looking for hysteresis in coal consumption in the us abstract this paper estimates an unobserved components model to explore coal consumption in the usa we ask whether coal consumption exhibits hysteresis defined as a dynamic structure in which the cyclical component of coal consumption has permanent effects on the natural component in contrast to previous analysis we provide evidence in favor of hysteresis in coal consumption by using the nonlinear framework proposed recently by perez alonso and di sanzo 13 in which threshold type nonlinearities are introduced by allowing past cyclical consumption to have a different impact on the natural component depending on the regime the article discusses implications of the findings for energy conservation policies

discrimination in the payment of full time wage premiums this study investigates how many hours must be worked per week in order for workers in different race and gender groups to receive a high hours full time wage premium an analysis of 1989 current population survey data shows that across occupations both white and black men received a full time wage premium for working at least 33 hours per week whereas white women had to work at least 37 hours and black women at least 39 hours to receive the premium controlling for occupation changes the threshold for black women to 33 hours but does not change the results for the other groups the authors find that the observed differences account for at most two percentage points of the wage differentials across race and gender

wage norms capital accumulation and unemployment a post keynesian view the paper presents a post keynesian view of unemployment it argues first that the effective labour demand need not be downward sloping with respect to real wages and aggregate demand need not be downward sloping with respect to inflation second that there is a broad case for unemployment hysteresis understood as endogeneity of the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment nairu based on social norms in wage bargaining and on the supply side effects of capital accumulation and third that much as keynes argued capital investment rather than labour market institutions is the key variable to explain changes in aggregate unemployment performance across countries and over time overall the paper advocates a keynesian view of the nairu where effective demand determines unemployment in the short run and the deviation of actual unemployment from the nairu determines the change in inflation in the medium term the nairu is endogenous and follows actual unemployment copyright 2011 oxford university press

how labour market flexibility affects unemployment long term implications of the chain reaction theory this paper evaluates two theories of unemployment the natural rate theory whereby unemployment is depicted as fluctuating around a reasonably stable natural rate and the chain reaction theory which views movements in unemployment as the outcome of the interplay between labour market shocks and a network of lagged adjustment processes we show that for labour market systems with two common characteristics lagged endogenous variables and growing exogenous variables lags affect unemployment not only in the short run but in the long run as well the reason is that in the presence of growing exogenous variables the lagged responses are never able to work themselves out entirely in this respect the chain reaction theory contrasts sharply with the natural theory which commonly views unemployment as approaching a natural rate determined solely by the values of the exogenous variables the policy implications of the two theories are quite different as well for an empirical model of the uk market we show that unemployment does not converge to the natural rate as conventionally defined furthermore we show that lagged adjustment processes account for a substantial part of the uk long run equilibrium unemployment rate and for the movement of uk unemployment over the past 15 years this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

persistence in natural gas consumption in the us an unobserved component model abstract this article re examines the persistence in natural gas consumption using an alternative methodology in particular we report estimates of an unobserved components model in which hysteresis exists if cyclical and natural gas consumptions do not evolve independently in addition this framework is also extended by using the nonlinear approach in which nonlinearities are introduced by allowing past cyclical component to have a different impact on the natural component depending on the regime in a linear framework our results seem to indicate that hysteresis does not exist however when non linearity is taken into account we provide evidence in favor of hysteresis in natural gas consumption when the variations in natural gas consumption are above the threshold value we also selectively survey the empirical literature that examines the long term properties of energy series in order to put our contribution in perspective

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

hysteresis in unemployment after two decades of ratcheting unemployment in europe most economists agree that structural changes associated with higher equilibrium rates of unemployment have occurred but the direction of causality is a matter of controversy have the structural changes caused the long lasting increases in actual unemployment or have the increases in actual unemployment caused the structural changes the latter possibility is often referred to as hysteresis during the past decade a distinct research program has evolved around the idea that equilibrium employment tracks actual unemployment this survey reviews the various hysteretic explanations offered in the literature and evaluates their empirical standing

why do part time workers earn less the role of worker and job skills part time workers receive considerably lower hourly earnings than do full time workers using current population survey earnings files for september 1995 through december 2002 the author finds that measurable worker and job characteristics including occupational skill requirements account for much of the part time penalty longitudinal analysis of the data indicates that much of the remaining gap reflects worker heterogeneity evidenced by small wage gains and losses among workers switching between part time and full time jobs the lower skills of part time than full time workers result primarily from limited work experience and accumulation of human capital little evidence can be found of a large wage gap between part time and full time women a part time wage penalty is found for men but men account for less than one third of total part time employment

the impact of regulations on agricultural trade evidence from the sps and tbt agreements according to world trade organization rules countries may adopt regulations under the agreements on sanitary and phyto sanitary sps and technical barriers to trade tbt we analyze the structure of these measures in agricultural trade the inventory approach suggests that european countries have among the lowest coverage ratios of all oecd countries using a gravity equation we also estimate their stringency our results suggest that they significantly reduce developing countries exports to oecd countries but do not affect trade between oecd members furthermore european imports are more negatively influenced by sps and tbts than imports of other oecd countries

social security and retirement across the oecd abstract employment to population ratios differ markedly across organization for economic cooperation and development oecd countries especially for people aged over 55 years in addition social security features differ markedly across the oecd particularly with respect to features such as generosity entitlement ages and implicit taxes on social security benefits this study postulates that differences in social security features explain many differences in employment to population ratios at older ages this conjecture is assessed quantitatively with a life cycle general equilibrium model of retirement at ages 60 64 years the correlation between the simulations of this study s model and observed data is 0 67 generosity and implicit taxes are key features to explain the cross country variation whereas entitlement age is not

effect of income on trust evidence from the 2009 economic crisis in russia this article draws on a natural experiment to identify the relationship between income and trust we use a unique panel data set on russia where gdp experienced an 8 drop in 2009 the effect of the crisis had been uneven among russian regions because of their differences in industrial structure inherited from the soviet period after instrumenting average regional income by soviet industrial structure we find that 10 decrease in income is associated with a five percentage point decrease in social trust we also find that post crisis economic recovery did not fully restore pre crisis trust level

the energy growth nexus reconsidered persistence and causality abstract this article applies a recent econometric framework to the analysis of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the us which allows a joint study of causality and persistence we provide evidence suggesting a nonlinear relationship with a structural break in the most recent regime we find that gdp causes energy consumption and vice versa furthermore both series show persistence i e cyclical and natural components do not evolve independently thus policies oriented to the reduction of energy consumption could constrain economic growth and policy shocks can have permanent effects

the impact of monetary policy on unemployment hysteresis this article investigates the hypothesis that the extent to which hysteresis occurs in the aftermath of recessions depends on monetary policy reactions the degree of hysteresis is explained econometrically by the extent of monetary easing during a recession and by standard variables for labour market institutions in a pooled cross country analysis using quarterly data the sample includes 40 recessions in 19 organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries for which the required data is available the time period lasts for the period from 1980 to 2007 this article builds on ball 1999 and extends the sample of countries the time period under investigation and the set of control variables

on the evidence of a working spouse penalty in the managerial labor market this analysis of march 1993 current population survey data suggests that managers with working wives earn lower wages than their counterparts with non working wives the labor supply decisions of managers wives appear to be unaffected by that is exogenous with respect to their husbands wages in contrast there is evidence that the labor supply decisions of non managers wives are affected by their husbands wages and when the analysis takes account of that endogeneity it is found that non managers do not suffer a working spouse penalty the analysis also highlights some important issues related to the use of instrumental variables

unemployment wage bargaining and capital labour substitution many economists believe that capital accumulation technical progress and labour force expansion have no lasting effect on unemployment this view rests on the empirically doubtful assumption that the elasticity of substitution between labour and capital is equal to unity i e production is cobb douglas using a simple model based on the work of layard nickell and jackman this paper demonstrates that with a lower elasticity of substitution the equilibrium unemployment rate is affected by all of the above factors it considers briefly how capital accumulation may be endogenised and what long run implications this has for unemployment copyright 1999 by oxford university press

does unemployment hysteresis falsify the natural rate hypothesis a meta regression analysis abstract a quantitative survey of 24 studies containing 99 national estimates of unemployment persistence reinstates unemployment hysteresis as a viable falsifying hypothesis to the natural rate hypothesis empirical evidence to the contrary may be attributed to small sample misspecification and publication biases larger estimates of unemployment persistence are produced by models that use more information t 9 03 p 0 0001 and are better specified a theme of bias and misspecification among studies that are more supportive of natural rate hypothesis emerges in several independent ways the nonstationarity of the unemployment rate is confirmed both by the observed rate of convergence of persistence estimates across the empirical literature and by the point towards which they converge the natural rate hypothesis may be regarded as falsified should we choose to do so

living in limbo economic and social costs for refugees our paper tests the hypothesis that living in limbo could have negative consequences for the socio economic integration of refugees we define limbo as a protracted period when asylum seekers are waiting for the decision concerning their permanent refugee status relying on the french survey of migrants france s longitudinal survey of migrants elipa we measure integration by labour market participation fluency in french finding new french friends and studying to account for the endogeneity of limbo we instrument it with the administrative backlog we find that living longer in limbo during the asylum seeking period slows down future integration of refugees but results differ with respect to gender and educational attainment while having lived longer in limbo slows down most aspects of socio economic integration for refugees with no degree or a high school degree those with a bachelor s degree do not experience negative effects male refugees who had lived longer in limbo have a lower likelihood of being employed and studying in france while similar females make fewer french friends

tied wage hours offers and the endogeneity of wages in the standard model of labor supply each worker is a price taker where the relevant price is an hourly wage rate which is fixed in the short run and which does not depend upon the number of hours supplied with this basic assumption the wage can be regarded as exogenous for the purpose of estimating a labor supply function this paper proposes and implements a pair of tests for the exogeneity of wages in a longitudinal labor supply model and for the particular failure of exogeneity associated with jobs that offer wage hour packages the first test is very simple it amounts to a test of whether hours granger cause wages at the individual level the second test involves a simultaneous estimation of labor supply and wage offer equations both tests indicate that the offered wage is related to hours worked though the offer locus is for this sample very flat the principal conclusion is that labor supply equations cannot properly be estimated in isolation from the process generating wages even when long time series are available on a sample of individuals this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

working part time by choice or by constraint the selection of workers into part time jobs and the wages they earn are analysed using the 1989 labour market activity survey we focus on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary part time workers since involuntary part time workers earn substantially lower wages than other workers we find that the selection of individuals into involuntary part time work is more closely tied to job characteristics than personal or human capital characteristics the lower wage earned by involuntary part time workers is largely due to differences in returns and selection effects rather than differences in endowments

soil quality and fertilizer use rates among smallholder farmers in western kenya studies of fertilizer use in sub saharan africa have been dominated by analyses of economic and market factors having to do with infrastructure institutions and incentives that prevent or foster increased fertilizer demand largely ignoring how soil fertility status conditions farmer demand for fertilizer we apply a switching regression model to data from 260 farm households in western kenya in order to allow for the possibility of discontinuities in fertilizer demand based on a soil carbon content scc threshold we find that the usual factors reflecting liquidity and quasi fixed inputs are important on high scc plots but not on those with poorer soils external inputs become less effective on soils with low scc hence the discernible shift in behaviors across soil quality regimes for many farmers improved fertilizer market conditions alone may be insufficient to stimulate increased fertilizer use without complementary improvements in the biophysical conditions that affect conditional factor demand

married women in part time employment this research deals with three aspects of the part time employment pattern of working wives 1 the wives characteristics 2 the level and structure of their earnings in part time jobs and 3 the duration of their employment when part time jobs are available to them this study improves upon previous research by using multivariate analysis to determine if the variation in the incidence of part time work consistently found in other studies persists when earnings potential fertility family income and other factors that may vary by age or race are held constant it differs further by including a data source that contains direct measures of market wages and experience for a large sample of married working women the authors find that husband s income family size and the wife s health race and previous work experience are among the variables that influence the probability that the wife works part time they also find that the level of wages and returns to some investments in human capital are rela

union wage differentials in the public and private sectors a simultaneous equations specification the paper attempts to integrate new approaches to estimating union wage effects with the analysis of public private sector wage differentials estimates of the union differential in both public and private sectors allowing for the endogeneity of union status are presented the hypothesis that the recently measured rents to public sector employment primarily reflect the recent increase in unionization in that sector is examined and receives considerable empirical support there was evidence of positive selection into the union sector especially for private sector workers union status appears to be strongly influenced by the expected wage gain from joining the union sector

aggregate demand conflict and capacity in the inflationary process this paper focuses on an alternative perspective on inflation to that of the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment nairu it indicates that there are no automatic forces leading to a level of aggregate demand consistent with constant inflation inflationary pressures arise from conflict over income shares and from cost elements with the price of raw materials especially oil being the most important there are supply side factors impinging on the inflationary process which arise from the level of productive capacity relative to aggregate demand the supply side constraints are viewed as arising from capacity constraints rather than from the operation of the labour market copyright 2005 oxford university press

the beveridge curve in europe new evidence using national and regional data the beveridge curve depicts the empirical negative relationship between job vacancy rate and unemployment rate and reflects the efficiency of the job matching process movements along a fixed downward sloping beveridge curve are associated with cyclical shocks while shifts of the curve arise from structural factors that alter the matching efficiency between job vacancies and unemployed workers national and regional data on job vacancies and unemployment are combined to estimate the beveridge curves of five european countries and their regions focusing on the period 1975 to 2004 i also analyse whether shifts in european beveridge curves are due to changes in the composition of the unemployed pool labour market rigidities or cyclical and structural shocks the empirical evidence suggests that changes in labour market rigidities long term unemployment as well as cyclical shocks are responsible for outward shifts in european beveridge curves i also find evidence of nonlinearities in the relation betw

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

female labor supply with a discontinuous nonconvex budget constraint incorporation of a part time full time wage differential this paper incorporates the well documented part time full time wage differential into an empirical labor supply model with both a heterogeneity and a random error term and estimates that model fo

the role of labor market intermittency in explaining gender wage differentials using the health and retirement survey and standard wage decomposition techniques this paper finds that the difference in intermittent labor force participation between men and women accounts for 47 percent of the contribution to the wage gap of differences in observed characteristics not controlling for intermittent behavior results in too much importance being placed on gender differences in job characteristics

general equilibrium macroeconomic models of unemployment can they explain the unemployment path in the oecd several theories which seek to explain the high and apparently persistent unemployment in the oecd countries over the past two decades have arisen within the framework of imperfections in the goods and labour markets probably the most prominent theories within this class of models are the general equilibrium models of phelps 1994 layard and nickell 1986 and layard et al 1991 labelled structuralist theories of unemployment by phelps 1994 common to the structuralist theories is that the low frequency movements in unemployment or the nairu are determined by structural variables such as unemployment benefits taxes real interest rates etc however the high frequency movements in unemployment are determined by wage and price surprises and in the layard and nickell 1986 model also by cyclical mark ups employment is entirely determined by the firms willingness to supply and the firms are never sales constrained by contrast the general equilibrium model of sarantis 1993 which is in post keynesian spirit suggests that unemployment on all frequencies is mainly an outcome of demand side factors in this model imperfections in the goods and labour markets are less important determinants of unemployment in this paper i estimate the extent to which the models of phelps 1994 layard and nickell 1986 henceforth l n and sarantis 1993 are able to explain the unemployment path of the oecd countries using annual data over the period 1960 to 1993 the theoretical set up of the models is presented in section 1 and the empirical estimates are set out in section 2

hysteresis in unemployment unemployment has risen sharply in a number of countries and it appears to be becoming more persistent the experience of the 1970s and 1980s showed that adverse unemployment shocks could have long lasting effects with very serious economic and social consequences a key mechanism producing these adverse consequences was hysteresis in unemployment whereby temporary rises in unemployment generated by supply and or demand shocks had permanent or at least very persistent effects clearly it is important to understand how hysteresis mechanisms might operate in order to avoid such adverse outcomes on the other hand experience during the subsequent two decades showed that under more favourable macroeconomic conditions it is possible to observe good hysteresis effects now is a very appropriate time to re visit the issue of hysteresis in unemployment in order to avoid the errors of the 1970s and 1980s and if possible to get hysteresis effects working in a positive direction copyright 2011 oxford university press

interindustry part time and full time wage differentials regional and national analysis this paper provides more evidence that the wage differential is far smaller than is suggested by simple comparison of gross wages of full time and part time workers it is noted that to obtain a more reasonable measure of the full time and part time wage differential it is necessary to adjust for differences in workers characteristics labour market conditions and sample selection it is found that in general full time and part time workers exhibit different personal characteristics in particular full time workers possess more human capital and experience than part timers also labour market conditions such as unions and pension plans favour full timers these differences may partly account for the wage disparity between full time and part time workers it was noted that the nonrandomness of the workers into full time and part time jobs influences the wage determination of both full time and part time workers the results indicate that the adjustment of the wage equations to reflect the above menti

the effect of part time work on wages evidence from the social security rules this article identifies the part time wage effect using hours variation caused by the social security rules we show that work hours and wages drop sharply at ages 62 and 65 we argue that the hours decline causes the wage decline resulting in a 25 wage penalty for men who cut their work week from 40 to 20 hours however we find little evidence for such an effect among women we also show that models that fail to account for the joint determination of hours and wages will understate the labor supply response to a tax change by about 26

unit root tests persistence and the unemployment rate of the u s states author affiliation diego romero avila department of economics carretera de utrera km 1 pablo de olavide university 41013 seville spain dromtor upo escarlos usabiaga professor department of economics carretera de utrera km 1 pablo de olavide university 41013 seville spain cusaiba upo es corresponding author acknowledgment the authors would like to thank seminar participants at the pablo de olavide university and dg economics at the european central bank carlos usabiaga acknowledges the financial support from centro de estudios andaluces ecod1 05 033 special thanks go to junsoo lee and nikolay gospodinov for making available to us the codes to implement some of the techniques used in the paper and to two anonymous referees for suggestions that substantially improved the paper the usual disclaimer applies 1 introductionthe high persistence in unemployment rates observed in the developed world since the first oil shock has led to a vivid debate over which paradigm can better explain the behavior of unemployment rates the traditional strand of the literature that forms the basis of the natural rate theory phelps 1967 1968 friedman 1968 assumes that the unemployment rate evolves around an equilibrium level describing stationary fluctuations this equilibrium level or natural rate is set depending on fundamentals of the economy while initially the absence of theories explaining the determination of the natural rate meant that in practice it was taken to be constant and exogenous subsequent developments have attempted to identify the structural factors behind differences across economies and over time including labor productivity technological change real interest rates real exchange rates and energy prices to name a few see phelps 1994 phelps and zoega 1998 according to the structuralist view phelps 1994 most shocks to unemployment are temporary but occasionally the natural rate permanently changes and is affected by variations in the aforementioned structural factors as a consequence the unemployment rate may be characterized as a process that is stationary once a small number of structural breaks are allowed for in contrast to the natural rate and structuralist approaches the hysteresis hypothesis see blanchard and summers 1986 1987 implies that the unemployment rate is path dependent and temporary shocks can affect unemployment permanently 1 while hysteresis is thought to imply that the natural rate is conditioned by the level of unemployment recorded in the past persistence in unemployment which is a special case of the natural rate hypothesis entails a slow adjustment process of reversion toward the mean thus hysteresis implies that unemployment is characterized by a unit root while persistence is characterized by a near unit root in the latter case shocks to unemployment though long lasting would not have a permanent effect to discriminate among theories explaining the behavior of unemployment rates unit root tests have been widely applied the hysteresis hypothesis has been formulated as a unit root process and its rejection lends support to the natural rate hypothesis if no breaks are included in the specification and the structuralist hypothesis if breaks are allowed for the purpose of this article is to investigate which theoretical paradigm most closely represents the behavior of unemployment rates in the states of the united states over the period 1976 2004 we first apply the individual lagrange multiplier lm t statistic proposed by schmidt and phillips 1992 to monthly data and we fail to reject the null hypothesis of a unit root in unemployment for forty states perron 1989 pointed out that the presence of structural changes could favor the nonrejection of the unit root null if they are not properly accounted for therefore we employ the minimum lm t statistic allowing for up to two endogenous changes in level proposed by lee and strazicich 2003

unemployment questions and some answers in more or less every country in the oecd unemployment was lower in the decades following the second world war than in any other period of comparable length either before or since for example in britain unemployment has exceeded 5 in every peacetime decade from 1850 onwards except for the 1950s and 1960s alternatively as we can see in table 1 p 779 average unemployment in the 1980s and 90s is higher generally much higher than in the 1960s in every country considered why this is so is one of the questions which underlies this paper a second question which is also illustrated in the unemployment numbers presented in table 1 p 779 concerns the causes of the enormous variation in unemployment rates across the oecd countries as we shall see these are difficult questions the first in particular is one for which we do not have a complete answer by this i do not mean that we do not have theories which are broadly consistent with these numbers in fact we have theories consistent with more or less any numbers what we lack is a satisfactory empirical explanation of the time series pattern of oecd unemployment in what follows we remain focused on these two questions first considering the theoretical background and then looking at some possible answers we finish with some speculative conjectures on the first question

do sanitary phytosanitary and quality related standards affect international trade evidence from chilean fruit exports summary increasing awareness of food safety issues has led to intensive use of sanitary phytosanitary and quality related regulations and standards imposing a burden on exporting countries worldwide this study assesses the impact of such regulations and standards estimating a gravity model for chilean fresh fruit exports that incorporates a stringency perception index that comprises different dimensions of trade requirements our results suggest that an increase in stringency has a negative and substantial effect on exported volumes and the reduction is higher if stringency increases in developed countries results also showed that different dimensions have different effects on trade

female labor force intermittency and current earnings a switching regression model with unknown sample selection using the health and retirement survey from the usa this paper finds a 16 selectivity corrected wage penalty among women who engage in intermittent labour market activity this penalty is experienced at a low level of intermittent activity but appears to not play an important role in a woman s decision to undertake such activity in addition employer preferences appear to play a larger role than human capital atrophy in the determination of the wage penalty

capital formation and unemployment this paper criticizes the current enthusiasm for labour market policies as the main route to employment creation in oecd countries such policies are normally seen as a means of encouraging more employment on existing capital stock this approach is one sided and downplays the equally important task of increasing productive capacity with more investment in productive capacity conventional labour market policies for increasing employment would be more effective and some might be unnecessary the paper analyses the role of capital stock within the framework of a simple nairu model based on previous work by the author it also presents some empirical evidence copyright 1995 by oxford university press

a test of dual labor market theory despite substantial differences in their views of the appropriate policy response to the existence of poverty neither the proponents of dual market theory nor its critics have proposed potentially conclusive tests of the dual market hypothesis this paper presents a test of the two central propositions of dual market theory 1 the existence of two distinct labor markets with different wage setting mechanisms and 2 the existence of barriers to mobility between the labor markets we find considerable support for both hypothesis estimation of a switching model of wage determination with unknown regimes yields two distinct wage equations the one which most workers are associated with closely resembles the standard human capital regression with significant returns to education and experience the other equation is flat with no returns to human capital these two equations resemble the predictions of dual market theory for the primary and secondary markets respectively further we present evidence that at least some non white workers are involuntarily confined to the secondary market this crowding of minority workers into the low wage labor market accounts for a substantial portion of white non white wage differences we interpret these results as providing empirical support for the dual market hypothesis and for recent theoretical work on efficiency wagemodels in addition combining the efficiency wage argument with the observation that much of the white non white wage difference is explained by the exclusion of non whites from the primary sector suggests an explanation for the persistance of wage differences this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

are shocks to energy consumption permanent or temporary evidence from 182 countries this article applies univariate and panel data unit root tests to annual panel data for 182 countries over the period 1979 2000 to examine the stationarity properties of per capita energy consumption the univariate unit root test can only reject the unit root null for 56 countries or 31 of the sample at the 10 level or better however univariate unit root tests have low power with short spans of data and therefore failure to reject the unit root null should be treated with caution when we apply the panel data unit root test we find overwhelming evidence that energy consumption is stationary we discuss the policy implications of these findings and offer suggestions for future research

childcare subsidies wages and employment of single mothers this paper develops and estimates a model for the choice of part time and full time employment and the decision to pay for childcare among single mothers the results indicate that a lower childcare price and a higher full time wage rate both lead to an increase in overall employment and the use of paid childcare the part time wage effects are found to be too small to have significant behavioral implications an analysis of cost effectiveness indicates that the additional hours of work generated per dollar of government expenditure is larger for a childcare subsidy than a wage subsidy

how far from harmonization are sanitary phytosanitary and quality related standards an exporter s perception approach harmonization of trade regulations and standards is perhaps the most contentious issue regarding export markets due to the impacts that it can have on trade we determine the extent of harmonization as perceived by exporters with respect to the major sanitary and phytosanitary standards spss and quality measures which chile faces in 16 international fresh fruit markets the methodology combined qualitative and quantitative techniques first the most relevant safety and quality standards and regulations were identified and ranked second a representative sample of exporters was interviewed to assess their perceptions regarding the level of stringency across markets and time for selected regulations perceptions were ranked on a likert scale and based on this scale a stringency index was constructed the results show that chile faces regulations which can be grouped into the following categories i phytosanitary measures ii tolerance limits for pesticide residues and contaminants iii hygiene requirements iv labeling marking and packaging v product and process standards and vi registration procedures and other import requirements the number of regulations varied among countries ranging from 13 to 3 out of the 14 considered in the study the most stringent country among the sample as perceived by exporters was mexico whereas the least stringent was saudi arabia additionally exporters agreed that stringency has increased over time with an average of 15 between 2005 and 2009

labor market discrimination against hispanic and black men h ispanic american men have lower average wage rates than white non hispanics in 1975 the average white non hispanic male wage earner in the united states earned 5 97 an hour mexican men earned 4 31 72 as much as white non hispanics puerto rican men earned 4 52 76 as much and cuban men earned 5 33 89 as much as white non hispanics by way of comparison black men s average wages in 1975 were 4 65 78 of the white male wage several possible reasons for the hispanics lower wages come to mind among them are age and education geographic location immigration language difficulties and discrimination for example as shown in table 1 mexicans and puerto ricans are younger on average than the white non hispanic population and earnings tend to rise with age hispanics have lower average levels of education than white non hispanics and wages are positively associated with education many mexican americans live in the southwest where prices are relatively low moreover hispanics are more likely to be recent immigrants and to lack fluency in english than white non hispanics and so to be at a disadvantage in the labor market in addition there is a widespread belief that hispanics suffer from employment discrimination and cannot obtain the wages that their human capital would command if they were non hispanic whites how much of the wage differentials described above are due to each of these factors and to other inter group differences in wage related characteristics in particular how much impact does labor market discrimination have on the average hispanic man s wage and how does this compare with discrimination against blacks this paper provides answers to these questions a few other efforts have been made to analyze the relative earnings of hispanic and white nonhispanic men using 1960 and 1970 census data fogel 1966 poston and alvirez 1973 poston alvirez and tienda 1976 long 1977 and gwartney and long 1978 we use more recent data from the 1976 survey of income and education this data set enables us to measure wage rates more accurately and to specify the wage function more completely than does the census unlike previous analysts in estimating the wage function we take account of possible selectivity bias due to the distinction between average wage offers and average observed wages thus we hope to obtain a more accurate and up to date measure of labor market discrimination against hispanic men section ii explains the method used to separate the minority white non hispanic wage differential into the portions due to differences in average characteristics and the portion due to differences in unobserved factors and discrimination taking into account the possibility of selectivity bias in the observed wage sample section iii describes the data used in the study and the specification of the wage equation the breakdown of the observed wage differentials into components due to differences in participation in the wage and salary sector local price levels average characteristics and discrimination are presented in section iv section v summarizes our findings and discusses their implications for efforts to improve the economic situation of hispanics in the united states

the definition of part time employment a switching regression model with unknown sample selection rejecting the standard less than thirty five hours per week categorization of part time workers this paper offers an empirically justified definition of the part time employed the definition is based on the distinction through wage payments that employers make between a high hours full time and a low hours part time group of workers a switching regression model of wage equations with deterministic but unknown sample selection is estimated resulting in a significant split between high hours and low hours workers that is higher than the standard definition wage differentials are calculated and decomposed and estimates from the structural choice model are presented copyright 1991 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

causes and consequences of hysteresis aggregate demand productivity and employment in this work we develop an agent based model where hysteresis in major macroeconomic variables e g gross domestic product productivity unemployment emerges out of the decentralized interactions of heterogeneous firms and workers building upon the schumpeter meeting keynes family of models cf in particular dosi et al 2016b 2017c we specify an endogenous process of accumulation of workers skills and a state dependent process of firms entry indeed hysteresis is ubiquitous however this is not due to market imperfections but rather to the very functioning of decentralized economies characterized by coordination externalities and dynamic increasing returns so contrary to the insider outsider hypothesis blanchard and summers 1986 the model does not support the findings that rigid industrial relations may foster hysteretic behavior in aggregate unemployment on the contrary this contribution provides evidence that during severe downturns and thus declining aggregate demand phenomena like decreasing investment and innovation rates skills deterioration and declining entry dynamics are better candidates to explain long run unemployment spells and reduced output growth in that more rigid labor markets may well dampen hysteretic dynamics by sustaining aggregate demand thus making the economy more resilient

an alternative demand indicator the non accelerating inflation rate of capacity utilization this article examines the usefulness of the naircu the non accelerating inflation rate of capacity utilization as a demand indicator of inflation for eight european countries so far the naircu has been estimated for the usa only where it serves as a useful indicator for inflation in most european countries deviations from the equilibrium level of capacity utilization influence inflation significantly further the results not only indicate that in more recent periods the naircu has shifted upward indicating higher efficiency of the production process but also that confidence intervals have increased over time reducing the usefulness of the naircu somewhat

how do we know that real wages are too high it is common belief that the wages that we observe are above the level that would prevail in a competitive labour market and also it is common to believe that wage moderation should be encouraged as a way to keep unemployment down this paper considers whether we can have confidence in these beliefs it presents a number of models designed to cast doubt on the conventional wisdom first we show that in an efficiency wage model in which there is involuntary unemployment a binding minimum wage may increase employment we then present a general equilibrium matching model in which there is involuntary unemployment but wages are below market clearing levels and raising wages can reduce unemployment we then consider the empirical evidence on employment and wage determination to argue that it is just as consistent with this model as with models in which wages are at or above market clearing levels

to spray or not to spray pesticides banana exports and food safety how governments regulate food safety and environmental protection including pesticide residue levels has important implications for trade the world trade organization wto ministerial held in doha qatar in november 2001 included statements on standards and their impact on market access for developing countries these issues will continue to be important in trade policy dialogues it is assumed and evidence from recent analysis confirms that food safety standards can affect the ability of agricultural producers to meet regulatory standards set by importing countries the authors explore a fundamental question in food safety and environmental standards do regulations on pesticide have an effect on trade they examine regulatory data from 11 oecd importing countries and trade data from 19 exporting countries the results suggest that a 10 percent increase in regulatory stringency tighter restrictions on the pesticide chlorpyrifos leads to a decrease in banana imports by 14 8 percent this represents a significant impact on trade and affect prospects of developing countries who continue to rely on exports of agricultural commodities such as bananas the findings also suggest that the lack of consensus on international standards and divergent national regulations on pesticides is costly for example the authors estimate that if the world were to adopt a standard at a level of regulatory stringency suggested by codex the body charged with setting global standards in this area in contrast with one set at the level in place in the european union there would be a u s 5 3 billion loss in world exports

the persistence of regional unemployment evidence from china the purpose of this paper is to examine the persistence of regional unemployment and to explore the sources of this persistence evidence from china suggests three empirical findings first provincial relative unemployment is more persistent than aggregate unemployment second youth unemployment is less persistent than total unemployment third although the western region has the highest provincial unemployment rate it has the lowest persistence of regional unemployment to explore the sources of this unemployment persistence a panel data method has been developed based on the barro approach and edwards work the higher the share of industry output by state sector and collective sector the more the regional unemployment persistence the private sector is the main employment destination for jobless now and has acted to reduce unemployment persistence

hysteresis in unemployment fact or fiction abstract a stylized fact of european unemployment dynamics is one of extreme persistence and possible unit root behavior this has led to a major reconsideration of the natural rate paradigm we apply the kalman filter to estimate the natural rate of unemployment for germany and france when the moving natural rate model is tested against the alternative of a unit root process the unit root hypothesis is resoundingly rejected

investor base and corporate borrowing evidence from international bonds abstract we examine international bond issues by us firms to study the benefits of investor taste for cross border security issuances we proxy for firms international investor taste with the fraction of prior international bond holding in firms domestic and international bonds and find that international investor demand increases with such taste moreover the offering yield spreads on international bonds are lower than domestic offering yield spreads for these internationally recognized firms and they have higher probability of issuing internationally such international recognition may occur for instance if the diversification benefits of adding the security to investor s portfolio outweigh the negative effects of higher renegotiation costs for international compared to domestic investors

unemployment and the real wage the economic basis for contesting political ideologies using the keynesian theory of effective demand this paper demonstrates how particular models such as that of cooperative capitalism enunciated by the left keynesian social democrats the marxian model of profit squeeze emphasizing distributive conflict and even the conservative model relying on supply side stimulus fit in as particular variants of a more general theoretical scheme through a reconstruction of the familiar is schedule the argument is weaved around the theme of the relations between unemployment and real wage in the context of both a closed and an open economy to explain the common macroeconomic basis of contesting ideologies copyright 1990 by oxford university press

financialisation and the slowdown of accumulation over the past decades financial investment of non financial businesses has been rising and accumulation of capital goods has been declining the first part of the paper offers a novel theory to explain this phenomenon financialization the shareholder revolution and the development of a market for corporate control have shifted power to shareholders and thus changed management priorities leading to a reduction in the desired growth rate in the second part the link between accumulation and financialization is tested econometrically by means of a time series analysis of aggregate business investment for usa uk france and germany extensive test of robustness are performed for the first three countries evidence that confirms the negative effect of financialization on accumulation is found author s abstract

capital accumulation labour market institutions and unemployment in the medium run according to the mainstream view labour market institutions lmis are the key determinants of unemployment in the medium run the actual empirical explanatory power of measures for labour market institutions however has recently been called into question the keynesian view holds periods of high real interest rates and insufficient capital accumulation responsible for unemployment empirical work in this tradition has paid little attention to the role of lmis this paper contributes to the debate by highlighting the role of autonomous changes in capital accumulation as a macroeconomic shock in the empirical analysis medium term unemployment is explained by capital accumulation lmis and a number of macroeconomic shocks in a panel analysis covering 20 oecd countries the economic effects of changes in lmi variations in capital accumulation and other macro shocks are compared capital accumulation and the real interest rate are found to have statistically significant effects that are robust to the inclusion of control variables and show larger effects than lmi

agricultural policies and trade paths in turkey in 1959 shortly after the european economic community was founded under the 1957 treaty of rome turkey applied for associate membership in the then six member common market by 1963 a path for integrating the economies of turkey and the eventual european union had been mapped as with many trade agreements agriculture posed difficult political hurdles which were never fully cleared even as trade barriers to other sectors were eventually removed and a customs union formed this essay traces the influences the turkey european union economic institutions have had on agricultural policies and the agriculture sector an applied general equilibrium framework is used to provide estimates of what including agriculture under the customs union would mean for the sector and the economy the paper also discusses the implications of fully aligning turkey s agricultural policies with the european union s common agricultural policy as would be required under full membership

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

phillips curves and unemployment dynamics a critique and a holistic perspective the conventional wisdom that inflation and unemployment are unrelated in the long run implies that these phenomena can be analysed by separate branches of economics the macro literature tries to explain inflation dynamics and estimates the nairu the labour macro literature tries to explain unemployment dynamics and determine the real economic factors that drive the natural rate of unemployment we show that the orthodox view that the new keynesian phillips curve is vertical in the long run and that it cannot generate substantial inflation persistence relies on the implausible assumption of a zero interest rate in the light of these results we argue that a holistic framework is needed to jointly explain the evolution of inflation and unemployment

what do we know about investment under uncertainty recent theoretical developments relating to investment under uncertainty have highlighted the importance of irreversibility for the timing of investment expenditures and their expected returns this has subsequently stimulated a growing empirical literature which examines uncertainty and threshold effects on investment behaviour this paper presents a review of this literature a variety of methods have been used to investigate the empirical implication of irreversibility in investment the majority focusing on the relationship between investment flows and proxy measures of uncertainty a general conclusion is that increased uncertainty at both aggregate and disaggregate levels leads to lower investment rates this suggests that there is an irreversibility effect under which greater uncertainty raises the value of the call option to delay a commitment to investment this effect appears to dominate any positive impact on investment arising from the fact that greater uncertability under certain circumstances increases the marginal profitability of capital the methods used raise a number of issues which call into question the reliability of the findings and these are addressed in the paper however if such irreversibility effects are present then their omission from traditional investment models casts doubt on the efficacy of such specifications jel classification d81 d92 e22

will initiatives to promote hydroelectricity consumption be effective evidence from univariate and panel lm unit root tests with structural breaks abstract this paper examines whether initiatives to promote hydroelectricity consumption are likely to be effective by applying univariate and panel lagrange multiplier lm unit root tests to hydroelectricity consumption in 55 countries over the period 1965 2011 we find that for the panel as well as about four fifths of individual countries that hydroelectricity consumption is stationary this result implies that shocks to hydroelectricity consumption in most countries will only result in temporary deviations from the long run growth path an important consequence of this finding is that initiatives designed to have permanent positive effects on hydroelectricity consumption such as large scale dam construction are unlikely to be effective in increasing the share of hydroelectricity relative to consumption of fossil fuels