Experience,Tenure, and the Perceptions of Employers

This paper examines how group-based assessments concerning employee ability impact employee compensation. The employer learns about worker ability through Bayesian updating, creating an additional channel for wage growth that is not available to those workers with only general labor market experience. Consistent with the model's predictions, results from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) indicate that black workers fare much better relative to white workers in returns to tenure than in returns to experience. Finally, parameter estimates in the structural model suggest that employers initially undervalue black males but that their wages rise with learning by employers over time.     

Do men and women discriminate against women for the same reason? Evidence from China

In this study, we examine whether men and women form gender discrimination for the same reason. To do that, we build an experimental Chinese labor market in which employers evaluate the productivity of workers who perform a real-effort task. Before evaluation, the employer observes the worker’s personal and group information. The personal information contains gender identity and a signal of productivity. The group information reveals the productivity distributions of some other male and female workers who do not differ in average productivity. However, it shows more male workers at the very top productivity levels and more female workers at the very bottom productivity levels in one treatment than in the other. According to the belief-based theory, there will be a greater degree of discrimination against female workers in the former. We find that, however, only male employers’ evaluations are well predicted by this approach. Female employers behave oppositely: their degree of gender discrimination is smaller in the treatment emphasizing men’s advantage in the tails of the productivity distributions. To explain female employers’ evaluations, we adopt the preference-based approach. Our findings suggest that employers of different genders can have different motivations for gender discrimination, and thus call attention to the theoretical foundation of gender discrimination and policy measures aimed at reducing gender discrimination.     

Employers’ stereotypes and taste-based discrimination

Studies founded on Becker's theory of employers’ taste-based discrimination show that discrimination arises not from “taste” but from “prejudice,” “belief,” and “stereotype.” However whether the “employer” is the source of discrimination remains unanswered. Thus, survey research using employers as a sample is indispensable to address this issue. In this study, we use a unique data set that employers can identify to analyze whether their gender stereotypes are the source of gender discrimination. The analysis showed that employers' strong stereotypes reduced women's proportion in companies. Furthermore, when the employer is a woman, her stereotype strongly influences women's proportion.     

The Return to Hours and Workers in U.S. Manufacturing: Evidence on Aggregation Bias

Reliance on overtime or part-time work is contested by organized labor and suggests employers exploit trade-offs between workers and hours. Worker-hour models predict return to hours and workers' estimates are crucial in evaluating the trade-off between them. This paper uses data that vary by industry to test and reject a common production structure across industries used in prior work; this aggregation is shown to yield an upward bias in return-to-hours estimates. Contrary to prior evidence, the industry-specific return-to-hour estimates are lower than return-to-worker estimates and are generally less than one, suggesting that trade-offs between workers and hours may be cost effective.     

体制内维权还是体制外抗争?——新生代农民工劳资冲突行为的演化博弈分析

基于单群体演化博弈理论,文章聚焦新生代农民工劳资冲突行为的群体扩散机制,发现新生代农民工劳资冲突变异行为的群体演化存在"体制内维权"与"体制外抗争"两种截然相反的趋势,而演化趋势的方向取决于初始状态中"体制外抗争"群体在总体中的比例。"体制外抗争"作为新时代的一种稳定策略均衡,仅凭"惩罚式"抑制将难以达到最终的制度均衡,设法提高"体制内维权"策略的个体收益支付以及群体收益支付总和,才是构建和谐劳资关系的必由之路。在当前劳资关系系统不完善的情况下,必须发挥政府的管理导向作用,在制度设计上设法提高体制内行为的收益,从而改变博弈参与人的预期,使其体制内行为比例超过一定的社会阈值,进而实现劳资关系向新的稳定均衡演化。     

Hiring and Separation Rates Before and after the Arab Spring in the Tunisian Labour Market

We seek to explore the hiring and separation rates in Tunisia before and after the Arab Spring based on quarterly business level data for 503 firms over the span of January 2007 to December 2012. Furthermore, we examine whether employers are willing to dismiss older workers to trigger an effective increase in mobility that will open new opportunities for the youth community. We build our analysis upon six main empirical models to study employment decisions reflected by major indicators such as the number of hiring, number of separations, total employment effects, male‐female ratio, age cohorts, labour mobility and net employment. The results show that the Arab Spring has created structural unemployment trends. In addition, we note that the 2008 global turmoil has fostered the firing level of employment. Our conclusions also indicate that the response of Tunisia's government to high unemployment rates caused by the financial meltdown in 2008 and the events in 2011 was not sufficient to remove the attached lingering effects that still distress the country's labour market. In addition, our findings emphasize the significant challenges faced by Tunisian youth that could be mitigated by efficient policy actions to incentivize training and development geared towards the private sector.     

Employers' Responses to Demographic Changes in Rural Labour Markets: The Case of Dumfries and Galloway

Employers in many rural areas are facing the problem of a declining workforce due to demographic changes in the population. These demographic changes are a result of a combination of population ageing, the in-migration of mainly retired people, out-migration and low fertility rates. This paper examines how employers are adjusting to demographic changes in Dumfries and Galloway, a rural local authority in south west Scotland. The area has one of the highest proportions of older people in the UK, and as such provides a useful insight into employers' responses to population ageing. Fifty locally based employers were questioned concerning the labour market impact of population ageing and their responses to this situation. The paper argues that in order to ensure the medium-term economic viability of the local economy, employers will need a set of strategies both to attract workers to the area and to increase the participation and retention of older workers resident in the area.     

The impact of state legislation on the organisation of trade unions: The case of the Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) in Botswana

Labour legislation is the unique device governments use to lay down standards and conventions in the workplace and to control industrial relations. Using focused interviews with unionists, government officials, employers and other relevant parties, this field study investigated the way in which labour legislation in Botswana affects the organisation of the country's federation of unions. The findings indicate that the BFTU's organisation is affected by the Trade Union and Employers Organisation Act. In particular, the restric‐ tions in this Act separate policy and administration in the BFTU and this has had negative implications for the union's effectiveness. The fact that its policymaking body is part‐time negatively affects coordination, communication and cooperation processes in the BFTU. According to the Act, public sector workers are not technically employees and therefore cannot belong to unions. This gives the impression that the state is not particularly convinced about the benefits of unionisation. This may create a difficult environment in which the BFTU and other unions must operate.     

The implications of South Africa's skills migration policy for country competitiveness

South Africa suffers from a shortage of skills, while at the same time having an excess of unskilled labour. The brain drain and the impact of HIV/Aids are threats to the current skills level in the labour force. Skilled workers generally create jobs for unskilled workers, and the level of skills in the labour force is an attraction for foreign investment. The new international migration policy imposes financial penalties and other restrictions on employers of foreigners with skills. The policy is detrimental to South Africa's competitiveness in the global economy and will deter investors and those needing to utilise skills not available in the South African labour market. A general immigration policy would be more appropriate to attract skilled foreigners to South Africa, where their skills can be absorbed into the labour force by supply and demand forces.     

Dilemmas of Downsizing During the Great Recession: Crisis Strategies of European Employers

The present paper analyzes the choices faced by European employers when threatened with the prospect of the mass lay-off of their employees as a result of the Great Recession. By means of a representative survey among employers in Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden in 2009, we show that employers mainly prefer to tackle such threats by offering short-time work, and by early retirement packages to older workers, in conjunction with buy-outs. The latter preference is particularly visible in countries where employers perceive the level of employment protection to be high. The only notable exception is Denmark, where employers prefer to reduce working hours. In general, a sense of generational fairness influences downsizing preferences, with those employers who favor younger workers particularly likely to use early retirement and buy-outs when downsizing, followed by working time reductions. Wage reductions and administrative dismissal are less favored by European employers. In particular, CEOs and owners are more inclined than lower-level managers to cut wages.     

From the substance to the shadow: the role of the court in Japanese labour markets

Modern contract law generally does not allow property rights or similar claims to be made against employees. This undermines a claim on the return on the employer's investments in recruiting and training a worker, making them vulnerable to possible infringement from a bystander. Accordingly, employers’ investment in recruiting and training might become deficient. Therefore, protecting an employer's investment, balanced against the mobility of the labour market for better employer/employee matches, has emerged as an issue during the transition towards a market‐based economy. This article explores how the Japanese state court in its early period addressed this issue in the tight labour market of the silk‐reeling industry, which was the leading industry at that time. Initially, the court directly protected the interests of employers whose employees were poached, at the expense of workers’ mobility. Then, it seemed to govern transactions between employers indirectly as a shadow off‐the‐equilibrium path. Thus, an employer whose employee was poached and an employer who carried out the poaching would privately negotiate to settle the dispute, using a possible suit as a threat against the poacher. An examination of the suits that were actually filed supports this hypothesis. This indirect governance facilitated labour market mobility with some protection of the original employer's claim.     

More Rights but Less Gains: Relaxed Birth Control Policy and the Loss for Women

In view of its aging population, China initiated in 2012 a relaxed birth control policy after a three-decades-long implementation of the restrictive one-child policy. This paper examines how China's relaxed birth control policy leads to gender inequality. It specifically focuses on migrant workers because they account for a significant portion of the working group. Using the National Migrant Population Dynamic Monitoring Survey from 2014 to 2016, we found that China's two-child pilot policy reduced female labor force participation by 1.4 percentage points. This negative effect was more pronounced for women with higher educational levels or working in the private sector because employers foresee greater risks of productivity decline. We demonstrated that the gender pay gap increased from RMB956 to RMB1,053 during this same period. Pinpointing these unintended consequences brought about by the relaxation of the one-child policy helps provide a more complete picture of inequality and make sense of persistent relative poverty in Chinese society. To counteract gender discrimination, females are advised to work outside their home jurisdictions and take advantage of positive peer effects.     

Successful Structural Reforms after EMU

Policy authorities in the EU are increasingly aware of the need to remove structural rigidities, particularly in the labor market. One reason is the start of stage III of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). With increased labor mobility, Euroland will be closer to being an optimum currency area. Another reason structural reforms are advocated in the EU is the persistently high unemployment rate in some continental countries. Structural reforms are not sufficient for smooth functioning of the EMU. Neither are they sufficient for low unemployment. But as the Netherlands has shown, structural reforms can become part of a chain that leads to low unemployment and good overall economic conditions. Given the increased awareness of the need for structural reform in the EU, we ask why this need was met successfully in the Netherlands, but not in France. We find that crisis and communication are important in getting out of a prisoner's dilemma situation. There are two ways to interpret the success in the Netherlands. One, economic crisis pushed the government, employers, and workers to communicate with each other so that they could share a common understanding of the state of the overall economy. Communication also enabled them to sign a binding agreement to cooperate. The second interpretation is that the crisis deepened to the extent that “cooperative behavior” could be sustained by selfish decision making in a repeated game. In France, a binding agreement was less feasible because the collective sense of crisis was insufficient and an effective mechanism to communicate was lacking. The start of stage III of EMU will put further pressure on member economies for structural reform. EMU may even change the structure of the payoffs so that employers and workers in France may have incentives to voluntarily behave more cooperatively. When such a change is absent, what is needed in France is a framework to enable workers and employers to communicate with each other and place sufficient importance on the future so that agreements to cooperate become binding.J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1998,12(4), pp. 507–534.     

Examining employment discrimination in South Africa, 1997–2016

This study examines employment discrimination by race and gender in 1997–2016 by employing a sample that represents the labour force (excluding informal sector workers, agricultural workers, domestic workers, self-employed and employers) aged between 15 and 65 years. Probit models are conducted to estimate labour force participation, employment and occupational attainment likelihoods. This is followed by the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, and the results indicate that the unexplained component of the white–African employment probability gap reveals a downward trend in absolute terms in 2002–2014, but in relative terms it still accounts for about 50% of the gap in 2016. The unexplained component is most dominant in the male–female employment gap decomposition. While these results suggest that employment discrimination (unexplained component) against Africans and females remains serious, the improvement of education and skills level of the workseekers (explained component) from the previously disadvantaged groups remain crucial to improve their employment prospects.     

Multiple job holding as a strategy for skills development

This study investigated the training effect of multiple job holding on the activity of main jobs. First, we developed a dual-labor supply model by adding the training effect of working second jobs. The theory showed that workers with unconstrained hours hold second jobs when they develop skills via the experience of second jobs. To verify the hypotheses from the theoretical model, the causal relationship between holding a second job and the wage rate of a main job was estimated using the Keio Household Panel Survey. Difference generalized method of moments was adopted to remove time-invariant individual effects and endogenous bias. Moreover, the estimations showed heterogeneity of main jobs in terms of length of working hours, tasks, and job turnover. Full-time workers engaged in intelligent tasks and those who did not change their jobs secured training effects from second jobs but only when the comparison group was the workers allowed to hold second jobs by their employers. It was presumed that employers paid to restrict employees’ activities. On the contrary, part-time workers engaged in physical tasks were exhausted by second jobs, which decreased the wage rate of their main jobs.     

Why is There a Spike in the Job Finding Rate at Benefit Exhaustion?

Putting a limit on the duration of unemployment benefits tends to introduce a “spike” in the job finding rate shortly before benefits are exhausted. Current theories explain this spike from workers’ behavior. We present a theoretical model in which also the nature of the job matters. End-of-benefit spikes in job finding rates are related to optimizing behavior of unemployed workers who rationally assume that employers will accept delays in the starting date of a new job, especially if these jobs are permanent. This gives some workers an incentive to not immediately start working after they have found a job. Instead they wait until their benefits expire. We use a dataset on Slovenian unemployment spells to test this prediction and find supporting evidence. We conclude that the spike in the job finding rate suggests that workers exploit unemployment insurance benefits for subsidized leisure.     

Select bibliography of contributions to economic and social history appearing in Scandinavian books,periodicals and year-books, 1977

Abstract

The structure of markets, of production and of bargaining institutions provide us with important clues as to why British and Swedish bargaining developed in very different ways during the interwar period. To understand fully the choices which employers made and the responses of their workers to these policies we should, it is argued here, extend our analysis beyond the market environment and the institutional structures which emerged in the two countries. This essay provides evidence that the different cultural and political values of the participants was an important formative influence in the making of the bargaining system. We seek to demonstrate this point by a brief survey of the wider social and political context in which the bargaining practices of the metal working trades were developed in this period, and suggest that we need to see the local as well as central organisations of workers and employers as contributors to this process.     

Conflict heterogeneity in Africa

The economic development literature widely concurs that conflicts have adverse economic consequences that contribute to poverty, disinvestment and lower human capital leading to widespread inequality and lower economic growth. As such, understanding the nature of conflict has been an important focus for political leaders, policymakers and researchers alike. However, the existing literature does not typically distinguish between the effects of conflict determinants on conflicts by type of actor or aggressor (i.e. state, group and civilian-based). Using panel data analysis for 46 African countries from 1997 to 2017, and a comprehensive geo-referenced Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) conflict dataset, we find evidence of variation in the determinants' effects on conflicts by actor types. For the full sample of countries, we find that military expenditure decreases civilian-based conflicts; globalisation increases both state- and civilian-based conflicts while state fragility increases group-based conflicts. On the other hand, income per capita increases all three types of conflicts. At regional level, we find variation in the effects of military expenditure and globalisation on state- and civilian-based conflicts. However, we find little variation in the effects of the determinants on group-based conflicts across the regions. The findings highlight the nuances in conflicts by actor types and their causes which need to be accounted for when formulating conflict resolution policies.     

Adverse Selection and Pay Compression

A fundamental result of the principal-agent literature is that pay will be linked to performance when it is difficult for the principal to monitor the agent's actions. However, performance pay can lead to adverse incentives. In these models, high-powered incentives encourage workers to neglect some aspects of their job or to sabotage their coworkers' efforts. This paper offers another explanation for the weak link between pay and performance: worker heterogeneity. When workers are heterogeneous and labor contracts are contests, the Nash equilibrium often pools workers. I show that this implies that the link between pay and performance is weaker than would be the case if firms could observe workers' types before contracting and offer each type their respective optimal contests.     

Can Simple Informational Nudges Increase Employee Participation in a 401(k) Plan?

We report results from a field experiment in which a randomized subset of newly hired workers at a large financial institution received a flyer containing information about the employer's 401(k) plan and the value of contributions compounding over a career. Younger workers who received the flyer were significantly more likely to begin contributing to the plan relative to their peers in the control group. Many workers do not participate in their employers' supplemental retirement savings programs, even though these programs offer substantial tax advantages and immediate returns due to matching contributions. From a survey of new hires, we find that many workers choose not to contribute to the plan because they have other financial priorities. However, some nonparticipants lack the financial literacy to appreciate the benefit. These findings indicate that simple informational interventions can nudge workers to participate in retirement saving plans and enhance individual well‐being and retirement income security.