Testing neoclassical convergence in regional incomes and earnings

The time-series properties of per capita income and per capita earnings in the regions of the United States are tested for consistency with the neoclassical growth model's prediction of convergence. We find evidence for per capita income convergence for U.S. regions during the 1929–1990 period after allowing for a trend break in 1946. These findings support the neoclassical model's prediction of convergence. The evidence for per capita earnings convergence is, however, less conclusive. Shocks to per capita earnings are found to be more persistent than shocks to per capita income. This implies that the regional distribution of transfer payments tends to smooth the effects of deviation on relative regional per capita earnings and reinforce trends in per capita income convergence.     

Conditional distributions of earnings,wages and hours for blacks and whites

This paper provides new evidence on the conditional distributions of earnings, wages and hours for white and black males in the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Conditional hours and ln wages are approximately normal for both races. Conditional earnings are approximately normal for blacks while earnings are well approximated for whites by the product of normal hours and log-normal wages. The distribution of this product is derived here for the first time. Treating the marginal earnings distribution as the average of the conditional distributions, we use these results to predict poverty and affluence rates in our sample.     

Earnings expectations and the relative information content of dividend and earnings announcements

Recent studies of financial analysis' earnings forecast revisions following dividend announcements suggest that dividends convey information regarding a firm's future prospects. In this study, we extend the analysis by explicitly controlling for earnings information released during the forecast revision measurement period. Our results suggest that earnings forecast revisions previously attributed to dividend announcements are driven primarily by earnings surprise. At best, dividends appear to serve a corroborative role. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of I/B/E/S Inc. for providing earnings per share forecast data, available through the Institutional Brokers Estimate System.     

Immigrant earnings,relative to what? The importance of earnings function specification and comparison points

Immigrant relative earnings estimates are sensitive to the choice of comparison point and the specification of earnings. Non-sample mean comparisons (Borjas, 1985) understate relative earnings. Simple earnings specifications (linear education, quadratic experience) overstate relative earnings for both poorly and well-educated immigrants. Specifications which ignore omitted variables understate the relative earnings of poorly educated immigrants and overstate those of well-educated ones. Although measures of assimilation and changes in immigrant quality are insensitive to earnings specification, they indicate strong earnings growth for post-1964 immigrants, an overall decrease in immigrant quality, and an increase in Mexican immigrant quality.     

Effects on earnings of the removal of direct discrimination in minimum wage rates: A validation of the Blinder decomposition

Prior to 1969, the Australian labour market was characterised by institutionalised gender wage discrimination. Wages for the majority of the workforce were set by government wage tribunals, and these tribunals set the wages of women at 75 percent of the male rate of pay. Following equal pay decisions in 1969 and 1972, the award rates of pay for all work were, by June 1975, to be determined without consideration of the sex of the worker. Examination of data from surveys conducted in 1973 and 1989 show that the removal of this institutionalised discrimination is captured by the Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) wage decompositions as a marked decline in the absolute value of the ‘discrimination’ component of the gender pay gap. The analyses also reveal some merit in the decomposition proposed by Cotton (1988).     

Explaining regional variation in equilibrium real estate prices and income

We combine the real estate model of Potepan (1996) with the spatial equilibrium approach of Roback (1982) to prove the interdependency of housing prices, rental prices, building land prices and income via one simultaneous equilibrium analysis. Using unique cross-sectional data on the majority of German counties and cities for 2005, we estimate the equations in their structural and reduced form. The results show significantly positive interaction effects of income and real estate prices. Moreover, we can confirm model predictions concerning the majority of exogenous determinants. In particular, expectations about population development seem to be among the most important determinants of price and income disparities between regions in the long term.     

Capital market reactions to earnings announcements: empirical evidence on the difference in the information content of IAS-based earnings and EC-Directives-based earnings

Listing on a foreign stock exchange and the aim to attract international investors usually forces European quoted companies to adapt information supplied in financial statements to different information needs of international investors. Because of the dominance of the American stock market, this adaptation raises especially the question whether Anglo-American-oriented accounting standards (for instance IAS — International Accounting Standards) convey a higher information content for investors than continental-Europe-oriented accounting standards (for instance EC-Directives). The study examines the information content of earnings announcements, i.e. abnormal returns resulting from un-expected earnings, for a sample of Swiss quoted companies which have changed the accounting standard used for presenting Swiss GAAP consolidated financial statements to either EC-Directives or IAS and can therefore contribute to this discussion. The results of the study suggest that IAS-based earnings announce-ments convey a statistically significant higher information content than earnings announcements based on the Swiss GAAP if a variance-approach is used. For investors in the Swiss capital market, the switch from Swiss GAAP to IAS has therefore increased the information content of financial statements. But comparing IAS-based and EC-Directives-based earnings announcements, the results suggest that for investors IAS-based earnings do not possess a statistically significant higher information content than EC-Directives-based earnings. This result has been achieved despite the fact that for Swiss financial analysts financial statements based on IAS convey a significant higher information content than financial statements based on EC-Directives. Avoiding problems in specifying a model for unexpected earnings by standardizing the mean of the abnormal returns of each event window to a positive value does not lead to a different conclusion if the variance approach is used.     

An efficiency wage approach to reconciling the wage curve and the Phillips curve

This study develops an efficiency wage model that generates a wage curve at the regional level and a Phillips curve at the national level, under the assumption that workers' efficiency depends on both regional and aggregate labor market conditions. An equation relating wages to unemployment and lagged wages is derived from the profit-maximizing behavior of firms, and it is demonstrated that the coefficient on lagged wages is less than 1 with regional data but equals 1 with aggregate data. In addition, there is an equilibrium relationship between unemployment and wages at the regional level, but not at the aggregate level.     

The correlation of spouses' permanent and transitory earnings and family earnings inequality in Canada

I develop a very flexible error-component model of family earnings dynamics to examine recent Canadian trends in the variance of family earnings and its components using the ‘permanent-transitory’ analytical framework. In contrast to most studies of family earnings inequality, the main focus of this paper is on the trends in the correlation between spouses' permanent and transitory earnings. I find strong evidence of an increase in the correlation of spouses' permanent earnings before 1993 and no evidence of such an increase after 1993. However, the correlation of spouses' transitory earnings steadily increased throughout the 1990s and well into the 2000s.     

Job mobility and the gender wage gap in Italy

This paper investigates the contribution of gender differences in job mobility to the emergence of a gender wage gap in the Italian labour market. We show that over the first 10 years of labour market experience job mobility accounts for up to 30% of total log wage growth for men and only 8.3% for women, and that this difference is mainly due to differences in returns to mobility. The gender mobility gap is robust to the inclusion of individual, job and firm characteristics, to different ways of accounting for individual unobserved heterogeneity, and is mainly found for voluntary job moves. Looking at the characteristics of the jobs and the firms' workers move to, we find that moves to larger firms represent by far the main source of gender differences in returns to mobility. We offer two possible explanations for this finding; one which involves differences in bargaining behaviour and one which relates to the theory of compensating differentials.     

Fiscal stimulus and the role of wage rigidity

In this paper we study the impact of an expansion in public spending in an economy characterized by limited asset market participation and sticky wages. The flexible wage version of the model implies strong expansionary effects on output and consumption but also a counterfactual increase in real wages. The introduction of sticky wages, besides being a realistic addition, solves this problem and preserves the expansionary effects on output and consumption. Moreover, once we introduce segmentation in the labor market, sticky wages are even essential to obtain expansionary effects.     

Inter-city wage differentials and the value of air quality

This paper proposes a method of valuing air quality based on differences in wages among cities. Using an urban location model it is shown that the supply of labor to any city increases with the real wage and with air quality in the business district. If individuals have log-linear utility functions then the value at home and at work of an equal proportionate reduction in pollution throughout the city can be computed from the coefficients of the labor supply function. The computations are illustrated for one-digit labor supply functions estimated from 1970 Census data.     

Black trade unions and the wage gap in South Africa

This paper puts forward a model of real wage determination for black workers in South Africa. The model is fitted to data for mining and manufacturing for the post-war period. It is found that since 1980 the rise of black trade unions has been a major factor underlying wage increases in manufacturing. In the 1970s, rising gold prices and reduced foreign labour supplies were favourable for mining labour, and in both industries pass law limitations on mobility are found to have lowered balck wages.     

Just-in-time inventory systems innovation and the predictability of earnings

Firms that adopt just-in-time (JIT) inventory practices do so in order to realize cost savings and improve product quality, but an unexpected benefit to such firms could be a more predictable earnings stream. We examine the relationship between implementation of just-in-time inventory practices and the predictability of future quarterly earnings for a matched-pair sample of 82 firms, half of which have publicly announced that they have adopted JIT inventory practices. We find that one- and four-step-ahead forecasts of quarterly earnings, using either a Brown–Rozeff [Journal of Accounting Research (1979) 179–189] ARIMA or a seasonal random walk expectation model, are more accurate for the firms that have adopted JIT.     

Firm-specific wage growth and changes in the labor market for managers

This paper analyzes recent changes in the employment relationships between managers and firms. In both Becker's and Lazear's models of firm-specific wage growth, compensation is deferred from early in an employee's tenure with a firm until later in the contract. The deferred compensation bonds the worker to the firm. Based on cross-sectional data from Current Population Surveys, rates of firm-specific wage growth are estimated for the managerial labor market. The findings show that the rate of wage growth that is firm-specific for managers in manufacturing industries declined significantly during the early 1980s. It is estimated, for example, that a manager with 12 years of tenure in a manufacturing firm enjoyed, on average, a 25% wage premium in 1979 over an otherwise similar manager who was a new hire in a firm. By 1983 the firm-specific wage premium for a manager with 12 years of tenure was only 5%. These changes represent a significant reduction in the strength of the employment bond between firms and managers, and a reduction in the incentive effects previously enjoyed by firms from the use of deferred-compensation schemes. This change is consistent with the significant increases in the displacement rates of managers that occurred during the 1980s.     

Uniform and nonuniform staggering of wage contracts

This paper provides a model that can account for the almost uniform staggering of wage contracts in some countries as well as for the markedly nonuniform staggering in others. In the model, short and long contracts as well as long contracts concluded in different periods are strategic substitutes, which provide a powerful rationale for staggering. We show that for realistic parameter values, there is a continuum of possible equilibria with various degrees of staggering of long contracts. If the contracting cost is not too large, then the lowest possible degree of staggering decreases with the contracting cost and increases with monetary uncertainty.     

Youth minimum wage reform and the labour market in New Zealand

This paper analyses the effects of a large reform in the minimum wages affecting youth workers in New Zealand since 2001. Prior to this reform, a youth minimum wage, applying to 16–19 year-olds, was set at 60% of the adult minimum. The reform had two components. First, it lowered the eligible age for the adult minimum wage from 20 to 18 years, and resulted in a 69% increase in the minimum wage for 18 and 19 year-olds. Second, the reform raised the youth minimum wage in two annual steps from 60% to 80% of the adult minimum, and resulted in a 41% increase in the minimum wage for 16 and 17 year-olds over a two-year period. We estimate the impact of this reform by comparing average outcomes for these two groups of teenagers, before and after the change, to those for 20–25 year-olds, who were unaffected by the reform. We find no evidence of adverse effects on youth employment immediately following the reform, but some weak evidence of employment loss by 2003. We also find evidence of a 10–20% increase in hours worked following the reform for employed 16–17 year-olds, and up to a 10% increase for employed 18–19 year-olds, depending on the specification adopted. Combined, wage, hours, and employment changes lead to significant increases in labour earnings and total income of teenagers relative to young adults. However, we also find evidence of a decline in educational enrolment, and an increase in unemployment, inactivity, and benefit receipt rates, suggesting that while the minimum wage reform increased the labour supply of teenagers, this increase was not matched by as large an increase in employment.     

The importance of firms in wage determination

Firms are central to many theories of the labor market. However, the actual degree to which firms shape the structure of wages is still not well understood. This paper investigates (i) the importance of firms in explaining wage differences across individuals and industries, and (ii) how the nature of interfirm mobility – job-to-job vs. job-unemployment-job – affects the relative importance of firms and workers in wage determination. Results indicate that (i) firms are much more important in explaining the variance of average wages across industries rather than across individuals, and (ii) using job-to-job transitions to identify the firm's contribution to the wage rate reduces the importance of firm wage policies in explaining wage differences by as much as 50%.     

Endogenous monopsony and the perverse effect of the minimum wage in small firms

The minimum-wage rate has been introduced in many countries as a means of alleviating the poverty of the working poor. This paper shows, however, that an imperfectly enforced minimum-wage rate causes small firms to face an upward-sloping labor supply schedule. Since this turns these firms into endogenous monopsonists, the minimum-wage rate has the perverse effect of reducing employment in small firms as well as what these firms offer their workers. Thus, if there are only small firms, the minimum-wage rate makes all workers that would be employed in the absence of a minimum-wage rate worse off.     

The effect of the minimum wage on employment and hours

This study examines the effect of minimum wage increases on teen hours of work and employment using both state- and individual-level panel data in the US. The state-level results indicate that minimum wage increases may lower employment rates but do not adversely affect hours among either working teens or all teens. The individual-level results do not indicate that minimum wage increases have a significant negative effect on hours worked by low-wage teens who are likely to be affected by a minimum wage increase. The results suggest that low-wage teens are less likely to remain employed, relative to high-wage teens, when the minimum wage is raised. However, this adverse effect disappears when these low-wage teens are compared to other low-wage teens during periods when the minimum wage did not increase.