incentives productivity and labor contracts the relationship between age earnings profiles and worker incentives is examined by contrasting wage and salary workers with the self employed it is argued that the steepness of wage and salary workers age earnings profiles reflects the desire to provide work incentives to those workers since self employed workers do not face this agency problem they are used as a benchmark to gauge productivity empirical support of the proposition is provided and the effects of human capital accumulation are separated empirically from incentive effects the most important conclusion is that under some strong assumptions most of the slope in age earnings profiles is accounted for by the desire to provide incentives rather than by on the job training

the crowding hypothesis and comparable worth although women s pay and occupational distribution have improved during the past few years it is still true that women earn considerably less than men and that their occupational distribution is substantially different because progress has been slow toward equality in the labor market some have called for a comparable worth policy proponents of this approach argue that occupational segregation contributes to the earnings disparity between women and men one theoretical justification for this position is the crowding hypothesis this paper first explains this theory and presents a method used to test its principal hypothesis it then describes an extension of this design for estimating the phenomenon that comparable worth policies address empirical studies conducted in this area are viewed and new findings are presented finally limitations of this analysis are discussed i introduction

firm dynamics and institutional participation a case study on informality of micro enterprises in peru abstract using panel data on micro enterprises from peru we find evidence suggesting that firm dynamics explain formality where formality is recast as the firm s decision to participate in societal institutions the results suggest that differences in unobservable factors such as entrepreneurial ability contribute largely to differences in growth rates survival chances and societal participation after controlling for such unobserved heterogeneity we find that the probability of participation increases with firm size but not with years in business changes in participation status are sensitive to the initial size and growth trajectory of the firm

payment schemes and gender in germany the authors estimate the determinants of five types of variable payment schemes using panel data on german establishments in 1994 and 1996 women were disproportionately included in schemes based on individual productivity and on profit sharing but not in those based on work group productivity this pattern seems inconsistent with the claim that women are sorted due to their shorter expected tenure instead the authors argue the critical issue may be that women have a greater need for flexibility between work and home than men do collective bargaining coverage and other industrial relations variables are shown to be influential determinants interacting with gender

analysis of the economic impact of different chinese climate policy options based on a cge model incorporating endogenous technological change abatement cost is the main concern for climate change mitigation and the key factor for mitigation cost is technological change this study established an integrated economic energy environmental dynamic computable general equilibrium cge model representing endogenous technological change for china s climate change policy analysis this study analyzed and compared the economic impact of different approaches to mitigation commitments as well as the potential role of technological change in the formulation of mitigation targets and commitments taking into account china s climate policy making needs based on the current international climate negotiation process the results show that absolute emission limits similar to the kyoto protocol will seriously impede the future economic development of china while the impact of an 80 reduction in carbon intensity forecast for 2050 based on the 2005 level is relatively small technological change can promote economic growth improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon intensity per unit of output through the substitution of production factors consequently it can reduce marginal abatement cost and related gdp loss by mitigation at the same time it can increase mitigation potentials and extend the emission reduction amount showing that consideration of the impact of technological change when deciding the emission reduction targets is necessary

firm level corruption in vietnam abstractthis article uses panel data from a survey of small and medium sized enterprises in vietnam to uncover which firms pay bribes and which do not we also study how bribe paying evolved between 2005 and 2007 and test how the determinants of bribes changed between the two years three sets of insights emerge first bribe incidence is highly associated with firm level differences in visibility sunk costs ability to pay and some but not all types of interaction with public officials second the magnitudes of bribes are distinctly higher for firms which get preferential tax benefits and government contracts third the observed decrease in bribe incidence between 2005 and 2007 is largely driven by significant behavioral changes these behavioral changes seem to be associated with policy initiatives to improve law enforcement and increased media focus on punitive actions against corruption

are those paid more really more productive the case of experience this study uses computerized personnel microdata on the white male managerial and professional employees at a major u s corporation to address the following question can the additional earnings which are associated with more labor market experience at a point in time really be explained by higher productivity at the same point in time our answer to this question based on both cross sectional and longitudinal information is that performance plays a substantially smaller role in explaining cross sectional experience earnings differentials and earnings growth than is claimed by those who have adopted the human capital explanation of the experience earnings profile this response depends critically on our assumption that the performance ratings which supervisors give to their white male managerial and professional subordinates adequately reflect the subordinates relative productivity in the year of assessment we present a great deal of evidence which strongly supports this assumption

the influence of wages and industrial relations environments on the production location decisions of u s multinational corporations using the benchmark and annual surveys of u s direct investment abroad collected by the bureau of economic analysis the authors examine the operations of u s multinational corporations mncs in seven manufacturing industries and twenty two countries over the years 1982 91 they analyze how tariffs wages and industrial relations environments influenced u s mncs decisions about where to locate assets and employment the results imply that wages and the industrial relations environment were statistically significant determinants of the extent to which mncs located operations in a particular host country however while these factors were important their impact was much smaller than that of host country market size which was by far the main determinant of mnc location decisions furthermore the authors find no evidence that tariff reductions increased the share of u s mnc activities located abroad thus concerns that tariff reductions may lead to loss of american jobs appear to be exaggerated

job matching and on the job training conventional analysis predicts that workers pay part of their on the job training costs by accepting a lower starting wage and subsequently realize a return to this investment in the form of greater wage growth missing from the conventional treatment of on the job training is a discussion of the process by which heterogeneous workers are matched to jobs requiring varying amounts of training this matching process constitutes a key feature of the on the job training model presented in this article and tested with a unique data set containing extensive information concerning on the job training employer search wages and wage and productivity growth

the effects of comparable worth in the public sector on public private occupational relative wages if as appears likely comparable worth programs are confined to the public sector the level of publiclprivate relative pay may change and the structure of publiclprivate relative wages within occupations will almost certainly change the nature of these changes will determine the degree to which public wages conform more or less closely to the prevailing wage standard which requires that wages for public jobs be equivalent to wages for similar private sector jobs thus there will be implications for economic efficiency this study analyzes alternative scenarios involving comparable worth in the state and local government slg sector the results suggest that when comparable worth is implemented through special wage increases public sector wages are moved further from compliance with the prevailing wage standard this is because public wages are on average already on a par with privatesector wages however comparable worth tends to provide larger wage increases to those occupations where publiclprivate wages are relatively low and when the payroll budget under comparable worth is fixed at the same size as the payroll budget before comparable worth public wages could be moved closer to compliance with the prevailing wage norm

comparable worth in a decentralized labour market the case of ontario we document the application of pro active pay equity legislation to the private sector of the canadian province of ontario in the early 1990s we report substantial lapses in compliance among smaller firms where the majority of men and women work we also find that the pay equity law had no effect on aggregate wages in female jobs or on the gender wage gap this experience provides unique perspectives on 1 the tensions between the workings of a decentralized labour market and the principles of comparable worth and 2 the obstacles to its extension to the private sector jel classification j7 j3 l equite salariale dans un marche du travail decentralise le cas de l ontario les auteurs documentent l application de la loi d equite salariale mise en vigueur dans le secteur prive en ontario au debut des annees 1990 on fait etat de defaillances substantielles dans la mise en uvre de cette politique aupres des pme ou la majorite des hommes et des femmes travaillent l analyse revele que au niveau agrege la loi d equite salariale n a pas eu d effets sur les salaires dans les emplois feminins ou sur l ecart salarial entre les hommes et les femmes l experience ontarienne fournit des perspectives eclairantes sur 1 les tensions entre le fonctionnement d un marche du travail decentralise et les principes de salaire egal pour un travail de valeur comparable et 2 sur les obstacles a l extension de ces principes au secteur prive

reducing rebound effect through fossil subsidies reform a comprehensive evaluation in china abstract china has committed a sharp reduction in its carbon intensity by 2020 and proposed to take integrated policy package including energy subsidy reform to achieve this goal while energy efficiency improvement is the key influencing factor for this goal its effectiveness is significantly determined by rebound effect energy subsidy as an economic regulation policy would significantly affect rebound effect to explore how china s fossil subsidies reform would affect rebound effect this study conducts a comprehensive evaluation based on a multi sector computable general equilibrium cge model rebound effects at different technological improvement levels are investigated and the impacts of different subsidies reform scenarios on mitigating rebound effects and on the whole economy is analyzed the results provide significant policy insights firstly rebound effect does exist in china larger for electricity than for primary energies secondly by removing fossil energy subsides the rebound effect would be effectively mitigated and removing all subsides would reduce the rebound effect most however it would bring significant negative impacts on the macro economy thirdly an integrated policy with removal of fossil energy subsidies and increment of clean energy subsidies would be more effective greatly reducing rebound effect and also bring benefits for both economy and environment our findings would be critical for china s low carbon policy making in the future

achieving low carbon urban passenger transport in china insights from the heterogeneous rebound effect abstract the rapid increase in energy consumption and carbon emissions in china s passenger transportation sector threatens both the environment and the nation s energy security energy efficiency improvements leading to lower fuel consumption are therefore of considerable interest to policymakers trying to achieve low carbon travel however it is well established that higher miles per gallon efficiencies can by reducing the costs of travel lead to some level of increased personal travel the so called rebound effect this paper describes an empirical study to measure the size and also the variability in this effect at the provincial level and what this variability implies for a carbon tax policy this rebound effect is quantified using a two stage almost ideal demand system aids model a backfire effect i e the rebound is 100 is observed in urban passenger transport with disparities in the size of the rebound effect ranging from 114 to 153 among china s provinces the differences in economic development as well as related differences in consumers behavior especially in the behavior of marginal consumers have contributed to this heterogeneity with a larger carbon tax more than 110yuan tonne needed in richer provinces such as jiangsu zhejiang guangdong and fujian in order to bring about similar levels of carbon reductions nationwide

measuring corruption in infrastructure evidence from transition and developing countries abstract this paper examines what we can say about the extent and impact of corruption in infrastructure using existing evidence there is evidence that most perceptions measures appear to be very weak proxies for the actual extent of corruption in the infrastructure sector largely but inaccurately measuring petty rather than grand corruption survey evidence is more reliable but limited as a tool for differentiating countries in terms of access to infrastructure finance or appropriate policy models the paper suggests that a focus on bribe payments as the indicator of the costs of corruption in infrastructure may be misplaced

powering or de powering future vehicles to reach low carbon outcomes the long term view 1930 2020 abstract government in uk has long sought to influence both new vehicle fuel efficiency and to encourage domestic car production sixty years of data on the change in car characteristics and fuel economy are analysed vehicle specific power has doubled in that time and sales of vehicles have grown preferentially in larger engine classes new cars sold over the period 1970 2000 have a sale price of 150 per bhp at year 2000 prices a new theory is proposed that the primary driver for increased power of vehicles and hence co2 production is the increase in sale price necessitated by uneconomic production of steel vehicles in mature markets the standard fuel test cycle shows inverse fuel efficiency relationship with weight and with vehicle power primary co2 reduction targets such as the kyoto agreement are dimensioned as outputs of energy use per unit time power secondary targets such as the acea voluntary agreement of 140 g km in 2008 based on energy per unit distance efficiency failure to focus policy on the key variable of vehicle power has allowed power to continue to increase and inhibit fuel efficiency from meeting the voluntary agreement targets this power loophole in europe is likened to the emergence of light trucks in response to cafe standards in usa new body materials offer the prospect of profitable car production consumer satisfaction and large reductions in co2 new policy directions are proposed as a result of the failure of the acea voluntary agreement and the real importance of achieving annual co2 reduction including via cars 21

the social charter of the european community evolution and controversies this study investigates the content status and likely impact of the social charter a declaration of social rights primarily workers rights endorsed by the european community in december 1989 the european commission which initiated the charter has justified the mandated benefits proposed under it as a means for advancing social equality the authors argue however that by raising costs inhibiting employment growth and disproportionately affecting poorer workers and nations the mandated benefits approach is likely to cause less rather than more equity

effects of comparable worth policy evidence from washington state comparable worth is a new and controversial policy advocated by groups seeking to close the wage gap between women and men the term is shorthand for equal pay for jobs of comparable worth and refers to a system in which firms are required to set wages for different occupations to reflect differences in the worth of the job usually defined by four characteristics skill effort responsibility and working conditions it may not seem radical to relate wage differentials to such characteristics as skill and working conditions indeed economists have long argued that occupational wage differentials arising in competitive labor markets would reflect factors such as these the controversy arises because of the process by which the contents of jobs are valued under a comparable worth system proponents of comparable worth reject market assignment of value because markets are said to reflect bias against occupations traditionally held by women under comparable worth jobs are typically evaluated by a political process in which committees of consultants and representatives of the employer the union women s groups and others determine the value of jobs it is an important

carbon pricing and energy efficiency improvement why to miss the interaction for developing economies an illustrative cge based application to the pakistan case abstract carbon energy taxes and energy efficiency improvement are studied well in the recent years for their potential adverse impacts on economy especially for lost production and international competitiveness and rebound effects however little attention has been paid to investigate them jointly which can not only prevent fall of energy services cost and thereby rebound effect but reduce the associated macroeconomic costs this study thus employs a 20 sector cge model to explore separately the impacts of carbon tax and its coordinated implementation with energy efficiency improvement on the pakistan economy the country underwent enormous pressure of energy security issues as well as climate change fallouts in the last couple of years and can be regarded as a suitable candidate for energy environmental conservation policies to be considered at a broader context with more concrete efforts the simulation results show that the impact of carbon tax on gdp is negative but resulting reductions in pollutant emissions are relatively high moreover the gdp is expected to grow comparatively positive when analyzed with improvements in energy efficiency with even higher decline in energy consumption demand and so emissions this simultaneous economic and environmental improvement would thus have positive implications regarding sustainable development of the country

political decentralization and corruption evidence from around the world abstract how does political decentralization affect the frequency and costliness of bribe extraction by corrupt officials previous empirical studies using subjective indexes of perceived corruption and mostly fiscal indicators of decentralization have suggested conflicting conclusions in search of more precise findings we combine and explore two new data sources an original cross national data set on particular types of decentralization and the results of a firm level survey conducted in 80 countries about firms concrete experiences with bribery in countries with a larger number of government or administrative tiers and given local revenues a larger number of local public employees reported bribery was more frequent when local or central governments received a larger share of gdp in revenue bribery was less frequent overall the results suggest the danger of uncoordinated rent seeking as government structures become more complex

instrument choice when regulators and firms bargain abstract we compare outcomes with an emissions tax and an emissions standard when a firm and regulator engage in cooperative bargaining over the stringency of the regulation bargaining is motivated by giving the firm a choice of abatement technologies if the firm s preferred technology differs from the regulator s the first best outcome is not an equilibrium of the traditional noncooperative game in which the regulator is a stackelberg leader the regulator may therefore choose to offer the firm a more lenient regulation if it agrees to switch technologies we find that the resulting bargaining outcomes differ for a tax and a standard even though information is symmetric and we identify conditions under which each instrument yields lower social costs

employer size wage effects evidence from matched employer employee survey data in the uk this paper employs a random sample of matched employer employee data from the uk to test seven possible explanations for the positive relationship between employer size and pay individual wage equations show a large employer size wage premium we then control for a range of establishment level variables based on seven hypotheses typically advanced to explain this premium each establishment level factor reduces the wage premium but a sizeable premium nonetheless remains in adjudicating on these hypotheses we find a strong association between the internal labour market and the employer size wage premium this finding supports the theory that the employer size wage effect may be due to the higher costs of turnover or monitoring in larger firms however we find contrasting effects for public versus private sector establishments

energy efficiency rebound effects and the environmental kuznets curve technological change is one factor used to justify the existence of an environmental kuznets curve and technological improvements have been argued to be a key factor in mitigating the impacts of economic growth on environmental quality in this paper we use a cge model of the scottish economy to consider the factors influencing the impacts of one form of technological change improvements in energy efficiency on absolute levels of co2 emissions on the carbon intensity of the economy co2 emissions relative to real gdp and the per capita ekc relationship these factors include the elasticity of substitution between energy and non energy inputs responses in the labour market and the structure of the economy our results demonstrate the key role played by the general equilibrium price elasticity of demand for energy and the relative influence of different factors on this parameter

ecological deficit tax a tax design and simulation of compensation for ecosystem service value based on ecological footprint in china abstract the expansion of resource tax to the occupation of natural ecological space is an important part of china s tax reform this paper quantifies the occupation of natural ecological space based on the demand for energy water and agriculture resources in terms of an ecological footprint and creatively convert the carbon emissions from energy consumption to occupation of carbon sinks such as woodlands and grasslands to obtain the ecological deficits in various regions of china based on the evaluation of the ecological service value the paper determines the correspondence between consumption projects land types and ecological functions realized the accounting of the economic value of the national ecological deficit as the sum of the regional deficits based on this the ecological deficit is used as an unpaid input factor in the construction of a green social accounting matrix table and a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model is used to analyze the effects of a tax policy on the compensation for the ecological deficit value the simulation results show that the double dividend hypothesis exists in the primary and tertiary industries and employment in the secondary industry that with a high value added labor decreased resulting in decreases in both the labor income of residents and their proportion of the national income the growth rate of gdp decreases in the short term and then gradually increases capital appreciation and net exports contribute greatly to economic growth based on the positive role of taxation schemes in reducing ecological deficits and their negative impacts on economic growth and the income distribution this paper suggests that with the improvement of big data on ecological occupation an ecological deficit tax can be introduced to target the energy sector which has a large ecological footprint in addition household income should be protected through tax cuts transfer payments and earmarked funds among other means to promote economic growth and protect the environment

job duration seniority and earnings an important stylized fact about labor markets is that workers with longer seniority with their current employer have higher earnings than other workers with the same total labor market experience this study shows that workers in longer jobs earn more throughout than workers in a series of shorter jobs and that the measured positive cross sectional return seniority is largely a statistical artifact due to the correlation of seniority with an omitted variable representing the quality of the worker the job or the worker employer match the implication is tha t earnings do not in fact rise very much with seniority copyright 1987 by american economic association

how petty is petty corruption evidence from firm surveys in africa summary evidence suggests that corruption is costly for african firms this paper however shows that a minor difference in the way the question on bribe payments is asked has a large effect on estimates of the size of the burden on average firms report payments that are between 4 and 15 times higher when they report them as a percent of sales than when they report them in monetary terms the paper discusses several possible reasons for this but none explain the difference one plausible remaining reason is that firm managers overestimate bribes when they report them in percentage terms

economics and environmental implications of fuel efficiency improvement in malaysia a computable general equilibrium approach the continued increase in urbanization and vehicle ownership poses an increasing challenge in curbing the rising energy consumption and co2 emissions in malaysia for more than a decade road vehicles have been the leading contributor in the country due mainly to their heavy reliance on petroleum products particularly gasoline and diesel the efficient utilization of petroleum products becomes paramount in reducing malaysia s overall co2 emissions in the land transportation sector the timely abolition of petroleum product subsidies in 2014 may provide a financial source to support the improvement of petroleum product efficiency the primary purpose of this paper is to examine the impact on economic growth and sectoral performance with fuel subsidy savings being reallocated to the biofuel industry for research and development purposes the study then investigates whether an environmental tax on petroleum products could induce more energy saving and emission control this research applies the computable general equilibrium modeling for the simulation as it takes into account the interaction between petroleum products and the economy as a whole the malaysia input output tables 2010 is the main database used in the simulation the simulation results found that fuel efficiency improvement could produce a double dividend effect with simultaneous benefits on the economy and environmental quality a simultaneous implementation with fuel tax policy appears to be one suitable complementary measure for a further emission cut however sufficient compensation schemes might be necessary to stimulate economic activities over time based on the simulation results policymakers should emphasize fuel efficiency improvement as a crucial strategy to control the rising energy consumption and emissions in malaysia

a selectivity model of employer size wage differentials this article investigates wage differentials for employees of different size firms utilizing an econometric methodology that allows the size of employer to be treated as endogenous in the context of discrete ordered employer size data as a result we are able to estimate i employer size wage gaps which are corrected for selectivity bias and ii the magnitude and direction of the selection bias decompositions of the resulting wage differentials are computed with comparisons of the conditional on sorting across employer size and unconditional wage gaps

comparable worth limited coverage and the exacerbation of inequality citing relevant judicial decisions the author argues that any application of the comparable worth remedy for gender discrimination is likely to cover only certain groups of workers most likely to be covered are women who work for governmental or large private employers in female dominated jobs and least likely to be covered are women who work for small private employers the implementation of comparable worth would cause the wages of noncovered workers to fall relative to those of covered workers and they might even fall absolutely an analysis of 1979 current population survey data suggests that the women most likely to gain from comparable worth are fewer in number better paid and subjected to no greater discrimination than the women most likely to lose

part time work and the hiring of older workers this research uses german establishment data to examine the relationship between back loading compensation the hiring of older workers and their part time status we confirm that establishments that defer compensation are less likely to hire older workers we demonstrate for the first time that establishments that defer compensation are more likely to limit older workers to part time jobs when they do hire them thus deferred compensation plays a larger role in reducing the chances of older workers being hired into full time jobs than would be inferred from past estimates simply examining their odds of being hired at all

eight questions about corruption this paper will discuss eight frequently asked questions about public corruption 1 what is corruption 2 which countries are the most corrupt 3 what are the common characteristics of countries with high corruption 4 what is the magnitude of corruption 5 do higher wages for bureaucrats reduce corruption 6 can competition reduce corruption 7 why have there been so few recent successful attempts to fight corruption 8 does corruption adversely affect growth

recent developments in social policy in the new european union this paper assesses the recent progress and future direction of labor policy in the european community now the european union the authors show that most of the mandates foreshadowed under the december 1989 community social charter have now been enacted into law they analyze the possible costs as well as the benefits of these firstphase mandates and show the link between these adjustment costs and the community s policy of providing subsidies to its poorer member states they also demonstrate how the new treaty on european union agreed to at maastricht in december 1991 has increased the scope for community level labor market regulation

energy taxation and the double dividend effect in taiwan s energy conservation policy an empirical study using a computable general equilibrium model abstract faced with pressure from greenhouse gas reductions and energy price hikes the taiwan government is in the process of developing an energy tax regime to reflect environmental external costs and effectively curb energy consumption as well as mitigate co2 emissions through an adequate pricing system this study utilizes a cge model to simulate and analyze the economic impacts of the draft energy tax bill and its complementary fiscal measures under the assumption of tax revenue neutrality the use of energy tax revenue generated for the purpose of reducing income tax is the best choice with double dividend effects since it will effectively stimulate domestic consumption and investment and consequently mitigate the negative impacts of the distortionary tax regime the double dividend effect is less significant however when the supplementary measures being used are for government expenditure nevertheless all supplementary measures have effectively reduced energy consumption which means they have delivered at least the first dividend in the sense of co2 emissions control it has been verified in this study that having adequate public finance policy measures is the key to realizing the double dividend effect

the effects of real wages and labor productivity on foreign direct investment the volume of foreign direct investment fdi both into and out of the united states has grown rapidly in the past several decades theoretically labor costs in both source and host countries could be important determinants of these flows but thus far no consistently significant effects have been reported for fdi flows between the u s and other industrialized countries in this paper i estimate equations for u s fdi flows to and from five other industrialized countries the explanatory variables include both source and host country real wages and labor productivity but to put my work in perspective i shall first in section ii discuss recent literature in the area then section iii briefly discusses a theoretical model to highlight the possible effects of the labor variables the empirical procedure and results are presented in section iv and a summary in section v

corruption and market competition evidence from post communist countries summary this paper empirically examines whether market competition is associated with greater bribe payments we use firm level data from the business environment and enterprise performance surveys since market competition could be endogenous and some firms report zero bribes we employ a tobit estimation methodology instrumenting for market competition we find that greater market competition increases the amount of bribes paid results are robust across several measures of market competition however market competition is less strongly associated with bribes in the presence of other obstacles of doing business that could also lead to more bribes

are wages and productivity converging simultaneously in euro area countries a convergence analysis is applied to wages and productivity for euro area countries in the period from 1981 to 2001 the results show a reduction in the dispersion of wages and unit labour costs but not in productivity different patterns are found for real and nominal wages higher levels of inflation in countries with higher growth rates of unit labour costs have caused nominal wages to move towards equalization moreover disparities in all the variables have remained more or less the same since 1997 suggesting that the establishment of a single currency area has not accelerated the process of wage equalization

an experimental study of job evaluation and comparable worth the doctrine of comparable worth rests on an assumption that each job possesses an inherent worth independent of the market forces of supply and demand implementation of comparable worth further requires that inherentjob worth be measured with reasonable accuracy this paper reports the results of an experimental study of comparable worth three commercial job evaluation firms rated the same set of 27 jobs in an actual company statistical analysis of the experimental data indicates that the three evaluators differed in which job trait or constellation of traits they used to evaluate inherent job worth implying that at least one of them failed to measure inherent job worth accurately these results suggest that any attempt to implement comparable worth may be quite sensitive to the evaluator chosen to measure job worth

a general equilibrium view of global rebound effects abstract how do energy efficiency gains affect energy consumption the effects are generally called rebound effects in the literature previous studies have extensively focused on only part of the global economy to study rebound effects e g energy consumption by households one industry or one country however since the global economy is highly connected among countries these studies may lead to misleading conclusions if the rebound effects in the rest of the economy are significant recently saunders 2008 analyzes the demand side by taking the global economy as a whole wei 2007 also provides a general analysis by using cobb douglas production functions for the global economy the present article expands wei 2007 general analysis to explore the rebound effects from an economist s viewpoint by taking the global economy as a whole and applying general forms of production functions the analysis provides new insights related to rebound effects we highlight the role of energy supply as a determinant of rebound we show that the substitution between energy resources and other productive resources is more relevant to long term rebound we predict that long term rebound may be lower than short term rebound and we also discover that super conservation can happen in both the short term and the long term

a controlled field experiment on corruption abstract this paper reports on a controlled field experiment on corruption designed to address two important issues the experimenter s scrutiny and the unobservability of corruption in the experiment a grader is offered a bribe along with a demand for a better grade we find that graders respond more favorably to bigger bribes while the effect of higher wages is ambiguous it lowers the bribe s acceptance but it fosters reciprocation monitoring and punishment can deter corruption but we cannot reject that it may also crowd out intrinsic motivations for honesty when intensified finally our results suggest several micro determinants of corruption including age ability religiosity but not gender

the measurement of race and gender wage differentials evidence from the federal sector this paper presents an empirical analysis of wage differentials based on race and gender in the federal bureaucracy by focusing on the study of interagency variations in wage differentials the au

do wages rise with job seniority many previous studies have found a strong positive effect of job seniority tenure on wages this paper re examines the evidence using a simple instrumental variables scheme to deal with the fact that tenure is likely to be related to unobserved individual and job characteristics that affect the wage we use the variation of tenure over a given job match as the principal instrumental variable for tenure the variation in tenure over the job is uncorrelated by construction with the fixed individual and job match specific components of the error term of the wage equation our main finding is that the partial effect of tenure on wages is small and that general labour market experience and job shopping account for most wage growth over a career the strong cross section relationship between tenure and wages is due primarily to heterogeneity bias prior researchers see mincer and jovanovic 1981 bartel and borjas 1981 borjas 1981 cline 1979 and mellow 1981 and many others have established that job seniority has a strong positive relationship with wage rates in a cross section or a cross section time series of individuals in this paper we re evaluate the evidence concerning the partial effects on wages of job seniority tenure and total labour market experience the extent to which wages rise with tenure is important for several reasons first and foremost the wage tenure profile is a fundamental question about the structure of earnings over careers second the wage tenure profile is a key determinant of the extent to which the earnings power of individuals is tied to specific jobs and it is important for assessment of the losses suffered by displaced workers hamermesh 1984 third evidence that wages rise with job tenure has been used to explain the decline in quits with tenure since the wage growth on the current job lowers the probability that the worker will locate a superior alternative a growing theoretical literature surveyed in parsons 1984 has taken the evidence of a strong wage tenure profile at face value and sought to provide an explanation for the relationship the most prominent explanation is the theory of specific human capital oi 1962 becker 1962 mincer 1974 parsons 1972 kuratani 1973 and hashimoto 1980 in which the growth of wages with tenure holding experience constant is attributed to the worker s share of investments in firm specific skills more recently lazear 1981 has presented a supervision model of wage growth in which firms defer compensation as a means of inducing workers not to shirk freeman 1977 and harris and holmstrom 1982 provide an explanation for wage growth based on an insurance motive salop and salop 1976 nickell 1976 and guasch and weiss 1982 present adverse selection models of wage growth in which firms use a wage tenure profile as a

do increases in energy efficiency improve environmental quality and sustainability governments world wide increasingly see energy efficiency as an important aspect of sustainability however there is a debate in the literature as to whether the impact of improved energy efficiency on reducing energy use might be partially or more than wholly offset through rebound and backfire effects this paper clarifies the theoretical conditions under which such effects would occur and explores their likely significance using a computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy we find that for scotland a general improvement in energy efficiency in the production sectors of the economy initially produces rebound effects that eventually grow into backfire energy use ultimately increases in response to an efficiency gain and the ratio of gdp to co2 emissions falls the economic factors underpinning rebound effects are straightforward energy efficiency improvements result in an effective cut in energy prices which produces output substitution competitiveness and income effects that stimulate energy demands however the presence of strong rebound or even backfire does not mean that efficiency enhancing policies are irrelevant rather it suggests that such policies operating alone are insufficient to generate environmental improvements the implication is that a co ordinated portfolio of energy policies is required

job security provisions and employment european countries have enacted various job security provisions over the last 30 years employers are required to pay workers on separation or to give advance notice of termination in anything less than a perfectly functioning market there are effects of the provisions on employment incumbents are more likely to retain their jobs but new workers are less likely to be hired an examination of the european data suggests that severance pay requirements reduce employment

employment tenure and earnings profiles in japan and the united states comments the relationship between job tenure and annual earnings in japan has received considerable attention from social scientists examining employment contracts and the japanese compensation system in their widely cited article masanori hashimoto and john raisian 1985 using data for 1980 showed that japanese men have greater job tenure than comparable workers in the united states and that the earnings of japanese men rise more rapidly with increased tenure they found that an additional year of tenure increases earnings in both small and large firms in japan more than does an additional year of general market experience their results for the united states indicate that general market experience increases earnings more than an additional year of job tenure the 1970 s and 1980 s were a period of substantial change in japanese labor markets due to the rapid aging of the population and the restructuring of the economy following the oil crisis the present analysis extends the work of hashimoto and raisian by estimating earnings equations for japanese men for the years 1971 1976 1981 and 1986 specifically we wish to investigate whether hashimoto and raisian s findings have been stable over time or whether changes in the labor market have altered the importance of tenure relative to total labor market experience in the japanese labor market i changes in the labor market

gender and corruption in business abstractare firms with female owners or managers less corrupt than other firms we test this question using firm level data on corruption ownership and management we find that women in positions of influence are associated with less corruption female owners are associated with a lower incidence of bribery and report smaller levels of bribery moreover corruption is seen as less of an obstacle in companies where women are represented in top management by providing evidence that women are associated with lower levels of corruption in business our research contributes to the literature on development gender equality and corruption

consequences of seniority wages on the employment structure the author examines seniority wage profiles in german establishments to discern hiring patterns with respect to age and sex using the country s linked employer employee dataset liab over the per

why firms engage in corruption a top management perspective this study builds upon the top management literature to predict and test antecedents to firms engagement in corruption building on a survey of 341 executives in india we find that if executives have social ties with government officials their firms are more likely to engage in corruption further these executives are likely to rationalize engaging in corruption as a necessity for being competitive the results collectively illustrate the role that executives social ties and perceptions have in shaping illegal actions of their respective firms

male female wage differentials and policy responses without implicating them for any of the contents of the paper i am grateful to the following for helpful discussions or comments andrea beller university of illinois david bloom harvard and columnbia glen cain university of wisconsin ron ehrenberg cornell victor fuchs stanford bob gregory australian national university jonathan leonard university of california berkeley roberta robb brock university and paul weiler harvard financial support of the humanities and social sciences committee of the research board of the universitu of toronto is eratefullu acknowlede ed

equilibrium unemployment with internal labour markets the flow approach to the labour market is based on a clear distinction between trade and production this paper argues that this separation is not realistic because many firms in developed economies usually fill an important share of their vacancies by upgrading incumbent employees the implications of the existence of internal labour markets are explored with the help of a simple model that extends the well known pissarides setup the main result is that the distribution of unemployment by education is correlated with the relative importance of internal labour markets in particular i show that more internalization is associated both with more inequality in the distribution of unemployment with the burden falling mainly on the less educated and with less inequality in the distribution of wages by education the model also generates in a simple way upward sloping wage profiles which are offered by firms with internal labour markets to their recruits who face a nonzero probability of promotion to a skilled job

the effect of job tenure on wage offers a wage offer can be either acceptable or unacceptable to a worker but in cross sectional and panel data only acceptable wage offers are observed an ols wage equation will not reveal how job tenure affects wage offers but rather will reveal how tenure affects acceptable wage offers by jointly modeling the firm s determination of the wage offer and the worker s decision to accept or reject the offer we are able to estimate the effect of job tenure on wage offers consistently in contrast to the usual ols results we find that job tenure has no statistically significant effect on wage offers

taxes and bribes in uganda abstractusing data from 433 firms operating along uganda s charcoal and timber supply chains we investigate patterns of bribe payment and tax collection between supply chain actors and government officials responsible for collecting taxes and fees we examine the factors associated with the presence and magnitude of bribe and tax payments using a series of bivariate probit and tobit regression models we find empirical support for a number of hypotheses related to payments highlighting the role of queuing capital at risk favouritism networks and role in the supply chain we also find that taxes crowd in bribery in the charcoal market

the economy wide rebound effect from improved energy efficiency in swedish industries a general equilibrium analysis the objective of this paper is to analyse the rebound effect from increased efficiency in industrial energy use in sweden energy efficiency improvements can have significant micro and macroeconom

bribe or die gender differences in entrepreneurship in emerging markets this paper examines the relation between gender differences in entrepreneurship and firm level bribery one of the most impactful business obstacles to private sector growth using data from a comp

using micro surveys to measure and explain corruption summary this paper discusses survey techniques aimed at a better measurement of corruption at the micro level and argues that with appropriate survey methods and interview techniques it is possible to collect quantitative micro level data on corruption public expenditure tracking surveys service provider surveys and enterprise surveys are highlighted with several applications these surveys permit measurement of corruption at the level of individual agents such as schools health clinics or firms they also permit the study of mechanisms responsible for corruption including capture of public funds and bribery 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

internal labour markets causes and consequences the paper analyzes the causes and consequences of internal labor market rules that yield long tenure promotion from within seniority pensions and due process in dismissals about half the workforce are estimated to be in such markets competitive reasons for internal labor markets as a response to specific training and arms length relationships between workers and firms are surveyed these reasons are found to be consistent with the pattern of internal labor markets among non union firms however some internal labor markets e g among small unionized firms are probably a response to union pressure and government regulations in these circumstances low labor mobility could pose problems for policy copyright 1991 by oxford university press

labor costs and the social dumping debate in the european union this study examines the labor cost incentive for capital movement in manufacturing within the european union a key aspect of the social dumping debate in western europe the authors find that the percentage differences in unit labor costs between the more developed and less developed countries in the union not only were large in 1980 but actually grew between 1980 and 1986 and separate estimates of compensation and productivity growth rates do not indicate that significant convergence occurred over the remainder of the 1980s although these findings apparently confirm that a labor cost incentive for capital mobility does exist analysis of foreign direct investment data indicates that during the period 1980 88 capital flows to the lower labor cost countries actually were not much larger than capital flows to the higher labor cost countries

a positive economic theory of regulatory enforcement a positive economic model of regulatory enforcement is developed th at allows the agency to use both legal and informal methods to gain compliance with the law the paper fills a gap in the economic literature on regulation by developing and testing a model of enforcement it also provides a theoretical framework for the recent empirical work of political scientists and sociologists on enforcement practices copyright 1988 by royal economic society

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

review on fuel economy standard and label for vehicle in selected asean countries abstract sustainable supply of energy at affordable prices is vital to ensure the human development asean is committed pursuing for a clean and green region with fully established mechanisms for sustainable development to ensure the protection of regional environment resources and the high quality of people s life nowadays energy use in the transportation sector represents an important issue in asean countries therefore it is believed that the introduction of fuel economy standards and labels is the key to save energy in this sector fuel economy standards and labels are relatively cheap measure to influence consumer behaviour and to induce car manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles fuel economy standards and labels for vehicle are being implemented in many countries around the world to save fuel consumption and mitigate co2 emission this paper is a review on fuel economy standard and labels for vehicle in some selected asean countries such as singapore indonesia malaysia philippines thailand and vietnam it has been found that singapore is the leading country in asean that has implemented fuel economy standards and labels moreover it has been found that the implementation of cleaner fuels standard play a crucial role in protecting public health and the environment from transportation sector emissions the most common alternative fuels used in asean are biodiesel ethanol methanol propane hydrogen and natural gas

worker heterogeneity job screening and firm size a model of job screening is developed in which firms make wage offers to workers based on an imperfect evaluation of their abilities if large firms have higher costs of acquiring information about workers they screen workers with less accuracy and choose a wage compensation scheme different from the one small firms choose this generates the often observed positive correlation between firm size and wages the model also predicts that wage structure and perhaps wage dispersion will differ by firm size and that individuals who acquire more schooling will also choose to work in a larger firm these hypotheses are tested and supported using data from the national longitudinal survey

comparable worth wage adjustments and female employment in the state and local sector our paper simulates the likely effects of a comparable worth wage adjustment policy in the state and local sector on female employment in the sector the simulation is based on estimates of within occupation male female substitution and across occupation occupational employment substitution that we obtain using data from the 1980 census of population