central bank intervention and risk in the forward market abstract a two country inter temporal asset pricing model is developed which implies that central bank foreign exchange intervention affects the forward exchange risk premium the model is estimated from daily foreign exchange intervention data for the us german and japanese central banks considerable empirical support is found for the theoretical model with intervention influencing the risk premium in the forward market purchases of dollars by the federal reserve bank are found to be associated with excess denominated returns there is evidence that intervention has increased rather than reduced exchange rate volatility

post layoff earnings among semiconductor workers this study uses administrative data from california s unemployment insurance program to analyze the post layoff earnings of displaced and recalled workers in silicon valley s semiconductor industry

union wage hours and earnings differentials in the construction industry full information maximum likelihood is used to estimate union wage hours and earnings markups construction union wage markups are positive 58 2 at the sample means since union hours markups are negative 4 0 for most demographic groups union earnings markups 51 1 are smaller than the wage markups all exogenous variables are allowed to interact with the endogenous union dummy variable which allows us to test whether markups vary across demographic groups whether increased local unionization has a positive spillover effect in the nonunion sector and whether increased local unemployment equally affects wages and hours in increased local unemployment equally affects wages and hours in the two sectors

accuracy of response in labor market surveys evidence and implications this paper examines the extent of response errors in labor market survey data and explores the implications of such errors for economic analysis explicitly examined are responses to questions on industry occupation union status hours worked and wages analyses are based on two sources 1 a special supplement to the january 1977 current population survey that obtained data from workers and their employers and 2 an exact match of workers and their employers interviewed in the employment opportunity pilot project survey the dual nature of these surveys provides a basis for analyzing the effect of response error on a variety of economic analyses including the trade off between wages and risk the wage impact of unionism and the sensitivity of wage determination models to alternative responses to earnings questions

energy efficiency and sustainable growth in industrial sectors in european union countries a nonlinear ardl approach abstract it can be said that economic growth providing it ensures a clean and safe environment is one of the main objectives of many countries with this in mind an important question needs to be asked what is the relationship between energy efficiency and economic growth this can only be answered through an empirical analysis by carrying out such an analysis using the energy efficiency of the industrial sector for 11 european union countries for a time span from 1997 to 2015 it should be possible to understand if the energy efficiency measures and investments being made are driving economies towards greater energy efficiency and sustainable growth this paper uses a nonlinear ardl model which allows short and long run relationships to be analysed for the ascending and descending movements of variables the results indicate that investment is increasing energy efficiency while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions economic growth is driving economies to greater energy efficiency the same result is found in the industrial energy price index to verify robustness the environmental kuznets curve was estimated using gross domestic product per capita and as an alternative the industrial production index to ensure increased energy efficiency along with sustainable growth policymakers must adapt their policies and devise new ones to both incentivise investment and control energy pricing alternative ways of electricity generation such as renewable sources could allow the economy to grow in a more sustainable way such mechanisms would let policymakers develop policies for greener and more sustainable growth while at the same time encouraging the efficient use of energy

statistical analysis and combination forecasting of environmental efficiency and its influential factors since china entered the wto 2002 2010 2012 abstract since china became a member of world trade organization wto its economy develops at a fast speed at the same time the environmental problem becomes more and more serious and increasingly affects economic development studying the factors that influence environmental efficiency has become an essential point in dealing with the relationship between economy and environment considering the differences in space and economic development among different districts this paper discusses the quantitative relationship among exports figure imports figure gdp per capita industrialization level fiscal decentralization and environmental efficiency of each chinese province by using statistical analysis furthermore this paper discusses differences among each district s influential factors from the perspective of spatial economics and makes combination forecast on the trend of environmental efficiency it also shows that the environmental efficiency of chinese provinces is generally at a low level in addition as the economic statuses of different provinces vary and the factors that influence environmental efficiency in different provinces also have significant differences each province should take certain measures to design the environmental protection policy in line with its local circumstance

strike coordination and dismissal in uniform wage settings abstract we study a gift exchange game with 12 employees and one employer when the employer can offer individually differentiated wages in a setting without collective action we observe high levels of wages effort choices and total earnings when the employer is restricted to offering a uniform wage trust and reciprocity drop dramatically due to widespread shirking the stepwise introduction of two collective action mechanisms strike and coordination increases the employees share of the total earnings but does not mitigate the free riding problem adding employment risk to the collective action setup drives up wages reduces free riding and leads to higher total earnings however this increase in productivity is not sufficient to achieve the high levels of wages efforts and earnings that we observe with individually differentiated wages

the effect of labor unions on investment in training a dynamic model control over the amount of training required of new entrants is a potentially important tool available to many craft unions this is often exercised through licensing based on schooling and apprenticeship requirements and on passing special examinations the standards are to a large extent determined and monitored by the incumbent practitioners thus physicians are required to train in various forms of schooling internship and residence for up to eight years architects need five years of schooling and three years of apprenticeship accountants require four years of college and one year of apprenticeship less widely known are the schooling and apprenticeship requirements of barbers plumbers and mine foremen which require up to five or six years of investment finally most craft unions require apprenticeship periods of two to four years see kolberg 1976

an exploration of the forward premium puzzle in currency markets a standard empirical finding is that expected changes in exchange rates and interest rate differentials across countries are negatively related implying that uncovered interest rate parity is violated in the data this article provides new empirical evidence that suggests that violations of uncovered interest rate parity and its economic implications depend on the sign of the interest rate differentially a framework related to term structure models is developed to account for the puzzling relationship between expected changes in exchange rates and interest rate differentials estimation results suggest that a particular term structure model can account for the puzzling empirical evidence article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

relationships among exchange rates intervention and interest rates an empirical investigation abstract this study uses herefore unavailable daily data on official intervention to test the joint hypotheses of perfect asset substitutability and exchange market efficiency this joint hypothesis is generally soundly rejected for six exchange rates over various sample periods in contrast to evidence elsewhere from weekly or monthly data lagged intervention is a significant determinant of realized profits in about half the cases this evidence is consistent with existence of a portfolio balance channel at least in the short run other evidence indicates that coordinated intervention sometimes may have an impact significantly different from intervention by one central bank alone

self selection bias in longitudinal estimation of wage gaps cross sectional regression analyses of wage gaps may be biased by omission of unobserved worker characteristics recent studies therefore have used longitudinal data to difference out the effects of such variables this paper however shows that self selection of job changers may cause longitudinal estimation of wage gaps to be inconsistent

cross sectional versus panel estimates of union wage effects abstract the main objective of this paper is to compare and reconcile the cross sectional and the panel estimates of union wage effects it uses panel survey of income dynamics psid data for a period of 6 years 1979 1984 unlike what freeman 1984 predicted i e panel union wage estimates would be smaller than pure cross sectional estimates due to the cumulative nature of the errors in reporting union status in the former both the cross sectional and panel estimates of union wage effects are very similar ranging from 11 to 13 unions seem to have flattering effect on the age earnings profiles not surprisingly the rate of return to schooling of non union members is larger than that of the union members

effects of labor legislation and industry characteristics on union coverage in canada the authors investigate the determinants of union coverage using 1986 cross section data on canadian workers larger firm size larger establishment size and higher injury rates increase the probability of union coverage industry concentration import penetration and the substitutability of labor do not affect coverage through their impact on the union nonunion wage differential but concentration increases the probability of coverage through a mechanism unrelated to the wage differential mandatory checkoff provisions increase the probability of coverage but the estimated effect is barely significant restrictions on replacement workers and interprovincial differences in automatic certification provisions have statistically insignificant effects finally the results are sensitive to treating some industry characteristics as endogenous that is jointly determined with union coverage and union and nonunion wages a treatment not used in other studies

firm size efficiency and employment revisited a review article whether small business can help countries compete as many american commentators believe or whether increasing firm size is required for success in global markets as much european policy assumes is still a question under intense debate while the terms of the debate have been persuasively challenged by howard 1990 who argues that the real issue isn t size it s industrial organization p 88 the popular american view of small business has been most comprehensively challenged by brown hamilton and medoff 1990 however we find that both their analysis and evidence are flawed in a number of important respects to be developed next and then we shall go back to the broader issues raised by howard 1990 best 1990 loveman and sengenberger 1991 and earlier by fitzroy 1989 and 1990 brown hamilton and medoff henceforth bhm start by disputing the growing importance of small firm employment found by many writers they find stable or declining small business employment shares in the u s however sengenberger loveman and piore 1990 find growing small business shares in many countries in recent years including a rise of 7 5 in manufacturing employment by u s firms with less than 100 employees from 1980 86 compared to a decline of 10 8 in firms with over 500 workers howard p 90 bhm devote much space to the evidence that large employers seem to pay substantially higher wages and fringe benefits even after controlling for the higher levels of education training and

estimating the probability of trade union membership a study of men and women in britain the paper examines the determinants of the individual decision to unionize for british employees and uses micro data from the 1975 national training survey the unionization probability is estimated separately for manual and non manual men and full time and part time women an interesting finding is that personal characteristics of both men and women generally do not affect the unionization probability this result run counter to the common perception that family responsibilities explain low female trade union density

convergence in per capita energy use among oecd countries abstract unlike previous studies which mainly focus on the integration properties of energy consumption and production this study examines the convergence of per capita energy use among 25 oecd countries over the period 1960 to 2010 in particular newly developed lm and rals lm unit root tests with allowance for two endogenously determined structural breaks are employed the results indicate significant support for per capita energy use convergence among oecd countries

modeling international trends in energy efficiency article i nfo article history i use a stochastic production frontier to model energy ef ciency trends in 85 countries over a 37 year period differences in energy ef ciency across countries are modeled as a stochastic function of explanatory variables and i estimate the model using the cross section of time averaged data so that no structure is imposed on technological change over time energy ef ciency is measured using a new energy distance function ap proach the country using the least energy per unit output given its mix of outputs and inputs de nes the global production frontier a country s relative energy ef ciency is given by its distance from the frontier the ratio of its actual energy use to the minimum required energy use ceteris paribus energy ef ciency is higher in countries with inter alia higher total factor productivity undervalued currencies and smaller fossil fuel reserves and it converges over time across countries globally technological change was the most impor tant factor counteracting the energy use and carbon emissions increasing effects of economic growth

innovation rent sharing and the organization of labour in the federal republic of germany rent seeking by unions may inhibit various kinds of investment particularly r d and unionization is often negatively related to innovation across industries formal organization and collective bargaining may also reduce the flexibility of work organization and hence inhibit innovation in a sample of small and medium sized firms in the frg metal working industry a measure of organized labour was negatively related to product innovation but there was little evidence for rent seeking in simultaneous estimates

improving the energy efficiency of buildings the impact of environmental policy on technological innovation abstract this paper investigates the impact of alternative environmental policy instruments on technological innovations aiming to improve energy efficiency in buildings the empirical analysis focuses on three main types of policy instruments namely regulatory energy standards in buildings codes energy taxes as captured by energy prices and specific governmental energy r d expenditures technological innovation is measured using patent counts for specific technologies related to energy efficiency in buildings e g insulation high efficiency boilers energy saving lightings the estimates for seven european countries over the 1989 2004 period imply that a strengthening of 10 of the minimum insulation standards for walls would increase the likelihood to file additional patents by about 3 in contrast energy prices have no significant effect on the likelihood to patent governmental energy r d support has a small positive significant effect on patenting activities

should generational accounts replace public budgets and deficits the author assesses the concept of generational accounts and the specific accounts constructed by alan auerbach jagadeesh gokhale and laurence kotlikoff 1991 although these accounts support the assertion of present orientation in fiscal policy they rest on numerous assumptions based on judgments that are open to question these involve the treatment of the public budget constraint the benefits from public exhaustive expenditures economic and population projections the discount rate and fiscal incidence alternative and equally reasonable assumptions could yield radically different conclusions the author concludes that the auerbach gokhale and kotlikoff accounts should not replace the annual public budget as they argue

industrial eco efficiency regional disparity and spatial convergence of china s regions abstract in this study the industrial eco efficiency measures of 30 chinese provinces municipalities and autonomous regions from 2001 to 2015 were estimated based on a proposed data envelopment analysis dea model and the non convex metafrontier undesirable outputs super efficiency slacks based measure ncmeta us sbm which simultaneously incorporates non convex metafrontier technology undesirable outputs and super efficiency into slacks based measure subsequently dynamic spatial econometric models were employed to test the spatial convergence of industrial eco efficiency the empirical results show that 1 the average value of industrial eco efficiency was the highest in the eastern region 0 67 followed by the western region 0 30 and central region 0 27 indicating the existence of a significant regional disparity 2 strong evidence for global and club spatial convergence of industrial eco efficiency was found with regard to regional heterogeneity provinces in the eastern region converged faster than those in the central and western regions while the convergence speed of industrial eco efficiency increased after 2008 with respect to temporal heterogeneity 3 the ownership structure appeared to have a higher impact on industrial eco efficiency than other controls in the presence of spatial conditional convergence these findings are robust with regard to both spatial econometric model and spatial weighting matrix specifications based on the empirical analysis the following policies promote industrial eco efficiency in china have been recommended first relevant authorities must take effective measures to encourage the central western regions to adopt clean energy technologies the energy subsidy policies should strive to break through the technological lock in and turn to regional green development second full advantage of the spatial effects must be taken and technological exchanges and cooperation among neighboring areas must be strengthened to ensure that the industrial eco efficiency of the central and western regions converge with those of the eastern coastal areas policy implications of multidimensional heterogeneity and adjustment of industrial structure should be highlighted while promoting industrial eco efficiency finally it is crucial to emphasize factors such as foreign direct investment fdi ownership and industrial structures to attract fdi and optimize the current industrial structure

unions wages and productivity some evidence from uk engineering firms estimates of union wage and productivity effects are derived using primary micro level panel data for a sample of firms in the uk engineering industry union wage differentials of the order of 10 are suggested from the results whereas union productivity impacts appear to be non linear with respect to union density

government employment and the provision of fringe benefits this study uses individual level data from the united states to examine the influence of government employment on the provision of five major fringe benefits four of the five benefits are more likely to be provided to government workers than to their private sector counterparts unlike wage comparisons which typically find substantial overpayment only for federal workers the findings suggest that past wage differentials underestimate the true compensation advantage enjoyed by government workers

intervention strategies and exchange rate volatility a noise trading perspective abstract this paper estimates and explains the impacts of sterilized us intervention on exchange rate volatility i find that intervention reduced both yen dollar and dm dollar exchange rate volatilities during 1985 1986 but increased them during 1987 1989 these results are explained in a noise trading framework where the effectiveness of sterilized intervention may depend critically on the design and implementation of intervention strategies jel f31 1997 elsevier science ltd

the union impact on profits evidence from industry price cost margin data this paper uses industry price cost margin data to estimate the extent to which unions reduce profits estimates allowing for the endogeneity of union status are contrasted with estimates that assume union status is exogenous and not determined in part by either profitability or industry structure endogeneity is found to be an important consideration in estimating the union impact on profits two stage estimates are considerably larger than ols estimates the final section explores the total estimated redistribution from capital to labor in the manufacturing sector an important conclusion is that unions raise prices less than was previously believed

hourly earnings in the united states another look at unionization schooling sickness and unemployment using psid data this paper makes use of panel data to consider the effects of unionization schooling sickness and unemployment on individual earnings our results may be summarized as follows the unionization effect is around 15 20 this measure is consistently estimated controlling for both fixed individual attributes and serially uncorrelated measurement error sickness has little immediate impact but there is some indication that after 4 years earnings have fallen permanently by around 8 consequent on a 10 week spell of sickness a spell of unemployment on the other hand leads to a sharp fall in earnings but this effect decays rapidly leaving the possibility of a small permanent impact finally controlling for all fixed individual attributes we are unable to pin down the schooling effect with any accuracy owing to the absence of instruments that are both valid and effective within the data set

on the incentives to increase input efficiency under monopoly trade unions we examine the effects of and the incentives for increasing input efficiency within a spatially segregated cournot duopoly with monopoly trade unions whose utility functions depend on both wages and employment we show that with neoclassical as well as leontief technology unions raise wages to appropriate fully the gains from labor saving technological or organisational improvements leaving the firm with no incentive to invest in increasing the efficiency of workers however capital saving technological improvement may be profitable depending on the elasticity of substitution finally we examine the implication of a fixed minimum wage or competitive labor market in one country

how does foreign direct investment influence energy intensity convergence in china evidence from prefecture level data abstract the huge energy intensity gaps among chinese prefectures make the overall reduction of energy intensity extremely difficult energy intensity convergence eic i e catching up of the high energy intensity prefectures with the low ones is imperative for narrowing these gaps as one of the most important channels for international technology diffusion foreign direct investment fdi has great impact on energy intensity and may be beneficial for the convergence based on pollution haven hypothesis however fdi may result in energy intensity divergence to provide an in depth understanding of the mechanisms of fdi induced convergence divergence this paper employs markov chain approach to examine the impact of fdi on eic for 256 chinese prefectures in the period from 2005 to 2014 moreover we particularly emphasis on the influences of local specific characteristics such as human capital resource endowment and environmental regulation on fdi induced convergence divergence our study on 256 chinese prefectures finds that fdi helps prefectures with higher energy intensity to catch up with lower ones which strengthens eic the impact of fdi on eic varies depending on different local characteristics among all characteristics mentioned above human capital and environmental regulation benefit the convergence driving effect of fdi while this effect is hindered by resource endowment more comprehensive and detailed policies are recommended to address energy intensity gaps in china

the impact of polycentric development on regional gap of energy efficiency a chinese provincial perspective abstract a reasonable distribution of urban systems is essential for optimizing spatial energy allocation and the quality of economic growth for china this study discusses the impact of the polycentric development on the regional gap of energy efficiency rgee i e difference in energy efficiency levels among cities in the same region in the chinese provincial context by employing a novel method using nighttime lighting data from defense meteorological satellite program s operational linescan system dmsp ols to measure the spatial structure of provinces and stochastic frontier approach sfa to evaluate the total factor energy efficiency our results firstly show that the polycentric development has a narrowing effect on the rgee second they show that the more government intervention can narrow the rgee of a province but being more open having more foreign direct investment fdi and using more coal can widen the rgee of that province meanwhile the level of regional urbanization is shown to have no influence on rgee third they show that the polycentric development has a negative effect on the energy efficiency of large cities but a positive effect on that of small and medium size cities which accordingly narrows the rgee the conclusions of this study not only reveal insights for policies that aim to reduce the rgee but also provide an empirical basis for future urban development strategies in the chinese provincial context

employment relations in dual labor markets it s nice work if you can get it jobs in big firms command higher wages i examine four theories that could explain this relation first large firms incur higher fixed employment costs including more specific training second monitoring costs are greater in big firms and can be spread by hiring more productive workers third large firms may choose to pay efficiency wages to deter shirking finally large employers organize production around teams and pay higher wages to get workers who comply with the discipline of team production the dispersion of wages and working conditions in the u s labor market reflect the heterogeneity of jobs employment relations and individuals

unionization and absenteeism until recently any labour economist doing empirical work on unionization was concerned almost exclusively with the effect of unionization on wages but beginning with freeman s 1976 analysis of the rich institutional structure of unions economists have been considering the role of unions in for example increasing productivity lowering quit rates enhancing fringe benefits reducing income inequality improving working conditions and affecting a variety of other attributes at the workplace 1 to date however no study has directly addressed a question that appears ripe for empirical analysis does unionization affect absenteeism this paper presents results from a study designed to answer that question the first section presents a simple model of absenteeism the second section discusses the five mechanisms through which unionization influences absenteeism the third section describes the data and variable selection results from logit regressions are presented in the fourth section and the paper cl

convergence analysis of regional energy efficiency in china based on large dimensional panel data model abstract with the advent of the era of big data large dimensional spatial panel data is gradually used to do empirical research in the macroeconomic field this paper adopts a data envelopment analysis dea approach to calculate regional energy efficiency based on the perspective of total factor energy efficiency using statistical data of 30 administrative regions in china on basis of spatial effects the paper assesses the convergence of regional energy efficiency in china using large dimensional spatial panel data model our results indicate that 1 there is significant spatial autocorrelation and clear spatial effects in china s regional energy efficiency thus spatial effects should not be ignored when assessing the convergence of regional energy efficiency in china 2 during the period from 2000 to 2014 china s regional energy efficiency not only exhibits absolute convergence but also exhibits conditional convergence the convergence rate is higher than the rate of absolute convergence after controlling for the initial conditions of the level of economic development foreign direct investment and government influence 3 the convergence rate of china s regional energy efficiency from 2004 to 2014 is higher than the convergence rate for the period of 2000 2004 which indicates that industry transfer has contributed to improvement in the convergence of regional energy efficiency in china since 2004

unionism and wages a longitudinal analysis the impact of unionism on relative wage rates is a topic of long standing interest in labor economics over the years researchers have used a variety of approaches to estimate the wage advantage associated with union membership initially researchers compared the average wages of union and nonunion workers in specific sectors such as an industry this approach has the obvious limitation of not accounting very well for the various quality or productivity differences that exist among workers differences that command compensating wage payments more recent studies have used cross section wage regressions to control for these other determinants of wages and thereby improve estimates of the union wage effect using large microeconomic data files containing detailed information on characteristics of individual workers numerous studies have estimated wage regressions that include controls for worker characteristics education experience etc and a dichotomous variable indicating union membership status as explanatory variables 2 the coefficient of the union membership variable in these regressions is taken as an estimate of the average impact that unionism has on wage rates controlling for measured differences in characteristics among workers unfortunately the wage regression approach does not completely resolve the problem of standardizing the union nonunion wage comparison for differences in worker quality even with detailed microdata on the characteristics of individual workers it is simply not possible to specify a set of variables that completely captures all worker specific differences in productive ability some aspects of human capital are too subtle to be operationally specified and included in a wage regression although they are recognized and paid for by employers to the extent that these unmeasured worker specific differences are correlated with union membership the wage regression will incorrectly attribute a relative wage impact to unionism 3 an alternative measurement approach that has several advantages over the wage regression is to compare the wage received by the same worker as a union and nonunion member in the past data limitations have prevented researchers from making such a comparison since only a small portion of workers change union status in a given period an unusually large longitudinal file is needed to yield a sufficient number of observed changes for a meaningful analysis 4 recently however large longitudinal data files on individuals participating in the current population survey have become available this paper uses these data to estimate the impact a change in union status has on the worker s wage the

effects of urbanization on energy efficiency in china new evidence from short run and long run efficiency models abstract energy efficiency in china has been the cause for increasing concern for national and local sustainable development due to rapid economic development and large scale energy consumption using panel data of 30 provinces between 1997 and 2016 in china the measurement of energy efficiency is disentangled and the effects of urbanization on different types of energy efficiency are explored first the measurement of energy efficiency is disentangled with long run and short run efficiencies derived results of energy efficiency scores highlight the predominant status of long run inefficiency is low and that disparate energy efficiency is present between provinces second the effects of urbanization were found to be significantly negative on short run long run and overall energy efficiency comparatively the effect of urbanization on long run efficiency was shown to have recently grown implying an urgent call for energy conservation during rapid urbanization finally this study outlines broader implications and suggests policies to improve energy efficiency here application of energy conservation technology industrial structure upgrading and efficiency information disclosure to urban residents are thought to be smart ways to improve energy efficiency

job training in u s organizations we draw hypotheses about the factors related to company provision offormal job training programs from diverse theoretical perspectives and research findings using data from the 1991 national organizations survey we analyze a sample of 688 establishments to estimate multivariate models the relationships between employer provided job training and organizational size unionization and workforce composition are reduced or eliminated in most multivariate equations employer provided training is most extensive in establishments with elaborate internal structures that operate in complex market environments the job training practices of u s employers affect employees from the executive suite to the loading dock enhancing skills from basic literacy to interpersonal sensitivity a new training ideology is rapidly eclipsing the traditional segmented pattern a pattern in which universities educate the professionals and technicians companies prime the executives unions apprentice workers in the skilled trades and government prepares the disadvantaged facing competitive world economic pressures that have eroded america s market positions employers are now using job training as one means of coping with changes fostered by technological innovation market competition organizational restructuring and demographic shifts although training is an integral part of the employer employee relationship direct evidence about company training practices based on representative samples of diverse employing organizations is almost nonexistent most previous research has drawn on either self reported labor force surveys or highly restricted samples of organizations typically skewed to very large firms we examine hypotheses about employer provided job training practices in the early 1990s using a national survey of u s work organizations

adam smith may have been right after all a new approach to the analysis of compensating differentials abstract if workers with low wages compared to their level of human capital exaggerate their workplace disamenities estimates of compensating differentials will be biased evidence of such a bias is found in a matched employee employer survey

compensating wage differentials and the duration of wage loss a formal model of occupational choice is developed that shows the extent to which the compensation for increased duration exceeds that for increased risk using the panel study of income dynamics linked to industry data on injuries and unemployment we find nearly all the compensating wage differential for losses due to workplace injuries is for increases in the duration of loss and similarly for losses due to cyclical unemployment the compensating differentials for risk of injury are larger for union than for nonunion workers while those for cyclical unemployment are smaller for union workers

premiums to employment in larger establishments evidence from peru abstract examination of the employer size wage effect for males in urban peru suggests the following higher wages in larger establishments do not merely compensate for higher worker quality or inferior working conditions size differences in the use of rising wage tenure profiles cannot provide a market clearing explanation for the employer size wage effect unless workers are extremely impatient thus larger employers appear to pay premiums unionization explains none of the premiums and minimum wage compliance explains at best a small fraction shirking based efficiency wage explanations for premiums are implausible because peruvian job security legislation greatly inhibits dismissals in larger establishments explanations meriting further research involve the use of high wages to reduce turnover and to improve productivity enhancing morale

china s energy intensity target allocation needs improvement lessons from the convergence analysis of energy intensity across chinese provinces abstract to explore the reasonability of the decomposition of china s national energy intensity target we tested the convergence of energy intensity across 30 chinese provinces including stochastic convergence convergence and o convergence based on panel data from 30 chinese provinces across three five year plan periods the results confirmed the existence of stochastic convergence and convergence but did not prove the existence of o convergence in china s energy intensity in addition by comparing the convergence speed over the three five year plan periods the results showed that china s energy intensity targets for the provinces slowed convergence in energy intensity during the 11th and 12th five year plan periods highlighting the need to optimize the decomposition of china s national energy intensity target finally issues related to the decomposition of china s national energy intensity target were discussed and policy suggestions were proposed to optimize it from the perspective of promoting the convergence of energy intensity across chinese provinces

union endogeneity and self selection the nature of union endogeneity is examined in the light of recently proposed estimators for union wage differentials the instrumental variable iv approach adopted by duncan and leigh is shown to yield little information on the precise nature of the endogenous process in particular it cannot be used to sign the direction of selection into the union and nonunion sectors since by construction the iv estimates impose opposite signs on the selection terms

flexible contracts and subjective well being theory suggests that when workers choose between permanent and flexible contracts their utility should tend to equalize across contract types new estimates of job satisfaction show the critical role played by unmeasured worker heterogeneity they reveal that flexible contracts are a strong negative determinant of satisfaction with job security but are often a positive determinant of other dimensions of job satisfaction as a consequence flexible contracts have either a weak negative influence or no influence on overall job satisfaction moreover flexible contracts generally have no impact on overall life satisfaction of the employed these results appear broadly consistent with the presence of equalizing differences jel j28 j41

total factor energy efficiency of regions in china abstract this paper analyzes energy efficiencies of 29 administrative regions in china for the period 1995 2002 with a newly introduced index most existing studies of regional productivity and efficiency neglect energy inputs we use the data envelopment analysis dea to find the target energy input of each region in china at each particular year the index of total factor energy efficiency tfee then divides the target energy input by the actual energy input in our dea model labor capital stock energy consumption and total sown area of farm crops used as a proxy of biomass energy are the four inputs and real gdp is the single output the conventional energy productivity ratio regarded as a partial factor energy efficiency index is computed for comparison in contrast to tfee our index is found fitting better to the real case according to the tfee index rankings the central area of china has the worst energy efficiency and its total adjustmentof energy consumption amount is over half of china s total regional tfee in china generally improved during the research period except for the western area a u shape relation between the area s tfee and per capita income in the areas of china is found confirming the scenario that energy efficiency eventually improves with economic growth

will history repeat itself economic convergence and convergence in energy use patterns in this paper a difference in differences estimator on panel data for 30 developing and 21 industrialized countries is employed over the period 1971 2005 to examine how patterns of energy use characterized by the consumption of primary energy carriers sectoral energy use and carbon emissions are changing in the process of economic development for the average developing country in our sample the results indicate that economic catch up has been accompanied by above average growth of the use of most primary energy carriers the consumption of final energy in most sectors and total co2 emissions for industrialized countries we find that economic growth is partially decoupled from energy consumption and that above average rates of economic growth were accompanied by larger improvements in energy efficiency these results emphasize the need to identify the relevant engines of economic growth their implications for energy use and possibilities to achieve low carbon growth centered on productivity and efficiency improvements rather than on capital accumulation

union wage differentials in the public and private sectors a simultaneous equations specification the paper attempts to integrate new approaches to estimating union wage effects with the analysis of public private sector wage differentials estimates of the union differential in both public and private sectors allowing for the endogeneity of union status are presented the hypothesis that the recently measured rents to public sector employment primarily reflect the recent increase in unionization in that sector is examined and receives considerable empirical support there was evidence of positive selection into the union sector especially for private sector workers union status appears to be strongly influenced by the expected wage gain from joining the union sector

right to work laws do matter recent economic literature has ascribed a benign influence to right to work rtw laws the apparent consensus is that rtw laws do not reduce union membership because organized labor must have already been weak at the time right to work laws were enacted this time series observation i e union membership is not significantly lower after rtw laws have been enacted than what it was before has been misapplied to argue that right to work laws are not associated with economic differences between right to work states and union shop states a closer look at this nonsequitur is in order this paper contends that right to work laws do matter the consensus to the contrary rests on a shakey econometric foundation proponents of the proposition that rtw laws are harmless have never subjected that hypothesis to empirical scrutiny instead they have tested weak models of the right to work laws do matter hypothesis by rebutting a characterature of a proposition they set out to refute these analysts make their own hypothesis the null hypothesis it is not hard to support a precept which is proved merely by showing that the probability that it is false is less than 95 percent such procedures generate impressive polemics they do not further the interests of positive economics

fixes of the forward discount puzzle regressions of ex post changes in floating exchange rates on appropriate interest differentials typically imply that the high interest rate currency tends to appreciate the forward discount puzzle using data from the european monetary system ems the authors find that a large part of the forward discount puzzle vanishes for regimes of fixed exchange rates that is deviations from uncovered interest parity appear to vary in a way that is dependent upon the exchange rate regime by using the many ems realignments the authors are also able to quantify the peso problem copyright 1996 by mit press

the relationship between unions and job satisfaction this paper examines the assoication between canadian unions and their member attitudes data on job satisfaction indicate that unionized workers in canada are less happy with the quality of their jobs than non union workers the former however are more satisfied with their financial compensation and job security than non members

motivating wage structures the traditional textbook model of labor supply treats the wage structure facing the individual utility maximizer as more or less exogenously given this paper modifies this crucial assumption and argues that it provides some interesting further detail on the labor supply model the employer is viewed as a labor cost minimizer subject to an output constraint and the additional constraint that each individual must receive a certain level of utility this gives an optimal demand for hours the employer is then assumed to devise a wage structure such that the individual employee willingly supplies exactly those number of hours that the employer demands it is argued that this is a more logical way of viewing labor supply compared to the traditional approach which effectively ignores the fact that it is employers who set hours of work a simple and appealing formula is developed which relates the optimal wage structure to the relative productivities of hours and men at the margin it is shown that the optimal wage structure depends only on the employer s technology finally labor taxes are integrated into the framework which demonstrates that the underlying ideas are little affected by this complication

collective bargaining and union membership effects on the wages of male youths the objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the nonunion wage differential consists of two effects the first represents the differential between the wage of a nonunion worker in a collective bargaining unit and the wage paid to a comparable worker not covered by a bargaining agreement this effect arises from the monopoly power of organized labor the second is the wage differential between union and nonunion workers in collective bargaining units this latter effect is attributed to economic benefits that unionism brings to its members empirical evidence is presented in support of both effects

compensating differentials for shift work a model analyzing the choice of shift is developed and estimated using data from two supplements to the current population survey the findings show a positive wage premium for shift work that varies with personal characteristics and there is strong evidence showing the importance of self selection as workers with low potential daytime earnings are more likely to choose night work and supplement their earnings the findings demonstrate that cross section estimates of wage premiums for union membership and firm size are biased upward because they pick up some of the compensating differential for shift work

the energy intensity in lithuania during 1995 2009 a lmdi approach abstract the measurement assessment and effective mitigation of energy intensity compose a foremost objective of contemporary energy policy although the european union eu member states have been experiencing the convergence in energy efficiency indicators lithuania acceded to the eu in 2004 still remains peculiar with relatively high energy intensity our study therefore is aimed at analyzing the energy intensity trends in lithuanian economy as a whole as well as in separate economic sectors the investigation covers the period of 1995 2009 the logarithmic mean divisia index was applied for decomposition analysis our analysis has shown that energy efficiency falls during economic downturn in order to facilitate these challenges the lithuanian government as well as business should opt for increasing energy efficiency in the most problematic sectors of transport and services in addition the analysis of legal acts namely national energy efficiency programme for 2006 2010 and energy efficiency action plan for 2010 2016 was taken into consideration some suggestions thus were offered for successful implementation of strategic goals outlined in the aforementioned strategic documents

generational accounts for the united states an update abstract although relatively new generational accounting has been used in 26 countries to evaluate the generational stance of national fiscal policies generational accounting calculates the size of prospective net tax burdens and lifetime net tax rates that different generations face under current fiscal policy information that standard budget presentations do not reveal this method can also be used to calculate the policy changes required for achieving a generationally balanced and therefore sustainable fiscal policy that implies equal lifetime net tax rates on today s newborns and future generations those born after 1998 calculations made two years ago suggested a sizable generational imbalance in u s fiscal policy implying lifetime net tax rates on future generations that are 72 percent higher than those on newborns in 1995 since then unexpectedly strong growth in both gross domestic product gdp and the tax share of gdp has boosted revenues and slow growth in defense spending has reduced federal purchases as a share of gdp to a postwar low those developments augur federal budget surpluses for at least a decade and portend a corresponding reduction in the generational imbalance

unions wages and skills studies uniformly conclude that union wage effects are largest for workers with low measured skills longitudinal analysis using 1989 90 1994 95 cps matched panels produces union premium estimates equivalent across skill groups following appropriate sample restrictions and control for worker specific skills nlsy evidence on aptitude scores confirms that union workers with high measured skills have relatively low unmeasured skills differential selection by skill class and skill homogeneity in union workplaces result from employer and employee sorting in response to wage standardization union organizing where skills are homogeneous and unionized employers reluctance to hire the most as well as least able workers

is there convergence in per capita so2 emissions in china an empirical study using city level panel data abstract as china s economy has grown rapidly in recent years china s environmental pollution has become increasingly significant among all the traditional pollutants sulfur dioxide has been monitored by the chinese government since the 1990s in this study china s city level panel data between 2002 and 2012 are utilized to investigate the existence of convergence in per capita sulfur dioxide emissions across chinese cities the conventional estimation methods for convergence suffer from an endogeneity problem and therefore produce biased results to address the endogeneity problem and allow for dynamics dynamic panel data estimators are utilized and the static estimation results are conducted as a robustness check in addition the influential factors for convergence are examined the empirical results indicate that in the chosen sample period there were absolute and conditional convergences in per capita sulfur dioxide emissions across cities within the whole nation as well as in the eastern western and central regions of china because per capita gross domestic product and the ratio of secondary industry to gross domestic product are both positively related with per capita sulfur dioxide emissions higher income per capita and greater importance of the secondary industry would cause the convergence speed to be lower therefore the most straightforward policy implication for the empirical results is that the policies for controlling sulfur dioxide emissions should be regionally differentiated for cities with high sulfur dioxide emissions per capita the regulation could be tight as the emissions would decrease faster because convergence exists however for cities with low sulfur dioxide emissions per capita the target for reducing emissions should not be excessively aggressive

efficiency and internal organization works councils in west german firms efficiency voice theory has not explained why highly competent managers cannot maintain effective communication without formal or mandatory institutions of l abor s voice powerful west german works councils are negatively rela ted to productivity in the sample suggesting that the best managers can do better without councils however excessive pressure on worker s should encourage both unionization and councils to gain compensatin g differentials and the simultaneous wls tobit estimates also suppor t this effect general productivity benefits from formal voice organi zation are strongly rejected but evaluating welfare efficiency and causality directly requires data on job satisfaction and managerial ability copyright 1987 by the review of economic studies limited

understanding organizational wage structures a resource dependence approach data on the salaries for high level administrative positions in 608 colleges and universities were used to examine the relative salaries for six positions controlling for other factors we found t

intergenerational policy and the measurement of tax incidence we evaluate the ability of generational accounting to assess the potential welfare implications of policy reforms in an intergenerational context policy reforms usually have redistributive efficiency and general equilibrium implications our analysis shows that when the policy reform implies changes in economic efficiency generational accounts can be misleading not only about the magnitude of welfare changes but also about the identity of who wins and who losses in contrast the generational accounts correctly identify welfare changes when the policy reform has only a pure intergenerational redistribution component we illustrate and quantify this issue in the context of widely considered policy reforms substitution of consumption for labor taxation and the increase of retirement age and in a more general context of optimal policy

the union wage effect and ability bias evidence from ireland we use longitudinal data from an irish household survey to measure the union wage premium a subsample in which the worker s payslip was seen by the interviewer is unlikely to have measurement error for the union variable the results support the finding that measurement error leads to a large downward bias in fixed effects estimates of the union effect but indicate that ability bias has a small effect on the average union wage premium

canadian union nonunion wage differentials using extensive canadian longitudinal data from the years 1969 71 the authors estimate union nonunion wage differentials of 12 14 percent for 1969 and 13 16 percent for 1970 these estimates are not adjusted for selectivity because three different tests to identify selectivity yield no evidence of selectivity bias the authors argue that although testing for selectivity is often essential selectivity adjustments have resulted in greatly inflated estimates of union nonunion wage differentials in some studies and should therefore be used with caution

longitudinal analyses of the effects of trade unions but union members are different from nonmembers in unobserved ways biasing your estimates y ou should make a selectivity bias correction simultaneously determine union status and economic outcomes develop an unobservables model use longitudinal data archetypical comment on virtually any study of the economic effects of umomsm or suitably modified on any other empirical subject

nominal and real union wage differentials and the effects of industry and smsa density 1973 83 many studies have examined the influence of union density union members as a percentage of all workers on earnings in the private sector but few such studies have looked at the public sector using data from the 1991 current population survey this

mnes location strategies and labor standards the role of operating and reputational considerations across industries we investigate the role of local labor standards on mnes location decisions across different sectors and sub national regions within a developing country we suggest that foreign investors adopt selective location strategies in connection with specific labor standards as a result of reputational and operating considerations foreign firms in more hazardous sectors prefer locations with higher occupational health and safety standards because they are more exposed to reputational risks those in sectors with less reversible investments prefer locations with lower degrees of unionization because their lower bargaining power increases their sensitivity to operating costs we test our arguments across 26 sub national turkish regions over the period 2005 2011

firm size efficiency and employment a review article s j s book contains much careful and interesting discussion of small firm employment data and related issues and will be read by all workers in the field however it also contains too much detailed quantification and international comparison of doubtful relevance at least for most economists and misses much background material of direct importance for evaluating the role of small firms as a result the authors seriously under estimate the contribution of small business to both employment and efficiency of modern economies as well as the importance of policy to correct the traditional and still pervasive bias towards large organizations

the union nonunion wage differential over the business cycle evidence from psid abstract there is some prior evidence lewis 1963 mellow 1981 freeman 1984 to support the notion that union wage premium is counter cyclical this phenomenon may be a product of union wage rigidity which results from a long term union contracts and b union reliance on layoffs due to seniority dominance rather than work share practices in response to worsening economic conditions and efficiency wage considerations this paper within a pooled cross section time series framework empirically tests for the presence of perceived counter cyclical nature of the union nonunion wage differential using the psid data from 1979 1984 results from this study do support the presence of counter cyclical union wage premium during the time period studied

teams teamwork and absence we argue that firms with interdependent worker productivity team production have a higher cost of absence and as a consequence spend additional resources on monitoring absence as a result firms with team production should have lower absence rates we estimate the determinants of absence for blue collar workers using a sample of german manufacturing establishments workplace teams are used as a proxy for team production the estimates reveal that firms with teams have lower absence rates as do smaller establishments the size effect however is unique to establishments with teams which fits prior theoretical work that has not been previously tested

trucking deregulation and labor earnings is the union premium a compensating differential this article examines wage determination among union and nonunion truck drivers using the 96 monthly current population surveys for 1983 90 union density in the previously regulated for hire sector of the trucking industry fell from about 60 during the regulatory period of the 1970s to about 25 by 1990 union log wage premiums fell from 0 40 in the 1970s to 0 30 or below in the 1980s longitudinal estimates from multiple panels for 1983 84 through 1989 90 suggest far smaller union premiums supporting the thesis that part of the wage differential following deregulation is a compensating premium for driver quality

an empirical model of employed search unemployed search and nonsearch the 1969 1971 national longitudinal surveys data on young men were used to study the employed worker s choice among employed search unemployed search and not searching for a new job we assume that an unobserved variable search intensity governs this choice such that unemployed search involves a greater intensity than employed search which of course is associated with greater intensity than nonsearch the principal results are that current wages seniority collective bargaining coverage employment outside construction and employment by government are each ceteris paribus negatively associated with search intensity further each of these variables lowers the probability of not searching and raises the probabilities of employed and unemployed job search

unionism in a competitive industry this article explores a model in which a union confronts many competitive workers firms and consumers under monopoly unionism union coverage may be incomplete then union wages and employment are insensitive to product demand variation under efficient unionism coverage can never be incomplete some union variables necessarily vary with product demand preliminary evidence on the demand independence under incomplete coverage hypothesis is presented also more structure is imposed and further hypotheses are derived and the manner in which the model can be enriched to allow for a variety of union related issues within a consistent framework is set out

do unions capture monopoly profits this paper challenges the conclusion reached in recent studies that unions reduce profits exclusively in highly concentrated industries from their review of previous studies and their analysis of 1977 data on 367 fortune 500 firms the authors conclude that there is no convincing evidence that concentration produces monopoly profits for unions to capture moreover they find that the union wage effect is not greater in concentrated industries as suggested by the hypothesis that unions capture concentration related profits evidence is found suggesting that a firm s market share its expenditures on research and development and its protection from foreign competition provide more likely sources for union rents than does industry concentration several recent studies have found that unions reduce profits significantly and some have concluded that this profit reduction is restricted to highly concentrated industries both conclusions are important the finding that unions reduce profitability indicates that in general the cost increasing effects of unions outweigh any positive productivity effects they may bring to the workplace such a

union effects on productivity profits and growth has the long run arrived this article interprets literature examining union effects on economic performance production function studies indicate small overall union impacts on productivity positive effects where they exist appear to result from management response to decreased profit expectations and from a natural selection process lower profitability among unionized firms is well established more interesting is the possibility that unions appropriate quasi rents deriving from long lived tangible and intangible capital the connection between unions investment behavior and productivity growth emerges as a particularly fruitful line of empirical inquiry although it does not encourage a sanguine view of unionism s long run impact

labor unions and the distribution of wages and employment in south africa few countries have higher wage inequality than south africa where wages of african and white workers differ by a factor of five using survey data collected in 1993 the authors analyze the complex effect of unions on this wage gap among male african workers in the bottom decile of the wage distribution union membership was associated with wages that were 145 higher than those of comparable nonunion workers and among those in the top decile the differential was 19 regression estimates also indicate that returns to observed productive characteristics of workers such as education and experience were larger for nonunion than union workers if the large union relative wage effect were cut in half the authors estimate that employment of african youth age 16 29 would increase by two percentage points and their labor force participation rate would also increase substantially

heterogeneous firms and the organization of production firms in the same industry exhibit systematic differences in the organization of production and the structure of employment entrepreneurial ability is the specific scarce input that limits the size of a firm this input must be allocated to two activities coordinating production and monitoring workers able entrepreneurs can convert calendar time into larger supplies of coordinating effort that enable them to assemble large firms greater ability implies a higher shadow price of time which increases the implicit costs of monitoring a dispersion of entrepreneurial abilities generates an equilibrium size distribution of firms differences in monitoring costs affect the choice of worker productivities the design of products and the organization of production the monitoring cost hypothesis advanced in this paper goes a long way in explaining the equilibrium of an industry containing heterogeneous firms that differ in size and behavior

union membership determination and industry characteristics recent literature on the economics of unionism has expanded beyond its customary focus on the wage and nonwage effects of collective bargaining and given increased attention to the determinants of union membership previous union membership studies have been couched primarily within an individual choice framework whereby utility maximizing individuals choose either to join or not to join a union empirical work typically treats membership as a function of some vector of personal characteristics 1 2 10 11 21 it is our contention that such studies can best be interpreted as explaining the determination of the union status of jobs and that several industry and firm characteristics in addition to personal characteristics can be expected to affect significantly union membership in this paper theory and evidence relating to the effects of firm and industry characteristics on union membership are presented industry level data are bridged with a large microdata set containing individual characteristics in order to examine the determinants of unionism among workers in manufacturing utilizing a simultaneous model and controlling for sample selection bias we find that product market concentration capital intensity establishment size and job risk significantly affect the likelihood of union membership

new evidence on unions and plant closings britain in the 1990s in this paper we exploit the longitudinal element of the 1990 and 1998 workplace employee relations surveys for britain to investigate the effect of unionism on establishment closings contrary to both recent u s research and long standing british work we find a strong positive association between two measures of unionism union recognition for collective bargaining purposes and union coverage and plant closings this association is robust to the inclusion of highly detailed industry controls but is driven by plants that are parts of multiestablishment entities no such relationship obtains in the case of single plant enterprises in explaining our findings we address their consistency with the widely perceived reduction in the disadvantages of british unionism in recent years

unions and hospitals some unresolved issues abstract this article investigates the impact of unions on the wages of hospital workers our ols findings agree with previous ols studies unions increase registered nurses rns wages by five percent and by about eight to ten percent for other hospital workers by contrast we find after correcting for selectivity bias in hospital unionization status a direct union effect of about twenty percent on rn wages and in excess of thirty percent on wages of other hospital workers while the results based on selectivity bias adjustments make us uneasy we do not reject them out of hand we also find indirect union effects up to five percent by other unionized occupations within a hospital and up to ten percent by other unionized hospitals in the local labor market prospective reimbursement programs have a negative impact on the wages of hospital workers but are only significant for non unionized occupations our three empirical tests of monopsony all reject the view that monopsony is a factor in hospital wage setting even considering the large union effects based on selectivity bias adjustment we conclude that unions have been a minor contributor to hospital cost inflation