference‐in‐difference framework that controls for confounding effects of coincident contraception policy changes, the economy, and downward trends in teen fertility. The results indicate that while fertility declined across all adolescents in the postperiod, there are stronger effects among young teens in states without sex education mandates and higher viewership. Supporting evidence from the National Survey of Family Growth shows increased hormonal contraception use in the postperiod for young relative to older teens.     

Trade Union and Global Economic Growth

Abstract

This paper develops a simple framework for examining the role of unions in a global economy. It builds on the model of different institutions by comparing America with a flexible wage and Europe with a rigid wage (the existence of union), where the two areas are integrated via perfect capital mobility. We find the necessary condition that the degree of wage orientation of the union is larger than the firm's bargaining power and determines the positive direction on global economic growth. In addition, the effect of union's bargaining power on global economic growth is ambiguous. If the sum of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour and the output elasticity of labour is smaller than one, or the firms are characterized by a Leontief production function (Harrod–Domar growth model) or an extremely low substituting elasticity (much empirical literature is supported), the union's bargaining power will lead to an increase in the growth of the global economy. In the general Cobb–Douglas production function (Solow–Swan neoclassical growth model), the union's bargaining power will result in a decline in the growth of the global economy.     

Productivity in manufacturing and the length of the working day: evidence from the 1880 census of manufactures

Using micro-level data from the 1880 Census of Manufacturing, we estimate the elasticity of annual output with respect to the length of the working day. Holding labor and capital inputs constant and controlling for days of operation per month and months per year, this elasticity was positive but less than one, indicating diminishing returns. We also find diminishing returns to days per month and months per year, but these elasticities were significantly larger. Thus, decreases in daily hours coupled with an offsetting rise in annual days of operation would increase productive efficiency—precisely the kinds of changes then actually taking place.