Compensating wage differentials for job stress

Recent medical studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between mental stress and cardiac events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. In the workplace, stress once accounted for less than 5% of all occupational disease claims, but it now accounts for over 15%. Although research on the effects of mental stress is increasing, few studies offer an economic perspective. In this paper, we examine the effects of job stress on weekly wages and explore the possibility that stress commands a compensating wage differential. Our findings suggest that, ceteris paribus, a wage differential does exist between workers experiencing mental stress and their ‘non-stressed’ cohorts. After controlling for other demographic and occupational factors, we found a statistically significant wage premium ranging from 3 to 10% attributable to mental stress. In addition, the magnitude of the differential varies by gender.     

Convergence and catching up in ASEAN: a comparative analysis

The increasing diversity of average growth rates and income levels across countries has generated a large literature on testing the income convergence hypothesis. Most countries in South-East Asia, particularly the five founding ASEAN member countries (ASEAN-5), have experienced substantial economic growth, with the pace of growth having varied substantially across countries. Recent empirical studies have found evidence of several convergence clubs, in which per capita incomes have converged for selected groupings of countries and regions. This paper applies different time series tests of convergence to determine if there is a convergence club for ASEAN-5, as well as ASEAN-5 and the USA. The catching up hypothesis states that the lagging country, with low initial income and productivity levels, will tend to grow more rapidly by copying the technology of the leader country, without having to bear the associated costs of research and development. Given the important effects of technological change on growth, this paper also examines whether ASEAN-5 is catching up technologically with the USA.     

Trends and volatilities in foreign patents registered in the USA

This study analyses the patent trends and volatilities for the top 12 foreign patenting countries in the US market from 1975 to 1997. Japan is ranked first in terms of foreign patents registered in the USA, followed by Germany. Patent registrations from each of these countries have increased steadily over time, but at different rates. Using monthly time series data for 1975–1997, the time-varying volatility of Australian, Japanese and German patents registered in the USA is examined in detail. The asymmetric AR(1)-GJR(1,1) model is found to be suitable for Australia and Japan, while the best fitting model for Germany is the symmetric AR(1)-GARCH(1,1) model.     

Size and scope of the underground economy in Germany

The objective of this paper is to improve estimations of the size and scope of the underground economy by introducing a new approach that combines the advantages of the two most commonly used approaches, i.e. currency demand and multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC). The new approach is applied to Germany. Among other things, it is shown that the approach yields improved estimation results. Some policy perspectives are discussed in the concluding section.     

How well are women doing? Female non-employment across UK regions

Discussions of the UK's recent labour market performance commonly mention the contrasting trends in the unemployment rate (down), the employment rate (up) and the inactivity rate (flat). These same commentaries also notice that the ‘flatness’ of the overall inactivity rate masks contrasting trends by sex, with male rates (slowly rising) and female rates (slowly falling) and then proceed to discuss male inactivity in some detail before concluding. Bypassing the composition of female inactivity, these commentaries fail to notice that the male and the female proportions of the population not working by reason of sickness or disability are quite similar. Equally they have rarely noticed that male and female non-employment rates display a very similar regional hierarchy with female rates in the ‘North’ as much as 50% higher than those in the ‘South’, and that there is an even steeper North–South gradient in some of the components of non-employment. For example, sickness and disability rates for females in the North are up to 10% of the working age population, while in the South rates are typically less than half that size.     

Effective Monetary Policy Conservatism: A Comparison of 13 OECD Countries

Empirical studies of the influence of central bank independence and inflation have yet delivered quite inconclusive results. We argue this to be due to the failure to focus an actual central bank independence and to take the degree of conservatism of the government and the central bank into account. In this paper, we propose a new methodology of measuring the joint degree of central bank independence and conservatism from observed central bank behaviour. After applying the method to 13 OECD countries, we find our indicator to be negatively correlated with a legal index of central bank independence, but positively correlated with the turnover rate. As the latter exclusively focuses on factual central bank independence, the remaining difference might be attributed to conservatism.