The inversion of married women's labour supply and wage: Evidence from Thailand

This study investigates the labour supply behaviour of married Thai women with reference to their own and their spouse's wages. Controlling for spousal education and number of children, the main findings indicate an inverse relationship between married women's labour supply and wages, contrary to the evidence from developed countries. The estimated own wage elasticity ranges from ?1.70 to ?2.40 and the cross elasticity ranges from ?0.16 to ?0.17, indicating that the impact of own wage on labour supplied is much larger than spouse's wage. The results from disaggregation classified according to different socioeconomic backgrounds also show negative elasticities between own and spouses' wage across all subgroups, except for those with university degrees and higher income.     

A simultaneous-equation model of labor supply,fertility and earnings of married women: the case of registered nurses

A simultaneous-equation model of labor supply, fertility, and earnings is developed and estimated for an important subset of the female population, married registered nurses (RNs). Measures of variables specific to married nurses age 21-64 are developed by aggregating observations on individual nurses or their families into Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) averages, from the 1-in-100 Public Use Sample of the 1970 Census of Population in the U.S. The sample was restricted in certain ways: the grouped observations apply only to white RNs who are married with husband present and live in SMSAs of over 250,000 population in 1970 (except Honolulu). The sample is further restricted so that each included observation (representing an SMSA average) is based upon an underlying pool of at least 15 individual nurses. This last restriction reduces the sample of SMSAs to 88 from 124. The coefficient on the nurse wage variable is positive and statistically significant with an implied wage elasticity of .40 at the means. These estimates are consistent with those observed using the analogous microcensus data on RNs. RN fertility has the predicted negative effect on nurse labor supply but is statistically insignificant, but the magnitude of the fertility coefficient is plausible. A 10% increase in nurse fertility within an SMSA (number of children ever born/1000 nurses ever married within an SMSA) is associated with a reduction in the SMSA nurse labor supply. The estimated coefficients of the husband-earnings and nonlabor-income variables are negative but only the former is statistically significant at the 90% level or above. The estimated effect of the nurse's earnings opportunities on her fertility are statistically insignificant, but the wage coefficient is negative as expected and implies an elasticity of nurse fertility with respect to the nurse wage rate of approximately -.2. The coefficient on the labor supply variable is negative and statistically significant, confirming the hypothesis that increased labor market activity increases the opportunity costs of children. Husband's earnings are not a significant determinant of RN fertility. The estimates suggest that nurse labor supply and fertility decisions are relatively unimportant factors in determining the nurse's market earnings.     

The rise of migration and the fall of self employment in rural China's labor market

When examining questions regarding the Lewis model, one of the most salient set of facts involves the shift of labor between agricultural and the off farm sectors. The goal of this paper is to answer several questions about the nature of this movement: How has the expansion of the economy after 2000 affected off farm labor market participation? Has off farm labor continued to rise? What is this rise being driven by—migrant wage earners or self employment opportunities? What is, in part, driving these trends? Using a national representative set of data that consists of two waves of surveys done in 2000 and 2008 in six provinces, the paper finds that off farm labor market participation has continued to rise steadily in the early 2000s. However, there has been a structural break in the trends of occupational choice before and after 2000. Unlike before 2000, after 2000 migration's growth accelerated; during this same period the self employed subsector stagnated. The number of wage earning migrants in 2008 was greater than the number of those in the self employed subsector. The data also show that the rise in wage-earning migration is mainly being driven by the younger cohorts. Our analysis also shows that the rise of migration is happening in conjunction with a rising unskilled wage.     

Multinationals, skills, and wage elasticities

The increase in foreign direct investments raises concerns about labor market consequences in many countries. It is feared that multinational firms are inclined to shift jobs abroad and increase job volatility. We use firm-level data to examine if multinationality and foreign ownership affect the wage elasticity of labor demand. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish the effect on different skill groups of employees. We find no general difference in wage elasticity between foreign and domestic firms but the wage elasticity is higher in multinational firms than in national firms, in particular for medium-skilled workers.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF EMPLOYMENT: A SECTORAL ANALYSIS FOR TURKEY

This paper analyzes the effects of wages, openness, and demand on employment in the private manufacturing industry in Turkey based on panel data for the period of 1973–2001. The wage elasticity of employment increases after trade liberalization. Nevertheless, output elasticity of labor demand is higher than wage elasticity in the total manufacturing sector for the whole estimation period, and in the high- and medium-skilled sectors in the post-1980 period. Trade effects, after controlling for output, seem to have a low economic significance. The positive effects of exports on the labor intensity of production are low or are offset by labor saving effects of foreign trade, particularly in the high- and medium-skilled sectors. On the other hand, there is some evidence of a negative import effect in the low-skilled sectors, whereas in the high- and medium-skilled group a complementary relation between domestic labor and imported inputs dominates the effects.     

Working hours in the European periphery: The length of the working day in Spain, 1885-1920

This paper studies the decline of the working day in Spain from 1885 to 1920. The decline was more continuous than previously thought. Differences in hours reinforce wage differentials, showing labor markets were not well integrated. Cross-sectional and time-series analysis suggests that hour reductions reflect a labor supply rather than a labor demand effect. Given the comparatively slow growth of real wages in Spain from 1870 to 1920, the Spanish case shows that international convergence in hours of work must have been stronger than convergence in wages.     

Trade with Asia and skill upgrading: Effects on labor markets in the older industrial countries

Trade with Asia and Skill Upgrading: Effects on Factor Markets in the Older Industrial Countries. — The trade and labor nexus is examined with a model incorporating refinements which weaken the H-O-S result that free trade can cause factor rewards to equalize. Asian growth and rising openness in the period 1970–1992, taken in isolation, are found to cause real wages to rise there, even for production workers. Although they also cause increased wage dispersion, the magnitude is small compared with the effects of skill upgrading. Projections to 2010, which combine further expansion in imports from Asia with continued Northern skill upgrading, yield declining real wages and/or unemployment for both production and farm workers. Restricting imports from Asia is found to be an ineffective response.     

Export Activity,Firm Size and Wage Structure: Evidence from Taiwanese Manufacturing Firms*

This study adopts a semiparametric smooth coefficient model to evaluate the export–wage premiums, firm size–wage premiums, and the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor. Particular focus is placed upon widespread evidence indicating that pay levels in ‘large’ and ‘export‐oriented’ firms are higher than in their ‘small’ and ‘domestic‐oriented’ counterparts. Applying the firm‐level data for Taiwanese manufacturing firms, we find a positive export–wage premium for skilled workers and a negative export–wage premium for unskilled workers. The hypothesis of a constant export premium across firm size is rejected. While most of the export–wage premiums for skilled labor can be attributed to the small and medium firms, the large exporting firms have a significant adverse effect on wages for unskilled labor. Moreover, our results suggest that the firm size–wage premiums for skilled workers are larger than those for unskilled workers. The wage gap between the two skill groups is also sensitive to size categories.     

Wage Consequences of Rapid Tertiary Education Expansion in a Developing Economy: The Case of Thailand

In recent years, Thailand has experienced the emergence of “overeducated” workers as the supply of university graduates in Thailand has outpaced growth in high‐skilled employment opportunities. Using the 2007 to 2009 Thai Labor Force Survey, this paper quantifies the incidence of overeducation and estimates overeducation wage penalties among male university graduates. The results show that the incidence of overeducation is greatest among younger cohorts. Quantile wage regression results suggest that overeducation wage penalties for older workers capture the impact of unobserved low ability on wages. In contrast, persistent wage penalties of 11–26% across the wage/ability distributions for younger workers are consistent with structural imbalances in the Thai labor market. These imbalances make it difficult for university graduates to find jobs commensurate with their level of formal education and to achieve their full earning power. The wage penalties are especially large for new entrants into the labor market.     

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.     

Do Multinational Enterprises Relocate Employment to Low-Wage Regions? Evidence from European Multinationals

This paper analyzes the employment behavior of home multinational enterprises (MNEs) in Europe. To this end we use a unique firm-level panel data set of more than 1,000 European multinational parent enterprises and their European affiliates. We find for parent firms operating in the manufacturing sector that the labor cost elasticity of parent employment with respect to North EU affiliates’ labor costs is positive and statistically significant. This implies employment substitution between parents and their North EU based affiliates takes place in response to wage cost differentials between the parent and its North EU based affiliates. In contrast, we find no evidence for such substitution effects between parent employment and its affiliates that are located in low-wage regions in the EU and in Central and Eastern Europe. JEL no. F23, J23     

The Effect of Local Area Unemployment on Compensating Wage Differentials for Injury Risk

Compensating wage differential (CWD) theory assumes that workers can always find a job without undesired characteristics, which forces firms with disamenities to pay a CWD. However, a simple theoretical variation of standard CWD theory shows that if there is a probability of job loss due to involuntary unemployment, the CWD is lower. When this probability is proxied by local unemployment rates, we find a downward bias in typical estimated CWDs using cross‐sectional data that span many local labor markets. Estimates from the Current Population Survey data show that the bias can be quite large, which in turn impacts the implicit value of injury estimates.     

我国城镇劳动力市场供给分析——兼论“民工荒”的成因及对策

双重劳动力市场是我国二元经济在劳动力市场上的反应,随着统筹城乡经济发展战略的实施,城乡人力资本差别将逐步缩小,劳动供给弹性有逐渐缩小和趋同的趋势,双重劳动力市场最终将会被劳动力一体化市场所取代,其前提条件是加强农民工文化素质培养和职业技能培训,提高农民工工资和福利水平,降低进城门槛和减少转移成本,增加政府转移支付和各种社会保障。     

China has reached the Lewis turning point

In the past several years, labor shortage in China has become an emerging issue. However, there is heated debate on whether China has passed the Lewis turning point and entered a new era of labor shortage from a period of unlimited labor supply. Most empirical studies on this topic focus on the estimation of total labor supply and demand. Yet the poor quality of labor statistics leaves the debate open. In this paper, China's position along the Lewis continuum is examined though primary surveys of wage rates, a more reliable statistic than employment data. Our results show a clear rising trend of real wages rate since 2003. The acceleration of real wages even in slack seasons indicates that the era of surplus labor is over. This finding has important policy implications for China's future development model.     

Do E‐verify mandates improve labor market outcomes of low‐skilled native and legal immigrant workers?

We examine the impact of the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) on employment outcomes of low‐skilled legal workers. We use the synthetic control method to select a group of states against which the labor market trends of Arizona can be compared. Our results suggest that contrary to its intent, LAWA does not appear to have improved labor market outcomes of legal low‐skilled workers who compete with unauthorized immigrants, the target of the legislation. In fact, we find some evidence of diminished employment and increased unemployment among legal low‐skilled workers in Arizona. These findings are concentrated on the largest demographic group of workers—non‐Hispanic white men. While they are less likely to find employment, those who do have on average higher earnings as a result of LAWA. The pattern of results points to both labor supply and labor demand contractions due to LAWA, with labor supply dominating in terms of magnitude.     

How Elastic is the Demand for Labour in Belgian Enterprises?Results from Firm Level Accounts Data, 1987–1994

This paper analyzes wage elasticities using a panel dataset of 2800 large Belgian firms over the period 1987–1994. We explore various functional forms and find that the short-run wage elasticity varies between –0.37 and –0.65, while the long-run elasticity is robustly estimated to be larger than 1 in absolute value. These results are striking for they are much higher than those reported in previous studies using macroeconomic time-series data. This suggests that labour costs are more important in determining the demand for labour than initially was believed.     

Location Choice and Employment Decisions: A Comparison of German and Swedish Multinationals

Using data on German and Swedish multinational enterprises (MNEs), this paper analyzes determinants of location choice and the degree of substitutability of labor across locations. Countries with highly skilled labor strongly attract German but not necessarily Swedish MNEs. In MNEs from either country, affiliate employment tends to substitute for employment at the parent firm. At the margin, substitutability is the strongest with respect to affiliate employment in Western Europe. A one percent larger wage gap between Germany and locations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is associated with 760 fewer jobs at German parents and 4,620 more jobs at affiliates in CEE. A one percent larger wage gap between Sweden and CEE is associated with 140 fewer jobs at Swedish parents and 260 more jobs at affiliates in CEE. JEL no. F21, F23, J21, J23     

垄断竞争、产业内贸易与相对工资差距

本文首先运用理论模型推导出垄断竞争市场条件下产业内贸易与行业相对工资差距之间的关系。理论结果显示,当产品的产出技能替代弹性(高技术工人相对雇佣量的变化率/产出的变化率)为正时,产业内贸易将会扩大相对工资差距;当产品的产出技能替代弹性为负时,产业内贸易将会缩小相对工资差距。然后以中美工业制成品产业内贸易为例对该结论进行验证,计量检验结果表明,我国制成品的产出技能替代弹性为正,中美工业制成品产业内贸易扩大了相对工资差距。     

Family size,labor supply,and job prestige: Evidence from three decennial censuses in China

This study investigates the relationship between family size and parents’ labor market performance, measured by labor supply and occupational prestige scores, based on three census waves in 1990, 2000, and 2010. To address the endogeneity problem of family size, we use the indicator of twins at first birth as an instrumental variable. Our results suggest that in nuclear households, family size affects the labor market performance only of mothers, not of fathers, with the negative effects fading and gradually disappearing over time. More specifically, an increase in family size decreases female labor supply in the 1990 wave, leads to lower prestige scores among working mothers in the 2000 wave, and has no impact on labor supply or occupational prestige scores in the 2010 wave. Our subsample analysis indicates that the negative effects of family size are more severe for parents of households with all children under seven years old and for husbands or wives with lower education level than that of their partners. In addition, we find that the negative effects of family size on parental labor market outcomes are not observed in extended households, especially when no grandparents are aged 65 years or older.     

贸易自由化对中国工业就业与工资波动性的影响

本文从贸易自由化与中国就业与工资波动性的关系这一新的视角分析了贸易自由化对我国劳动力市场的影响。研究首先在弹性分析框架之下,对贸易自由化对我国工业工资和就业波动性的影响进行了模拟分析。然后采用我国细分工业行业的数据,在估算全要素生产率的基础上,使用回归分析方法进一步考察了贸易自由化对我国工业工资和就业波动性的影响。研究的基本结论是,贸易自由化很可能增强了给定外生劳动需求冲击之下工业劳动者工资和就业的波动性。