the male marital wage premium sorting vs differential pay the authors examine whether male marital and parenthood premia arise due to differential pay by employers or from differential sorting of employees on occupations and establishments they investigate these premia using matched employee employer data from the period 1979 96 in norway a country with increased pressures on men to be more active in the family sphere and in which public policy has aimed at remaking the family institution we find that the effect of marriage and to a lesser extent of children occurs mostly through sorting on occupations and occupation establishment units the role of differential pay from employers is marginal in explaining the marital and parenthood premia results assessing within individual changes in wages suggest that about 80 of the marital premium is due to selection the men who eventually marry and or have children sort into the higher paying occupations and occupation establishment units even prior to marriage and parenthood

is there a glass ceiling in sweden using 1998 data we show that the gender log wage gap in sweden increases throughout the wage distribution and accelerates in the upper tail we interpret this as a strong glass ceiling effect we use quantile regression decompositions to examine whether this pattern can be ascribed primarily to gender differences in labor market characteristics or in the rewards to those characteristics even after extensive controls for gender differences in age education both level and field sector industry and occupation we find that the glass ceiling effect we see in the raw data persists to a considerable extent

glass ceilings or glass doors the role of firms in male female wage disparities i use canadian linked employer employee data to examine whether women face a glass ceiling in the labour market i also measure the extent to which the glass ceiling comes about because women are segregated into lower paying firms or because they are segregated into lower paying jobs within firms i find clear evidence that women experience a glass ceiling that is driven by their disproportionate sorting across firm types glass doors rather than within firms i find no evidence that these results are supply driven however my results are consistent with predictions of an efficiency wage model where high paying firms discriminate against females

sources of intra industry wage dispersion how much do employers matter observed human capital explains less than half of wage variation in bls industry wage surveys establishment based wage differentials controlling for occupation account for 20 70 percent of intra industry wage variation this corresponds to a standard deviation in wages of 14 percent of the mean almost as large as interindustry wage variation investigation suggests that establishment wage differentials are not random variations or returns to usual measures of human capital

the structure of the female male wage differential is it who you are what you do or where you work the efficacy of policies to narrow the malelfemale wage differential depends partly on the size of the portion s of the gap targeted previous research finds no between sex wage gap within occupations within employer job cell this is the first study to disentangle segregation by occupation from that based on employer or on job cell in five industries controlling for other forms of segregation occupational segregation produces a gap of 11 percent manufacturing to 26 percent services the wage gaps from establishment and job cell segregation are about 6 percent each since comparable worth acts on the occupation and job cell components it has a potentially large impact

asymmetric international minimum quality standards and vertical differentiation this paper develops a two country model of a vertically differentiated duopoly that spans two countries which are not integrated without additional costs equilibrium qualities prices profits and consumer s surplus are compared when 1 minimum quality standards are identical and 2 standards differ across countries both markets turn out to be connected by the quality choices of the two firms both firms prices in the two countries and their profits are lower whereas consumer s surplus and the two offered qualities are higher in both countries if no firm is forced out of the country s market with the more demanding minimum quality standard copyright 1995 by blackwell publishing ltd

is there a glass ceiling over europe exploring the gender pay gap across the wages distribution using harmonised data from the european union household panel we analyse gender pay gaps by sector across the wages distribution for ten countries we find that the mean gender pay gap in the raw data typically hides large variations in the gap across the wages distribution we use quantile regression qr techniques to control for the effects of individual and job characteristics at different points of the distribution and calculate the part of the gap attributable to differing returns between men and women we find that first gender pay gaps are typically bigger at the top of the wage distribution a finding that is consistent with the existence of glass ceilings for some countries gender pay gaps are also bigger at the bottom of the wage distribution a finding that is consistent with sticky floors third the gender pay gap is typically higher at the top than the bottom end of the wage distribution suggesting that glass ceilings are more prevalent than sticky floors and that these prevail in the majority of our countries fourth the gender pay gap differs significantly across the public and the private sector wages distribution for each of our eu countries

swimming upstream floating downstream comparing women s relative wage progress in the united states and denmark applying a new decomposition method to u s psid and danish longitudinal sample data the authors compare how u s and danish gender wage gaps developed between 1983 and 1995 in denmark they find the wage gap widened because the worsening in women s relative returns to observable human capital attributes as well as in their ranking relative to men in unobserv able productive attributes more than offset their wage gains from improved observable qualifications relative to men s in the united states in contrast the gender convergence in qualifications offset adverse influences including in creasing wage dispersion throughout the labor market to result in a narrowing of the gap the largest increase in the gap in denmark was experienced by women in the top earnings decile and the largest decline in the gap in the united states affected those at the top and in the middle of the distribution

reward structures and the allocation of talent as relative rewards that different professions receive are a key factor in the allocation of talent what determines the reward structure of a society is an important question this paper develops an equilibrium model of the allocation of talent between productive and unproductive activities such as rent seeking the existence of rent seeking creates a negative externality on productive agents and implies that relative rewards are endogenously determined the same externality can also lead to the existence of multiple equilibria each with different reward structures in a dynamic setting allocations of past generations as well as expectations of future allocations influence current rewards and the society may get trapped in a rent seeking steady state equilibrium the paper also discusses how the non pecuniary reward structure can be influenced by equilibrium selection and a historical example that suggests the presence of a causal link from the allocation of talent to non pecuniary rewards

revisiting the effects of regional trade agreements on trade flows with proper specification of the gravity model this paper uses a gravity model to assess ex post regional trade agreements the model includes 130 countries and is estimated with panel data over the period 1962 1996 the introduction of the correct number of dummy variables allows for identification of vinerian trade creation and trade diversion effects while the estimation method takes into account the unobservable characteristics of each pairs of trade partner countries the endogeneity of some of the explanatory variables as well as a potential selection bias in contrast to previous estimates results show that regional agreements have generated a significant increase in trade between members often at the expense of the rest of the world

evidence on the glass ceiling effect in france using matched worker firm data in this article we investigate the relevance of the glass ceiling hypothesis in france according to which there exist larger gender wage gaps at the upper tail of the wage distribution using a matched worker firm data set of about 1 30 000 employees and 14 000 employers we estimate quantile regressions and rely on a principal component analysis to summarize information specific to the firms our different results show that accounting for firm related characteristics reduces the gender earnings gap at the top of the distribution but the latter still remains much higher at the top than at the bottom furthermore a quantile decomposition shows that the gender wage gap is mainly due to differences in the returns to observed characteristics rather than in differences in characteristics between men and women

wage tenure and wage growth variation within and across establishments we estimate employer specific wage tenure and wage growth differentials using a unique bureau of labor statistics establishment survey of full time white collar workers employer wage and tenure differentials conditional on worker characteristics are substantial in these data education potential experience and tenure are highly correlated within an establishment high wage establishments generally employ higher quality workers and the most skilled men and professionals typically work with the most skilled women and nonprofessionals there is significant variation in wage growth rates across employers and high wage growth establishments tend to have longer tenure all else equal

insecurity and the pattern of trade an empirical investigation corruption and imperfect contract enforcement dramatically reduce international trade this paper estimates the reduction using a structural model of import demand in which insecurity acts as a hidden tax on trade we find that inadequate institutions constrain trade as much as tariffs do we also find that omission of indices of institutional quality biases the estimates of typical gravity models obscuring a negative relationship between per capita income and the share of total expenditure devoted to traded goods finally we argue that cross country variation in the effectiveness of institutions and the consequent variation in the prices of traded goods offer a simple explanation for the stylized fact that high income capital abundant countries trade disproportionately with each other

new evidence on sex segregation and sex differences in wages from matched employee employer data we use new matched employer employee data to estimate the contributions of sex segregation and wage differences by sex within occupation industry establishment and occupation establishment cells to the overall sex gap in wages in contrast to earlier data used to study this question our data cover all industries and occupations across all regions of the united states we find that segregation of women into lower paying occupations industries establishments and occupations within establishments accounts for a sizable fraction of the sex gap in wages nonetheless approximately one half of the sex gap in wages remains attributable to the individual s sex

rational incompatibility with international product standards abstract international product standardization enables traditional price based competition but the existence of redesign costs or network effects creates market frictions that diminish the incentive to standardize if there already exists a different technology in an established market this leads to multi attribute competition between products and will generally reduce trade flows not only do incumbent firms using a different technology have an incentive to deviate from an international standard but a host country government concerned for its consumers welfare has no incentive to enforce the international standard and may even value deviation from the international standard through technical barriers to trade

monopolistic competition and international trade reconsidering the evidence we test some propositions about international trade flows that are derived from models of monopolistic competition developed by elhanan helpman and paul krugman we investigate whether the volume of trade between oecd countries is consistent with the predictions of a model in which all trade is intraindustry trade in differentiated products we then repeat the test with non oecd countries we also investigate whether the share of intraindustry trade is consistent with a more general theoretical model in which some but not all trade is intraindustry trade our results lead us to question the apparent empirical success of these models

a theory of dual labor markets with application to industrial policy discrimination and keynesian unemployment this paper develops a model of dual labor markets based on employers need to motivate workers in order to elicit effort from their workers employers may find it optimal to pay more than the going wage this changes fundamentally the character of labor markets the model is applied to a wide range of labor market phenomena it provides a coherent framework for understanding the claims of industrial policy advocates it also can provide the basis for a theory of occupational segregation and discrimination that will not be eroded by market forces finally the model provides the basis for a theory of involuntary unemployment

a theory of misgovernance this paper tries to explain why government bureaucracies are often associated with red tape corruption and lack of incentives the paper identifies two specific ingredients that together can provide an explanation the fact that governments often act precisely in situations where markets fail and the presence of agency problems within the government we show that these problems are exacerbated at low levels of development and in bureaucracies dealing with poor people we also argue that we need to posit the existence of a welfare oriented constituency within the government in order to explain red tape and corruption

equal pay for equal work evidence from sweden and a comparison with norway and the u s using a new data set covering most privately employed workers in sweden we compare gender wage differences to those previously reported for norway and the u s the central finding is that the wage gap is small when comparing men and women working in the same type of occupation for the same employer segregation of men and women by occupation accounts for more of the gap in sweden than in the other two countries in all three countries we find that segregation by occupation explains more than segregation by establishment and that institutional changes over the past two decades aimed at improving the status of women had little effect on the gender wage gap jel classification j16 j71

does more mean less the male female wage gap and the proportion of females at the establishment level we examine the theoretical empirical and public policy implications of the pro portion of females in the establishment arrow s model of heterogeneous employer discrim ination provides predictions that are tested empirical results indicate support for the theory using establishment data but a contradiction is obtained with the individual data it is es timated that the proportion of females in the establishment accounts for 26 per cent of the gender log wage gap implications for employment equity are considered in the context of a new method of decomposing the log wage gap and indicate that such public policy can reduce this gap by 20 per cent jel classification j71 and j78

the impact of iso 9000 diffusion on trade and fdi a new institutional analysis the effects of iso 9000 diffusion on trade and foreign direct investment fdi have gone understudied we employ panel data reported by oecd nations over the 1995 2002 period to estimate the impact of iso adoptions on country pair economic relations we find iso diffusion to have no effect in developed nations but to positively pull fdi i e enhancing inward fdi and positively push trade i e enhancing exports in developing nations

driving forces for standardization at standardization development organizations this paper investigates sector specific driving forces for the standardization activities at national standardization organizations in the first part theoretical hypotheses concerning sector specific standardization are derived the empirical test is performed by a two step procedure first based on 19 sectors these hypotheses are tested empirically for germany the results show that rd additionally intellectual property rights play an important role furthermore standardization increases with the concentration of the enterprises up to a certain threshold where standardization activities decline again finally export intensive sectors tend to standardize more secondly because of the small data base these hypotheses are empirically tested in a pool model an international cross section approach based on 20 sectors and seven countries these results are generally in concordance with the findings of germany after a summary of the results recommendati

privatization policies in central and eastern europe privatization in central and eastern europe patrick bolton and gerard roland this paper assesses policies of mass privatization in germany czechoslovakia hungary and poland a central concern stemming from the analysis is that in view of the fiscal crisis facing economies in transition it is crucial for governments to try to maximize the proceeds from the sale of state assets because of the low initial level of private wealth it is important in this respect to let potential buyers borrow from the government or issue claims on future revenues obtained with the privatized assets to the government in order to pay for the privatized firms allowing for such non cash bids removes the government s incentive to delay privatization for fiscal reasons reduces its ability to squander immediately the proceeds from privatization and improves the decentralization of control by allowing less wealthy but more able bidders to buy the firms they are best suited to run

male female wage differentials in job ladders much of the male female wage differential exists because men and women are assigned to different jobs within narrow job categories there is no male female differential only a tortured taste theory of discrimination can reconcile these facts we argue that differential movement along job ladders entails comparative advantage so the ability standard for promotion is higher for women this implies that more able women will be passed over in favor of less able men women assumed to have the same ability distribution as men earn less the differential reflects females lower promotion probability not within job discrimination

the making of economic policy a transaction cost politics perspective economic policymaking as a political process the normative approach to policy analysis the positive view of political economy a synthesis the policy process in real time a theme transaction costs the transaction cost politics framework political outcomes and economic efficiency transaction cost analysis in politics mechanisms to cope with transaction costs in politics national differences two case studies to illustrate transaction cost politics tax and expenditure reform in the united states the gatt and national trade politics some reflections and suggestions some lessons for the policy process the role of the economist concluding comments appendix multiprincipal multitask agencies

viewpoint male female wage differentials how can that be abstract the paper outlines the main empirical procedures that are used to document the male female wage differential and the extent to which it reflects discrimination it then discusses the evidence on male female wage differentials their existence the extent to which they reflect discrimination their changes over time and the factors that influence the gap particular attention is paid to more recent studies that control for a wider range of conventionally unobserved factors theoretical perspectives are then outlined focusing on the issue of how discriminatory wage differentials can survive given the forces of competition the impacts of policy initiatives are also discussed

standardization policy and international trade abstract we analyze governments incentives to recognize foreign standards when there are potentially both network effects and conversion costs when government policy is limited to either recognizing all foreign standards or not recognizing any foreign standard recognition is always the outcome we then consider a setting in which countries can form standardization unions when conversion costs are relatively large two countries can increase their welfare by forming a standardization union that does not recognize the standard of the third nonmember country when network effects are significant all countries mutually recognize all standards and have no incentives to form standardization unions

international standards and international trade empirical evidence from iso 9000 diffusion abstract empirical scholarship on the standards trade relationship has been held up due to methodological challenges measurement varied effects and endogeneity considering the trade effects of one particular standard iso 9000 we surmount methodological challenges by measuring standardization via national penetration of iso 9000 allowing standardization to manifest via multiple quality signaling information compliance cost and common language channels and using instrumental variable multilateral resistance and panel data techniques to overcome endogeneity we find evidence of common language and quality signaling augmenting country pair trade yet iso rich nations benefit the most from standardization while iso poor nations find iso 9000 to represent a trade barrier due to compliance cost effects