The Employment Effects of Lower Minimum Wage Rates for Young Workers: Canadian Evidence

Between 1986 and 1998, six of the ten Canadian provinces abolished their lower minimum wage rates for younger teenage workers. Using data from the Canadian Labour Force Survey, this paper evaluates the effects of abolition on the employment and weekly hours worked of 15‐ to 16‐year‐olds using teenagers in provinces where there is no legislative change and young people above the age to which youth rates applied as control groups. The results provide some evidence that abolishing these youth rates significantly lowered employment and work hours of 15‐ to 16‐year‐olds, but the lack of evidence for some jurisdictions and patterns of effects using age controls do raise some questions regarding the interpretation of the results.     

Corporate Governance Structure and Employment Adjustment in Japan: An Empirical Analysis Using Corporate Finance Data

I investigate the influence of corporate governance structures on employment adjustment in Japanese firms, using financial data for firms listed on the Japanese stock market. The results indicate that corporate governance structures affect the rate of employment adjustment. The presence of large stockholders and the degree of stock cross–holding lengthens the period the firm remains in debt and slows down the speed of employment adjustment.     

Transitions Out of Casual Employment: The Australian Experience

This paper uses longitudinal data to examine the extent to which casual employees, who account for almost 25 percent of all Australian employees, are able to access non‐casual jobs in the future, and to contrast their experiences with that of other labor market participants. A dynamic mixed multinomial logit model of labor market states is estimated which reveals high rates of mobility from casual employment into non‐casual employment. Among men, casual employees are found to be far more likely to make the transition into non‐casual employment than otherwise comparable unemployed job seekers. For women, however, this is not the case.     

The Demand for Housing Additions: An Empirical Analysis

Little is known of a household's decision to make a housing addition despite the large and growing size of these expenditures. This paper examines this decision in a two-step empirical process: first, those factors that influence the probability of a housing addition are determined, and second, the value of the addition made is analyzed. Preliminary results indicate that unmet housing consumption needs, but not the investment potential of housing additions, have a significant impact on both the probability of an addition and the value of an addition made. Furthermore, ceteris paribus, non-white households have a greater probability of making a housing addition, and on average, spend more on housing additions than do white households.     

Employers' Online Search: An Empirical Analysis

Drawing on job postings at an online job board, we find that employers who have to fill their vacancies immediately specify fewer job requirements, provide more details about the job application process, and are quicker to withdraw their vacancies from the job board than employers with job openings that do not have to be filled immediately. These findings offer new insights into the role of vacancy costs in determining how employers search for workers online.     

中国就业增长的实证分析与地区比较

本文利用年度数据对我国的就业增长进行实证分析,并利用地区面板数据展开研究,进行地区比较.研究表明:从全国来看,经济增长和工资水平增加对就业增长具有正效应,而资本对就业增长具有替代效应.从地区来看,经济增长对就业具有创造效应,工资水平增加对就业的影响具有负效应.不考虑工资水平增加对就业的影响,国内投资对就业的影响具有负效应,外商直接投资对就业的影响因地区不同而有差异.未来,我国需要制定相应措施,缩小地区之间的差异,如继续加快经济发展步伐;将外商直接投资更多投向中部和西部地区;以国家政策为指导,增加就业.     

江苏省就业人数与三大产业产值关系实证分析

通过对1989~2008年间江苏省就业人数与三大产业产值间关系的协整分析,得出江苏省就业人数与各次产业产值之间存在长期的均衡关系;同时构建模型对江苏省不同产业的GDP与就业人数进行了回归分析,利用不同产业的GDP就业弹性,比较分析了江苏省不同产业对就业吸纳作用的差异,并据此提出了相应的政策建议。     

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Employee Ownership and Employment Stability in the US: 1999–2011

Do firms with employee ownership (EO) programs exhibit greater employment stability in the face of economic downturns? In particular, are firms with EO programs less likely to lay off workers during negative shocks? In this article, we examine the relationship between EO programs and employment stability in the United States using longitudinal Form 5500‐CompuStat matched data on the universe of publicly traded companies during 1999–2011. We examine how firms with EO programs weathered the recessions of 2001 and 2008 in terms of employment stability relative to firms without EO programs, and also whether such firms were less likely to lay off workers when faced with negative shocks more broadly. In our econometric analyses, we use a rich array of measures of EO at firms, including the presence of EO stock in pension plans, the presence of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), the value of EO stock per employee, the share of the firm owned by employees, the share of workers at the firm participating in EO and the share of workers at the firm participating in ESOPs. We also consider both economy‐wide negative shock measures (increases in the unemployment rate, declines in the employment‐to‐population ratio) and firm‐specific negative shock measures (declines in firm sales, declines in firm stock price). Our results indicate that EO firms exhibit greater employment stability in the face of economy‐wide and firm‐specific negative shocks.     

Appraisers and Valuation Bias: An Empirical Analysis

Using appraisals from a lender across the 2005–2006 period, we find that the association between appraisers’ valuation inflation patterns and work volume varies across states. Moreover, we find a considerable occupational exit for appraisers, and provide evidence that appraisers, as applicants, did not receive better loan pricing compared with the population of applicants. Overall, this article offers novel insights concerning the political economy of financial regulation through the lens of a specific profession.     

Temporary Help Service Workers: Employment Characteristics and Wage Determination

This paper studies temporary help service (THS) workers, a growing component of the secondary labor market. It analyzes two samples of workers in the same four clerical occupations-bookkeepers, typists, key-punch operators, and clerks. The two samples-one for workers employed via a large THS firm in Israel, the other for full-time, non-THS workers drawn from the 1983 Israeli Census-are compared for demographic and human capital characteristics, wage levels, and wage regressions. The results lead us to conclude that viewing THS workers as a homogeneous group of "secondary" workers is not warranted.     

Unions and Flexible Employment in Britain and Spain: A Descriptive Note

Spain and Britain are known to have different labor market structures and degrees of employment protection. Despite such differences, they show remarkably similar associations of unionization with temporary employment and nonstandard hours of work. In particular, we find that unionization in both countries is correlated neither with overtime/long hours of work nor temporary employment. In both economies, instead, part-time work is negatively associated with unionization. These cross-national similarities warrant a rethinking of the strategies of enlargement toward flexible forms of work that unions have supposedly adopted in recent years.     

Sharing Risks of Labour Market Transitions: Towards a System of Employment Insurance

The increasing polarization of the labour market is closely related to the spread of non‐standard employment relationships that largely results from poor risk management of critical transitions over the life course. The question, therefore, arises whether labour market regulation, in particular unemployment insurance, is still properly designed for the new world of work. This article argues for an extension of unemployment insurance towards a system of employment insurance by summarizing the concept of transitional labour markets, indicating the risks that challenge current and future labour markets, laying the theoretical groundwork, and discussing the main features of an employment insurance system.     

Prepayment Behavior of Dutch Mortgagors: An Empirical Analysis

The suboptimal exercise of the prepayment option in a mortgage is relevant for mortgage pricing and the management of a mortgage portfolio. Construction of an accurate prepayment model requires quantification of driving factors such as seasoning, seasonality, refinance incentive and burnout. We focus on Dutch mortgages but also discuss the Dutch market in a European setting. Within the euro-denominated MBS market, the Dutch market is often referred to as the benchmark market. In our application we include typical Dutch market and contract characteristics such as the annual penalty-free prepayment of 10 to 20% of the original loan amount. We use loan-level historical data on mortgages originated between January 1989 and June 1999 to estimate separate models for two popular redemption types: savings mortgages and interest-only mortgages. In both models we allow for suboptimal prepayment behavior. The results clearly indicate that prepayment rates depend on interest rates and the age of the mortgage contract. Moreover, we find that burnout is an important element in describing the prepayment behavior of Dutch mortgagors.     

区域高校经费投入与经济发展关系的实证分析

利用1998—2006年中国各地区数据，得用面板数据模型对区域高校经费投入与经济发展的关系进行了实证分析，结果表明高校经费投入与经济发展正相关，且经济越落后，教育负担越重。     

Yardstick Competition to Elicit Private Information: An Empirical Analysis

The Japanese regulatory authority has introduced a new hybrid regulation that combines a fixed-price contract with ex ante yardstick inspection for local (public utility) gas distribution. The latter compares a firm??s reported costs with those of ??similar?? firms, and penalizes high-cost firms. We infer the effect of yardstick on information revelation by comparing the actual welfare level with the hypothetical full-information welfare level. Our results suggest that only the very first inspection was effective in reducing firms?? incentive to report higher costs.     

Manufacturing Plants' Use of Temporary Workers: An Analysis Using Census Microdata

Using plant‐level data from the plant capacity utilization survey, we explore how manufacturing plants' use of temporary workers is associated with the nature of their output fluctuations and other plant characteristics. We find that plants tend to use temporary workers when their output is expected to fall; this may indicate that firms use temporary workers to reduce costs associated with dismissing permanent employees. In addition, we find that plants whose future output levels are subject to greater uncertainty tend to use more temporary workers. We also examine the effects of wage and benefit levels for permanent workers, unionization rates, turnover rates, seasonal factors, and plant size and age on the use of temporary workers; based on our results, we discuss various views of why firms use temporary workers.