Intertemporal substitution and random changes in preferences: Time series evidence for four countries

This study attempts to estimate a model of intertemporal substitution taking into account serially correlated changes in preferences with quarterly aggregate time series data for the USA, Great Britain, West Germany and Switzerland. Thereby, necessary optimality conditions representing the trade-offs between present and future consumption, present and future leisure, as well as present consumption and leisure are estimated using the forward-filtered estimator of Hayashi and Sims. The estimation results obtained for the dynamic optimality conditions reject the model formulated. The analysis of the static optimality conditions gave more satisfactory results with respect to intertemporal substitution elasticity in consumption.     

Phasing out: Routine tasks and retirement

This paper studies the link between task content of jobs and exits to retirement by older workers. This research provides a comparative analysis of retirement timing in Germany and Great Britain. In Germany, workers in more routine jobs had between one and two percentage points higher probability leaving the labor market faster when compared to workers in less routine occupations. The relationship is robust and relatively constant over time. In Great Britain, by contrast, workers from routine and non-routine jobs appear to leave the labor market with a similar timing. I contend that institutional characteristics can explain the differences across countries.     

Free trade and European economic development in the 19th century

This article is an attempt to analyse empirically the effects of the free trade period which began around 1860 on three then “less developed” countries: France, Germany and Italy, and on the “developed” country: Great Britain.     

ECONOMIC RELATIONS BETWEEN WOMEN AND THEIR PARTNERS: AN EAST AND WEST GERMAN COMPARISON AFTER REUNIFICATION

abstract

This article compares women's and men's economic relations in East and West Germany following the 1990 reunification to exemplify the impact of varying opportunity structures on women's relative contribution to family income. West Germany's takeover set in motion a rapid transformation of East German institutions and employment structures. The analysis shows that women in West Germany became less dependent on their partners in the 1990s, largely because fewer women were housewives without earnings. In contrast, the contributions of women to the family economy in East Germany fell between 1990 and 1996. Afterwards, women in East Germany regained some of their economic power because of their partners' increasing difficulties sustaining employment. A multivariate analysis showed that the fact that women in West Germany were more likely to work less or not at all – especially if they were married or had children – accounted for much of the difference.     

THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND1

This paper presents the results of applying the mortality multiplier approach to estate duty statistics in order to estimate the size distribution of personal wealth in the Republic of Ireland. It commences with an examination of the limitations of the estate duty statistics, a discussion of the problems involved in collecting the data, and a short consideration of the mortality multipliers used. Estimates are presented for the size distribution of personal wealth, and the distribution of wealth between age groups. Some comparisons are given with wealth in Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the U.S.A. Estimates of the components of personal capital were not found possible. Finally, preliminary estimates are made for the distribution of wealth among married and single persons, in order to provide the basis for an analysis of wealth possessed by wealth-owning units (defined as single males, single females and married couples). By making extreme assumptions, upper and lower limits are placed on the actual pattern of the size distribution of wealth by wealth-owning units.     

Common trends in prices and exchange rates. Tests of long-run purchasing power parity

The empirical validity of long-run purchasing power parity is investigated using multi-variate cointegration techniques. Both bilateral and multilateral PPP is examined. The data set is monthly and covers almost 22 years (January 1970–August 1991) for four countries — Germany, Japan, the U.S., and Great Britain. While three cointegrating relations are detected among the set of nominal exchange rates and domestic price levels (or equivalently, there exists a reduced number of common stochastic trends) none of these satisfy the linear constraints implied by PPP. We conclude that neither bilateral nor multilateral PPP can be supported by the behavior of the data.     

The private net present value and private internal rate of return to becoming a nurse in Great Britain

The private net present value and private internal rate of return to becoming a nurse in Great Britain is estimated. The calculations are made using the standard equations inputted with data from the New Earnings Survey and the British Household Panel Survey. Basic age-earnings profiles are adjusted for mortality, unemployment, other causes of economic inactivity, and discontinuation from training. The conclusions are that: (1) there is a high private internal rate of return to becoming a nurse in Great Britain relative to other occupations; (2) using the internal rate of return criterion is inappropriate when there exists a crossover marginal time preference rate, which is shown to be the case here; and, (3) using the net present value criterion there are net financial benefits to becoming a nurse in Great Britain for individuals with a marginal time preference rate of 8-13% or more.     

Effects of Marriage, Education and Occupation on the Female / Male Wage Gap in China

In the present study the way in which the gender wage gap in urban China differs according to marital status, education and occupation, is examined. Married Chinese women experience much larger absolute gender wage gaps than their unmarried counterparts. The proportion of the gender wage gap unexplained by differences in the levels of productive characteristics is also higher for married women than single women. Gender wage gaps are smaller for more educated women. These findings suggest that occupational segregation is not as important a factor as industrial segregation in accounting for the gender wage gap in China's urban labour markets.     

Is There a Glass Ceiling over Germany?

This paper analyzes the gender wage gap across the wage distribution using 2010 data from the German Statistical Agency. I investigate East and West Germany and the public sector separately to account for potential heterogeneities in wage gaps. I apply unconditional and conditional quantile regression methods to investigate the differences between highly paid men and women in distributions conditional and unconditional on covariates. The results indicate increasing gender wage gaps in all estimations, suggesting that there is indeed a glass ceiling over Germany even after controlling for a large set of observable characteristics (including occupation and industry). This finding is even more pronounced when also taking bonus payments into account.     

Housing Subsidies and Work Incentives in Great Britain

The relationship between housing costs, wages and transfer programmes is complex yet helps determine the incentive to work for individuals in low income or high housing cost households. We estimate a static discrete choice labour supply model that allows for housing benefit programme participation, using samples of married women and unmarried women drawn from Great Britain Family Resources Surveys 1994/5–97/8. We find women are quite responsive to labour supply incentives and that housing benefit income has similar incentive effects to earned income which suggests any 'stigma' is small. Our analysis is complemented by simulating housing benefit and direct rent subsidy reforms.     

An Empirical Analysis of Working-Hours Constraints in Twenty-one Countries

The aim of this paper is to analyze working-hour constraints in an international setting. We use data from the latest Work Orientations data set of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The survey was conducted in 1997 and, in this paper, data for twenty-one countries are used. Our main results are: (1) In most countries the majority of workers do not face hours constraints; (2) Of the workers that are constrained, the largest portion is underemployed. Only in Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland is this not the case; (3) Workers in the five Eastern European countries considered here are among the most constrained; (4) A comparison with the 1989 ISSP data set reveals that hours constraints have increased in Israel, the United States, and West Germany and decreased in Great Britain and Norway in the 1990s; (5) GDP per capita and unemployment levels are correlated with hours constraints; (6) A multivariate analysis shows that certain socio-demographic characteristics and work conditions influence hours constraints and that these factors differ across countries.     

Distribution and growth reconsidered: empirical results for six OECD countries

We analyse the relationship between functional income distributionand economic growth in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands,the UK and the USA from 1960 until 2005. The analysis is basedon a demand-driven distribution and growth model for an openeconomy inspired by Bhaduri and Marglin, which allows for eitherprofit- or wage-led growth. We find that growth in France, Germany,the UK and the USA has been wage-led, whereas Austria and theNetherlands have been profit-led. In the case of Austria a domesticallywage-led economy changes to profit-led when including the effectof distribution on external trade. The Netherlands, however,are already profit-led without external trade. Our results sofar only partially confirm Bhaduri and Marglin's theoreticalconclusion that wage-led growth becomes less feasible when theeffects of distribution on foreign trade are taken into account.     

Gender Wage Differentials and Occupational Segregation in Hong Kong, 1981–1996

This paper analyses gender wage differentials and the role of occupational segregation in Hong Kong. It is found that the female–male earnings ratio increased substantially from 0.710 in 1981 to 0.839 in 1996. A decomposition which takes into account occupational differences shows that the gender pay gap is mostly within occupations and most of the intra‐occupation wage gap is unexplained. The gender pay differential due to occupational differences is small; in fact, the overall occupational segregation favours females in Hong Kong.     

Purchasing power parity and uncovered interest parity: The Spanish case

This paper examines whether the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis holds in the long run when traded and non-traded goods are distinguished. Moreover, this hypothesis is analyzed jointly with the uncovered interest parity (UIP). The period from January 1986 to December 1995 was studied using monthly data corresponding to the consumer price index, short- and long-term interest rates, and spot exchange rates for Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain with each relative to Spain. Using Johansen's multi-equational cointegration technique, it was found that PPP does not hold even with the explicit consideration of the distinction between traded and non-traded goods as well as the difference between domestic and foreign interest rates. Furthermore, these two factors generate a systematic deviation between exchange rates and PPP.     

The determinants of training participation in Singapore

This article uses the Singapore Labour Force survey data to examine the determinants of workers’ participation in training programmes in Singapore. The results show that different socio-demographic and employment related characteristics affect the training participation of workers. Well-educated and better paid workers are much more likely to participate in training programmes than others. Age has a positive impact on training participation for younger workers (under 37 years), but a negative effect on older workers’ participation. The results also indicate that occupational affiliations have a significant impact on training participation. We also find that married workers seem to be less likely to participate in training programmes, but the difference between married and single is only significant at the 10% level. Finally, gender does not have any significant effect at any conventional level although the coefficient on the female dummy is positive, suggesting females might be slightly more likely to participate in training programmes.     

THE PUBLIC SECTOR PAY GAP IN FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN AND ITALY

We investigate public–private pay determination using French, British and Italian microdata. While traditional methods focus on parametric methods to estimate the public sector pay gap, in this paper, we use both non-parametric (kernel) and quantile regression methods to analyze the distribution of wages across sectors. We show that the public–private (hourly) wage differential is sensitive to the choice of quantile and that the pattern of premia varies with both gender and skill. In all countries the public sector is found to pay more to low skilled workers with respect to the private sector, whilst the reverse is true for high skilled workers. When comparing results across countries, we find that where pay formation is more regulated (i.e. as in France and Italy) the public sector pay gap is smaller; whilst where market factors play a larger role in pay determination (i.e. as in Great Britain) the public sector pay gap is larger—particularly in the lower part of the wage distribution—and females are much better off in the public sector as compared to the private sector.     

Segregation and gender wage gaps in the private and the public sectors: an analysis of Danish linked employer–employee data, 2002–2012

This paper examines the relation between segregation and the gender wage gap in the public and the private sectors in Denmark from 2002 to 2012. The analysis shows that male–female differences in the share of females in occupations, industries, establishments and job cells (occupations within establishments) constitute 46 % of the raw gender wage gap in the private sector, while segregation in the public sector accounts for as much as 63 %. Segregation thus plays a substantially more important role in accounting for the gender wage gap in the public sector than in the private sector. While the importance of segregation for wage formation decreased substantially in the public sector over time, it only decreased slightly in the private sector. Although the remaining gender wage gap, after controlling for segregation, is close to zero in the public sector, a substantial within-job cell differential remains after controlling for segregation in the private sector.     

Is Part-Time Employment after Childbirth a Stepping-Stone into Full-Time Work? A Cohort Study for East and West Germany

Does part-time work support first-time mothers’ employment by providing a stepping-stone into full-time work in Germany? Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984–2012, this study compares three different age cohorts of first-time East and West German mothers to investigate whether there has been any convergence between East and West Germany in the way women use part-time employment. Results show that mothers in West Germany in all cohorts tended to remain in part-time employment for longer periods than those in East Germany. Part-time employment more often provided a stepping-stone into full-time employment in East Germany than in West Germany. East German women who gave birth after reunification were less likely than older cohorts to experience a transition from part-time to full-time work. Thus, part-time employment not followed by subsequent full-time work has become more common in the East.