wage determination in brazil the growth of union bargaining power and informal employment this article examines wage determination in brazilian manufacturing during the 1980s and early 1990s it presents evidence to show that the reduction in state regulation of collective bargaining has led to the development of a system of wage determination which is increasingly characterised by rent sharing and insider trade union bargaining power real wages appear increasingly inflexible with respect to movements in open unemployment with a large informal sector disciplining formal sector wage bargaining and cushioning the impact of broader labour market conditions an important consequence of this is that the employment costs of a successful counter inflationary strategy may be very severe

the importance of firm wage differentials in explaining hourly earnings variation in the large scale sector of guatemala abstract i utilize unique firm based data to examine firm wage differentials among private firms with ten or more workers in the capital area of guatemala city approximately one seventh of the overall hourly earnings variation in this sector is related to firm effects not captured by other observable characteristics of individuals and firms for most variables including observable characteristics of firms used in most previous studies the bias from not including firm fixed effects in the estimation of log wage equations is small in magnitude though statistically significant

what happens to wages after displacement faced with limited resources policymakers need to know when and where to target support for displaced workers the academic literature offers little support presenting wide ranging results with no consistent explanation for the observed differences in wages after workers are displaced in this paper we demonstrate that the heterogeneity found in the literature is consistent with varying market conditions the results suggest that support for displaced workers can be more efficiently allocated by considering the timing and location of displacement

nonparametric estimation of sample selection models sample selection models provide an important way of accounting for economic decisions that combine discrete and continuous choices and of correcting for nonrandom sampling nonparametric estimators for these models are developed in this paper these can be used for estimating shapes and important economic quantities as in standard nonparametnc regression endogeneity of regressors of interest is allowed for series estimators for these models are developed which are useful for imposing additivity restnctions that arise from selection corrections convergence rates and asymptotic normality results are derived an application to returns to schooling among australian young females is given

the long run causal relationship between transport energy consumption and gdp evidence from heterogeneous panel methods robust to cross sectional dependence abstract this paper employs panel methods that address mitigate heterogeneity and cross sectional dependence to determine the direction and sign of long run causality between transport energy consumption per capita and real gdp per capita granger causality was determined to run from gdp to energy

effects of family background on earnings and returns to schooling evidence from brazil we investigate whether omitted family background variables are responsible for high returns to schooling estimated in brazil returns to schooling fall by about one third when parental schooling is added to wage equations surprisingly the schooling of fathers in law has larger effects on wages than the schooling of fathers on the basis of a model of assortative mating we interpret this as evidence that parental characteristics represent unobservable worker attributes rather than nepotism in the labor market we conclude that the family background bias in returns to schooling is modest and need not imply returns to family connections

labor earnings dynamics in a developing economy with a large informal sector abstract we study labor earnings dynamics in a developing economy with a large informal sector we use nationally representative brazilian panel data that cover both formal and informal workers we document large disparities in earnings fluctuations faced by these segments of the labor market as well as the high frequency of transitions between them informality is associated with more volatile earnings while workers in the formal sector are subject to significant downside risk transitions between formal and informal employment bring large asymmetric earnings shocks and have a frequency that depends on age and the initial earnings level

wages profits and capital intensity evidence from matched worker firm data swedish data on workers matched with firms balance sheet reports are used to examine the relation between wages and firms ability to pay results indicate that experienced and highly educated workers are sorted into profitable firms wages are positively correlated with profits and the capital labor ratio after controlling for worker quality degree of effort supervision job characteristics local unemployment firms employment history and employer size lester s range of pay due to rent sharing is around 12 24 of the mean wage in sweden which is close to the estimates for the united states and united kingdom

assessing the stability of the inter industry wage structure in the face of radical economic reforms we assess the stability of the wage structure in an economy experiencing substantial economic changes we find that the structure of inter industry wage differentials remained remarkably stable in brazil in the face of major shocks

the structure of worker compensation in brazil with a comparison to france and the united states abstract we employ comprehensive linked employer employee data for brazil to analyze wage determinants and compare results to abowd et al 2001 for french and u s manufacturing while returns to human capital in brazilian manufacturing exceed those of the other countries occupation and gender differentials are similar the worker characteristics component accounts for much of the greater wage inequality in brazil but the establishment fixed component has scant explanatory power thus firm or industry level factors offer little scope for explaining the differences in wage inequality brazil s wage structure resembles that of france a country with some similarity in labor market institutions

wage differentials in brazil theory and evidence the investigation of wage determination and wage differentials in developing countries has concentrated on the effects of human capital and different sources of segmentation associated with institutional arrangements and structural characteristics on earnings in this article we use micro data for brazil for the 1980s and 1990s to test several competitive theories and models with segmentation explained by efficiency wages we find that unmeasured abilities and efficiency wage models seem to play a role in wage determination while compensating differentials and transitory difference theories were found to be irrelevant to wages formation

premiums to employment in larger establishments evidence from peru abstract examination of the employer size wage effect for males in urban peru suggests the following higher wages in larger establishments do not merely compensate for higher worker quality or inferior working conditions size differences in the use of rising wage tenure profiles cannot provide a market clearing explanation for the employer size wage effect unless workers are extremely impatient thus larger employers appear to pay premiums unionization explains none of the premiums and minimum wage compliance explains at best a small fraction shirking based efficiency wage explanations for premiums are implausible because peruvian job security legislation greatly inhibits dismissals in larger establishments explanations meriting further research involve the use of high wages to reduce turnover and to improve productivity enhancing morale

employee spinoffs and other entrants stylized facts from brazil using a comprehensive linked employer employee database from brazil for the period 1995 2001 we are able for the first time to compare firms founded as employee spinoffs to new firms without parents and to diversification ventures of existing firms entering a new industry employee spinoffs are defined either as the director manager having moved from a parent in the same industry or as one quarter of the employees having shifted from a common parent depending on definition employee spinoffs account for between one sixth and one third of the new firms in brazil s private sector during this period regardless of definition size at entry is larger for employee spinoffs than for new firms without parents but smaller than for diversification ventures of existing firms similarly exit rates for employee spinoffs are less than for new firms without parents and comparable to those for diversification ventures of existing firms these results suggest that we can think of some part of a firm s productivity draw in the jovanovic 1982 model as embodied in the firm s employees and portable by them to a new firm

the rationale behind interfirm tender offers information or synergy this paper investigates the rationale behind interlirm tender offers by examining the returns realized by the stockholders of lirms that were the targets of unsuccessful tender offers and lirms that have made unsuccessful offers our results suggest that the permanent positive revaluation of the unsuccessful target shares documented by dodd and ruback 1977 and bradley 1980 is due primarily to the emergence of and or the anticipation of another bid that would ultimately result in the transfer of control of the target resources we also find that the rejection of a tender offer has differential effects on the share prices of the unsuccessful bidding firms depending upon whether the tender offer process results in a change in the control of target resources on the basis of these results we conclude that acquisitions via tender offers are attempts by bidding firms to exploit potential synergies not simply superior information regarding the true value of the target resources

integrated longitudinal employer employee data for the united states the development of a database infrastructure that captures the complex interactions among households and businesses at the microeconomic level and characterizes the dynamics of the modern economy is critical for the social sciences the creation of such an infrastructure has posed a major challenge to national statistical institutes since most institutes collect store and disseminate data on the engines of economic growth businesses and households in twin data silos proposals to integrate the two face technical monetary legal and policy obstacles that go far beyond the norm of datacollection activities recent efforts at the longitudinal employer household dynamics lehd program at the u s census bureau have finally made this critical data infrastructure achievable and accessible the potential uses of longitudinal integrated employer employee data are far reaching a partial list includes the effect of technological and structural change on earnings employment and productivity the analysis of the firmspecific contribution to pay the effect of firm wage setting and turnover policies on productivity the impact of firm policies on different groups of workers e g welfare recipients the effect of firm expansion exit and relocation decisions on neighborhood demographic composition the analysis of worker commuting patterns and mobility and a full accounting of the

globalization and formal sector migration in brazil summary comprehensive linked employer employee data allow us to study the relationship between domestic formal sector migration in brazil and globalization considerable worker flows in the formal labor market during 1997 2001 are directed toward lower income regions the reverse flows of those often posited for informal labor markets estimation of the worker s multi choice migration problem shows that previously unobserved employer covariates are significant predictors associated with migration flows these results support the idea that globalization acts on internal migration through job stability at exporting establishments and employment opportunities at locations with a concentration of foreign owned establishments a 1 increase in exporter employment predicts a 0 3 reduced probability of migration a 1 increase in the concentration of foreign owned establishments at potential destinations is associated with a 0 2 increase in the migration rate

the regulation of labor author s botero juan djankov simeon la porta rafael lopez de silanes florencio shleifer andrei abstract we investigate the regulation of labor markets through employment collective relations and social security laws in 85 countries we find that the political power of the left is associated with more stringent labor regulations and more generous social security systems and that socialist french and scandinavian legal origin countries have sharply higher levels of labor regulation than do common law countries however the effects of legal origins are larger and explain more of the variation in regulations than those of politics heavier regulation of labor is associated with lower labor force participation and higher unemployment especially of the young these results are most naturally consistent with legal theories according to which countries have pervasive regulaory styles inherited from the transplantation of legal systems

trade institution quality and income inequality summary we examine the effect of trade on income inequality in small developing countries we use two well accepted trade cost variables for identification one is based on baltic dry index and another is commodities price index our main finding is that trade leads to a significant reduction increase in income inequality in autocracies democracies to explain such different effects we provide supporting evidence that autocracies export more primary commodities and may follow the stolper samuelson theorem in ho framework while democracies active in manufacturing outsourcing may follow feenstra and hanson 1996 task model

the price of government ownership a study of the domtar takeover abstract this paper presents an analysis of how government ownership of an enterprise may affect its profitability in august 1981 two quebec crown corporations announced that they had gained control of domtar a private canadian corporation upon receipt of this information the stock s market value dropped significantly over six trading days domtar s shareholders suffered cumulative abnormal returns of minus 25 percent which is equivalent to a reduction in market value of approximately 150 million much of this loss can be attributed to government control and the anticipated pursuit of non profit objectives

the quality of schooling quantity alone is misleading although much research discusses the quantity of schooling as an effective impact on productivity and earnings most such research leaves out the idea of the quality of schooling which may cause biases in the estimated returns to schooling this paper consequently attempts to extend the standard mincerian approach to incorporate school quality as well as quantity it demonstrates how exclusion of quality in the standard procedure may cause biases in the estimated returns to years of schooling probably in the upward direction the paper explores the implications of this extension of the standard model for the case of young brazilian males it shows that the estimate of the private return to years of schooling using the preferred quality inclusive specification is only one half the estimate using the standard procedure indicating substantial upward bias in the standard estimates it further outlines a method for estimating a social return to quality and finds that it exceeds substantially the social return to quantity the paper then shows why this in turn suggests there may be an equity productivity trade off in schooling investments

government intervention efficiency wages and the employer size wage effect in zimbabwe abstract this paper uses matched employer employee data from a survey of 201 manufacturing firms and 1609 of their workers conducted in zimbabwe in the summer of 1993 the results indicate that there is a substantial premium associated with employment in larger firms and that this premium cannot be explained by differences in worker quality and job characteristics nor is it eliminated by controlling for unionization minimum wages or other forms of government intervention the size premium is much larger for white collar than for blue collar workers these differentials are also found to be substantially larger than those estimated for other developed and developing countries the analysis uses the data about firm characteristics to explore a number of efficiency wage based explanations of the size differential and finds results which are consistent with but not conclusive proof of hiring turnover and morale based notions of efficiency wages

labor turnover and labor legislation in brazil one of the main characteristics of the brazilian labor market is its impressively high job and worker turnover rates although labor legislation in brazil is very restrictive dismissal costs are not high when compared with other latin american countries moreover many authors argue that the design of some job security programs creates perverse incentives that generate labor turnover the objective of this paper is twofold first we describe brazilian labor legislation with emphasis on job security provisions and their incentives on workers reallocation then after reviewing the most recent evidence on labor turnover in brazil we investigate the effects of changes in job termination costs implemented in the 1988 constitution and in a labor law of september 2001 on employment duration both legislation changes increased firing costs and should have therefore reduced turnover for formal workers affected by them a simple differences in differences methodology is applied to monthly individual data from pesquisa mensal de emprego pme ibge which has information on previous employment spells for those currently unemployed the results establish that both changes reduced turnover for formal workers affected by the legislation a significant increase in average employment duration of affected workers relative to not affected workers was observed after both legislation changes we also provided evidence that the 1988 constitutional change reduced the probability of fake layoffs although there are still a high number of such agreements being made between workers and their employers