efficient mechanisms for bilateral trading we consider bargaining problems between one buyer and one seller for a single object the seller s valuation and the buyer s valuation for the object are assumed to be independent random variables and each individual s valuation is unknown to the other we characterize the set of allocation mechanisms that are bayesian incentive compatible and individually rational and show the general impossibility of ex post efficient mechanisms without outside subsidies for a wide class of problems we show how to compute mechanisms that maximize expected total gains from trade and mechanisms that can maximize a broker s expected profit journal of economic literature classification number 026

the use of quantile regressions in estimating gender wage differentials a case study of the philippines quantile regressions are used to analyse the size components and nature of the gender earnings differentials as well as the returns to education by gender in the philippines over the entire conditional distribution of earnings using data from the 1999 apis survey this approach allows more focused conclusions about the nature of gender earnings differentials incorporating the quantile regression approach to the oaxaca blinder decomposition allows the localization of gender discrimination to particular quantiles of the earnings distribution and permits more targeted policy intervention

multiattribute preference analysis with performance targets this paper develops an approach based on performance targets to assess a preference function for a multiobjective decision under uncertainty this approach yields preference functions that are strategically equivalent to conventional multiattribute utility functions but the target oriented approach is more natural for some classes of decisions in some situations the target oriented preference conditions are analogous to reliability theory conditions for series or parallel failure modes in a system in such cases reinterpreting the conditions using reliability concepts can be useful in assessing the preference function the target oriented approach is also a generalization of common forms of goal programming the approach has particular applicability for resource allocation decisions where the outcome of the decision is significantly determined by the actions of other stakeholders to the decision such as new product development or decision making in a controversial regulated environment

1 000 cash back the pass through of auto manufacturer promotions automobile manufacturers frequently use promotions involving cash incentives while payments are nominally directed to either customers or dealers the ultimate beneficiary of the promotion depends on the outcome of price negotiation we use program evaluation methods to compare the incidence of these two types of promotions customers obtain 70 to 90 percent of a customer rebate but only 30 to 40 percent of a dealer discount promotion a 500 difference for a typical promotion our leading hypothesis is that pass through rates differ because of information asymmetries customer rebates are well publicized to customers while dealer discount promotions are not

reputation and hierarchy in dynamic models of employment the employment relationship with employees ability and their actions both private information thus combining adverse selection with moral hazard is modeled as a repeated game with self enforcing contracts being perfect bayesian nash equilibria under termination contracts the equilibrium contract structure consists of a hierarchy of ranks finite in number even though ability is continuous reputation acts as an effective device for worker discipline without the need for involuntary unemployment selection by bonding is not in general incentive compatible but selection by promotion of employees through the ranks is many other features correspond to observed employment structures

unforeseen contingencies and incomplete contracts we scrutinize the conceptual framework commonly used in the incomplete contract literature this literature usually assumes that contractual incompleteness is due to the transaction costs of describing or of even foreseeing the possible states of nature in advance we argue however that such transaction costs need not interfere with optimal contracting i e transaction costs need not be relevant provided that agents can probabilistically forecast their possible future payoffs even if other aspects of the state of the nature cannot be forecast in other words all that is required for optimality is that agents be able to perform dynamic programming an assumption always invoked by the incomplete contract literature the foregoing optimality result holds very generally provided that parties can commit themselves not to renegotiate moreover we point out that renegotiation may be hard to reconcile with a framework that otherwise presumes perfect rationality however even if renegotiation is allowed the result still remains valid provided that parties are risk averse

decomposing intergenerational income elasticity the gender differentiated contribution of capital transmission in rural philippines summary using longitudinal data from rural philippines we decompose intergenerational income elasticity ige into five distinct pathways intergenerational transmissions of health education land and spouse education capital plus residual correlation in productivity intergenerational human capital transmissions from mothers are stronger than those from fathers maternal education is the parental capital most strongly associated with ige while naive ige estimates are indistinguishable for sons and daughters the pathways that generate these results differ strikingly for sons ige is entirely explained by parent to child capital transmission by contrast strong income correlation exists between daughters and parents even after controlling for parent and child capital endowments

on decomposing the wage gap a critical comment on blinder s method many studies have found that the impact of schooling on earnings is greater for females than for males despite the fact that females tend to earn less both absolutely and controlling for personal characteristics this study investigates possible

costs of implementation bargaining costs versus allocative efficiency abstract a mechanism with low direct cost of use may be preferred to alternatives implementing more efficient allocations we show this experimentally by giving pairs of subjects the option to agree on a single average price for a sequence of trades in effect pooling several small bargains into a larger one we make pooling costly by tying it to some inefficient trades but subjects nevertheless reveal strong tendencies to pool particularly when more bargains remain to be struck and when bargaining is face to face the results suggest that implementation costs could play a significant role in the use of many common trading practices

minimum wages and the gender wage gap estimates are made of the effect of minimum wages on the size and composition of the gender wage gap in canada in 1986 it is found that minimum wages close the wage gap substantially for young workers and less so for adults the reduction in the gap is most attributable to the adverse employment effects of minimum wages the results also indicate that most of the reduction in the gap is realized through a fall in the discriminatory component

changes in the u s wage structure 1963 1987 application of quantile regression the 1980 s witnessed rapid changes in the structure of wages in the united states in this study recently developed techniques for quantile regression are applied to every march current population survey since 1964 and changes in the return to schooling and experience at different points of the wage distribution are examined the quantile regression technique parsimoniously describes the entire conditional wage distribution this conditional distribution is used to examine changes in within group wage inequality as measured by the difference between conditional quantiles two linear models are considered a simple one group model and a 16 group model the results suggest that the returns to schooling and experience differ across quantiles of the wage distribution but their patterns of change are similar significant differences in wage inequality are also found across the various skill groups the paper also presents a new imputation method for cps data

relational contracts and the theory of the firm relational contracts informal agreements sustained by the value of future relationships are prevalent within and between firms we develop repeated game models showing why and how relational contracts within firms vertical integration differ from those between nonintegration we show that integration affects the parties temptations to renege on a given relational contract and hence affects the best relational contract the parties can sustain in this sense the integration decision can be an instrument in the service of the parties relationship our approach also has implications for joint ventures alliances and networks and for the role of management within and between firms

specialization and human capital incentives for specialization trade and the production of comparative advantage through investment are shown to arise from increasing returns to utilization of human capital indivisibilities imply fixed cost elements of investment that are independent of subsequent utilization hence the rate of return is increasing in utilization and is maximized by utilizing specialized skills as intensively as possible identically endowed individuals have incentives to specialize their investments in skills and trade with each other for this reason even if production technology exhibits constant returns to scale

human capital discrimination and the gender wage gap in bangladesh summary this paper investigates changes in the gender wage gap in bangladesh over the period 1999 2009 the gap in average wages between men and women decreased by 31 over this period this paper shows that a key driver of this change was an improvement in female educational qualifications it also demonstrates that the gender wage gap across the wage distribution narrowed much more at the lower end of the wage distribution than at the upper end it attributes this mainly to a decline in discrimination against women implications for policies aimed at more equal access to education and enforcement of equal pay legislation in bangladesh are also identified

gender wage inequality during sri lanka s post reform growth a distributional analysis abstract this paper investigates gender wage inequality in sri lanka during 1992 2014 a period of robust economic growth following pro market reforms the gap in mean wages between men and women decreased steadily over this period unconditional quantile regression reveals the decline in gender wage inequality was driven by the upper half of the distribution and was due to improvements in women s observable human capital yet the pay structure became more unequal indicating widening gender gaps in the returns to labor market characteristics and in unobservable determinants of wages the gender gap in pay structure widened disproportionately in the lower half of the distribution coinciding with falling absolute and relative returns to women in manufacturing industries and production occupations facing greater international competition the study also demonstrates selection bias underestimates the gender wage gap and overestimates the gains in equality over time factors that hinder gender equality in the labor market are discussed along with policy implications

competition or compensation supplier incentives under the american and japanese subcontracting systems two fundamentally different subcontracting systems arise as distinct solutions to the quality control problem facing an input buyer the american system involves competitive bidding on each contract large orders and inspections the japanese system involves repeat purchases from a supplier who earns a premium small orders and no inspections both systems may coexist as local solutions but the global optimum is determined by the ratio of set up to inspection costs this suggests that the adoption of flexible manufacturing equipment and rising product complexity may be responsible for the shift from the american to the japanese system observed in many industries copyright 1997 by american economic association

relational contracts and the value of loyalty this paper examines how relational contracting afiects the pattern of trade across the economy we suppose a flrm principal repeatedly chooses among of a set of potential trading partners agents under the threat of holdup the possibility of ex post opportunism allows agents to collect rents which act like a flxed cost that the principal must pay when initiating a new relationship the principal responds by dividing agents into insiders with whom she has previously traded and outsiders with whom she has never traded if the principal is su ciently patient the proflt maximising contract then uses insiders e ciently while being biased against outsiders this optimal strategy can be implemented by a maintenance contract that is robust to asymmetric information

a distributional analysis of the gender wage gap in bangladesh this article empirically investigates the gender wage gap in bangladesh during the period 2005 2009 applying unconditional quantile regression models the article demonstrates that women are paid less than men throughout the wage distribution and the gap is higher at the lower end of the distribution discrimination against women is the primary determinant of the wage gap the article also demonstrates that the observed gender wage gap is likely to be underestimated if we ignore selection in full time employment a number of policy implications are discussed

relational contracts and the value of relationships this article studies optimal relational contracts when the value of the relationship between contracting parties is not commonly known i consider a principal agent setting where the principal has persistent private information about her outside option i show that if the principal has the bargaining power she wants to understate her outside option to provide strong incentives and then renege on promised payments while if the uninformed agent has the bargaining power the principal wants to overstate her outside option to capture more surplus i characterize how information is revealed how the relationship evolves and how this depends on bargaining power jel c78 d82 d83 d86

contracts reference points and competition behavioral effects of the fundamental transformation in this paper we study the role of incomplete ex ante contracts for ex post trade previous experimental evidence indicates that a contract provides a reference point for entitlements when the terms are negotiated in a competitive market we show that this finding no longer holds when the terms are determined in a non competitive way our results imply that the presence of a fundamental transformation i e the transition from a competitive market to a bilateral relationship is important for a contract to become a reference point to the best of our knowledge this behavioral aspect of the fundamental transformation has not been shown before jel c91 d03 d23

bad karma or discrimination male female wage gaps among salaried workers in india summary we use nationally representative data from the employment unemployment surveys in 1999 2000 and 2009 10 to explore gender wage gaps among regular wage salaried rws workers in india both at the mean as well as along the entire wage distribution to see what happens where the gender log wage gap at the mean is 55 in 1999 2000 and 49 in 2009 10 but this change is not statistically significant the blinder oaxaca and the machado mata melly decompositions indicate that in both years the bulk of the gender wage gap is unexplained i e possibly discriminatory they also reveal that over the decade while the wage earning characteristics of women improved relative to men the discriminatory component of the gender wage gap also increased in fact in 2009 10 if women were paid like men they would have earned more than men on account of their characteristics in both years we see the existence of the sticky floor in that gender wage gaps are higher among low wage earners and lower for high wage earners over the ten year period we find that the sticky floor became stickier for rws women machado mata melly decompositions reveal that in both years women at the lower end of the wage distribution face higher discriminatory gaps compared to women at the upper end

overcoming incentive constraints by linking decisions consider a bayesian collective decision problem in which the preferences of agents are private information we provide a general demonstration that the utility costs associated with incentive constraints become negligible when the decision problem is linked with a large number of independent copies of itself this is established by defining a mechanism in which agents must budget their representations of preferences so that the frequency of preferences across problems mirrors the underlying distribution of preferences and then arguing that agents incentives are to satisfy their budget by being as truthful as possible we also show that all equilibria of the linking mechanisms converge to the target utility levels the mechanisms do not require transferable utility or interpersonal comparisons of utility and are immune to manipulations by coalitions

women wages and discrimination some evidence from taiwan in 1982 male employees in taiwan earned an average monthly salary of nt 11 008 us 275 women earned under two thirds of this at nt 7 087 this paper examines whether the male female earnings differential in taiwan can be explained by different endowments between the sexes of productivity related characteristics such as education and work experience if men and women are paid according to the same wage structure different endowments will account for all the observed earnings differential any wage gap that remains as a residual after adjustment for endowments can be interpreted as evidence of wage discrimination between the sexes following the work of oaxaca and malkiel and malkiel there is now a large number of american studies that use human capital theory as the basis for decomposing sex specific earnings into an endowment component and a discrimination component estimates also exist for canada and britain 2 house in his calculations for cyprus has provided the first estimates for a developing country 3 a case study for taiwan is particularly interesting not only because of the role of female employment in taiwan s industrial growth but also because the quality of the data makes possible a sharper test of discrimination than most other studies

does unmeasured ability explain the wage premium associated with technological change quantile regression analysis by using the quantile regressions of earnings equation we find that the educational wage premium is higher in industries with rapid technological change than in industries with slower technological change at every decile in the distribution of wage residuals the wage premium associated with the technological change is mostly explained by the returns to workers unobserved heterogeneities which are correlated with education rather than the rents of high tech industries

the comparative advantages of firms markets and contracts a unified theory the most efficient labour market mechanism depends on the advantages of specialization workers costs of switching between entrepreneurs and the frequency with which needs change multilateral mechanisms are more efficient when specialization is more advantageous when it is cheap for workers to switch between entrepreneurs and when individual entrepreneurs cannot occupy a worker on a full time basis given a bilateral mechanism employment a firm is more efficient than contracts when in process adjustments arise more frequently there exist three regions in which firms markets and sequences of bilateral contracts are weakly more efficient than all other mechanisms in a big class

why do diplomas pay an expanded mincerian framework applied to mexico we compare four explanations for the value of diplomas each of which has implications for unemployment and wage variation amongst graduates most of which have not previously been tested for when seeking to explain the effects of diplomas we test for these implications using a refined econometric framework exploiting idiosyncrasies in mexican labour market and educational institutions premiums in mexico appear to result from diplomas tied to jobs with downwards rigid wages an uncommon but simple explanation the standard explanations including screening are not suggested by mexican data our results illuminate how labour markets segmented by diplomas clear this depends upon the nature of the labour market rigidities exactly as predicted by neoclassical theory

organization and information firms governance choices in rational expectations equilibrium we analyze a rational expectations model of price formation in an intermediate good market under uncertainty there is a continuum of firms each consisting of a party who can reduce production cost and a party who can discover information about demand both parties can make specific investments at private cost and there is a machine that either party can control as in incomplete contracting models different governance structures i e different allocations of control of the machine create different incentives for the parties investments as in rational expectations models some parties may invest in acquiring information which is then incorporated into the market clearing price of the intermediate good by these parties production decisions the informativeness of the price mechanism affects the returns to specific investments and hence the optimal governance structure for individual firms meanwhile the governance choices by individual firms affect the informativeness of the price mechanism in equilibrium the informativeness of the price mechanism can induce ex ante homogeneous firms to choose heterogeneous governance structures copyright 2012 oxford university press

economic volatility and returns to education in venezuela 1992 2002 preliminary evidence suggests that the rates of return to education in venezuela have been declining since the 1970s this study rigorously estimates the returns to education in venezuela for the period 1992 to 2002 and links them to earlier available estimates from the 1980s consistent cross sections from the encuesta de hogares por muestro are used to document falling returns to schooling and educational levels until the mid 1990s followed by increasing returns thereafter quantile regression analysis is used to provide further insight into the within skill group changes in returns over time

on the decomposition of wage differentials the often used method for decomposing wage differentials into human capital and discrimination components is reformulated so that both t he disadvantage or cost discrimination it imposes on a black or minority wage earner and the advantage or benefit it bestows on a white or majority wage earner can be estimated copyright 1988 by mit press

education policy reform local average treatment effect and returns to schooling from instrumental variables in the philippines a nationally representative dataset from the philippines is used to derive returns to schooling estimates from instrumental variables utilizing a supply side intervention in the education market capable of generating significant changes in schooling these estimates apply to a subgroup of mainly liquidity constrained individuals in the spirit of the local average treatment effect late literature returns to schooling estimates which apply to a subgroup of individuals affected by policy intervention may be more interesting from a policy perspective than the return to the average individual the findings are consistent with other recent evidence suggesting that the causal effect of education at least for certain subgroups of individuals is as big or bigger than what is suggested by ols estimates

the response of household incomes to stock price and gdp growth by income quantile how household incomes respond to gdp and stock price growth is important for an understanding of the economic costs of business cycles and the driving forces of income inequality over time this article examines to what extent household incomes react differently across income distribution quantiles and time it employs u s panel study of income dynamics data for the period 1979 2000 and quantile regression techniques significant differences are found in how household incomes respond across income quantiles for the same income quantiles large differences are identified when the time period 1979 1987 is compared to 1988 2000 the content of the article reflects the personal opinion of the authors and should not be associated with fedex services or any of its affiliated companies