determinants of skills shortages and hard to fill vacancies in the hospitality sector abstract the aim of this paper is to analyse the regional determinants of hard to fill vacancies and skills shortages in the hospitality sector the data source for this study was generated in the year 2000 and includes information on 181 hotels and 121 restaurants in andalusia the results of the estimations show that hourly net wages are the main instrument firms use to reduce hard to fill vacancies and skills shortages however there are several factors affecting the conditions of local labour markets such as unemployment rates the level of business activity real estate prices and the location of the firm in relation to the main regional tourism destinations that have a significant effect on the probability of having hard to fill vacancies and skills shortages

changes in human capital and earnings inequality recent evidence from brazil 1 abstract this paper estimates changes in the rates of return to human capital across the earnings distribution using data from over a 10 year period for brazil it uses these estimates to simulate the separate impacts of changes in returns to skills and changes in the supply of skills on earnings inequality evidence points strongly to growing inequality in rates of return to education in brazil this finding suggests that recent macroeconomic and trade reforms have been of most benefit to the skilled rather than the unskilled supporting evidence points to an improved competitiveness in the labour market with workers increasingly rewarded for productivity however although increases in returns to education are more pronounced at the top of the earnings distribution this did not in practice led to increased inequality this is because levels of education and other labour market rewarded endowments have increased and offset the rate of return effect appropriate education policy is therefore an essentia

can falling supply explain the rising return to college for younger men a cohort based analysis although the college high school wage gap for younger u s men has doubled over the past 30 years the gap for older men has remained nearly constant in the united kingdom and canada the college high school wage gap also increased for younger relative to older men using a model with imperfect substitution between similarly educated workers in different age groups we argue that these shifts reflect changes in the relative supply of highly educated workers across age groups the driving force behind these changes is the slowdown in the rate of growth of educational attainment that began with cohorts born in the early 1950s in all three countries

imperfect competition and the keynesian cross abstract this paper presents a simple general equilibrium model in which the only non walrasian feature is imperfect competition in the goods market the model is shown to exhibit various keynesian characteristics in particular as competition in the goods market becomes less perfect the fiscal policy multipliers approach the values implied by the textbook keynesian cross

market structure and fiscal policy effectiveness in a monopolistic competition macromodel with endogenous market structure the fiscal multiplier is shown to consist of two components the first depicts the response of output to a fiscal expansion through the conventional channels that disregard the role of market imperfections the second component captures the effects of firms market power as well as the policy induced change in market structure the latter effect which has not been taken into account in existing studies is shown to be quite significant in raising the fiscal multiplier even above unity and in improving consumers welfare when the labour market is competitive

skill biased technological change and rising wage inequality some problems and puzzles the recent rise in wage inequality is usually attributed to skill biased technical change sbtc associated with new computer technologies we review the evidence for this hypothesis focusing on the implications of sbtc for overall wage inequality and for changes in wage differentials between groups a key problem for the sbtc hypothesis is that wage inequality stabilized in the 1990s despite continuing advances in computer technology sbtc also fails to explain the evolution of other dimensions of wage inequality including the gender and racial wage gaps and the age gradient in the return to education

the end of cheap chinese labor abstract in recent decades cheap labor has played a central role in the chinese model which has relied on expanded participation in world trade as a main driver of growth at the beginning of chi

changes in returns to education in latin america the role of demand and supply of skills using micro data for the urban areas of argentina brazil chile colombia and mexico the authors document trends in men s returns to education during the 1980s and the 1990s and estimate the role of supply and demand factors in explaining the changes in skill premia they propose a model of demand for skills with three production inputs corresponding to workers with primary secondary and university level education further the authors demonstrate that an unprecedented rise in the supply of workers having completed secondary level education depressed their wages relative to workers with primary level education throughout latin america this supply shift was compounded by a generalized shift in the demand for workers with tertiary education

a macroeconomic evaluation of a carbon tax in overseas territories a cge model for reunion island reunion island similar to most insular regions is ruled by a carbon based economy that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels in recent years the energy transition towards a low carbon economy has become the watchword of this french overseas region with the objective of a 100 renewable energy mix by 2030 reducing fossil fuel use while maintaining economic growth is an important issue for all countries but is even more important for island territories with structural and geographical handicaps energy transition and drastic greenhouse gas emission reductions represent costs and opportunities that need to be quantified this research paper assesses the environmental and macroeconomic effects of the carbon price policy introduced in france to meet the target of the paris agreement the acceptability of the tax significantly depends on the possibility of recycling tax revenues different schemes for recycling tax revenues are considered in simulations the methodology used is a computable general equilibrium cge model for reunion island getrun nrj that takes into account all island specificities the results show that the carbon tax enables substitutions between fossil and renewable energy production and reduces co 2 emissions however the tax has negative effects on the aggregate economy the implemented tax revenue recycling compensation mechanisms mitigate the negative impacts but the results differ significantly as the recycling schemes do not support the same economic actors

the impacts of trade on the brazilian labor market a cge model approach abstract the paper assesses the impacts of trade liberalization on macroeconomic variables and labor market indicators in brazil the discussion comes out of an earlier debate on the role of trade liberalization in shaping labor market outcomes in the well known heckscher ohlin and stolper samuelson hos theorems to address these issues we use a computable general equilibrium cge modeling approach to model the patterns of export growth by sector and their effects on macroeconomic and labor market indicators overall our results show that trade liberalization contributes to improve economic welfare by means of greater output lower domestic prices and higher labor demand the benefits of this economic improvement tend however to be appropriated by the most skilled workers in the most trade oriented sectors contradicting the predictions of the hos theorems

top income shares in oecd countries the role of government ideology and globalisation this paper investigates how government ideology and globalisation are associated with top income shares in 17 oecd countries over the period 1970 to 2014 we use top income shares of the world wealth and income database wid globalisation is measured by the kof index of globalisation static and dynamic panel model results show that the top income shares increased more under right wing governments than under left wing governments the ideology induced effect was stronger when globalisation proceeded more rapidly globalisation was positively correlated with income shares of the upper middle class p99 p90 but negatively with income shares of the rich top 1 in the overall sample we show that the relationship differs between anglo saxon countries and other oecd countries globalisation was more pro rich in anglo saxon countries than in other oecd countries government ideology does not turn out to have a statistically significant effect on top income shares in anglo saxon countries after the 1980s whereas ideology induced differences in the distributional outcomes continued in other oecd countries

assessing policies to equalize opportunity using an equilibrium model of educational and occupational choices abstract the inter generational correlation of education in the u s is tremendous for instance in psid data from 1990 young males with college educated parents had a 70 chance of attending college but those with high school drop out parents had only a 15 chance in this paper we analyze the impact of college attendance bonus schemes designed to increase college attendance rates and pv of lifetime income of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds of course policies that increase the supply of skilled labor may reduce the college wage premium see heckman et al heckman james lochner lance and taber christopher explaining rising wage inequality explorations with a dynamic equilibrium model of labor earnings with heterogeneous agents review of economic dynamics 1 1998a 1 58 heckman james lochner lance and taber christopher general equilibrium treatment effects a study of tuition policy american economic review 88 2 1998b 381 386 this may have the unintended consequence of wiping out most of the gains to the targeted groups the strength of such equilibrium effects on wages depends on the substitutability between different types of labor thus it is important to evaluate education subsidies within an equilibrium framework that allows for flexible patterns of substitution across factor inputs this is exactly what we do here using an overlapping generations equilibrium model of the u s labor market fit to psid data from 1968 to 1996 the model allows for imperfect substitution among types of labor differentiated by education gender age and ten 1 digit level occupations a much finer differentiation than has been considered in prior work we find that very large college attendance bonuses are necessary to equate college attendance rates between youth whose parents had only high school degrees or were high school dropouts and youth whose parents attended at least some college the size of these bonuses far exceeds any reasonable measure of college costs suggesting the costs the bonuses overcome are primarily psychic or effort costs for example youth from disadvantaged backgrounds may be poorly prepared for college this suggests that bonuses targeted at college age youth are probably a very inefficient way to reduce inequality earlier intervention is likely called for

firm wage premia industrial relations and rent sharing in germany the authors use three distinct methods to investigate the influence of industrial relations on firm wage premia in germany first ordinary least squares ols regressions for the firm effects from

bounds on elasticities with optimization frictions a synthesis of micro and macro evidence on labor supply how can price elasticities be identified when agents face optimization frictions such as adjustment costs or inattention i derive bounds on structural price elasticities that are a function of the observed effect of a price change on demand the size of the price change and the degree of frictions the degree of frictions is measured by the utility losses agents tolerate to deviate from the frictionless optimum the bounds imply that frictions affect intensive margin elasticities much more than extensive margin elasticities i apply these bounds to the literature on labor supply the utility costs of ignoring the tax changes used to identify intensive margin labor supply elasticities are typically less than 1 of earnings as a result small frictions can explain the differences between micro and macro elasticities extensive and intensive margin elasticities and other disparate findings pooling estimates from existing studies i estimate a hicksian labor supply elasticity of 0 33 on the intensive margin and 0 25 on the extensive margin after accounting for frictions

what do we know about carbon taxes an inquiry into their impacts on competitiveness and distribution of income abstract the kyoto protocol to the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc has set legally binding emissions targets for a basket of six greenhouse gases and timetables for industrialised countries it has also incorporated three international flexibility mechanisms however the articles defining the flexibility mechanisms carry wording that their use must be supplemental to domestic actions this has led to the open debates on interpretations of these supplementarity provisions such debates ended at the resumed sixth conference of the parties cop to the unfccc held in bonn july 2001 and at the subsequent cop 7 in marrakesh november 2001 the final wording in the bonn agreement reaffirmed in the marrakesh accords at least indicates that domestic policies will have an important role to play in meeting annex b countries emissions commitments carbon taxes have long been advocated because of their cost effectiveness in achieving a given emissions reduction in this paper the main economic impacts of carbon taxes are assessed based on a review of empirical studies on existing carbon energy taxes it is concluded that competitive losses and distributive impacts are generally not significant and definitely less than often perceived however given the ultimate objective of the framework convention future carbon taxes could have higher rates than those already imposed and thus the resulting economic impacts could be more acute in this context it has been shown that how to use the generated fiscal revenues will be of fundamental importance in determining the final economic impacts of carbon taxes finally we briefly discuss carbon taxes in combination with other domestic and international instruments

changes in u s wages 1976 2000 ongoing skill bias or major technological change this article examines the determinants of changes in the u s wage structure from 1976 to 2000 our main empirical observation is that changes in both the level of wages and the returns to skill over this period were primarily driven by changes in the ratio of human capital to physical capital we show that this pattern conforms extremely well to a simple model of technological adoption following a major change in technological opportunities in contrast we do not find much empirical support for the view that ongoing factor augmenting skill biased technological progress has been an important driving force over this period

are women s wage gains men s losses a distributional test department of economics university of british columbia vancouver bc v6t 1z1 and department of economics crde cirano universite de montreal montreal pq h3c 3j7 lemieux is also affiliated with the nber we thank paul beaudry richard blundell richard freeman and robert haveman for helpful comments and discussions we gratefully acknowledge financial support from the social sciences and humanities council of canada and from fcar quebec 1 the gender wage ratio and the 90 50 wage ratio for men are calculated from the current population survey cps data provided by epi http www epinet org the 1980 s trends in the gender gap emerged from average real increases of 0 5 percent per year in women s median wages and average real declines of 1 percent per year in men s median wages

does economic globalisation affect income inequality a meta analysis a large volume of econometric literature has studied the impact of economic globalisation on income inequality around the world however reported econometric estimates vary substantially which makes it difficult to draw valid conclusions this paper presents a quantitative summary and analysis of existing estimates regarding the globalisation inequality relationship we use a new data set consisting of 1 254 observations from 123 primary studies by applying meta analysis and meta regression methods we obtain several main findings first globalisation has a small to moderate inequality increasing effect second while the effect of trade globalisation is small financial globalisation shows a more sizeable and significantly stronger inequality increasing impact third we find an average inequality increasing impact of globalisation in both advanced and developing countries fourth education and technology moderate the impact of globalisation on income inequality

social class and income inequality in the united states ownership authority and personal income distribution from 1980 to 2010 this study outlines a theory of social class based on workplace ownership and authority relations and it investigates the link between social class and growth in personal income inequality since the 1980s inequality trends are governed by changes in between class income differences changes in the relative size of different classes and changes in within class income dispersion data from the general social survey are used to investigate each of these changes in turn and to evaluate their impact on growth in inequality at the population level results indicate that between class income differences grew by about 60 since the 1980s and that the relative size of different classes remained fairly stable a formal decomposition analysis indicates that changes in the relative size of different social classes had a small dampening effect and that growth in between class income differences had a large inflationary effect on trends in personal income inequality

discrimination and the effects of drug testing on black employment abstract a common assumption is that the rise of drug testing among u s employers must have had negative consequences for black employment i use variation in the timing and nature of drug testing regulation to identify the impacts of testing on black hiring i find that adoption of protesting legislation increases black employment in the testing sector by 7 to 30 and relative wages by 1 4 to 13 0 with the largest shifts among low skilled black men the results are consistent with ex ante discrimination and suggest that drug testing may benefit african americans by enabling nonusing blacks to prove their status to employers

does foreign direct investment affect wage inequality an empirical investigation we use a panel of more than 100 countries for the period 1980 2002 to analyse the relationship between inward foreign direct investment fdi and wage inequality we particularly check whether this relationship is nonlinear in line with a theoretical discussion we find that the effect of fdi differs according to the level of development we depict two different patterns one for oecd developed and one for non oecd developing countries results suggest the presence of a nonlinear effect in developing countries wage inequality increases with fdi inward stock with such effect diminishing with further increases in fdi for developed countries wage inequality decreases with fdi inward stock and there is no robust evidence to show that this effect is nonlinear

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

on the monotonicity of balanced budget multiplier under imperfect competition abstract this paper presents a counterexample to the wellknown monotonicity result of mankiw 1988 mankiw n g 1988 imperfect competition and the keynesian cross economics letters 26 7 13 in particular by considering taxes on labor income rather than lumpsum taxes it obtains a negative relation between the magnitude of the balanced budget multiplier and marketpower

globalisation and inter occupational inequality empirical evidence from oecd countries this article was published in world economy 2013 john wiley sons ltd and the definite version is available at http onlinelibrary wiley com doi 10 1111 twec 12128 full the article website is at http onlinelibrary wiley com doi 10 1111 twec 2014 37 issue 3 issuetoc

trade openness and wage inequality evidence for malaysia this article examines the impact of trade openness on wage inequality in malaysia during the period 1984 1997 malaysia has operated a very open trade regime since the 1960s and has pursued aggressive import substitution and export supporting policies this development strategy is very different to that adopted in many other emerging economies where trade liberalisation has been associated with greater wage inequality the aim of the present study is to examine whether malaysia s more open approach to international trade has had a similar effect on wage inequality the results suggest in fact that this is not the case

computerisation and wage dispersion an analytical reinterpretation the rich countries have recently seen a dramatic rise in income inequality all the more surprising because the long term trend had been toward equality this paper examines one of the leading explanations computerisation in the workplace i offer a theory of computers impact on white collar work which goes far toward explaining the timing form and locus of recent labour market changes the theory looks at the bureaucratic and organisational applications of computers that have been first largest and most influential they have two effects on firms demand for labour at different skill levels

capital accumulation trade liberalization and rising wage inequality the case of argentina abstract capital accumulation can modify the relative productivity between skilled and unskilled workers leading to changes in the wage structure in particular if capital goods are relatively more complementary to skilled workers a positive correlation between investment in physical capital and the wage premium would be expected in this article we present evidence for this hypothesis by taking advantage of the variability in wage premia and capital investment across industries in argentina s manufacturing sector we conclude that the wage premium for skilled workers increased more in those industries with higher investment in machinery and equipment the overall evidence seems to indicate that industry affiliation is an important determinant of earnings differentials by skill group

negative rebound and disinvestment effects in response to an improvement in energy efficiency in the uk economy this paper uses a computable general equilibrium cge framework to investigate the conditions under which rebound effects may occur in response to increases in energy efficiency in the uk national economy previous work for the uk has suggested that rebound effects will occur even where key elasticities of substitution in production are set close to zero the research reported in this paper involves carrying out a systematic sensitivity analysis where relative price sensitivity is gradually introduced into the system focusing specifically on elasticities of substitution in production and trade parameters in order to determine conditions under which rebound effects become a likely outcome the main result is that while there is positive pressure for rebound effects even where direct and indirect demands for energy are very price inelastic this may be partially or wholly offset by negative income competitiveness and disinvestment effects which also occur in response to falling energy prices the occurrence of disinvestment effects is of particular interest these occur where falling energy prices reduce profitability in domestic energy supply sectors leading to a contraction in capital stock in these sectors which may in turn lead to rebound effects that are smaller in the long run than in the short run a result that runs contrary to the predictions of previous theoretical work in this area

market structure cost asymmetries and fiscal policy effectiveness abstract imperfectly competitive macroeconomic models typically assume a symmetric equilibrium with identical firms despite the fact that most industries are characterised by substantial degrees of firm heterogeneity we examine how inter firm efficiency gaps affect fiscal policy effectiveness under monopolistic competition

the american high school graduation rate trends and levels abstract this paper applies a unified methodology to multiple data sets to estimate both the levels and trends in u s high school graduation rates we establish that a the true rate is substantially lower than widely used measures b it peaked in the early 1970s c majority minority differentials are substantial and have not converged for 35 years d lower post 1970 rates are not solely due to increasing immigrant and minority populations e our findings explain part of the slowdown in college attendance and rising college wage premiums and f widening graduation differentials by gender help explain increasing male female college attendance gaps

black white wage inequality in the 1990s a decade of progress mary c daly using current population survey data we find that the gap between the wages of black and white males declined during the 1990s at a rate of about 60 percentage point per year wage convergence was most rapid among workers with less than 10 years of potential experience with declines in the gap averaging 1 40 percentage points per year using standard decomposition methods we find that greater occupational diversity and reductions in unobserved or residual differences are important in explaining this trend general wage inequality tempered the rate of wage convergence between blacks and whites during the 1990s jel j15 j31 i introduction following the passage of the civil rights act of 1964 and other measures aimed at reducing labor market discrimination during the 1960s the differential in average weekly wages between black and white men in the united states narrowed substantially among male workers aged 18 64 the black white wage gap fell from 50 in 1967 to 30 in 1974 or by about 1 per year 1 after 1974 however the proportional difference in black and white wages remained essentially constant at 30 through the end of the 1980s following more than a decade of stasis the black white wage gap once again began to decline during the 1990s narrowing at an average annual rate of about 60 percentage point per year a great deal of past research has focused on why the black white wage gap did not continue to decline following the initial progress made through the mid 1970s see for example bound and freeman 1992 and juhn et al 1991 hereafter jmp the results point to a number of important factors including shifts in industry demand greater occupational crowding relative deterioration of unobservable skills among blacks and rising overall male wage inequality see altonji and blank 1999 for a detailed review of this literature in this article we investigate the role that each of these factors played in the wage convergence observed in the 1990s we begin by documenting the recent progress in black white wage convergence placing the 1990s in the context of the past 30 years following previous researchers we then use standard decomposition techniques to examine the role of individual characteristics the employment structure and overall male wage inequality in reducing the racial gap in earnings during the decade of the 1990s we find that greater occupational diversity and reductions in unobserved or residual differences are important in explaining this trend general wage inequality tempered the rate of wage convergence between blacks and whites during the 1990s ii data we use data from the march current population survey cps for the years 1969 1999 as administered by the u s census bureau for the u s bureau of labor statistics these files provide information on earnings hours and related variables for the calendar year prior to the survey date thus our analyses apply to income years 1968 1998 in the formal decomposition analysis we focus on three periods 1968 1979 1979 1989 and 1989 1998 these years span our sample and generally coincide with three business cycles our sample consists of black and white males ages 18 64 who participated in the labor force at least 39 weeks worked at least 1 week during the year and usually worked full time workers who are enrolled in school are excluded from the analysis throughout the analysis we focus on two groups our full sample and men with less than ten years of potential experience i e min age education 6 age 18 2 our empirical analysis focuses on weekly earnings calculated as the ratio of annual earnings to weeks worked during the year weekly earnings are deflated using the personal consumption expenditure deflator from the national income and product accounts to avoid problems associated with changes in cps top coding procedures over the years our sample excludes individuals in the top and bottom 1 of the weekly earnings distribution

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

rank regressions wage distributions and the gender gap in this paper we propose a novel rank based procedure to decompose changes in the gender wage gap into three components changes in the skill distribution changes in the wage structure and improvements in the position of women in a distribution of reference using cps data from 1979 and 1991 we perform the decomposition at each percentile of the wage distribution and show that the results are sensitive to the choice of distribution of reference male versus overall wage distribution we also find that relative wage gains of women may have been a source of increasing wage inequality among men

skill biased technology transfer around the world in this paper we consider the extent to which skill biased technological changes are transferring across international borders thereby altering the skill structure of labour markets evidence of increased relative demand for skilled workers is uncovered in the manufacturing sectors of 37 high middle and low income countries skill biased technology transfer is central to the increased demand for skilled workers in middle income countries in low income countries there is less evidence of such a mechanism operating

does the new economy measure up to the great inventions of the past abstract during the four years 1995 99 u s productivity growth experienced a strong revival and achieved growth rates exceeding that of the golden age of 1913 72 accordingly many observers have declared the new economy to be an industrial revolution even more important than the second industrial revolution of 1860 1900 which made the golden age of productivity growth possible this paper dissects the recent productivity revival subtracts out a cyclical component and concludes that there is no revival of the productivity growth trend in the 88 percent of the private economy lying outside of the durables manufacturing sector the paper explains this surprising finding by pointing to limitations in computers and the internet in comparison with the great inventions of the past

wage dispersion over the business cycle abstract in this paper i provide robust evidence that fluctuations in wage dispersion are independent of the business cycle while residual wage dispersion i e dispersion of wages within narrowly defined demographic and skill groups of workers increases during booms and lessens during recessions moreover i show that the procyclical fluctuations in residual wage dispersion are mainly generated by cyclical changes in the upper half of the residual wage distribution

catching up structural transformation and inequality industry level evidence from asia this article empirically investigates the effect of structural transformation on wage inequality in asia using industry level data for three skill groups of workers while structural transformation associated with technological progress productivity catching up and capital deepening has contributed to asia s sustained growth its effect on income inequality remains uncertain our results show that the process of economic transformation has exacerbated inequality in the region by increasing the relative share of high skilled workers in total compensation this is mainly due to a shift toward more productive and more intensive in the use of skilled labor activities both within and between industries however we also find that policy responses especially investments in education mitigate the increase in inequality

overeducation in the labour market abstract this paper presents a review of the literature on overeducation the paper assesses the consistency of overeducation within the context of a number of theoretical frameworks including human capital theory hct and assignment theory the analysis goes on to discuss the various measurement controversies associated with the study of overeducation in order to provide an assessment of the extent to which the impacts of the phenomenon represent an economic reality as opposed to a statistical artefact after reviewing the literature it is concluded that the impacts of overeducation are likely to be non trivial and that the phenomenon may potentially be costly to individuals and firms as well as the economy more generally the existence of overeducation also raises some doubts with respect to the validity of some of the central assumptions and predictions of hct that are unlikely to be fully explained by gaps in the standard wage equation framework

rebound and disinvestment effects in refined oil consumption and supply resulting from an increase in energy efficiency in the scottish commercial transport sector in this paper we use an energy economy environment computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy to examine the impacts of an exogenous increase in energy augmenting technological progress in the domestic commercial transport sector on the supply and use of energy we focus our analysis on scottish refined oil as the main type of energy input used in commercial transport activity we find that a 5 increase in energy efficiency in the commercial transport sector leads to rebound effects in the use of oil based energy commodities in all time periods in the target sector and at the economy wide level however our results also suggest that such an efficiency improvement may cause a contraction in capacity in the scottish refined oil supply sector this disinvestment effect acts as a constraint on the size of rebound effects however the magnitude of rebound effects and presence of the disinvestment effect in the simulations conducted here are sensitive to the specification of key elasticities of substitution in the nested production function for the target sector particularly the substitutability of energy for non energy intermediate inputs to production

can china afford to commit itself an emissions cap an economic and political analysis as the world s second largest carbon emitter china has long been criticised as a free rider enjoying benefits from other countries efforts to abate greenhouse gas emissions but not taking due responsibilities of its own china has been singled out as one of the major targets at the subsequent negotiations after the kyoto curtain had fallen by analysing the historical contributions of inter fuel switching energy conservation economic growth and population expansion to china s co2 emissions during the period 1980 1997 this article first demonstrates that the above criticism cannot hold its ground next we analyse what the economic effects would be if china s carbon emissions in 2010 were cut by 20 and 30 respectively relative to the baseline we found that china s gnp losses under the two less restrictive carbon limits are in the same range as the often reported estimates for industrialised countries under very restrictive carbon limits then the article envisions some efforts and commitments that could be expected from china until its per capita income catches up with the level of middle developed countries by emphasising the win win strategies these efforts and commitments could be unlikely to severely jeopardise china s economic development and at the same time would give the country more leverage at the post kyoto climate change negotiations finally the article is concluded with the argument that combating global climate change is in china s interest it will be beneficial to a more sustainable development of the chinese economy as well as to the global climate

firm heterogeneity in capital labour ratios and wage inequality author s leonardi marco abstract this paper documents the increasing dispersion of capital labor ratios across firms in the us and provides some empirical evidence of a positive correlation at the two digit industry level between the dispersion of capital labor ratios across firms and residual wage inequality to explain this empirical fact the paper adopts a search model where firms differ in their optimal capital investment the exogenous decline in the relative price of equipment capital makes the distributions of capital labor ratios more dispersed in a frictional labor market this force generates wage dispersion among identical workers ols estimates of the relationship between capital dispersion and the relative price of equipment capital support the main hypothesis of the model

the impact of increased efficiency in the industrial use of energy a computable general equilibrium analysis for the united kingdom the conventional wisdom is that improving energy efficiency will lower energy use however there is an extensive debate in the energy economics policy literature concerning rebound effects these occur because an improvement in energy efficiency produces a fall in the effective price of energy services the response of the economic system to this price fall at least partially offsets the expected beneficial impact of the energy efficiency gain in this paper we use an economy energy environment computable general equilibrium cge model for the uk to measure the impact of a 5 across the board improvement in the efficiency of energy use in all production sectors we identify rebound effects of the order of 30 50 but no backfire no increase in energy use however these results are sensitive to the assumed structure of the labour market key production elasticities the time period under consideration and the mechanism through which increased government revenues are recycled back to the economy

appropriate technology and income differences this article studies the relative productivity of skilled to unskilled workers across countries relative productivities are broken down into the human capital embodied in skilled workers and relative physical productivities reflecting production techniques i find that skilled workers from poorer countries embody less human capital and are also relatively less physically productive furthermore results show that production techniques are inappropriate for most low income countries and these countries experience large increases in gdp per capita by increasing the relative physical productivity of skilled to unskilled workers this suggests that there are significant barriers to the adoption of skill complementary technologies

changes in job security and their causes an empirical analysis for france 1982 2002 abstract in this paper we analyze the changes in the risks of involuntary job loss in france between 1982 and 2002 we find that these risks are higher in the 1990s than they were in the 1980s we develop an econometric analysis to separate the effects of institutional changes from the effects of new technologies our estimates show that the rise in job loss rates is significantly more pronounced in industries that have the largest share of r d workers and the largest rate of new technologies users these findings suggest that technological changes contribute to decreasing the incentive to keep workers for long period of time and to increasing job insecurity

lifetime earnings inequality in germany we employ german social security records to investigate intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality and mobility of yearly earnings for 35 cohorts starting with the birth year 1935 our main result is a striking secular rise of intragenerational inequality in lifetime earnings west german men born in the early 1960s are likely to experience about 85 more lifetime inequality than their fathers in contrast both short term and long term intragenerational mobility are stable longer unemployment spells of workers at the bottom of the distribution of younger cohorts contribute to explaining 20 40 of the overall increase in lifetime earnings inequality

swimming upstream trends in the gender wage differential in the 1980s using michigan panel study of income dynamics data for 1979 and 1988 we analyze how a falling gender wage gap occurred despite changes in wage structure unfavorable to low wage workers the decrease is traced to gender specific factors which more than counterbalanced changes in measured and unmeasured prices working against women supply shifts net of demand were unfavorable for women generally and hurt high skilled more than middle and low skilled women by analyzing wages we find support for the notion of a gender twist in supply and demand having its largest negative effect on high skilled women

the geography of inequality difference and determinants of wage and income inequality across us metros florida r and mellander c the geography of inequality difference and determinants of wage and income inequality across us metros regional studies this paper examines the geographic variation in wage inequality and income inequality across us metros the findings indicate that the two are quite different wage inequality is closely associated with skills human capital technology and metro size in line with the literature but these factors are only weakly associated with income inequality furthermore wage inequality explains only 15 of income inequality across metros income inequality is more closely associated with unionization race and poverty no relationship is found between income inequality and average incomes and only a modest relationship between it and the percentage of high income households

impact of a carbon tax on the chilean economy a computable general equilibrium analysis abstract in 2009 the government of chile announced their official commitment to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions by 20 below a business as usual projection by 2020 due to the fact that an effective way to reduce emissions is to implement a national carbon tax the goal of this article is to quantify the value of a carbon tax that will allow the achievement of the emission reduction target and to assess its impact on the economy the approach used in this work is to compare the economy before and after the implementation of the carbon tax by creating a static computable general equilibrium model of the chilean economy the model developed here disaggregates the economy in 23 industries and 23 commodities and it uses four consumer agents households government investment and the rest of the world by setting specific production and consumptions functions the model can assess the variation in commodity prices industrial production and agent consumption allowing a cross sectoral analysis of the impact of the carbon tax the benchmark of the economy upon which the analysis is based came from a social accounting matrix specially constructed for this model based on the year 2010 the carbon tax was modeled as an ad valorem tax under two scenarios tax on emissions from fossil fuels burned only by producers and tax on emissions from fossil fuels burned by producers and households the abatement cost curve has shown that it is more cost effective to tax only producers rather than to tax both producers and households this is due to the fact that when compared to the emission level observed in 2010 a 20 emission reduction will cause a loss in gdp of 2 and 2 3 respectively under the two scenarios the tax value that could lead to that emission reduction is around 26 us dollars per ton of co2 equivalent the most affected productive sectors are oil refinery transport and electricity having a contraction between 7 and 9 analyzing the electricity sector by energy source the production of electricity from fossil fuels will decrease by 11 but electricity from renewables will increase by 43 electricity producers will pass the cost of the carbon tax to the consumer by increasing the price of electricity by 8 the findings of this paper will allow policy makers to take better and more informed decisions by providing a cross sectoral analysis of the impact on the economy of reducing emissions by 20 by implementing a national carbon tax