Structure of the labour market and wage inequality: evidence from European countries

The aim of this paper is to explore how the structural changes that have occurred in the labour market, in terms of employment composition by skill levels, affect wage inequality in three developed countries of Western Europe that are in close geographical proximity but have disparities in their labour market characteristics. More precisely, the analysis compares, from an international perspective, France, Germany—whose labour markets have been characterised in recent years by job polarization and the upgrading of occupations, respectively—and Italy, where neither of the two phenomena can be clearly identified. Using EU-SILC (European Union—Survey on Income and Living Conditions) data, in the first step, RIF-regression (Recentered Influence Function) enables an exploration on the primary factors that are likely to explain the differences in generating personal labour earnings and, in the second step, a decomposition of the change in wage inequality between 2005 and 2013 to evaluate how much of the overall gap is accounted for by the endowments in employees’ individual characteristics (composition effect) rather than the capability of labour markets to transform these characteristics into job opportunities and earnings (wage structure). Regarding France and Germany, the main results highlight how the endowment effect plays a key role in decreasing or, at least, not increasing wage inequality, whereas in Italy the rising inequality may be due to the lower efficiency of the country’s labour market in creating job opportunities, better job-related careers, and higher-salaries for employees.     

A Bayesian analysis of suicide data

The identification of change points in a sequence of suicide rates is one of the fundamental aspects of Durkheim’s theory. The specification of a statistical standard suitable for this purpose is the main condition for making inferences about the causes of suicide with distinctive trends of persistency and variability just as Durkheim theorized. At present, the statistical ‘strategy’ employed by the French social scientist is too ‘rudimentary’. A hundred years later, I take the opportunity to test Durkheim’s theory through modern methodological instruments, specifically the Bayesian change-point analysis. First of all, I analyzed the same suicide data which Durkheim took into consideration. Change-point analysis corroborates the Durkheimian analysis revealing the same change-points identified by the author. Secondly, I analyzed Italian suicide rates from 1864 to 2005. The change-point analysis was very useful. Durkheim’s theory ‘works’ until 1961: suicides rates increased as industrial development increased. However, after 1961 and the economic boom, they declined, and when they began increasing again, after 1984, they did not reach the same level as before. This finding obliges us to ‘adjust’ the Durkheim’s theory giving space to Halbwach’s convergence law. Therefore, as high economic and social development levels are attained, suicide rates tend to level-off: People adapt to the stress of modernization associated to low social integration levels. Although we are more ‘egoist’, individualism does not destroy identity and the sense of life as Durkheim had maintained.     

Income inequality between overlapping and stratification: a longitudinal analysis of personal earnings in France and Italy

The aim of this paper is to gain new insights into the generation process of personal income in France and Italy, two countries that are in close geographical proximity but have a large disparity in terms of income growth and distribution. In the first step, the potential of EU-SILC balanced panel (2004–2007) is exploited by random effects models, which also make it possible to explore the primary factors that are likely to explain differences in generating personal labour earnings. In the second step, the ANOGI (Analysis of Gini) decomposition enables one to assess the contribution of each sub-population to overall income inequality and the degree to which each subgroup is stratified. A joint evaluation of income determinants gives evidence of the high complexity of inequality process and throws light on the role of gender, skill levels and job characteristics in determining different degrees of income stratification. Indeed, although the high heterogeneity among members of a same subgroup (within-group inequality) explains a large share of overall income inequality, the between-group inequality becomes significant in explaining the income differentials between employment status and occupation types.     

Social and strategic innovation: extending the varieties of capitalism to asian countries

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This article empirically analyzes how institutional context affects the nature of firms´ innovation—social and/or...     

How financing and information drive international corporate entrepreneurs’ innovations

Journal of International Entrepreneurship - This research combines the literature on social entrepreneurship and international corporate entrepreneurship to determine the relevance financial...