Occupational Change and Mobility Among Employed and Unemployed Job Seekers

We use data from the Labour Force Survey to show that employed and unemployed job seekers in Great Britain originate from different occupations and find jobs in different occupations. We find substantial differences in occupational mobility between job seekers: employed job seekers are most likely to move to occupations paying higher average wages relative to their previous occupation, while unemployed job seekers are most likely to move to lower paying occupations. Employed and unemployed job seekers exhibit different patterns of occupational mobility and, therefore, do not accept the same types of jobs.     

Implementation of EEC consumer protection directives in Italy

The paper gives an overview of the specific method used in Italy to implement Community legislation, including consumer protection directives. It analyses the implementing legislation on product liability, competition law, adertising, and financial services. As a result Italian law has greatly changed for the benefit of the consumer. The authors criticize the fact that Italian law has not yet enabled consumer associations to take action before courts of law in order to stop illegal or misleading marketing practices.

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Umsetzung der Verbraucherschutzrichtlinien der EG in Italien

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag befa\t sich zunächst mit der besonderen italienischen Umsetzungsgesetzgebung von EG-Rechtsakten einschlie\lich der Richtlinien sum Verbraucherschutz. Er untersucht dann die italienischen Regelungen zur Produktsicherheit- und haftung, Haustürgeschäfte, Wettbewerbsrecht, Werbung und Finanzdienstleistungen. Im Ergebnis verbessert der italienische Gesetzgeber den Rechtsschutz des Verbrauchers, etwa durch Einführung eines Widerrufsrechts auch für im Fernabsatz geschlossene Verträge und durch generalle Regeln über die Transparenz von Banktransaktionen. Im Beneich Produkthaftung hat der Gesetzgeber dagegen keine der Optionen ausgeschöpft. Die Autoren kritisieren, da\ bislang in Italien keine Verbandsklage der Verbraucher gegen unlautere und irreführenden Praktiken von Anbietern besteht.

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Simonetta Cotterli has written the section on financial services, Paolo Martinello on product liability and competition law, and Carlo M. Verardi on advertising.     

Transferring Ownership-specific Advantages to a Joint Venture in China

In 1994, a Sino-Italian joint venture was established in Foshan (China) to manufacture and sell motorcycles. The Italian parent company perceived important ownership-specific advantages in investing directly in China. These included its state-of-the-art production process, its marketing and distribution network, and its organizational and work concept. Indeed, it was intended to virtually ‘replicate’ these features of the parent company in China. This study explores problems experienced in attempting to reproduce these features of the parent company's European operation during the start-up phase of its Chinese affiliate. One problem was that core suppliers were reluctant to relocate part of their operations to China, making it difficult for the parent company to ‘replicate’ its production process abroad. There were also major difficulties in transferring the principles of its marketing and distribution network and its organization structure and work concept to China. While it is possible that many of these preliminary problems would be overcome and the parent company would realize its vision for its Chinese affiliate over time, this case-study not only highlights the complexity of harnessing ownership-specific advantages of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, but also raises important issues about the expansion of FDI from low technology to medium technology enterprises in the circumstances prevailing in China.     

Interpreting Wage Gaps of Disabled Men: The Roles of Productivity and of Discrimination

Using the UK Labour Force Survey, we study wage gaps for disabled men after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act. We estimate wage gaps at the mean and at different quantiles of the wage distribution and decompose them into a part explained by differences in workers' and job characteristics, a part that can be ascribed to health‐related reduced productivity, and a residual part. The large original wage gaps reduce substantially when we control for differences in education and occupation, although significant residuals remain. However, when we isolate productivity differences between disabled and nondisabled workers, the residual wage gap becomes insignificant in most cases.     

A Meta‐Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages

Abstract.  In our increasingly interconnected and open world, international migration is becoming an important socioeconomic phenomenon for many countries. Since the early 1980s, many studies about the impact of immigration on host labour markets have been undertaken. Borjas (2003 , The labor demand curve is downward sloping: reexamining the impact of immigration on the labor market. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(4): 1335–1374) noted that the estimated effect of immigration on the wage of native workers varies widely from study to study and sometimes even within the same study. In addition, these effects cluster around zero. Such a small effect is a rather surprising outcome, given that in a closed competitive labour market an increase in labour supply may be expected to exert a downward pressure on wages. We revisit this issue by applying meta‐analytic techniques to a set of 18 papers, which altogether generated 348 estimates of the percentage change in the wage of a native worker with respect to a 1 percentage point increase in the ratio of immigrants over native workers. While many studies in our database employ US data, estimates are also obtained from Germany, The Netherlands, France, Norway, Austria, Israel and Australia. Our analysis shows that results vary across countries and are inter alia related to the type of modelling approach. Technical issues such as publication bias and quality of the estimates are addressed as well.     

Impact of cultural diversity on wages,evidence from panel data

This paper combines individual data from the British Household Panel Survey and yearly population estimates for England to analyse the impact that cultural diversity has on individual wages. Do people living in more diverse areas earn higher wages after controlling for other observable and unobservable characteristics? The results show that cultural diversity is positively associated with wages, but only when cross-section data are used, while panel data estimations show no impact of diversity. Since natives with comparatively higher skills – and wages – tend to self-select into more diverse areas, cross-section analyses may produce upwardly biassed results.     

What the EU Can Learn from the American Experience with Unemployment Insurance

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing unemployment insurance dialogue and debate by providing an overview of the equivalent program in the US and identifying valuable lessons from the American experience.     

Employed and Unemployed Job Seekers and the Business Cycle

The job search literature suggests that on‐the‐job search reduces the probability of un employed people finding jobs. However, there is little evidence that employed and unemployed job seekers are similar or apply for the same jobs. We compare employed and unemployed job seekers in their individual characteristics, preferences over working hours, job‐search strategies and employment histories, and identify how differences vary over the business cycle. We find systematic differences which persist over the business cycle. Our results are consistent with a segmented labour market in which employed and unemployed job seekers are unlikely to directly compete with each other for jobs.     

Occupational change in Britain and Germany

We use British and German panel data to analyse job changes involving a change in occupation. We assess: (1) the extent of occupational change, taking into account the possibility of measurement error in occupational codes; (2) whether job changes within the occupation differ from occupation changes in terms of the characteristics of those making such switches; and (3) the effects of the two kinds of moves in respect of wages and job satisfaction. We find that occupation changes differ from other job changes, generally reflecting a less satisfactory employment situation, but also that the move in both cases is positive in respect of change in wages and job satisfaction.