中国非农自雇活动的转换进入分析

本文利用中国健康与营养调查的微观面板数据,分析了我国非农自雇活动转换进入的决定因素。本文把初始状态区分为工资雇佣和失业,最终状态则划分为无雇工自雇和有雇工自雇,另外,对无雇工自雇转入有雇工自雇也进行了剖析。结果显示:不管初始状态如何,代际人力资本传递在自雇进入中发挥了重要作用;年龄和性别变量只对失业转入自雇有影响;由失业转入自雇的概率比由工资雇佣转入自雇的概率高;工资雇佣转入有雇工自雇的概率与失业转入有雇工自雇的概率相差不大,但工资雇佣转入无雇工自雇的概率与失业转入无雇工自雇的概率之间存在巨大差异;高等教育在无雇工自雇转入有雇工自雇的工作岗位创造过程中起到了显著的推动作用。     

How does employment protection legislation influence hiring and firing decisions by the smallest firms?

This paper examines the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on hiring decisions by own-account workers and firing decisions by very small firms (one to four employees). Using data from the EU-15 countries, our results show that the strictness of employment protection legislation is negatively related to both these types of decisions, and hence, to labour mobility among the smallest firms. This new evidence may be useful for governments aiming to create a more enabling macro-environment for employment and productivity growth.     

Does the Effectiveness of Employment Incentive Programs Vary by Firm Size?

This article examines the impact of national employment incentive programs on employment growth of individual firms in the original fifteen member states of the European Union (EU-15). We investigate whether this impact differs among firms of different size classes, and whether the effectiveness of employment incentive programs depends on the business cycle. We find that expenditures on employment incentives have a positive impact on employment growth for firms of all sizes. However, this impact is significantly reduced for smaller firms, suggesting that employment incentive programs are less effective for small firms. We also find that the employment impact of incentive programs is stronger during recessionary periods, but only for firms without any employees (i.e., own-account workers).     

Economic crisis and benefits of the Internet: differentiated Internet usage by employment status

Using data from the Spanish Survey on Equipment and Use of ICTs in Households for 2007–2011, this paper evaluates the effect of employment status on the diffusion of the Internet among the labor force. We use a bivariate probit with sample selection model to account for a potential selection bias that arises because online usage is only observed for Internet users. Our results show that, controlling for income, employment influences online adoption and usage, and we find evidence of a digital divide in adoption and usage by education and age among the labor force. Employed individuals are more likely to have accessed the Internet and used it more frequently than the unemployed and for different activities. However, conditional on adoption, they do not use the Internet for more personal activities. These findings suggest that firms promote and subsidize Internet access, but this sponsored access does not translate into more personal use.     

The changing role of education in the distribution of earnings and household income

This article draws on income surveys from the last two decades to report on trends in earnings disparities and household income inequality in the Czech Republic. Education has been the main axis of change in this area, having acquired a much greater role in the entire process of collecting and distributing income. First, an increasing influence of education is evident in the personal earnings of employees, returns to education having doubled. Second, in couples, education has an important impact on both women’s employment and their earnings. Third, the importance of marital partners’ education levels on household income grew even more than its effect on earnings.     

The Choice of the Working Secto in Transition: Income and non-income determinants of sector participation in Kazakhstan

This study compares the individual, household and location characteristics of private employees, the self-employed, the unemployed and the economically inactive in Kazakhstan making use of a 1996 World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey. The purpose is to understand whether the process of transition has determined a selection of workers exiting the state sector and entering the three relatively new 'pools' of private employees, self-employed and unemployed. An 'occupational choice' model is used to explore the determinants of sector participation. It is found that income opportunities are similar between the private and self-employment sectors, that the private sector is not necessarily the workers' first choice and that non-income determinants including local economic and labour market conditions and household related factors explain better than income the choice of the working sector. Self-employment seems to be a key sector in understanding the mechanisms of sector choice and the reallocation of labour. Unemployment appears as a choice of last resort and made by truly 'rationed' individuals.     

The Output Contributions Of Computer Equipment And Personnel: A Firm-Level Analysis

This paper examines the output contributions of capital and labor deployed in information systems (IS) at the firm level during the period 1988–91 throughout the business sector, using two different sources of data on these inputs. Our production function estimates suggest that there are substantial excess returns to both IS capital and IS labor. Computer capital and labor jointly contribute, or account for, about 21 percent of output, although only about 10% of both capital and labor income accrue to IS factors. Although IS employees accounted for a very small share of total employment by 1986, IS employment growth is estimated to have made a larger contribution to 1976–86 output growth than non-IS employment, due to the very rapid growth (16% per annum) of IS employment. The estimated marginal rate of substitution between IS and non-IS employees is 6: one IS employee can be substituted for six non-IS employees without affecting output.     

Screening and Human Capital in the Australian Labour Market of the 1990s

This paper presents tests of the screening hypothesis using data on adult males from the 1996 Australian Census of Population and Housing. These tests are based on comparisons of wage and salary earners and the self-employed, and public and private sector workers, as examples of screened and unscreened employments. The first test compares the mean levels of schooling, income and labour market experience in screened and unscreened sectors, while the second examines the returns to schooling and the goodness of fit of the earnings models for both wage and salary earning (separated into public and private sector employees) and self-employed groups. The results are equivocal, but suggest screening could be part of the earnings determination process in the Australian labour market.     

人力资本投入差异与城乡居民收入差距——基于省级面板数据的实证分析

文章基于历年《中国统计年鉴》、《中国人口和就业统计年鉴》和《中国劳动统计年鉴》中的数据,对我国城乡居民收入差距和人力资本投入差异进行分析发现,改革开放以来,我国城乡居民收入差距不断扩大,且近年来仍没有明显下降的趋势,而近十年来我国城乡居民人力资本投入差异已得到很大程度的改观,利用2001-2011年省级面板数据实证分析发现,无论在全国范围内还是在区域范围内,我国城乡居民收入差距均没有随着城乡居民人力资本投入差异的缩小而降低,主要是由教育资源失衡、学历层次不同、劳动力市场扭曲及歧视性择业等因素造成的。因此,在缩小我国城乡居民的人力资本投入差异的同时,要采取相应的措施,如加大对农村地区的教育投入、增加接受高等教育的农村居民比重、统一劳动力市场、引导居民树立正确就业观等,消除其他因素的制约,才能达到缩小城乡居民收入差距的目的。     

Life satisfaction and self-employment in different types of occupations

In this research, we investigate whether a positive relationship between life satisfaction and self-employment (versus paid employment) exists while simultaneously considering two occupational dimensions: white-collar versus blue-collar work and high-skilled versus low-skilled work. Using Eurobarometer data for a large number of European countries (2008–2012), our findings confirm that self-employed workers are more satisfied with their lives than paid employees are. A life satisfaction premium is also found when the self-employed and paid employees are compared within similar occupations in terms of collar type and skill level. Finally, self-employment can help to overcome low life satisfaction scores associated with blue-collar and low-skilled work.     

A macroeconomic approach to the income-tax work-effort relationship

In this paper, we analyse the dynamic relationship between hours worked per employee (per self-employed) and marginal income tax-rate shocks in terms of both a comparative-dynamics model and a stochastic general equilibrium econometric model. The econometric model is estimated for Germany, UK and USA over the post-1960 period using the GMM estimation technique. Estimates in both models show that increases in the marginal income-tax rate exert negative effects on hours worked by both employees and the self-employed, but the response of the employees who are subject to tax withholding is stronger than the response of the self-employed.     

Political cycle and reported labour incomes in Italy: Quasi-experimental evidence on tax evasion

Tax evasion is a complex phenomenon affected by many factors and shaped by policymakers' and citizens' behaviours. Distinct claims about the acceptability of tax evasion between centre-right and centre-left coalitions have clearly emerged in Italy in the last decades. According to the ruling coalition, these different attitudes could have influenced tax compliance, affecting reported incomes of the self-employed, who have much more room to engage in tax avoidance or evasion strategies than employees. Using a longitudinal administrative dataset recording the entire working life of the sampled individuals, we focus on the period 1996–2005 (the only period when a complete bipartisan political cycle took place in Italy) and, following a difference in differences design and carrying out fixed effects estimates, we test whether self-employed earnings, compared to employees earnings, significantly changed after the change in the ruling coalition. We find a clear reduction in self-employed reported earnings when the centre-right coalition ruled.

"Il prelievo fiscale corretto si aggira intorno a un terzo del reddito, se invece le tasse sono tra il 50 e 60% è troppo e così è giustificato mettere in atto l'elusione o l'evasione"."The correct tax burden is about one third of the income; it is too much if the tax burden is approximately 50 or 60%, thus it is justified to resort to tax avoidance or evasion."Silvio Berlusconi, speech during the electoral campaign, April 2008.

     

Competition and the cost of health care

Previous studies of the underreporting of income for tax purposes have used private employees as the benchmark to which other groups’ compliance was measured. In this paper it is suggested that there are a number of circumstances when there will be an incentive for private employees and their employers to collude to understate employee wages and salaries for purposes of taxation. The existence of high marginal tax rates of income tax combined with high social security payroll taxes are the typical conditions that stimulate this behaviour. These conditions are present in North Cyprus. This paper examines a rich source of household consumption expenditure and income data for North Cyprus that allows one to separate out the consumption expenditures made by the self-employed, private employees and civil servants over specific periods of time. From the comparison of consumption expenditures on food by these three groups it is possible to estimate how much self-employed and the private employees understated their incomes as compared to the civil servants. It is found that in North Cyprus private employees understate their incomes by approximately the same proportion of their incomes as do the self-employed.     

The Living Standards of the Low Income Self-Employed

Poverty and inequality measurement in Australia has typically excluded the self-employed because of concerns about a weak relationship between their measured incomes and their standard of living. At the same time, however, families containing self-employed individuals receive substantial income support. Is this support well targeted? This paper compares the living standards of low income self-employed and employee families using data from the ABS 1993–94 Household Expenditure Survey. The use of expenditure data for the measurement of living standards poses particular methodological problems, for which some new solutions are proposed. The paper concludes that the average living standards of low income self-employed families and of self-employed families receiving additional family payments are higher than those of comparable employee families. On the other hand, a greater proportion of self-employed families have low consumption levels.     

Incidence,effects, dynamics and routes out of overqualification in Europe: a comprehensive analysis distinguishing by employment status

This study aims to improve our understanding of overqualification by incorporating distinctions in employment status (i.e. self-employed workers, private employees and public employees) in the analysis of the incidence, effects, dynamics and routes out of overqualification. To this end, we apply discrete choice – ordered and nonordered – and count models to the data obtained from the European Community Household Panel for the EU-15. Our results indicate that the incidence of overqualification varies by employment status, where self-employed workers report the lowest occurrence. Furthermore, this analysis suggests that overqualification is a permanent phenomenon and demonstrates that successful pathways out of overqualification differ by employment status. The implications of these results for education and labour market policies are also discussed.     

Facets of the digital divide in Europe: Determination and extent of internet use

The primary objective of this article is to identify, given Internet accessibility, the factors that shape the decisions of individuals for personal Internet usage and its extent. Cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey database were utilized and an ordered probit model with selectivity was employed. The hypothesized link between the decision to use the Internet and the extent of usage was confirmed by the data. Household income, cost of access, demographics, media use, regional characteristics and general skill acquisition by individuals appear to correlate with Internet use and the extent of usage. In addition, a non-linear decomposition analysis was applied in order to identify the causes of the observed south/north divide. The results indicate that the observed differences in the probability of Internet use constitute a structural problem.     

Entrepreneurship, windfall gains and financial constraints: Evidence from Germany

We investigate the link between the propensity to become an entrepreneur and the exogenous release from financial constraints in Germany. This is defined in terms of the movement from employment to self-employment on receipt of a financial windfall. A theoretical framework developing Evans and Jovanovic (1989) is set up and tested with panel data from German households. The results show that financial constraints do exist given that individuals are more likely to start a personal business after receiving a windfall gain. The value of windfall gains has a significant but non linear effect on the decision to become self employed. The data reveal that differences in ability and income affect the change in employment status. We also report that there is no evidence that becoming self-employed involves the anticipation of windfall gains.     

互联网使用能否减小性别工资差距?——基于CFPS数据的经验分析

互联网的广泛应用为减小性别工资差距带来了新的可能.基于中国家庭追踪调查( CFPS)数据,文章考察了互联网使用及偏好对性别工资的影响作用,利用RIF回归分解的方法分析了互联网对性别工资差距的影响.结果表明:第一,使用互联网促进了性别工资的增长,并且对于不同婚姻状况、年龄和学历的就业者而言,这种影响作用存在差异;第二,上网时长与性别工资之间呈"倒U形"关系,并且男性无论在家还是在工作场所上网,均对工资有正向影响,而女性在工作场所上网对工资有显著影响;第三,利用网络收发邮件和信息获取能够提高男性工资,但娱乐游戏会减小男性工资,而上网专业学习能够提高女性工资;第四,使用互联网能够减小低收入层和中高收入层就业者的性别工资差距,但却加大了高收入层就业者的性别工资差距.据此文章建议,为减小性别工资差距,不仅要强化网络建设和扩大教育培训,增加女性互联网使用率和使用技能,而且要发展新经济新业态,升级产业结构,减小职业性别隔离.     

THE URBAN–RURAL INCOME GAP AND INEQUALITY IN CHINA

Using new household survey data for 1995 and 2002, we investigate the size of China's urban–rural income gap, the gap's contribution to overall inequality in China, and the factors underlying the gap. Our analysis improves on past estimates by using a fuller measure of income, adjusting for spatial price differences and including migrants. Our methods include inequality decomposition by population subgroup and the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition. Several key findings emerge. First, the adjustments substantially reduce China's urban–rural income gap and its contribution to inequality. Nevertheless, the gap remains large and has increased somewhat over time. Second, after controlling for household characteristics, location of residence remains the most important factor underlying the urban–rural income gap. The only household characteristic that contributes substantially to the gap is education. Differences in the endowments of, and returns to, other household characteristics such as family size and composition, landholdings, and Communist Party membership are relatively unimportant.     

健康对非农就业及其工资决定的影响

利用 1 993年中国营养调查数据 ,本文探讨了中国农村地区健康对非农就业及其工资决定的影响 ,并试图从微观层面揭示中国农村地区健康与收入之间的关系。本文的主要发现是 ,对于劳动参与及非农就业机会 ,健康状况都有显著的影响 ;然而在传统的种植业领域 ,健康并不是劳动参与的决定性因素 ;同时 ,在农村的非农就业者中 ,健康并不是劳动力市场表现的重要因素。尽管如此 ,由于非农就业机会对家庭收入的重要作用 ,我们仍不难发现健康在获取非农就业收入乃至增加家庭收入方面的作用