inter industry wage differentials evidence from sweden and a comparison with the united states inter industry wage differentials evidence from sweden and a comparison with the united states

the employment relationship in an almost structureless labour market the case of domestic work although domestic workers are generally engaged in informal contracts with hourly and daily wages some have formally written contracts and are paid monthly hourly and daily wages suggest flexible arrangements whereas the monthly payment system may be used to develop a stable relationship using original data from a sample of domestic workers in portugal we offer empirical evidence on predictors of four types of arrangement that combine formality and stability the results from multinomial logistic regression indicate that the wage level is a crucial predictor of the type of contract households seem to make a trade off between stable contracts and high level wages however the odds of being given a formal and stable contract increase when domestic workers have specific skills or are responsible for care and there are trust related issues our findings suggest that the use of flexible and informal labour has its limitations even in an activity perceived as non skilled

exchange rate expectations since the financial crisis performance evaluation and the role of monetary policy and safe haven abstract we analyze and evaluate novel data on exchange rate expectations after the collapse of lehman brothers for more than 60 economies over different horizons at a first stage we establish a potential discrepancy between statistical and economic measures market expectations are superior compared to trend and carry trade strategies based on economic evaluation criteria despite a weak statistical performance we then turn to determinants of both expectations and resulting forecast errors we find that monetary policy effects on expectations are time varying and identify substantial international spillovers over the recent period of unconventional monetary policy our results also indicate that markets have been surprised by monetary policy effects on the exchange rates and point to an unexpected safe haven status of the us dollar after 2009

overeducation regional labor markets and spatial flexibility for most workers access to suitable employment is severely restricted by the fact that they look for jobs in the regional labor market rather than the global one in this paper we analyze how macrolevel opportunities regional market characteristics and microlevel restrictions the extent to which job searchers are restricted to the regional market can help to explain the phenomenon of overeducation we use a two step procedure to control selective access to employment the results show that the size of the labor market is an important factor in avoiding overeducation

post keynesianism meets feminist economics this article explores the relationships between post keynesian economics and feminist economics it distinguishes three key concepts in each tradition that recommend serious attention in the other tradition gender the household and unpaid work and caring as key concepts in feminist economics uncertainty market power and endogenous dynamics as core concepts in post keynesian economics this article will show with reference to the literature in which such cross fertilisation has been explored already how both traditions can be enriched from a stronger mutual engagement

recognition applications in aged care work detailed arguments about the importance of recognition were present in adam smith s theory of moral sentiments but received little attention in classical and neoclassical economics however recognition is re emerging as an important concept in social and economic research in this study we consider the importance of recognition and misrecognition for a nuanced understanding of the motivation to undertake paid care work we use survey and interview data from a mixed methods study of the employment intentions of australian women working in aged care to investigate links between recognition wage rates and intentions to remain working in the sector our findings suggest that low wages convey misrecognition and that both wages and misrecognition have adverse implications for the future labour supply of aged care workers we conclude by considering particular challenges faced by the aged care sector and its workers in redressing low wage rates

gender sorting and the glass ceiling in high tech firms with few exceptions studies have conceived of the glass ceiling as reflecting internal promotion biases in this article the authors argue that glass ceiling patterns can also be the result of external recruitment and hiring processes using data on people applying by means of the internet for jobs at 441 small and medium sized high tech firms they find evidence that the glass ceiling is produced by both internal and external hiring processes on the supply side females are sorted into lower level job queues than males on the demand side screening biases against women also are evident but a series of what if simulations suggest that demand side screening processes play a comparatively minor role in producing the glass ceiling pattern these results suggest that bias remediation policies designed to equalize gender differences in hiring chances are likely to be less effective than recruitment and outreach policies designed to improve gender disparities in candidate pools

interrupted work careers depreciation and restoration of human capital the quantitative effects and even the existence of a human capital depreciation phenomenon have been a subject of controversy in the recent literature prior work however was largely cross sectional and the longitudinal dimension if any was retrospective using longitudinal panel data on married women in nls we have now established that real wages at reentry are indeed lower than at the point of labor force withdrawal and the decline in wages is greater the longer the interruption another striking finding is a relatively rapid growth in wages after the return to work this rapid growth appears to reflect the restoration or repair of previously eroded human capital the phenomenon of depreciation and restoration is also visible in data for immigrants to the united states however while immigrants eventually catch up with and often surpass natives returnees from the nonmarket do not fully restore their earnings potential

toward estimating the incidence of journey to work costs the purpose of this paper is to estimate the extent to which the daily travel to work costs are passed forward to employers in the form of higher wages the incidence is estimated from a sample of glasgow scotland workers who relocated their residences within the city it was found that the elasticity of wages with respect to travel costs is greater than zero for both men and women and perhaps as much as one for men since the relocation within the city led to substantial job change it would seem that wages should be expected to adjust to changes in policy areas such as transport and land zoning which make it cheaper or more expensive for workers to get to employment opportunities

the wage effects of residential location and commuting constraints on employed married women it has been argued that greater spatial constraints are imposed on the job searches of women workers and that these greater constraints account for some of the gender wage gap all researchers agree that women commute shorter distances to work than men in addition some researchers have argued from indirect evidence that two earner households give greater weight to husbands job opportunities when choosing a residential location in this paper we use data on two earner households from the 1980 public use microdata sample pums of the us census for the detroit and philadelphia smsas to quantify the effects of residential location and of gender differences in commuting behaviour on the gender gap in wages first we find that within white households wives encounter relatively greater spatial variation in wages than their husbands but that there is less of a gender difference among black households second we analyse the simultaneous effects of commuting and residential constraints on wages we find for

paradoxical positions the methodological contributions of feminist scholarship the goal of this paper is to consider the contributions of feminist activism and interdisciplinary scholarship to economic institutional methodology by further extending the historical institutional analysis of key categories such as the self ownership of labour model of locke smith and marx the paradoxical position of women can be avoided a greater understanding of the reification of concepts like property and the economy and the role of gender in naturalizing them will help to expand the narrow role of economics discourse in the articulation of feasible economic policies and objectives for human development

where are all the self employed women push and pull factors influencing female labor market decisions previous research focuses on factors that influence self employment participation in part because entrepreneurship has been associated with economic growth this literature has tended to focus only on men or the comparison of women to men while ignoring substantial heterogeneity in employment decisions among women by investigating the impact of individual household and local economic and cultural characteristics on the labor market outcomes of different groups of women we get a more comprehensive picture of their self employment decision recognizing self employment as one of multiple labor market choices we use multinomial logit and two confidential geocoded micro level datasets to study women s career choices in urban areas we find that the effects of various push and pull factors differ between married and unmarried women in particular more progressive gender attitudes pull married women into self employment while household burdens associated with children push them into self employment for unmarried women the local business climate and individual characteristics have the strongest influence in both cases the motivations for women are quite different than men

gender and working time an analysis of employers working time policies information from interviews with manufacturing private service and public service establishments is used to consider how working time requirements are determined and the relationship between these requirements and occupational segregation by gender both men and women are found to be involved in all types of working time regime and unsocial hours working therefore in principle working time requirements do not provide a barrier to occupational desegregation however there are sectoral differences in the type of working time regime adopted and firms adjust their organization of working hours to meet their needs taking into account the customary gender composition of their workforce further introduction of extended and flexible working hours is likely to intensify the sectorally gendered patterns of working time copyright 1991 by oxford university press

the speculative efficiency hypothesis the hypothesis that forward prices are the best unbiased forecast of future spot prices is often presented in the economic and financial analysis of futures markets this paper considers the hypothesis independently of its implications for rational expectations or market efficiency and in order to stress this fact the term speculative efficiency is used to characterize the state envisaged under the hypothesis if a market is subject to efficient speculation the supply of speculative funds is infinitely elastic at the forward price that is equal to the expected future spot price the expected future spot price is a market price determined as the solution to the underlying rational expectations macroeconomic model although the paper is primarily concerned with testing this hypothesis in the foreign exchange market the methodology introduced in the paper is of general application to all futures markets this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

income distribution transaction costs and market fragmentation in informal credit markets in an environment characterized by inequitable wealth distribution and limited market infrastructural institutions the trust component of credit transactions is founded on personal relations through these information and transaction costs advantages are provided but also control and unequal bargaining power can be exercised in the informal sector transaction and information costs will lead to non price closure in credit markets while behavioral differences in lenders will lead to manipulation of prices as well as of quantities the quantity closure rules are modeled and tested for two types of informal lenders in the agricultural sector of the philippines the trader lenders and the farmer lenders it is found that the two groups of lenders systematically sort their borrowers and ration credit copyright 1992 by oxford university press

search sorting and urban agglomeration studies have suggested that urban agglomeration enhances productivity by facilitating the firm worker matching process this article develops a model that formalizes this notion and demonstrates that when firm capital and worker skill are complementary in production urban agglomeration will tend to generate more efficient yet segregated matches as a result not only will local market size be positively associated with average productivity it will also generate greater between skill group wage inequality and a higher expected return to skill acquisition recent data from the counties and metropolitan areas of the united states is consistent with each of these implications

a note on the performance of foreign exchange forecasters in a portfolio framework abstract this note investigates the ability of 22 currency forecasters to predict movements in three major exchange rates in particular it examines the profitability of portfolios of forward market positions constructed on the basis of the predictions of each forecaster the key findings of the paper are that just one panel member proves significantly profitable to follow and that investing on the basis of the naive alternative prediction of no change produces high though volatile profits we conclude that the majority of currency analysts have little ability to predict the future

large high technology firms and the spatial extension of metropolitan labour markets some evidence from israel the role of large high technology firms in fashioning the spatial extent of the labour markets that serve them is examined in this paper it is argued that the demand for highly skilled labour in these firms results in their active role in labour market extension through a strategy of employee transport this makes for employment mobility without a commensurate impact on residential mobility it can also result in the inclusion or exclusion of certain types of labour in this context the free rider phenomenon associated with worker transport is identified and described on the basis of an empirical study of some of the largest high technology firms in metropolitan areas in israel these processes are illustrated the labour markets serving these firms are delimited and characterised for employees of different skill levels in addition the determinants of the probability of the firm utilising spatially extensive labour markets is examined the role of firm size in explaining this behaviour is stre

productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital evidence from the cities abstract based on recent theoretical developments the argument is made that the average level of human capital is a local public good cities with higher average levels of human capital should therefore have higher wages and higher land rents after conditioning on the characteristics of individual workers and dwellings this prediction is supported by data for standard metropolitan statistical areas smsas in the united states where the smsa average levels of formal education and work experience are used as proxies for the average level of human capital the alternative explanations of omitted smsa variables and self selection are evaluated an estimate of the effect of an additional year of average education on total factor productivity is computed

can the markov switching model forecast exchange rates abstract a markov swirching model is fit for 18 exchange rates at quarterly frequencies the model fits well in sample for many exchange rates by the mean squared error criterion the markov model does not generate superior forecasts to a random walk or the forward rate there appears to ne some evidence that the forecasts of the markov model are superior at predicting the direction of change of the exchange rate

commuting patterns and firm decentralization since most employed individuals must travel between home and work on a daily basis work place commuting has provided the point of departure for the monocentric model of residential location alonso 1964 mills 1972 muth 1969 one of the major behavioral assumptions of the monocentric model is that consumers prefer less commuting to more all else equal hence the model predicts that workers will take advantage of any opportunity to reduce their commutes in the monocentric situation in which all employment is located at the central business district cbd no such opportunity arises however decentralized firm location enables workers to shorten their commutes as firms have left the cbd to move into the residential area the monocentric model thus predicts that if firms have decentralized workers should have very short commutes in longrun equilibrium however significant commuting persists in the face of large scale firm decentralization such commuting leads to the belief that frictions with respect to residential and job mobility exist which prevent workers from achieving the long run equilibrium solution predicted by the monocentric model in this paper i hypothesize that individuals with greater job and residential mobility will have shorter commutes given decentralized firm location residential and job mobility are further hypothesized to be functions of socio economic and employment characteristics the results show sex income race household responsibilities and job mobility to be important in determining commuting behavior the monocentric model is based on a separation of the house and work place theoretically this separation can be measured either in terms of commuting time or distance however most tests of the monocentric model have used commuting distance hamilton 1982 blackley and follain 1987 the time vs distance issue is explicitly addressed in this paper by using both measures in the estimations the results

early career work experience and gender wage differentials we estimate a wage model that includes an array of variables measuring the fraction of time worked during each year of the career this array fully characterizes past employment experience regardless of how sporadic it has been our model yields substantially higher estimated returns to experience and lower returns to tenure than do models that measure experience cumulatively and use the standard quadratic functional form we find that the data reject the standard model but fail to reject our model furthermore we find that 12 of the male female wage gap is due to differences in the timing of work experience

local underemployment and the discouraged worker effect summary the effect of poor local labour market opportunities on occupational achievement is an important aspect of the spatial mismatch hypothesis much of the research has concentrated on the direct link between geographical access to jobs and employment outcomes in contrast little attention has been given to the discouraging effect of poor chances on job search activities the discouraged worker effect is dee ned as the decision to refrain from job search as a result of poor chances on the labour market discouragement effects can arise from a lack of individual qualie cations from discrimination in the labour market or from a high local level of underemployment the empirical e ndings of this paper based on the netherlands labour force surveys 1994 97 show that discouragement can enter the job search process both at the stage of deciding to enter the labour force and at the stage of deciding to engage actively in a job search gender differentials in discouragement are revealed in the process of self selection into the labour force poor labour market chances lead to less activity in both off the job and on the job search indicating a role of discouragement in the spatial mismatch individual qualie cations and ascribed characteristics turn out to be more decisive than the local level of underemployment

urban wages and labor market agglomeration abstract using the 5 public use micro sample of the 1990 u s census we find that observationally equivalent workers in the manufacturing sector earn higher wages when they are in urban labor markets that have a larger share of national or metropolitan employment in their same occupation and industry groups quantitatively the effect is large with an elasticity measured at the means of between 1 2 and 3 6 for these effects we interpret the willingness of firms to pay more for equivalent workers in dense markets as evidence of an agglomeration economy in urban labor

unemployment and urban labour markets two quite distinct views on how metropolitan labour markets work have co existed for over three decades both claim empirical support and after a brief period of confrontation they continue to co exist today giving quite conflicting signals to policy makers according to the first model the urban labour market consists of a number of spatially defined sub markets so that local unemployment exists primarily because of deficiencies in highly localised demand for labour by this argument unemployment rates remain high in the absence of a renewed supply of appropriate jobs within short commuting distances of the jobless the solution according to this model is to attract private and public sector production into such areas in contrast a second model views the city as a single market in which transactions between labour and capital take place regardless of the location of residence and employment sites according to this perspective the spatial incidence of unemployment simply reflects the residential

the rebound effect gender and social justice a case study in germany abstract energy efficiency increases are essential in reducing energy consumption and co 2 emissions policy is therefore rightly concerned about rebound effects which cause energy and co 2 emission reductions to be less than anticipated a policy dilemma is emerging in that less economically privileged groups tend to show the highest rebound effects some studies suggest policymakers may therefore be reluctant to support energy efficiency upgrades among such groups this paper argues this is based on a misunderstanding of the conceptual structure of the rebound effect firstly a mathematical analysis confirms that the rebound effect is merely a comparison of proportions not a measure of absolute levels of energy consumption which are the real cause of increased co 2 emissions secondly an empirical study of commute distances in north rhine westphalia germany s largest state reveals that female commuters show considerably higher rebound effects than male commuters both in time and cross sectional analyses however male commuters consume the most energy and produce the most co 2 emissions by every measure this resonates with recent studies showing the same disjunction between rebound effects and absolute consumption in home heating among poorer and wealthier households policy needs to focus on absolute consumption levels and be cautious in interpreting rebound effects

female participation and labor market attachment in rural canada this article explores the reasons for differences in female rural urban participation rates by estimating a dynamic model of participation allowing for unobserved heterogeneity and state dependence using canadian panel data the results suggest that overall observed differences in rural urban participation rates are primarily due to differences in observed socioeconomic characteristics however for women resident in low income households there is evidence that the operation of rural labor markets effectively lowers their participation rates copyright 2002 oxford university press

substantive issues in the definition of localities evidence from sub group local labour market areas in the west midlands coombes m g green a e and owen d w 1988 substantive issues in the definition of localities evidence from sub group local labour market areas in the west midlands reg studies 22 303 318 local labour market areas llmas are now widely accepted as the most appropriate areal units for analyses of spatial patterns of employment and unemployment the most commonly used set of llmas in britain are the travel to work areas ttwas of the department of employment these areas are increasingly being used for locality studies that encompass not only labour and demand trends but also their social and political implications however ttwas are defined on the basis of aggregate commuting patterns which generalize substantial differences in the journey to work behaviour of different sections of the workforce this paper compares the ttwas as revised in 1984 with llmas defined using the same methodology for four sub groups of the labour force with differing skill levels in the west midlands the numb

state dependence serial correlation and heterogeneity in intertemporal labor force participation of married women a dynamic search framework is developed to analyze the intertemporal labor force participation behavior of married women using longitudinal data to allow for a rich dynamic structure the sensitivity to alternative distributional assumptions is evaluated using linear probability and probit models the dynamic probit models are estimated using maximum simulated likelihood msl estimation to overcome the computational difficulties inherent in maximum likelihood estimation of models with nontrivial error structures the results find that participation decisions are characterized by significant state dependence unobserved heterogeneity and negative serial correlation in the error component the hypothesis that fertility decisions are exogenous to women s participation decisions is rejected when dynamics are ignored however there is no evidence against this hypothesis in dynamic model specifications women s participation response is stronger to permanent than current nonlabor income reflecting unobserved taste factors

unwilling or unable spatial and socio economic restrictions on females labour market access van ham m and buchel f 2006 unwilling or unable spatial and socio economic restrictions on females labour market access regional studies 40 345 357 the effects of regional structures on both females willingness to work and the probability of being employed for those willing to work are analysed special permission was granted to link regional data to individual respondents in the german socio economic panel gsoep results of a bivariate probit model correcting for sample selection show that high regional unemployment discourages women from entering the labour market those willing to work find it easier to do so if they live in regions with low regional female unemployment rates at a short distance from the next agglomeration and for mothers with a high density of childcare provision van ham m et buchel f 2006 peu disposees ou incapables les limites geographiques et socio economiques a l insertion des femmes dans le marche du travail regional studies 40 345 357 on cherche a anal

high tech and productivity evidence from israeli industrial firms abstract the main purpose of this study is to characterize and analyze high technology industrial firms a technology index is constructed and used to classify firms the largest concentration of hightech firms is israel is found in electronics and transport equipment industries and the lowest in textiles and clothing high tech firms appear to be more productive more export oriented pay higher wages and earn higher rates of return than low tech firms the fact that high tech firms in israel are export oriented is shown to be consistent with the international trade theories of comparative advantage and strategic rent seeking

modelling the effects of immigration on regional economic performance and wage distribution a computable general equilibrium cge analysis of three european union regions pouliakas k roberts d balamou e and psaltopoulos d modelling the effects of immigration on regional economic performance and wage distribution a computable general equilibrium cge analysis of three european union regions regional studies the paper uses a regional computable general equilibrium cge model to analyse the effects of immigration on three small remote european union regions located within scotland uk greece and latvia two migration scenarios are assessed in the first total labour supply is affected in the second the importance of migratory flows by differential labour skill types is investigated the results indicate significant differences in the extent to which regional economies are affected by immigration they also suggest that remote regions are highly vulnerable to the out migration of skilled workers brain drain while the in migration of unskilled workers leads to widening wage inequality

wages rents and the quality of life this study focuses on the role of wages and rents in allocating workers to locations with various quantities of amenities the theory demonstrates that if the amenity is also productive then the sign of the wage gradient is unclear while the rent gradient is positive the theory is extended to include the housing market and nontraded goods these extensions require little modification of the conclusion the empirical work on wages shows that the regional wage differences can be explained largely by these local attributes with the use of site price data implicit prices are estimated and quality of life rankings for the cities are computed

the geographical concentration of unemployment a male female comparison in spain alonso villar o and del rio c geographical concentration of unemployment a male female comparison in spain regional studies the aim of this paper is to analyse gender differences in the spatial distribution of unemployment specifically it is explored whether agglomeration can influence gender gaps in unemployment rates in doing so tools are used from the literature on economic geography and income distribution and they are adapted to the present case using data from spain it is shown that the advantage of living in large cities does not affect women and men equally agglomeration seems especially to favour the female population the results also suggest that the female employment premium appears only in municipalities of a certain size alonso villar o et del rio c la concentration geographique du chomage une comparaison hommes femmes en espagne regional studies cet article cherche a analyser les differences par sexe de la distribution geographique du chomage plus precisement on etudie s

panel estimates of the canadian rural urban women s wage gap this article analyzes the female rural urban wage gap in canada using longitudinal data from the survey of labour and income dynamics 1993 96 we estimate a two step wage equation accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection the results indicate that a statistically and economically significant rural urban wage gap remains after controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics further the results suggest this rural urban wage difference is not simply induced by immobility between rural and urban markets rather consistent with the effect of thinner rural labor markets the evidence indicates that rural urban differences in the impact of a number of explanatory variables are significant

segmented labour markets theory and evidence this paper examines the possibility of accepting the labour market segmentation approach as a valid alternative to the classical and neo classical analysis of labour markets it consists of three main parts the urst part contains a historical analysis of both the distant and recent origins of the labour market segmentation hypothesis part two outlines the central ideas of both segmentationalists and radical theorists who attempted to explain the fragmented nature of labour markets and the importance of institutional and social inuuences upon pay employment and mobility of individual workers between different labour market sectors the third part examines the case for labour market segmentation using four alternative techniques and discusses the issue of mobility among different labour market segments it is thereby concluded that the lack of agreement among the segmented labour market theorists on both theoretical and methodological issues has prevented them from developing a consistent and convincing argument based on veriuable empirical evidence to validate their thesis

distance to work in beijing institutional reform and bargaining power in this study we use a large sample from the beijing household travel survey to build husband wife dyads construct variables to measure bargaining power between spouses and place intra household

whose wages do unions raise a dynamic model of unionism and wage rate determination for young men we estimate the union premium for young men over a period of declining unionization 1980 87 through a procedure which identifies the alternative sources of the endogeneity of union status while we estimate the average increase in wages resulting from union employment to be in excess of 20 we find that the return to unobserved heterogeneity operating through union status is substantial and that the union premium is highly variable we also find that the premium is sensitive to the form of sorting allowed in estimation moreover the data are consistent with comparative advantage sorting our results suggest that the unobserved heterogeneity which positively contributes to the likelihood of union membership is associated with higher wages we are unable however to determine whether this is due to the ability of these workers to extract monopoly rents or whether it reflects the more demanding hiring standards of employers faced by union wages 1998 john wiley sons ltd

interindustry wage differentials and efficiency wages some canadian evidence using the 1986 labour market activity survey as their major source of data the authors estimate interindustry wage differentials in canada at the one and two digit levels of industry aggregation for various types of workers the major findings are that substantial interindustry wage differentials exist and are relatively stable over time that the pattern of interindustry wage differentials is very similar for different kinds of workers and that these differentials cannot be explained easily by compensating factors the differentials seem to be consistent with the rent sharing explanations of the labor market such as those based on the notion of efficiency wages

post keynesianism without modernity a robust and critical post keynesianism can be specified on the basis of time uncertainty and the investigation of the institutions that structure material life without presupposing what those institutions are this paper criticises the inclusion in influential presentations of the axiomatic foundation of post keynesianism of propositions about government and money that presuppose a particular ensemble of institutions that ensemble corresponds to the ideal type called modernity without modernity post keynesianism gains logical parsimony and breadth of application the paper discusses non modernist writers in the tradition that includes j m keynes k n raj celso furtado and juan noyola

do inter city differences in intra city wage differentials have any interesting implications abstract recent research has related characteristics of cities to differences in the distribution of wages across workers with different skill levels we demonstrate that these differences in wage differentials arise naturally as a compensating variation in rosen s theoretical model of inter city wages for example if the income elasticity of demand for housing services is less than unity cities with higher house prices will have smaller money wage differentials between low and high skill workers this result has no implications for differences in either absolute or relative real productivity or welfare of unskilled workers similarly changes in the amenity of an urban area may result in changes in relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers with no implications for real productivity or welfare differentials empirical tests in which housing cost differentials are added as a determinant of inter city differences in an intra urban wage differential model provide empirical confirmation of the theoretical expectations it appears that intra urban money wage differentials differences in the quality of life and variation in the cost of living in each city are jointly determined variables just as rosen s model of inter city wage differentials predicts

the economics of change in rural america communities perceptions of economic development prospects and alternatives are conditioned by previous experiences and anecdotal success stories thus small towns in traditionally agricultural regions equate economic development with prosperity in agriculture and the agricultural development program of the day sustainable agriculture value added enhancement alternative crops prosperity in nonmetro manufacturing centers is linked with industrial retention and recruitment and small business development and rural areas with natural historic or climatic amenities associate development with expanded tourism activity and the attraction of retirees

earnings mobility family income and low pay for policy purposes it is important to establish both the nature of the low paid workforce at any point in time and ability to obtain better paid jobs through mobility within the earnings distribution over time in particular two important issues are the extent to which low pay is a transient phenomenon for any particular worker and the extent to which low pay is associated with low family incomes and therefore poverty we attempt to examine both aspects making use of the first three waves of the british household panel survey bhps

family proximity childcare and women s labor force attachment we show that close geographical proximity to mothers or mothers in law has a substantial positive effect on the labor supply of married women with young children we argue that the mechanism through which proximity increases labor supply is the availability of childcare we interpret availability broadly enough to include not only regular scheduled childcare during work hours but also an insurance aspect of proximity e g a mother or mother in law who can to provide irregular or unanticipated childcare using two large datasets the national survey of families and households and the public use files of the u s census we find that the predicted probability of employment and labor force participation is 4 10 percentage points higher for married women with young children living in close proximity to their mothers or their mothers in law compared with those living further away

the evolution of individual male earnings in great britain 1975 95 i study the dynamic structure of male wages in great britain using the new earnings survey panel from 1975 95 computing auto covariances of individual wages by cohort i find evidence of a permanent component of earnings that increases over the life cycle and a highly persistent serially correlated transitory component in addition the estimated variances of both these components have risen over this period each explaining about half the rise in inequality using individual s occupation at age 22 i split the sample into four skill groups i find some differences across these groups with the rise in the permanent variance most important for the manual groups

labour supply and commuting abstract we examine the effect of commuting distance on workers labour supply patterns distinguishing between weekly labour supply number of workdays per week and daily labour supply we account for endogeneity of distance by using employer induced changes in distance in germany distance has a slight positive effect on daily and weekly labour supply but no effect on the number of workdays the effect of distance on labour supply patterns is stronger for female workers but it is still small

the spatial variation in unemployment and labour force participation rates of male and female workers lillydahl j h and singell l d 1985 the spatial variation in unemployment and labour force participation rates of male and female workers reg studies 19 459 469 this paper investigates the spatial patterns of male and female unemployment and labour force participation rates the theoretical underpinnings for differences in work and residential choices for males and females are reviewed census tract data from five metropolitan areas in the united states are examined we find that no significant pattern exists for overall labour market activity however when male and female unemployment and participation rates are analysed separately significant and dissimilar spatial patterns exist for each hence returns from relocating industry improving transportation investing in human capital or providing job information need to be evaluated in sex specific terms

wages rents and amenities differences among workers and regions what explains persistent regional earnings differences this paper argues that regional differences in amenities can account for the wage differences in contrast cost of living variations do not account for wage differences but actually exacerbate them this conclusion results from a model in which variations in rents and wages are equalizing differences for amenity differences empirical results are consistent with the model

urban effects on participation and wages are there gender differences abstract this paper estimates participation and wage equations using panel data from the united kingdom to explore gender differences in urban wage and participation premiums the results suggest a small but economically significant urban participation premium for women but none for men results from the wage estimations suggest that after controlling for sample selectivity observed and unobserved heterogeneity the urban premium is larger for women this wage premium is also larger for married or cohabiting women relative to others there is also evidence of higher urban returns to experience for men and lower urban wage depreciation for both men and women

residential location housing demand and labour supply decisions of one and two earner households the case of bogota colombia this paper is concerned with the simultaneous determination of housing consumption residential location and the labour supply decisions of one earner and two earner households the model is applied to the city of bogota colombia it finds that housing consumption and location as well as labour supply decisions vary across gender and household type the paper suggests that married women who work in the labour market have the burden of a long journey to work and a probable heavy share of household responsibilities their well being is further eroded by lower wages and compensatingly long hours of work

commuting in search of jobs and residences abstract this paper introduces a model which includes residential job moving and commuting behavior when labor and housing markets are characterized by market imperfections imperfect information and moving costs we examine the consequences of these market imperfections on commuting behavior an empirical analysis of commuting behavior indicates that workers commute less if they receive more job offers

using survey data to resolve the exchange risk exposure puzzle evidence from u s multinational firms while in previous literature foreign currency exposure is estimated to be surprisingly small and insignificant we question in this paper the rationality assumption and show that the traditional use of realized exchange rate changes to approximate unexpected currency shocks leads to a strong underestimation of the influence that exchange rates play in determining firm valuations in light of a unique survey data base of individual exchange rate expectations we distinguish between realized and unexpected foreign currency movements and find that half of our sample of 935 u s firms with real operations in foreign countries is significantly exposed to unexpected exchange rate movements in line with previously reported results foreign exchange risk exposure is found to become increasingly perceptible when the return horizon is lengthened the difference between the exposure to realized versus unexpected exchange rate movements is however decreasing when lengthening the horizon suggesting that the more market participants disagree about the future path of currency values the less investors and or managers are likely to use the publicly available forecasts in their pricing and hedging decisions

an empirical analysis of the commute to work patterns of males and females in two earner households the purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the proposition that residential decisions are made with reference to the male head of household s job location disadvantaging females in the labor market a sample of approximately 50 000 adults in two earner households in urban areas distributed across the united states is selected from public use microdata from the 1980 census and used to estimate a simultaneous model to explain commute to work behavior of men and women the model is estimated separately for households that did and did not change residences in the past year the impacts of the new residences on the commute times of both male and female workers holding other variables constant are compared we conclude that residential selection does favor males relative to females although there is evidence that this advantage is eliminated as the ratio of female to male earnings in the same household narrows

employment opportunities in rural areas implications for poverty in a changing policy environment the personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act of 1996 as well as changes in other public programs providing poor households with an economic safety net have refocused attention on the issue of poverty in the united states levitan mangum and mangum changes in welfare policy at the federal level follow a fifteen year period of transition and restructuring in u s labor markets during which incomes strongly diverged between the haves and the havenots marked changes in policy coupled with long run transformations in labor markets make poverty a critical issue shapiro poverty in u s central cities has received significant attention and has influenced the public s perception of who is poor and how to correct the poverty problem however how we collectively perceive the poor does injustice to the problem oversimplifying a very complex issue this is true in urban areas and it is particularly the case in rural areas it is not often recognized that nonmetro areas have higher rates of poverty than do metro areas lichter et al for example in 1990 16 3 of the nonmetro population was in poverty whereas 12 7 were poor in metro areas u s bureau of the census 1991 rural poor households are also more likely to be chronically poor have higher proportions of the working poor and have been historically less dependent on welfare than the urban poor fuguitt brown and beale lichter et al this article focuses on the ability of rural adults to find adequate jobs to help reduce the likelihood that they or their households are poor because the individual s participation in work is such a key factor in the 1996 act and because of the complexities of analyzing work patterns across poor households of different compositions this research focuses on the labor market outcomes of individuals we con

sex differences in urban commuting patterns this paper takes a new look both theoretical and empirical at the general question of what determines the pattern of urban workers commuting journeys and at the specific question of how women workers commuting journeys differ from those of men commuting journey length for urban workers has proved difficult to model because it stands at the intersection of urban and labor economic theories concerning the spatial location patterns of jobs and housing urban economists view workers as having fixed job locations at the center of the city and being compensated for longer commuting journeys by lower housing prices in the suburbs labor economists in contrast tend

the prospects for caring economic theory and policy analysis this paper examines three distinguishing features of caring that it involves the development of a relationship that caring responsibilities and needs are unequally distributed and that social norms influence the allocation of care and caring responsibilities to draw out their implications for analysing caring and its movement between unpaid and paid economies rising opportunity costs of caring are found to produce pressures experienced in different ways across different sectors of the economy these coupled with inequalities in care responsibilities and labour market opportunities influence the movement of care between paid and unpaid economies this analysis is then used to examine the likely evolution of caring norms and practices and how policy might intervene to avoid an uncaring future

nonresponse in panel data the impact on estimates of a life cycle consumption function if missing observations in a panel data set are not missing at random many widely applied estimators may be inconsistent in this paper we examine empirically several ways to reveal the nature and severity of the selectivity problem due to nonresponse as well as a number of methods to estimate the resulting models using a life cycle consumption function and data from the expenditure index panel from the netherlands we discuss simple procedures that can be used to assess whether observations are missing at random and we consider more complicated estimation procedures that can be used to obtain consistent or efficient estimates in case of selectivity of attrition bias finally some attention is paid to the differences in identification consistency and efficiency between inferences from a single wave of the panel a balanced sub panel and an unbalanced panel

commuting migration housing and labour markets complex interactions commuting migration housing and labour markets are important for the overall economy and for the everyday life of many people commuting makes up a large part of all journeys world wide and many resourcedemanding transport investment projects are initiated to cope with this type of travelling in a range of countries increasing flows of national and international migration are central determinants of demographic developments in industrialised countries the working age population or those aspiring to be part of the economically active population constitute a large proportion of the total population consequently income earned through working represents a major component of total earnings in these economies cahuc and zylberberg 2004 in order to obtain an efficient labour market workers should locate and relocate to where the relevant jobs are to be found from an economic point of view commuting and migration are essential elements for obtaining a well functioning labour market fischer et al 1996 lux and sunega 2012 zabel 2012 finally housing is a basic good and for many people rents or loan repayments make up a relatively large proportion of their overall budget oecd 2011 moreover housing represents a dominating element of homeowners wealth or equity due to its central role during the financial and economic crisis starting around 2007 it has become clear that housing prices are important for the development of the overall economy in many countries for example muellbauer and murphy 2008 zabel 2012 housing and labour markets are linked in many ways when explaining these links it is useful to start with some of the distinguished features of housing markets as already mentioned houses frequently constitute a major part of households wealth moreover earned income from employment is a major

the heckman correction for sample selection and its critique this paper gives a short overview of monte carlo studies on the usefulness of heckman s 1976 1979 two step estimator for estimating selection models such models occur frequently in empirical work especially in microeconometrics when estimating wage equations or consumer expenditures it is shown that exploratory work to check for collinearity problems is strongly recommended before deciding on which estimator to apply in the absence of collinearity problems the full information maximum likelihood estimator is preferable to the limited information two step method of heckman although the latter also gives reasonable results if however collinearity problems prevail subsample ols or the two part model is the most robust amongst the simple to calculate estimators

why women work closer to home this paper analyzes the extent to which differences in labor force status in household composition and in household roles account for sex differences in workplace residence separation modelling work trip length as the outcome of the choice of household residential and individual job locations equilibrium work trip length is estimated empirically as a function of labor market housing and household characteristics for male and female employees in seven different household categories data from the 1976 panel survey of income dynamics are used the study concludes that while sex differences in job tenure work hours and wages are in themselves sufficient to fully account for observed sex differences in workplace residence separation sex differences in household roles i e responses to spouses characteristics are of even greater importance in influencing women to work closer to home

commuting and labour supply revisited according to theory road pricing may reduce welfare when labour supply is negatively distorted by an income tax this effect particularly occurs when commuting costs reduce labour supply we examine the hypothesis that commuting costs reduce labour supply in the short run in particular we estimate the effect of commuting time on labour supply in the uk we account for endogeneity of commuting time by employing exogenous changes in commuting time resulting from firm relocations and changes in infrastructure our results cast doubt on the idea that increases in commuting cost reduce labour supply at least in the short run more precisely we find that females labour supply reacts positively to or is unaffected by increases in commuting time whereas males labour supply is unaffected

interdependence through time relationships in post keynesian thought and the care literature does hyman minsky s general interdependence through time have anything to do with carol gilligan s narrative of relationships that extends over time both post keynesian theory and the feminist care literature embrace calendar time and fundamental uncertainty both investigate the properties of networks of wittingly formed forward commitments between actors if some prominent writers in the care literature are right these networks merit their own social ontological status because they are reducible neither to individual behaviour nor structure

do two earner households base their choice of residential location on both incomes this article focuses on the role of individual incomes in the residential location decisions of two earner households conventional studies often treat households as a black box and describe them by a single utility function the article raises the question is the household utility paradigm an adequate framework for understanding the location decisions of two earner households it tests an implication of the household utility paradigm the income pooling hypothesis for location decisions the results provide evidence for rejecting the hypothesis among childless families but fail to provide evidence for rejecting it when children are present the results raise the need to address intrahousehold dynamics in modelling location decisions