Labour effects of foreign and domestic remittances – evidence from Pakistan

Remittances are playing an increasingly important role in the economies of developing countries. In this paper, we study the effects of these flows on Pakistan’s labour market. We employ the 2007–2008 Household Integrated Economic Survey and Probit as well as Propensity Score Matching techniques to examine the impact on labour participation, quantity of work and activities of working as well as non-active members of remittance-receiving households. We find that both foreign and domestic remittances tend to lower labour supply of the recipient households. This impact is higher among women and among the young. The impact is more pronounced in the rural areas. In addition, foreign remittances increase the likelihood of household members attending middle school. We also examine the quantity of labour supplied by the remittance-recipient households. Results show little difference in the number of months and days worked between the households receiving and not receiving remittances. Furthermore, we find that the likelihood of being self-employed and cultivating one’s own land is higher among remittance recipients. In sum, our analysis highlights a higher role of foreign remittances in the labour market as compared to internal remittances.     

Labour market effects of retraining for the unemployed: the role of occupations

We analyse the impact of retraining for unemployed low-skilled job-seekers in Germany. This extensive training programme leads to a formal vocational degree, which is often required to access certain professions. Applying statistical matching methods, we find that on average, after a period with large lock-in effects, retraining strongly increases the employment probability of participants, especially women. We add to the literature by estimating the employment effects for different occupations for which participants are trained. Our results show that there are substantial differences depending on the occupation. As the composition of trained occupations differs for men and women, segregation could be a driver of higher employment effects for women. However, comparisons of men and women trained for the same occupations reveal that even after controlling for segregation, women profit more from retraining. While caseworkers are instructed to choose professions with high labour demand, other aspects, such as working conditions, preferences and aptitudes of participants, should be crucial in the choice of a suitable occupation. An individual assessment of the suitability of an occupation could therefore improve the overall effectiveness of the programme.     

The Happiness of Young Australians: Empirical Evidence on the Role of Labour Market Experience

Data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth are used to investigate factors that influence young Australians' self-reported levels of 'happiness' during the school-to-work transition, focusing on the role of labour market experience. Panel logit models are fitted to control for individual effects. Fixed individual personality traits and marital status strongly influence reported happiness. There is evidence of declining well-being with duration of unemployment and of the importance of job quality, rather than just having a job. The validity of Clark and Oswald's (1994) assertion that empirical findings from happiness research show that unemployment is involuntary is questioned.     

The Threat Effect of Active Labour Market Programmes*

In this paper, we estimate the threat effect of active labour market programmes (ALMPs) for a sample of unemployed men in Denmark. Threat effects of such programmes capture the impacts of a system of ALMPs prior to actual participation. Rational economic agents make search decisions based on the expected discounted value of unemployment, and the perceived risk of future participation in programmes may affect job‐search behaviour early in the unemployment spell. We find a strong and significant threat effect, which is shown to reduce average unemployment duration by two and a half weeks.     

Displacement Effects of Active Labour Market Policy: The Youth Labour Market in Finland

In 1994 the number of workers participating in active labour market programmes in Finland was 299,000. On average there where 125,000 workers in these programmes at any one time, the average length of participation in a programme being about 5 months. In relation to the 2.5 million-strong Finnish labour force, these figures are proportionally large. In 1994 the total expenditure on unemployment amounted to 6.7 per cent of GNP of which the share spent on active labour market programmes was about 25 per cent. The study investigates the displacement effects of active labour market programmes in the youth labour market in Finland. The two age groups analysed are 15-19-year-olds and 20-24-year-olds. The results, based on a VAR analysis of quarterly data from the period 1981.1-1995.2, suggest that the displacement effects of job-creation programmes may be substantial. The study cannot, however, provide any robust estimates of the likely size of such displacement effects on youth employment in Finland. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Impact of Low‐Skilled Immigration on Female Labour Supply

In this paper, segmenting the market by educational levels, we investigate which native‐born women are more affected by an increase of low‐skilled immigrants working in the household service sector. We present a model of individual choice with home production and, using a harmonized dataset (the Cross‐National Equivalent File), we estimate its main comparative static results. The results suggest that the share of immigrants working in services is positively associated with an increase of native‐born women's labour supply at the intensive margin, if skilled, and at the extensive margin, if unskilled. Moreover, the results show that these effects are larger in countries with less‐supportive family policies.     

A Reappraisal of the Virtues of Private Sector Employment Programmes*

This paper evaluates the employment effects of active labour market programmes for Danish welfare benefit recipients, focusing on private sector employment (PSE) programmes. Using a latent variable model that allows for heterogeneous treatment effects among observationally identical persons, we estimate commonly defined mean treatment effects and the distribution of treatment effects. We find no significant mean treatment effect of PSE programme participation as compared to participation in other programmes for PSE programme participants. However, we find substantial heterogeneity in the treatment effects, and those most likely to participate in PSE programmes are those who benefit the least from such programmes.     

中国二元经济与农村富余劳动力转移就业——理论分析与政策选择

农村劳动力向非农产业和城镇转移就业,是中国从乡村型农业社会向城市型工业社会这一历史转型期最为突出的特征,是工业化和现代化发展的必然趋势。影响中国农村富余劳动力转移有制度因素、供给因素和经济因素,针对中国目前二元经济的特殊性,应强化对农村劳动力转移就业的组织推动工作,加快城镇化、农村工业化进程,健全农村劳动力培养培训机制,建立良好的劳务输出服务体制等,以引导农村富余劳动力平稳有序转移,促进城乡经济社会协调发展。     

From unemployed to entrepreneur: The role of the absolute bequest motive

Using the British Household Panel Survey, this paper finds that inheritance has a concave effect on the hours worked by male entrepreneurs. Receiving an inheritance increases the labor supply of unemployed male entrepreneurs; however this effect becomes smaller for higher inheritances.     

辽宁经济振兴中城镇就业问题与对策

结合辽宁情况,从多个角度全面、深入剖析了辽宁经济振兴中城镇失业的致因,并从劳动力资源开发、劳动力自由流动和资源有效配置以及挖掘就业潜能、提高经济对就业吸纳能力等角度,提出了促进经济振兴、解决城镇就业的一系列对策建议。     

The impact of minimum wages on employment of low‐wage workers

This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of a minimum wage increase on employment of workers in the formal sector who have wages below the minimum level in Vietnam. Using the difference‐in‐differences with propensity score matching and the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys of 2004 and 2006, the article finds that the minimum wage increase in 2005 reduced the proportion of workers having a formal sector job among low‐wage workers. Most workers who lost formal sector jobs became self‐employed.     

Direct Displacement Effects of Labour Market Programmes*

Using a panel of 250 Swedish municipalities over the period 1987–1996, we examine the direct displacement effects of active labour market programmes (ALMPs). Compared to earlier studies on this topic, we have more and better data. Based on our GMM estimations, we find that there are direct displacement effects from subsidised employment (in the order of approximately 65%), but that there seem to be no (significant) displacement effects from training. This result seems to be robust to several alternative specifications.     

The Employment Potential of Site Remediation Policies: A Micro-Economic Simulation

This paper deals with the impact on employment of a particular environmental protection policy: contaminated site remediation. We provide quantitative results on the employment level and also on qualifications in the case of France, by making different assumptions regarding the number of sites to be cleaned up and the decontamination level. We use a composite methodology: the engineering estimation method to obtain costs and direct jobs and a reversed input-output matrix to assess indirect employment, i.e., jobs incurred by the production of inputs. Given the high diversity of contaminated sites, we have selected two case studies, the first gathering gasworks and coke ovens and the other dealing with petrol filling stations. As regards the level of decontamination for each site, labour intensity follows a 'bell curve' with the highest labour intensity for intermediate levels of decontamination. By contrast, an increase in the number of sites to be treated has an important positive net effect on employment. Hence, a programme of site remediation of a large number of sites, preferably with an intermediate level of decontamination, would lead to a significant increase in employment, even when we take into account the jobs destroyed elsewhere in the economy by the funding of the clean-up.     

‘Beautiful Serbia’ ‐ objective and subjective outcomes of active labour market policy in a transition economy

This paper studies the causal impact of participation in the Beautiful Serbia programme providing training and temporary work in the construction sector in Serbia on labour market outcomes as well as on measures of subjective well‐being approximating individual welfare. According to our estimates, the positive impact of this particular programme appears much stronger when judged by subjective well‐being than when judged by the immediate labour market effect.     

The effects of exchange rate regimes on real exchange rate misalignment

The literature on exchange rate regimes has paid little attention to the effects of exchange rate policies on real exchange rate misalignments. This paper contributes to filling that gap by exploring such relation empirically. Because the underlying model is probably not linear and the treated individuals differ from non-treated individuals, we rely on Matching models rather than on standard regressions. Our main finding is that pegs are associated with more overvaluation. The results are robust to different exchange rate regime classifications, misalignment indexes, and matching estimators. The evidence presented suggests that policy-makers concerned with overvaluation should avoid sticking with rigid arrangements for too long.     

The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Active Labour Market Policies in Poland

Following the predominance of macroeconomic stabilisation policies and passive income support schemes in the first phase of transition, active labour market policies (ALMPs) have now come to play a more important role in transition economies. This paper looks at the Polish experience and provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of ALMPs. We use the Polish Labour Force Survey of August 1994 in combination with its Supplement on the Evaluation of Labour Market Policies together with data on ALMP expenditure at the regional (voivodship) level. The macroeconometric analysis of the relationship between labour market flows and ALMP expenditure shows no significant effects. The microeconometric analysis reveals that ALMPs are not particularly well targeted at the problem groups in the labour market. That is, women and people with basic vocational education do not receive enough attention. As to the effectiveness of ALMPs, the paper shows that former participants cannot expect to find employment more easily than their peers who have been unemployed but have not been in a programme. Subjective evaluations of former participants also suggest that ALMPs, but especially works programmes, have not improved their chances to find a job. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

''Don''t Know Much About History…'': Revisiting the Impact of Curriculum on Subsequent Labour Market Outcomes

Regression and neural network models of wage determination are constructed where the explanatory variables include detailed information about the impact of school curricula on future earnings. It is established that there are strong non‐linearities and interaction effects present in the relationship between curriculum and earnings. The results have important implications in the context of the human capital vs. signalling and screening debate. They also throw light on contemporary policy issues concerning the desirability of breadth vs. depth in the school curriculum.     

The growth of university spin-offs: a dynamic panel data approach

Evidence suggests that a significant percentage of the university spin-offs (USOs) have a low growth capacity, putting in question the use of public funds to promote this kind of entrepreneurship. In addition, previous studies of the USOs’ growth have not dealt with the dynamic nature of firm growth, which might have led to questionable results. This paper analyses whether the university origin of a firm conditions its growth by applying a methodology which captures this dynamic nature of growth. Using a sample of 469 Spanish USOs and an equivalently matched group of 469 Spanish non-USOs over the period 2001–2010, we find that USOs have more growth than non-USOs, both in terms of sales and employment. In addition, the USOs’ growth is influenced by a set of determinants that differ from those of non-USOs. On the basis of the results, we propose some policies to foster the USOs.     

Effects of house-sale restrictions in China: a difference-in-difference approach

Chinese housing prices have increased rapidly in recent years. Concerned about the potential for a burst bubble, the Chinese government has been intervening in the market to rein in the rising price trend since 2010. In March 2017, a new housing policy, called house-sale restriction, was developed to curtail speculation in the Chinese housing market. This study uses a difference-in-difference model to examine the policy effect of this new restriction. By using house-sale and price data of 43 cities across 30 provinces in China, we find that house-sale restrictions could effectively reduce speculation in the market as well as decrease housing prices in the short term. This study analyses only the short-term effect of this new housing policy; the long-term effect requires further examination.     

Optimal Taxation: The Design of Child‐Related Cash and In‐Kind Benefits

Abstract. In this paper, we empirically derive the welfare function that guarantees that the current German tax and transfer system for single women is optimal. In particular, we compare the welfare function conditional on the presence and age of children and assess how recent reforms of in‐kind childcare transfers affect the welfare function. Our analysis is based on a discrete model of optimal taxation. We apply this framework using microsimulation and microeconometric techniques. In general, we find that marginal welfare weights are relatively high for non‐working single women. Further, we show that the reform of in‐kind childcare transfers is only optimal if society increases the marginal welfare weights for the working single women.