Using Occupational Preference in Estimating Market Wage Discrimination: the Case of the Gender Pay Gap

ABSTRACT Past occupational preference is used to estimate the gender pay gap. The use of predetermined variables in a reduced-form wage equation avoids the bias caused by using variables that are correlated with the random error. Using a gender coefficient, the potential discriminatory gap is about 11.5 percent when past occupational preference is included. Decomposition yields an estimate of 10.5 percent when past occupational preference is included. In both cases, the discriminatory gap is close to that obtained when actual occupation is included. This suggests public policy directed toward reducing hiring discrimination by gender might be misdirected.     

Estimation of the probability of labor force participation of the AFDC population-at-risk

Summary In summary, the functional form makes quite a difference. An investigator should be quite wary of making generalizations based on any single specification or estimation technique. However, the above results have shown in striking fashion the superiority of MLE of the sigmoid specifications over the OLS estimation of the linear probability specification. Although the logistic or urban specification require iterative solution, this is no barrier on a modern digital computer, with appropriate special algorithms. A further advantage of the MLE is the asymptotic normality of the estimates of _i which permits large sample interval estimation, and the iteration method of scoring employed yields directly an estimate of the standard deviation of each normally distributed _i . Also standard tests of significance are now applicable.Perhaps most importantly, the sigmoid specifications are consistent with a probability interpretation since the estimates lie inside the unit interval, and the sigmoid shape is consistent with the assumed unimodal distribution of the participation decision.In conclusion, results reported in previous investigations of the probability of labor force participation or labor force participation rate which have relied on the least squares estimation of a linear probability specification are likely to be unreliable as to he magnitude of the response attributed to changes in explanatory variables.     

You care about me,but can I count on you? Applying a psychological contract perspective to investigate what makes employees willing to be internally employable

Abstract

For this study, we adopted a psychological contract-based perspective to investigate whether the fulfillment of perceived developmental promises made to employees is positively related to their willingness to accept internal job-related changes when needed by the organization, a construct we refer to as the willingness to be internally employable. We also examined the role played by line managers in facilitating employees’ willingness to be internally employable by fulfilling perceived developmental promises. We tested our conceptual model with data collected from ninety-eight recently hired employees in a Norwegian organization under an initiative emphasizing employee development. We found that developmental promise fulfillment is more important for employees’ willingness to be internally employable in this context than any perceived provision of developmental inducements in isolation. Further, we found that employee perceptions of the developmental support provided by their line manager related positively to their willingness to be internally employable by way of developmental promise fulfillment; however, this was not the case with perceived developmental inducements. Our findings support the importance of developmental promise fulfillment in fostering employee willingness to be internally employable and the critical role played by line managers in fulfilling developmental promises that employees believe have been made by their organization.     

The supply of labor time for mature females

Conclusions Overall, the evidence indicates that women view their leisure time as a normal good. The responsiveness in supply to changes in asset income is small.For females with spouse present, their time is a gross complement with respect to their spouse's time if the spouse's labor supply curve has negative slope. Simultaneously, the spouses' times appear to be net substitutes.There is evidence in both survey years of a backward bending labor supply curve for females. While most females remain on that part of their supply curve which has positive slope, females, particularly those with no spouse present, seem to be moving toward the backward bending segment of that curve over time. It seems that both females with and without spouse present will be behaving more like their male counterparts over time.This study evolved from a Department of Labor grant (Contract No. J-9-E-7-0180) made to Copley International Corporation, La Jolla, California. I am grateful for the assistance provided by Steven Alan Eich in working with the massive data sets utilized for this study.     

Die Zukunft der Industrie: technologiefundierte Dienstleistungen

The industrial society has become history, substituted by the service economy, the knowledge economy or the information economy. But industry has only changed its form: the IT processes in particular are fundamentally industry-based, not only because of the hardware required by the informational processes, but also due to their infiltration into all service economy dimensions and our every- day lives. Modern life does not work without the IT infrastructure. Man-machine interfaces have become micro-industry structures, which transform IT-users into producers. Besides, all ecological problems and climate change challenge our industrial competences. Industry is the tacit power of our time.     

Über die Bedeutung von Alltagsauffassungen für das Wirtschaftsgeschehen

Economics has begun to analyse its actors in a new light. Behavioural economics analyses real motives, reasons, attitudes and belief structures, individual and shared mental models, emotions, etc. The everyday behaviour of actors is generally incompatible with rational choice behaviour. Economic theory responds to this disconnect with modified models of rationality, but we have to be aware that defining rationality is aimed more at a normative conception of elegant model-building than it is at trying to explain real behaviour. “Real actors” have models, patterns and interpretations of their own in their economic everyday lives. Thus, economic theory must begin to take into account actors operating according to rules and theories different from those of the general economic models.     

Vertrauen als Problem. Anhaltende Finanzkrise?

Die Finanzkrise hat zu einem tiefen Misstrauen der Marktteilnehmer untereinander geführt. Vor der Krise herrschte hingegen ein übergro?es Vertrauen in das System, die einzelnen Institutionen und die Anlageberater. Mittlerweile muss der Staat als Vertrauensgeber einspringen. Doch wird hier nicht einfach das Risiko aus der Wirtschaft in die Gesellschaft überw?lzt?