Effects of tariffs and real exchange rates on job reallocation: evidence from Latin America

Openness to international competition can lead to enhanced resource allocation in the end. While factor reallocation is essential if net benefits are to be derived from trade liberalization, the process generates costs both for transitioning workers and for employers undergoing personnel turnover. Net welfare gains depend on adjustment costs. Understanding of these issues has been hampered by data limitations. In this paper, we overcome some of these limitations by using new, harmonized measures on job creation and destruction for a number of countries in Latin America. We use these new series to investigate the impact of the removal of protectionism on net employment and gross job reallocation in Latin America. We find a robust pattern showing that reductions in tariffs and exchange rate appreciations increase the pace of job reallocation within sectors. We also find, however, some evidence of declining net employment growth as trade exposure increases. For example, we find some evidence that in the wake of tariff reductions, there is lower net employment growth.     

DO STATE EMPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION LAWS AFFECT JOB TURNOVER?

State laws requiring employers to verify workers' employment eligibility may reduce employment and earnings among unauthorized workers and make it difficult for them to switch jobs. Using data from the 2005–2014 Quarterly Workforce Indicators, we find evidence of a reduction in employment and job turnover among Hispanics as a whole in states that require all employers to verify employment eligibility. These adverse effects become larger as the share of likely unauthorized Hispanic workers falls. The drop in job turnover may be due to the laws trapping some Hispanic workers in their jobs. There is little effect on employment or job turnover among non‐Hispanic whites or blacks. There is no effect on average pay for all groups of workers. (JEL J15, J61, J68)     

Do unemployment benefits promote or hinder job reallocation?

According to recent and largely untested theories, unemployment benefits (UBs) could improve the extent and quality of job reallocation even at the cost of increasing unemployment. In this paper, we use a new set of yearly panel data from a large number of countries to evaluate empirically the relationship between unemployment benefits and job reallocation. Unlike previous work assessing the effects of UBs on labor market stocks, we focus on flows and rely on policy “experiments,” notably the introduction from scratch of unemployment benefits in many countries. We exploit the longitudinal nature of our data to lessen the potentially important selection, endogeneity, and omitted variable problems. We find a positive, sizable, and significant effect of the introduction of UBs on job reallocation, arising mainly from the job destruction margin although this effect fades away over time. These findings appear to be robust to changes in the countries in the sample, control variables or estimation methods. We discuss to what extent our results are consistent with equilibrium matching models with or without endogenous sorting of workers into jobs providing entitlement to UBs and stochastic job matching.     

Compensating wage differences

The paper develops a model of the allocation of workers to jobs based on individual's preferences for job satisfaction vs earnings. Given the distribution of levels of job satisfaction and productivities, it is possible to solve explicitly for wages as a function of job satisfaction. More productive individuals will take more (less) satisfying jobs whenever the elasticity of substitution between job satisfaction and earnings is less (greater) than one. The paper also discusses the effects of inequality on earnings of high and low productivity workers and the effects of compensating wage differences on the distribution of earnings.     

A DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT,OCCUPATIONAL CHOICES,AND JOB SEARCH*

This article examines career choices using a dynamic structural model that nests a job search model within a human capital model of occupational and educational choices. Wage growth occurs in the model because workers move between firms and occupations as they search for suitable job matches and because workers endogenously accumulate firm and occupation specific human capital. Simulations performed using the estimated model reveal that both self‐selection in occupational choices and mobility between firms account for a much larger share of total earnings and utility than the combined effects of firm and occupation specific human capital.     

ON‐THE‐JOB SEARCH,PRODUCTIVITY SHOCKS,AND THE INDIVIDUAL EARNINGS PROCESS*

Individual labor earnings observed in worker panel data have complex, highly persistent dynamics. We investigate the capacity of a structural job search model with on‐the‐job search, wage renegotiation by mutual consent, and i.i.d. productivity shocks to replicate salient properties of these dynamics, such as the covariance structure of earnings, the evolution of individual earnings mean, and variance with the duration of uninterrupted employment, or the distribution of year‐to‐year earnings changes. Structural estimation of our model on a 12‐year panel of highly educated British workers shows that our simple framework produces a dynamic earnings structure that is remarkably consistent with the data.     

Internal And External Adjustment To New Technologies

Schumpeterian creative destruction occurs not only at the industry level, but also with each firm trying to maintain or improve its position in the technology race. Based on a rich data set on more than 4,000 German business units, this paper shows that the simultaneous occurrence of hiring and separations is more likely in firms with the most advanced technologies in use than in units more distant from the technological frontier. This positive relation between technological advance and creative destruction documented also by churning and ‘excess job reallocation equations - holds particularly in recovery years, while it is weak during a recession. The explanation provided for this finding in the paper is that firms can also improve technologies by upgrading machinery and/or retraining workers, and these ‘implementation’ costs arc likely to be lower during economic downturns.     

JOB REALLOCATION, EMPLOYMENT CHANGE AND AVERAGE JOB TENURE: THEORY AND WORKPLACE EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIA

We explore determinants of job reallocation, employment change and average job tenure in this paper. A model which associates technological advances with the process of economic growth is modified and analysed. The features of this model allow for the possibility of asymmetric behaviour when looking at the net change in employment. Workplace data from Australia (AWIRS95) are used to test the predictions generated from the model for both employment change and average job tenure. Results are presented that provide clear evidence as to the nature of workplaces in which net employment growth is concentrated. We find that employment growth is asymmetrically related to expected changes in demand for the output of the workplace. We also find that employment is lower for workplaces that are larger, older, have greater union density, offer higher relative earnings, or are operating in a more competitive environment. The impacts on average tenure are as expected from the model and from these changes in employment. Overall there is a substantial degree of agreement between the predictions of the model and our empirical results.     

Can Supply‐Side Policies Reduce Unemployment? Lessons from North America

North America offers lessons about policies that help sustain low unemployment. This article examines the effects of 'supply-side' policies, which boost the skills of the workforce and improve microeconomic incentives facing workers and employers.
Two supply-side policies were expanded after the mid-1980s. First, the United States increased earnings supplements, payable to low-income workers, to encourage adults to find and keep jobs. Second, social assistance programs limited the duration of transfer payments and linked support benefits to workers' participation in job search, occupational training, and community work experience programs. These measures increased job holding among economically disadvantaged adults. In the 1980s and 1990s the United States also maintained strong incentives for employers to create jobs for the hard-to-employ. Payroll tax and regulatory burdens on employers were kept low, and the modest legal minimum wage was allowed to fall in real terms. US experience suggests that selective supply-side policies can boost the employment rates of the hard-to-employ and help maintain a low rate of structural unemployment.     

Market institutions,labor market dynamics,and productivity in Argentina during the 1990s

This paper addresses the effects of policy shocks and structural reforms on the dynamic behavior of manufacturing job flows and productivity in Argentina during the 1990s, and the contribution of job reallocation to productivity. The main findings are: (a) shocks to labor taxes have allocative effects, while financial shocks have aggregate effects; (b) import tariffs appear to protect obsolete jobs; (c) sectoral differences in labor intensity, openness, financial dependence and workers’ strength shape the responses to shocks; (d) intra‐ and inter‐sectoral reallocations contribute positively to productivity; and (e) trade liberalization and labor market flexibilization favor reallocation and creative destruction.     

Quantile regression and structural change in the Italian wage equation

A test for structural break based on quantile regressions (QR) reveals the impact of a break in the tails of the conditional distribution, unveiling an opposite behavior in the tails that balances at the mean and that cannot be found using OLS. By repeatedly computing the QR test it is possible to check for stability of the coefficients both over time and with respect to dichotomies in the explanatory variables, such as generations or regions. This provides evidence of a break in earnings i) over time, with wages decreasing in the latest period; ii) across generations, where young workers experience a decrease in returns to education; and iii) across regions, with an opposite pattern of earnings, unstable at the lower quantiles in the southern regions and unstable at the higher wages in the north-center area.     

JOB FLOWS AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN AN EQUILIBRIUM UNEMPLOYMENT MODEL WITH FIRM‐SPECIFIC SKILL TRAINING*

We introduce productivity enhancing firm‐specific skill training into the labour search model in which the firm‐specific skill training intensity and the job destruction rate are endogenously determined. It is shown that the higher the intensity of such training, the lower the rates of unemployment, job creation and job destruction. The paper's model provides a theoretical framework to understand the often mentioned peculiarity of the Japanese labour market; prevalently low rates of unemployment, job creation and job destruction in Japan are due to its training system which promotes workers to acquire firm‐specific skills.     

An equilibrium search model with optimal wage-experience contracts

The objective of this paper is to study equilibrium in a labour market, in which workers search on the job and firms offer wage contracts conditional upon workers' experience and employment status. In this environment, the optimal contract can be described by a promotion contract. The distribution of contract offers is dispersed within and across experience levels. As workers stay longer in the market and promotion dates get closer, the option value of holding a job increases. Firms offer early promotions to attract more experienced workers. A positive relation between experience and earnings can arise purely from firms' optimal response to labour market competition brought about by workers' on-the-job search. We characterise the offer distribution for each experience level and show how these change with labour market conditions.     

WAGE SIGNALING: A DYNAMIC MODEL OF INTRAFIRM BARGAINING AND ASYMMETRIC LEARNING*

The article analyzes the effect of employer–worker bargaining on wage dynamics in the presence of asymmetric information between current and potential employers. A failure to reach an agreement leads to output loss. Because the disagreement points depend upon the worker's productivity, productive workers separate themselves from less productive workers and signal their ability through wages. In existing models of asymmetric learning, wages are attached to publicly observable characteristics and wage growth occurs only when there is a change in observable characteristics. This model, in contrast, generates an increase in earnings dispersion in cohorts of workers with similar observable characteristics.     

The impact of job mobility on earnings growth of migrant workers in urban China

Using survey data on migrant workers in urban China, this paper carries out a positive study on the impact of inner-industrial and inter-industrial job shifts on earnings growth of migrant workers. Results show that low human capital, low employment grades and low income are the most important reasons for migrant workers to switch jobs. The migrant workers who are young, unmarried new entrants with low level of education, no training and low income tend to change their jobs within the industry. And those who have high income and who find their jobs by themselves are more likely to switch jobs inter-industrially. Inner-industrial job switches have a significant positive impact on earnings growth of low-income migrant workers and a significant negative one on that of high-income migrant workers. Moreover, inter-industrial shifts have a significant negative impact on earnings growth of migrant workers of all income levels. The inner cause for the positive effect of inner-industrial shifts lie in the fact that the cumulative effect of years of service within enterprises is not obvious while continuing engagement in the same type of job within an industry will lead to accumulation of qualifications, which has a significant augmentation effect on earnings of migrant workers.     

Worker turnover at the firm level and crowding out of lower educated workers

This paper investigates whether employers exploit cyclical downturns to improve the average skill level of their work force. We use a unique dataset that contains information on workers, jobs as well as firm characteristics. Our findings are that at each job level mainly lower educated workers leave during downturns. Furthermore, at each level of job complexity, workers with a higher education are not more productive than lower educated workers. We find no evidence that higher educated workers crowd out lower educated workers during recessions.     

Wage-shifting effects of severance payments savings accounts in Colombia

In 1990, Colombia replaced its traditional system of severance payments with a new system of severance payments savings accounts (SPSAs). Although severance payments are often justified on the grounds that they provide insurance against earnings loss, they also increase costs for employers and distort employment decisions. The extent of these distortions depends largely on how much of the costs of severance pay can be shifted from employers to workers. One reason why the effects of severance pay may not be completely shifted is that workers may fear the firm will “take the money and run” by declaring bankruptcy. A system of SPSAs eliminates this moral hazard problem, so it should facilitate the shifting of severance payments' costs to workers in the form of lower wages. Empirical results using the Colombian National Household Surveys (NHS) indicate that the introduction of SPSAs lowered wages by between 60% and 80% of total severance payment contributions. These results are consistent with increased shifting after SPSAs were introduced.     

LATE CAREER JOB LOSS AND THE DECISION TO RETIRE

This article provides an empirical analysis of the effect of involuntary job loss on the lifetime income and labor supply of older workers. I develop and estimate a dynamic programming model of retirement with savings, costly job search, and exogenous layoffs. The average cost of job loss is equivalent to one year of predisplacement earnings, 70% due to the wage reduction and 30% to the search frictions. Displaced workers on average retire 14 months earlier. Workers who approached retirement during the Great Recession will work approximately five months longer in response to the contemporaneous financial and labor market shocks.     

Immigrant job search assimilation in Canada

Immigrant assimilation is a major issue in many countries. While most of the literature studies assimilation through a human capital framework, we examine the role of job search assimilation. To do so, we estimate an equilibrium search model of immigrants operating in the same labour market as natives, where newly arrived immigrants have lower job offer arrival rates than natives but can acquire the same arrival rates according to a stochastic process. Using Canadian panel data, we find substantial differences in job offer arrival and destruction rates between natives and immigrants that are able to account for three quarters of the observed earnings gap. The estimates imply that immigrants take on average 13 years to acquire the native search parameters. Due to immigrants facing much lower on‐the‐job offer arrival rates than natives, the model predicts that earnings growth through job search is minimal for immigrants prior to their job search assimilation.     

GLOBAL AND DISAGGREGATED MEASURES OF EARNINGS MOBILITY: EVIDENCE FROM FIVE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

This paper offers the first application of the local approximation method pioneered by Schluter and Trede (2003) for the Shorrocks mobility indices across the earnings distribution for a range of European Countries covering the main European social models: Denmark, Germany, Spain, the UK and Italy in the pre‐accession EU (1994‐2001). This insightful approach allows us to offer a global and disaggregate analysis of mobility as proportionate change in inequality and hence provide the reader with a full set of information to make his/her own judgment about the extent of mobility and country ranking. Specifically, we investigate the degree to which mobility is driven by low or high earners and how this picture changes across three different earnings measures: full‐time full‐year working, adding part‐time working and then part‐year working. Our results draw out some general key facts. First of all the vast bulk of the measured mobility occurs in the tails especially the lower tail with at least half of the index driven by mobility in the bottom earning quintile. Second, in the top 20 percent of the distribution there are few movements of earnings that effect the level of permanent inequality except in Denmark. Third, no country has a clear dominance for mobility across the full earnings distribution but Denmark differs from the other countries with clearly greater mobility in the middle and at the top. Finally, we find that with the exception of Denmark and Italy, mobility does not lead to clear convergence to the mean but rather to points around 0.7‐0.8 and 1.5 to 2 times the mean.