gender occupational segregation and its impact on the gender wage differential among rural urban migrants a chinese case study since the late 1980s massive rural urban migration in china has attracted considerable attention from economists and policymakers both within and outside china one of the most striking features of rural urban migration is that job attainment among the migrants differs considerably between males and females it is of great interest to know the reasons for this difference and more importantly whether gender occupational segregation has a large impact on the gender wage differential among migrants this paper examines these issues using data on 1504 migrants collected in jinan city shandong province it is found that gender occupational segregation in this sector is mainly due to the unequal treatment of male and female attributes in occupational assignment and that this contributes very significantly to the gender wage differential among migrants a comparison with another study on china s rural industrial labour market is made which suggest that intra occupational gender wage discrimination is l

bookbuilding and strategic allocation in the bookbuilding procedure an investment banker solicits bids for shares from institutional investors prior to pricing an equity issue the banker then prices the issue and allocates shares at his discretion to the investors we examine the books for 39 international equity issues we find that the investment banker awards more shares to bidders who provide information in their bids regular investors receive favorable allocations especially when the issue is heavily oversubscribed the investment banker also favors revised bids and domestic investors investment banks commonly build a book before pricing an equity issue in the united states it has been standard practice for a number of years in many other countries where fixed price offerings were traditionally used the bookbuilding procedure is becoming increasingly common especially for international equity issues 1 under the formal bookbuilding procedure the investment banker solicits indications of interest from institutional investors such indications consist of a bid for a quantity of shares and might include a maximum price i e a limit price or other details the investment banker uses the information to construct a demand curve the issue price is not set according to any explicit rule but rather based on the banker s interpretation of investors indications of interest he generally sets the price at a level at which demand exceeds supply and then allocates shares to the bidders at his discretion thus the

measuring the pay disparity between typically female occupations and other jobs a bivariate selectivity approach the author of this study using a bivariate probit selectivity model with data from the 1984 panel survey of income dynamics finds that women in female dominated jobs earned 6 15 percent less than

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

wage structure and gender earnings differentials in china and india summary this study analyzes how changes in overall wage inequality and gender specific factors affected the gender wage gap in chinese and indian urban labor markets in the 1990s and 2000s we observe the significant expansion of skilled workers and the increase in overall wage inequality in both countries over the period analyses of micro data present that contrasting evolutionary patterns in gender wage gap emerged over the period showing a widened wage gap in china but a dramatically reduced gap in india in both countries female workers increased skill levels contributed to reducing the gender wage gap however increases in observed prices of education and experience worked unfavorably for high skilled women counterbalancing their improvement in labor market qualifications decomposition of changes in the gender wage gap shows that china s widened gap was attributable to gender specific factors such as deteriorated observable and unobservable labor market qualifications and increased discrimination especially against low and middle skilled female workers for india gender specific factors and relatively high wage gains of low and middle skilled workers reduced the male female wage gap our study suggests that consideration of overall wage structure unobserved skills and gender specific factors such as unobserved labor market qualification and discrimination against women should be included in designing policies to promote gender equity and inclusiveness in labor markets

negotiation and the ipo offer price a comparison of integer vs non integer ipos we investigate the pricing of 4 989 equity ipos with offer dates between 1981 and 2000 approximately three fourths of these ipos have integer offer prices average initial returns for ipos with integer offer prices are significantly higher 24 5 than those priced on the fraction of the dollar 8 1 this result is robust through time and after conditioning for other effects known to influence initial returns we hypothesize that integer vs fractional dollar ipos are the result of negotiations between the issuing firm and underwriter under this negotiation hypothesis the frequency of integer pricing should be an increasing function of the offer price and the degree of uncertainty surrounding the value of the firm empirical evidence supportive of the negotiation hypothesis is presented

trade s dynamic solutions to transboundary pollution abstract this study develops a differential game to examine the effects of trade liberalization on transboundary water pollution water pollution is due to wastewater emissions from countries in a shared waterway along the u s mexico border with available data of pollution abatement costs public health damages and trade benefits noncooperative and cooperative games are examined with changes in trade policy and public health damages results show trade liberalization leads mexico to curtail pollution in both games cooperation and trade liberalization limit emissions from both countries and curtail strategic behavior of the united states from mexico s pollution control efforts in the noncooperative game

new evidence on public sector wage differentials this paper examines the nature of wage differentials for men and women in the public sector using a sample selection approach this includes the self selection that occurs in the sectoral choice process as well as the selection that arises in context of the labour force participation decision of men and women using 1991 current population survey data it is found that male workers in the public sector on an average earn higher wages than male private sector workers whereas the wage premium earned by women is undermined by a slightly greater degree of discrimination in the public sector

the evolution of the racial wage hierarchy in post apartheid south africa this article develops a multilateral decomposition procedure for the analysis of wage differentials and applies this to the evolution of the racial wage hierarchy in south africa over the period 1993 2001 we find evidence that the wage position of the majority african workforce improved relative to all other racial groups immediately following the transition to democratic rule in 1994 but that these gains have been largely eroded in the ensuing years of the post apartheid era we review the range of policy initiatives that have been taken by the government since 1994 in the light of our empirical findings

job queues discrimination and affirmative action james r fain if employers have different becker type discrimination coefficients for different demographic groups then the implementation of affirmative action may have a differential impact on those groups we estimate two vector autoregressive models of the us economy including the unemployment rates of four demographic groups we find that a job queue existed before the implementation of affirmative action and that affirmative action changed the ordering of the job queue in manner that had a negative impact on nonwhite males we find evidence that affirmative action may have increased the unemployment rate of nonwhite males by increasing their duration of unemployment jel j71 j78 j64 j68 i introduction the relative status of demographic groups in the labor force has been undergoing significant change since the early 1960s throughout this period white females and racial minorities have experienced changes not only relative to white males but also relative to one another one such change is exhibited in relative unemployment rates figure 1 shows differentials in the smoothed unemployment rates using a 12 x 2 centered moving average for white females nonwhite males and nonwhite females for the years 1959 83 one can easily see that the relative unemployment burdens have varied over time focusing first on the two lines that are positive over the entire range one may see that prior to the late 1960s the status of nonwhite individuals especially nonwhite males relative to white females was improving however beginning in the late 1960s this trend reversed the unemployment rate differential between nonwhite males and white females increased from a low of 1 03 in july 1969 to a high of 11 12 in march 1983 similarly after declining during the 1960s the unemployment rate differential between nonwhite females and white females increased from a low of 3 49 in october 1969 to a high of 9 16 in august 1983 these reversals in trend indicate the status of white females relative to both nonwhite males and nonwhite females began improving in the late 1960s figure 1 also shows the status of nonwhite females improved relative to that of nonwhite males during the same time period the unemployment rate differential between nonwhite males and nonwhite females increased from a low of 3 13 in february 1968 to a high of 2 38 in february 1983 these three unemployment rate differentials all declined in the 1960s a time of tremendous social change and strong economic growth but all of these trends reversed direction in the 20 month period from february 1968 to october 1969 after the trend reversal the status of white females improved relative to both nonwhite males and nonwhite females and the status of nonwhite females improved relative to that of nonwhite males to put it another way nonwhite males lost ground relative to both nonwhite females and white females our goal is to examine what role if any the implementation of affirmative action in 1968 had in reversing these trends other possible explanations of the above noted reversal in trends certainly exist but several factors point to affirmative action as a potential cause of these changes first the timing is correct the trends reversed in close proximity to the implementation of affirmative action second whatever caused these reversals affected all minority groups did so within a short 20 month time span and its impact was sustained over a number of years a new federal policy designed to change the way firms hire minorities should have exactly this type of effect finally as we will argue below imposing affirmative action on discriminating employers will not benefit all demographic groups equally discriminating employers will continue to discriminate though the pattern of discrimination may change many of the traditional explanations of changes in relative unemployment rates are unlikely candidates to explain these significant and sustained reversals of longstanding trends

the market reaction to international cross listings evidence from depositary receipts abstract this paper examines the stock price impact of international dual listings the sample consists of 181 firms from 35 countries that instituted their first depositary receipt program over the period 1985 1995 the market reaction to a depositary receipt program is larger in magnitude and more pervasive than previously reported the stock price reaction is related to choice of exchange geographical location i e emerging or developed markets and avenues for raising equity capital i e public versus private offerings

the acid rain differential game this paper considers an acid rain differential game countries emit sulphur which is partly transferred to other countries depositions above critical loads ultimately destroy the soil countries face a trade off between the costs of emission reductions and the damage to the soil due to the depletion of the acid buffers because of the transboundary externalities the outcome will depend on whether the countries cooperate or not this paper presents the cooperative outcome and the open loop and markov perfect nash equilibria of the acid rain differential game it will be shown that the depositions always converge to the critical loads but the steady state levels of the buffer stocks differ the theory is used to analyse the acid rain differential game for sulphur between great britain and ireland finally some results are given for the whole of europe

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

international trade and environmental quality a survey abstract international trade has been incorporating various aspects of environmental issues since 1970 the extent to which environmental problems might affect many facets of trade or vice versa has been the subject of considerable debate over these years in this article we have attempted to establish some of the links between international trade and environmental quality by performing a comprehensive literature review we discuss issues such as establishing direct and indirect effects of international trade on environmental quality effects of trade on economic development environmental quality and energy and their relation with each other and finally the role of governments and international organizations in this context studies have so far revealed some linkages between trade and environment through conventional trade theory however interactions between international trade and types of pollution their sink and assimilative capacity need to be analyzed using a general equilibrium approach currently very little knowledge and agreement on the nature of interactions between trade theories development process and environmental quality exist existing studies have shown that the structure of environmental regulations should be modified to reflect the existence of trade under imperfect competition therefore further research on the interaction between new trade theory and environmental regulation is needed also theoretical and quantitative analysis regarding the effects of environmental regulations on competitiveness and location decision is needed the intensity and type of environmental measures vary across issues and countries therefore harmonizing environmental measures creates an inefficient atmosphere and to assume that trade restrictions will either improve or reverse the environmental damages is a serious mistake given the dynamic and intricate nature of the problem trade and environment debate continues despite vast research and poses a challenge for researchers and policy makers in the foreseeable future

taste based or statistical discrimination the economics of discrimination returns to its roots we briefly review the evolution of empirical work on discrimination we discuss why traditional regression based approaches neither convincingly measure market discrimination nor disentangle the relative importance of animus versus statistical discrimination in explaining such discrimination as exists we describe the development of modern correspondence studies we argue that these studies have the promise to credibly identify the presence of discrimination if not its magnitude can inform us about the underlying mechanism generating discrimination and can also point to avenues for new theoretical and empirical work on discrimination we discuss two articles with exemplary applications of these new methods at least since becker 1957 economists have been deeply interested in the presence of discrimination in markets in the 1970s and into the 1980s there was an active debate in the literature about whether discrimination was better described by becker s taste based discrimination model or by arrow and phelps statistical discrimination model that debate gave way to a theoretical literature that advanced each model separately and to an empirical literature focused on documenting the presence of disparities and the effects of policies designed to counteract discrimination only recently has the literature returned to the question of whether taste based or statistical discrimination is a more appropriate description of the phenomenon the two articles that follow are good examples of the move towards an understanding of the mechanisms underlying discrimination in this article we attempt to place the literature s recent direction into context and to show how it is a natural place for economists studying discrimination to arrive given where we began in the economics of discrimination becker explored ways in which individual tastes for discrimination might interact in a market setting to produce discriminatory outcomes for market participants becker described three models each considering a different source of discriminatory tastes employers co workers and customers the economics of discrimination included deep insights about discrimination becker clarified the distinction between individual tastes for discrimination and market discrimination he clarified the difference between segregation and market discrimination and he showed how the market might produce incentives for those with discriminatory tastes to avoid interaction with those towards whom they harbour animus 1

the impact of equal opportunity policy on sex differentials in earnings and occupations women began to enter nontraditional occupations at an increasing rate at the same time federal equal opportunity policy was strengthened in 1972 equal employment opportunity eeo policy was strengthened and expanded and equal opportunity in education became federal policy for the first time these policies constitute a two pronged attack on sex discrimination because they address impediments to mobility on both the demand and supply sides of the labor market together they should increase women s access to nontraditional jobs and to the skills necessary to perform them during the 1970 s women made occupational gains that are concentrated disproportionately in the white collar occupations one explanation for this is that the impact of federal equal opportunity policy differs across schooling levels in section i i discuss federal equal opportunity policy section ii contains empirical evidence on the direct effects of eeo policy on sex differentials in earnings and occupational segregation by sex section iii presents estimates of changes in the effect of schooling on women s entry into nontraditional occupations during the 1970 s and attempts to determine what portion may be due to equal educational opportunity policy and to indirect effects of eeo policy

intertemporal market effect on gender earnings differentials lawyers in canada 1970 80 the conventional methodology for decomposition of cross sectional earnings differentials is extended to include a market effect on intertemporal changes in earnings and to analyse the changes in gender differentials over time the integrated cross sectional and intertemporal methodology is illustrated by a decomposition of the change in the earnings differential that occurred during the 1970s between male and female lawyers in canada an unprecedented rate of growth in the supply of lawyers during the 1970s in canada was associated with changes in the gender earnings differential in the legal profession this rapid supply growth had an almost negligible net impact on female earnings but a negative impact of 15 on the male earnings this explains the narrowing of the earnings differential by almost 30 over the decade although three fifths of the gender differential in 1970 and half of the differential in 1980 were attributable to the differences in the characteristics of the two groups these chang

the decline of sex segregation and the wage gap 1970 80 this study makes use of 1970 and 1980 census of population employment and earnings data at the detailed occupation and industry level to examine changes in the distribution of the u s work force by sex and to assess their impact on relative female earnings first we find clear evidence that both occupational segregation and industrial segregation declined during these years second high employment growth within an occupation is associated with declines in segregation third declines in industry segregation within occupation are associated with improvements in relative female earnings independently of other factors which affect relative pay fourth high employment growth is associated with improvements in relative female earnings independently of its effect on occupational segregation as a result employment growth acts to reduce the wage gap directly possibly by lowering barriers to women finding jobs at high wage firms and also indirectly by lowering the degree of industrial segregation these results thus suggest that barriers or discrimination against women tend to be lower in sectors where demand is strong

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

productivity and the role of college in narrowing the male female wage differential in the usa in 1980 this study analyses the impact that productivity factors and the particular role of college have upon the inequality in male and female wages using the 1980 1 100 public use sample the findings herein suggest that whereas both black and white females and black males who entered the labour force in 1975 or later possess productivity characteristics that are superior to their elder counterparts the productivity characteristics of white males entering the labour force over this period are significantly inferior to those possessed by older white males also in sharp contrast to a voluminous literature that concludes that college widens the wage gap between the sexes this analysis shows that college played a paramount role among the productivity characteristics in narrowing the gender wage differential in 1980

discrimination empirical evidence from the united states the study of discrimination received a major impetus in the 1960 s when increasing social attention focused upon race and gender differentials in market outcomes gary becker s the economics of discrimination 1957 strongly influenced empirical research by providing a definition of wage discrimination and suggesting a specific way in which it might operate during the following years new theories were developed and refined in an attempt to explain why there appears to be continued discrimination in spite of market forces presumably operating against it similarly a large amount of empirical work has been done to determine whether and how much discrimination actually exists and to a lesser extent to test the implications of the various theories even so the hope expressed by becker in the preface of the second edition 1971 that our understanding of discrimination would increase so rapidly that the materials in his book would become obsolete before another decade began has clearly not been fulfilled here we review what has been learned in the intervening years and suggest some fruitful directions for future research 1 the focus of this paper like that of most of the empirical research in this area is on determining the extent of discrimination rather than on testing alternative models of discrimination

a meta analysis of the international gender wage gap abstract since the early 1970s a number of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity this meta study provides a new quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage differentials as it concerns not only differences in methodology data and time periods but also different countries we place particular emphasis on a proper consideration of the quality of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators the results show that data restrictions i e the limitation of the analysis to new entrants never marrieds or one narrow occupation only have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap moreover we are able to show what effect a misspecification of the underlying wage equation like the frequent use of potential experience has on the calculated gender wage gap over time raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially however most of this decrease is due to better labor market endowments of females

native immigrant wage differentials and occupational segregation in the greek labour market this article explores native immigrant wage differentials in the greek labour market data from the most recent greek household budget survey 2004 05 were employed four alternative occupational categories were considered and occupational choice was explicitly modelled controlling for occupational selectivity occupation specific wage regressions for representative samples of employed native and immigrant workers were estimated and an augmented decomposition technique was utilized to analyse inter and intra occupation wage differentials the obtained results demonstrate that roughly 48 of the average wage differential cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics and that the larger component of this unexplained part is due to asymmetrical occupational access by native and immigrant workers

the trend in the male female wage gap in the united states despite the rise in the feminist movement the enactment of equal opportunity legislation and the rapid increase in women s labor force participation a substantial sex differential in wages has persisted in the united states for at least 4 decades measured by hourly earnings of year round workers this wage gap was 31 in 1955 widened to a 35 37 range by the 1960s and early 1970s and then narrowed to 33 by 1982 this paper examines the extent to which changes in the characteristics of men and women in the labor force and other factors can account for the observed pattern the main finding is that increases in women s labor force participation were initially associated with a declining skill level of employed women relative to employed men where skill is measured by years of schooling and job tenure more recently the work experience of employed women has been increasing which helps account for the recent narrowing trend in the wage gap during the 1970s the wage gap probably woul have narrowed m

the distribution of the male female earnings differential 1970 1990 the authors examine the male female earnings differential between 1970 and 1990 their objective is to provide consistent estimates that can be compared and interpreted over time and to assess the sensitivity of their results to alternative specifications the authors find that women made modest gains over the period standard decomposition techniques reveal that gender differences in observable characteristics do not explain much of the earnings differential most of the improvement in women s relative earnings has come by a decline in the unexplained component the authors also find that the differential varies systematically across age and education groups and across high and low income women coauthors are dwayne benjamin andree desaulniers and mary grant

changes in the male female wage gap 1976 85 this study uses detailed information on work experience tenure and on the job training collected in the 1976 and 1985 questionnaires of the panel study of income dynamics to account for changes in wage differentials between white men and white women over these nine years decompositions of changes in the wage gap are used to illustrate the contribution of individual factors between 1976 and 1985 the wage gap between white men and women narrowed by approximately 4 percent this study finds that nearly 50 percent of this reduction was due to average changes in job tenure and other work history variables over this period

worker effort decisions and efficient gender specific wage tenure profiles i introduction during the past thirty years women have increased their labor force participation female labor market intermittency has decreased and women s total labor market experience and years of tenure with the current employer have increased what these trends imply about the evolution of the gender gap in wages depends in part on gender differences in returns to tenure it is therefore surprising that economists have all but ignored the empirical finding that women have higher returns to tenure than do men over a significant portion of their working lives one reason why this finding has been ignored or treated as an anomaly may be the lack of theoretical constructs which predict an inverse gender gap in returns to tenure several labor market models predict that women should have lower returns to tenure than men human capital theory offers the most frequently cited explanation of flatter earnings profiles for female workers according to human capital theory gains from specialization and exchange lead to one household member specializing in home production and the other in market work since only women bear children historically the outcome of the exchange has been that women have specialized in home production indeed all surveys of time use indicate that women spend on average two to three times as long on housework as men as a consequence of this allocation women anticipate intermittent labor force participation and fewer years overall in the labor force than men this pattern too is borne out in national surveys which invariably find shorter average tenure and fewer total years of labor market experience for women than for men women typically have shorter completed job spells as well hall 1982 table 5 presents evidence that the gender gap in completed job duration is quite large he estimates that 63 8 percent of men but only 49 6 percent of women hold jobs with eventual tenure of at least five years with 37 3 and 15 1 percent of men and women respectively holding jobs with eventual tenure of at least twenty years because of the greater intermittency and shorter anticipated work history for women than men women will find it optimal to acquire less human capital than men 1 lesser quantities of general human capital tends to flatten both the observed earnings experience profile and the observed earnings tenure profile two factors contribute to this pattern first skills deteriorate during periods out of the labor market as in mincer and polachek 1974 which flattens the earnings experience profile for women relative to men second women anticipating discontinuous work histories select into occupations with flatter earnings profiles to minimize the penalty to labor force withdrawals as in polachek 1981 the effects of firm specific human capital on gender differences in wage tenure profiles vary across models for example kuhn 1993 constructs an elegant game theoretic model of gender differences in training and wages if women have a higher exogenous exit rate than men in equilibrium they will be placed in jobs with lower levels of firm specific training with a positive relation between training and productivity and a common share rate of the costs and benefits of specific training for men and women the wage tenure profiles of men will be steeper than those for women in contrast becker and lindsay 1994 argue that firm specific human capital leads to higher returns to tenure for women than men becker and lindsay assume that men and women have the same level of firm specific training however women have greater variance in their opportunity cost of remaining with a firm and so are more likely than men to separate inefficiently by giving women a greater share of both the costs and benefits of firm specific human capital through a steeper wage tenure profile firms reduce undesirable turnover although human capital arguments dominate the literature on gender differences in the labor market other models of wage growth predict flatter wage tenure profiles for women

ipo underpricing and international corporate governance it is well established that a link exists between a country s legal system and the size liquidity and value of its capital markets we study how differences in country level governance affect the underpricing of initial public offerings ipos examining 4462 ipos across 29 countries from 2000 to 2004 we find the surprising result that underpricing is higher in countries with corporate governance that strengthens the position of investors relative to insiders we conjecture that when countries give outsiders more influence ipo issuers underprice more to generate excess demand for the offer which in turn leads to greater ownership dispersion and reduces outsiders incentives to monitor the behavior of corporate insiders in other words underpricing is a cost that insiders pay to maintain control in countries with legal systems designed to empower outsiders consistent with this control motivation for underpricing we find that underpricing has a negative association with post ipo outside blockholdings and a positive association with private control benefits in addition firms whose insiders are entrenched either by majority ownership or by dual class structures do not underprice more in countries with better governance in these firms the ownership structure protects managers from outside influence eliminating the incentive to increase outside ownership dispersion through underpricing

conservatism and international ipo underpricing we study the impact of country level accounting conservatism on international ipo underpricing examining 13 285 ipos from 36 countries we find that ipos are underpriced less in countries in which existing public firms practice more accounting conservatism the link between conservatism and underpricing is robust to alternative measures of conservatism country mean regressions sample country exclusions and endogenous treatment models consistent with the hypothesis that conservatism reduces underpricing by mitigating the impact of information asymmetries we find that higher country level conservatism is associated with lower country level pin values and that the negative relation between conservatism and underpricing is strongest for ipos involving small firms in which information asymmetries are likely to be high lastly we find evidence that legal origin a factor linked to the practice of conservatism influences the relations between underpricing and conservatism

trends in earnings differentials by gender 1971 1981 this paper clarifies trends in relative earnings by sex over the decade 1971 1981 and decomposes these trends to determine which factors contributed to a decline and which to an increase our analyses are based upon data from the annual demographic files of the current population survey for 1972 and 1982 this study is unique in that it estimates earnings functions in each year which are corrected for selectivity bias it is found that such a correction markedly raises the progress of white women relative to men among blacks the impact of the selectivity bias correction was to substantially lower the relative earnings increase of women however the coefficients on the selectivity variable were not significant the findings suggest declining sex role specialization and discrimination as conventionally measured over the decade on the other hand contrary to expectations the total effect of variables reflecting the sex composition of the individuals occupation worked to widen the sex differential over the period the sex differential was also adversely affected by a decline in the relative return to education especially for whites authors modified

human capital discrimination and the gender wage gap in bangladesh summary this paper investigates changes in the gender wage gap in bangladesh over the period 1999 2009 the gap in average wages between men and women decreased by 31 over this period this paper shows that a key driver of this change was an improvement in female educational qualifications it also demonstrates that the gender wage gap across the wage distribution narrowed much more at the lower end of the wage distribution than at the upper end it attributes this mainly to a decline in discrimination against women implications for policies aimed at more equal access to education and enforcement of equal pay legislation in bangladesh are also identified

industrial restructuring and regional household income growth negrey c zickel m b and fenn j m 1998 industrial restructuring and regional household income growth reg studies 32 103 111 in this study industry and place intersect in a systematic examination of the effects of industrial restructuring on men s and women s personal income and married couple and female headed household income we analyse income trends from 1969 89 in relationship to shifts in employment in manufacturing finance insurance and real estate wholesale and retail trade and services in 140 us metropolitan areas grouped into six types improvements in women s income appear to have offset men s losses in all six area types given increases in average median married couple household income in each area type during the 20 year period our most provocative finding is the average decrease in median female headed household income in the 19 classic deindustrializing centres while female headed household income actually increased on average in the five other area types this finding ha

the gap between male and female pay in the spanish tourism industry abstract this paper analyzes wage differentials between male and female workers in the spanish tourism industry using a large administratively matched employer employee data set obtained from a representative sample of companies this allows us to control for unobserved firm specific factors likely to affect the magnitude of the gender wage gap our findings indicate that male workers earn on average 6 7 higher monthly wages than their socially comparable female counterparts in particular the type of contract held the qualifications required for the job and the specific sub sector of employment are very important variables in explaining this gender wage difference we also find that only around 12 of the mean wage difference in the tourism industry cannot be explained by differences in observable characteristics which is well below the average for the rest of the industries in spain 87 our interpretation is that minimum wage legislation provides a particularly effective protection to women in the tourism industry which is characterized by a large number of low wage earners

trends in the male female wage gap the 1980s compared with the 1970s 1 introduction an interesting pattern emerges when contrasting men s and women s wage growth in the 1970s and 1980s from 1979 to 1989 female wages grew 1 7 per annum faster than male wages this wage growth in the 1980s resulted in a 17 narrowing of the gender wage gap on the other hand from 1969 to 1979 female wages grew at a rate only 0 39 per year faster than male wages resulting in very little narrowing of the gender wage gap blau 1998 as noted by smith and ward 1989 these contrasting trends puzzled many because it is well known that female work behavior shot up more dramatically in the 1970s than in the 1980s if female wage growth is related to increasing labor force activity one would have expected the male female wage gap to narrow more in the 1970s than in the 1980s the purpose of this paper is to identify some of the reasons why the male female wage gap narrowed more quickly in the 1980s than in the 1970s despite a deceleration of the growth in female labor force activity in the 1980s what appears to be the case is that predominantly younger and less experienced females entered the labor force in the 1970s the entry of women with relatively little human capital brought down the growth in women s average human capital o neill 1985 so that despite the upsurge of women s labor force participation in the 1970s women s average human capital relative to men s increased more slowly in the 1970s than in the 1980s this relatively slower growth in women s human capital appears to have played itself out in the 1980s both because the number of women joining the labor force slowed and because women s labor force attachment as measured by the proportion of potential work years actually worked increased blau 1998 with these trends average female human capital increased in the 1980s resulting in greater overall wage gains because of the stark differences between the 1970s and 1980s this paper concentrates on distinguishing the factors that contribute to men s and women s wage growth in the two decades despite the substantial literature on the male female wage gap the interdecade difference in the trend has not been adequately examined in what follows this paper uses the panel study of income dynamics psid to illustrate the effects of the demographic changes alluded to above 1 first it presents wage trends for the 1970s and 1980s second it provides direct measures of changes in human capital growth within each decade third to illustrate the importance of these demographic trends especially how new young labor market entrants bring down wages it shows that the higher relative female wage growth in the 1980s is reduced and the relatively slower female wage growth in the 1970s is enhanced when one controls for individual human capital characteristics these effects are illustrated first by including actual experience type variables in a regression whose coefficients measure wage growth and second by eliminating new entrants from 1970s and 1980s regression analysis the paper shows that with these controls increases in female average growth in both the 1970s and 1980s were more comparable than previously thought 2 recent literature on trends in the male female wage gap this is not the first paper to recognize the trend in male female wage convergence o neill 1985 blau and beller 1988 smith and ward 1989 goldin 1990 katz and murphy 1992 wellington 1993 o neill and polachek 1993 blau and kahn 1997 and blau 1998 all note that women s wages have risen relative to men smith and ward 1989 find that female relative wages rose between 1920 and 1980 when adjusting for worker skills goldin 1990 piecing together various data sources finds a similar long term narrowing according to her the ratio of female to male earnings in the economy as a whole rose from 0 46 to 0 56 during the period 1890 to 1930 but was virtually stable from 1950 to around 1980 p

is gender pay discrimination on the wane evidence from panel data 1968 1989 previous studies of the gender pay gap in the united states have found a narrowing of that gap in the past two decades but have differed substantially in the reported magnitude of that change this study calculates gender earnings differences using panel study of income dynamics data for 1968 89 a longer time series than has been examined by any similar study it also employs improved statistical techniques notably an adjustment for selection bias and a recently recommended modification of the most commonly used decomposition technique the author finds a significant decline both in the portion of the differential due to observed differences between men s and women s characteristics and in the unexplained component which is often attributed to discrimination the results of one analysis show that over the 1968 89 period the gender pay gap narrowed to as little as 47

unraveling the mne wage premium whereas ib has extensively studied mnes generic positive impact on host economies but rarely on employee wages economics research has only shown an overall mne wage premium we unravel this premium considering multiple levels of analysis and accounting for host country contextual contingencies to unveil mnes different positive or negative distributional effects using unique micro level data from over 40 000 employees in 13 countries we examine mnes distributional effects for employees gender experience and immigrant status the influence of host country property rights protection and labor regulation and interplays with region and industry effects mnes distributional effects show marked differences that largely depend on the host country context and that are positive for experienced and foreign born employees in developed countries but negative for females working in developing countries whereas in developed countries the gender wage gap is smaller in mnes than in domestic firms as hypothesized we find evidence of a larger wage gap in developing countries the analysis also reveals that the higher host countries level of property rights protection the lower the mne wage premium our study points at the need to reassess statements about the generic positive impact of mnes in host countries particularly in developing countries and discusses further research implications

international corporate governance a review and opportunities for future research we review four decades of research about the corporate governance of multinational corporations mncs which we label international corporate governance icg we identify and discuss three main streams of research that draw on different conceptualizations and theoretical lenses of corporate governance after synthesizing their respective findings we propose several avenues for future research that integrate these three streams of research with the goal of developing a more nuanced understanding of icg we hope this review article will inspire international business scholars to continue examining how corporate governance can be an effective tool for mnc success

wage structure and gender earnings differentials an international comparison using microdata to analyse the gender pay gap in ten industrialized nations we focus on the role of wage structure the prices of labour market skills in influencing the gender gap we find wage structure enormously important in explaining why the us gender gap is higher than that in most other countries we conclude that the us gap would be similar to that in sweden and australia the countries with the smallest gaps if the united states had their levels of wage inequality this finding reflects the larger penalty in the united states for those with low skill levels or employed in low wage sectors 650 o 75 the united states was amoung the countries with the largest differ entials oecd ilo usbls this paper uses microdata to analyse inter national differences in the gender pay gap among a sample of ten industrialized nations we focus particularly on explaining the surprisingly low ranking of the united states in comparison with other industrialized countries an advan tage of an international perspective is that countries vary considerably with respect to governmental policies women s relative labour market qualifications and wage setting institutions such variability allows one to infer reasons for differences in the pay gap and by implication the impact of alternative govern ment policies empirical research on gender pay gaps has traditionally focused on the role of gender differences in qualifications and on differences in the treatment of otherwise equally qualified male and female workers i e labour market dis crimination analyses of trends over time in the gender differential within countries as well as inter country comparisons of gender earnings ratios have tended to emphasize these types of gender specific factors an innovative feature of our study is to focus on the role of wage structure as an additional factor influencing the gender gap to analyse the impact of wage structure we adapt a framework developed by juhn et al 1991 to analyse trends over time in race differentials in the united states our findings suggest that labour market institutions that affect overall wage inequality have an extremely impor tant effect on the gender earnings gap wage structure describes the array of prices set for various labour market skills measured and unmeasured and rents received for employment in par

cross border takeovers corruption and related aspects of governance we use a panel of 4979 cross border and domestic takeovers to test the relation between host country corruption and premiums paid for local targets host country corruption is negatively associated with target premiums after correcting for other governance related factors such as political stability legal systems and financial disclosure standards we estimate that deterioration in the corruption index by one point on a 10 point scale is on average associated with a reduction of 21 of local targets premiums our results do not support the notion that local corruption constitutes a significant market barrier to foreign investors rather it represents a discount on local takeover synergies which affects foreign and domestic acquirers alike however we find that the major effects of corruption can alternatively be explained by government effectiveness pointing towards an endogenous relationship between bribery and bureaucracy

difference in earnings structures across local labor markets abstract this paper investigates whether workers encountered different earnings structures across local labor markets in the united states our analysis of human capital earnings models suggests that the u s is comprised of numerous distinct local labor markets as defined by a standard metropolitan statistical area

gender differences in pensions the causes of gender differences in pensions are examined for retirees and employees using the 1982 newly entitled beneficiary survey and the 1979 and 1988 may current population surveys for both retirees and the employed population much of the gender gap in coverage is accounted for by gender differences in labor market characteristics while children and marriage have a negative effect on female coverage among retirees even after controlling for labor market characteristics the negative effect is not observed among more recent groups of female employees finally recent convergence of male and female labor market characteristics contributed to a decline in the coverage gap during the 1980s

occupational segregation and wages in australia abstract the australian labour market is characterised by a gender wage differential of about 13 this paper investigates the claim that this is associated with the absence of appropriate evaluation ofthe work performed in female occupations about 40 of the differential might be removed by the implementation of true comparable worth a figure at the upper end of the range reported for the us labour market

a new database on the structure and development of the financial sector this article introduces a new database of indicators of financial structure and financial development across countries and over time the database is unique in that it combines a wide variety of indicators that measure the size activity and efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets it improves on previous efforts by presenting data on the public share of commercial banks introducing indicators of the size and activity of nonbank financial institutions and constructing measures of the size of bond and primary equity markets this article introduces a new database the first to provide comprehensive measures of the development structure and performance of the financial sector this database is the first to define and construct indicators of the size and activity of nonbank financial intermediaries such as insurance companies pension funds and non deposit money banks it is also the first to include indicators of the size of primary equity markets and primary and secondary bond markets in constructing the database authors carefully deflate measures and match stock and flow variables

the impact of unionization on male female earnings differences in canada the impact of unionization on male female earnings differences in canada is analyzed using data spanning 1981 to 1988 a period in which the male female unionization gap narrowed considerably gender differences in union density union wages and nonunion wages are decomposed into characteristics related and discriminatory components we find that the drop in the gender unionization gap prevented an increase of 7 percent in the overall wage differential between men and women also male female earnings differences in the nonunion sector make a substantially larger contribution to the gender earnings gap than do those in the union sector

do us employers discriminate against females when hiring their employees using johnson s decomposition technique this paper demonstrates that the disappearance of the gap between female and male unemployment rates in the united states during the last decade results partly from a general hiring policy that is favourable to women workers this conclusion holds for workers in five out of eight occupational subsamples considered the sign and size of unexplained female male unemployment rate differential estimated from 1969 1977 and 1987 cps data suggest that hiring discrimination against females in the us labour market has declined considerably during the last two decades the study also supports the earlier finding that the growth of employment in government and in the female dominated service sector and migration of workers from the south to other regions contribute significantly to the convergence of male and female unemployment rates in the 1980s

investor protection and corporate governance recent research has documented large differences among countries in ownership concentration in publicly traded firms in the breadth and depth of capital markets in dividend policies and in the access of firms to external finance a common element to the explanations of these differences is how well investors both shareholders and creditors are protected by law from expropriation by the managers and controlling shareholders of firms we describe the differences in laws and the effectiveness of their enforcement across countries discuss the possible origins of these differences summarize their consequences and assess potential strategies of corporate governance reform we argue that the legal approach is a more fruitful way to understand corporate governance and its reform than the conventional distinction between bank centered and market centered financial systems

male female disparity in starting pay empirical studies of the earnings of male and female workers persistently reveal a gap that is unexplained by the economic variables in these models this gap has been given two interpretations in the literature one holds that the gap reflects non market forces which distort the equilibrium relation among the wages of competing workers discrimination according to this view prevents female workers from being offered jobs commensurate with their qualifications and crowds them into low productivity occupations 2 the alternative interpretation holds that some substantial portion of the gap is an artifact the result of missing variables biased parameters or measurement error these researchers view the labor market as highly competitive and were it possible to correct for all these statistical problems the measured wage gap would largely vanish 3 this research belongs to the latter category we argue that a portion of the measured gap at least that observed between the earnings of young men and women during their first few years with their employers reflects sex related differences in the shares of investment in firm specific human capital borne by workers of each group moreover these variations in investment levels are freely chosen by women and in no way imply long run deficits in their earning power on the contrary the model predicts steeper earnings profiles of women who undertake this firm specific investment thus women s earnings are predicted eventually to overtake and surpass those of equally qualified men this theory was developed in earlier research by becker and lindsay 2 based on a model of hashimoto 11 12 and extensions by parsons 21 we argued that young women for nondiscriminatory reasons elect to shoulder a larger share of this investment than young men the explanation for this is developed in two stages the first derives the terms under which both male and female workers share the investment with their employers the second argues that female workers will be led by these considerations to bear a larger share workers of both sexes agree to enter into inflexible wage contracts with employers specifying a share of the investment i e a wage deduction from current mvp and a post investment wage the advantage to such contracts lies in the solution to an assymetric information problem the

segmented labor markets new evidence from a study of four race gender groups using data from a supplement to the 1983 current population survey the author tests hypotheses of segmented labor market theory two labor market sectors a primary sector and secondary sector are identified on the basis of occupational segmentation as inferred from workers answers to the question of whether specific skills or prior training were conditions for their employment the results show significant unexplained earnings differentials across sectors for each of four groups black men black women white men and white women other segmented labor market hypotheses are also generally supported by the results but distinct variations are found across the four groups

bridging the trade environment divide protection for free traders this word represents the consummate evil for environmentalists it is the ultimate good of course for the trade community protection conjures up dark images of smoot and hawley while the environmental camp sees clear mountain streams lush green forests and piercing blue skies one cannot blame all of the tensions at the trade environment interface on linguistic differences but these competing perspectives are emblematic of a deep clash of cultures theories and assumptions trade officials often seek to limit efforts to link trade and environmental policy making and sometimes to prohibit such efforts altogether in this regard the narrow focus and modest efforts of the world trade organization s committee on trade and environment are illustrative 1 the launch of negotiations for a free trade area of the americas with an express decision to exclude environmental issues from the agenda provides an even starker example of the trade community s hostility toward serious environmental engagement economists have been prominent among those arguing that pollution control and natural resource management issues are best kept out of the trade policy making process cooper 1994 bhagwati 1999 other economists however have tried to set trade policy making in a broader context and to build environmental sensitivity into the international trading system runge 1994 rodrik 1997 summers 2000

income inequality among female heads of households racial inequality reconsidered this paper investigates the factors that might have influenced earnings inequality among female heads of households over an extended period the study used the generalized entropy measures of inequality in short run as well as long run income for the period 1978 86 the results suggest that short run inequality has generally increased these fluctuations are due partially to the existence of transitory components which distort our view the measured long run inequality shows a decline in the early years because of the smoothing of the transitory components race in conjunction with age education and marital status is used to investigate their effects race and education are shown to be the most influential factors the mobility profiles show the existence of permanent inequality among female heads of households

do countries matter for voluntary disclosure evidence from cross listed firms in the us this paper explores the likelihood and consequences of voluntary disclosure proxied by management earnings forecasts for a sample of 1005 cross listed firms in the us from 40 countries over the period 1996 2005 our study is grounded in a three tiered conceptual framework that relies on insights from and implications of institutional theory agency theory and bonding theory to explain the costs and benefits associated with voluntary disclosure consistent with institutional theory and agency theory our results indicate that disclosure likelihood increases with the strength of cross listed firms home country legal institutions and is also influenced by us listing type product market internationalization and ownership structure further our results show that voluntarily committing to us disclosure practice is associated with lower information asymmetry which supports reputational bonding theory overall our study provides a costs and benefits framework to understand voluntary disclosure practices in an international context our work also presents evidence that home country institutions still matter when foreign firms migrate into the us financial market which highlights the importance of country level institution development

international and intergenerational environmental externalities we examine a world in which policymakers actions in a given country at a given time have long lived effects on a common resource the global environment we consider the first best in which long lived planners behave cooperatively then examine the allocation of resources when there is non cooperation across countries across time or both finally we analyze the dynamic behavior of the economy along balanced growth paths it is found that while long lived international institutions are necessary to internalize all externalities cooperation at a point in time may be harmful to future generations

post school investment and wage differentials some further evidence the topic of wage differentials between demographic groups has received a great deal of attention in the literature among the most researched areas are wage differentials based on race and gender studies have consistently found that men earn more than women and whites earn more than blacks many attempts have been undertaken to explain these wage differentials with two main explanations evolving over time the first claims one group is paid less than another due to discrimination thus the fact that white males earn more than black males may be due to employers and employees distaste for hiring and working with minorities the second main explanation claims different groups have different levels of human capital thus black males earn less not because of discrimination but because they have fewer acquired skills than white males wage differentials are obviously important for public policy if workers are paid differing amounts simply because of their race or gender then society is not fully utilizing its resources this would indicate a need for stronger government intervention to remove discriminatory practices by businesses for example this intervention may take the form of affirmative action programs or mandating comparable worth however if the gap in wages is due to choices made by individuals which lead to differences in human capital then the wage differentials may be justified as a result government intervention is not only unnecessary but may be an example of inefficient regulation since no easy way exists to measure the extent of discrimination the standard method has been to decompose the residual of a wage equation into explained and unexplained portions the idea being that some of the wage gap can be explained by differences in attributes between groups of individuals goldin and polachek 5 point out that attributes may also be due to discrimination if for example blacks are the first to be laid off this may result in lower levels of experience this is not by choice and may indicate discrimination also there is a question of which is the appropriate base group for example the researcher has two alternatives when examining the wage gap between black and white males he or she can take the predicted black wage given white characteristics as a percentage of white wages or take the actual black wage as a percentage of predicted white wages given black characteristics in many cases the choice is not really clear and as a result often an average of these two is taken by employing a dummy variable for either

the consequences of a one sided externality in a dynamic two agent framework abstract we develop a dynamic model where all agents contribute to a global externality but only those in a specific region suffer from it we model this in a dynamic setting via a two agent non cooperative overlapping generations model and analyze the consequences for economic growth and intertemporal choices we find that multiple steady states may result from this asymmetry in particular if the agent who is affected by the externality has to spend a large share of his income to offset it then he may be stuck in an environmental poverty trap we provide conditions for the existence of and local convergence to the equilibria as well as a condition for the global convergence to the poverty trap while in addition to maintenance expenditures externalities tend to be addressed via studying taxes investment in r d or alike we focus on capital market integration specifically agents in the affected region can open up their capital market to enable capital inflows we investigate whether an open capital market improves or worsens their welfare while we do find that capital market integration eliminates the environmental poverty trap we show that capital market integration is not always in both agents interest in particular we provide conditions under which the agents prefer autarkic or integrated capital markets

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

gender wage gap and the role of skills and tasks evidence from the austrian piaac data set we analyze the gender differences in skills tasks and skill matching of workers and the impact of these factors on the gender wage gap using the survey of adult skills a product of the oecd pro

reassessing the male female wage differential a fixed effects approach the vast literature on the subject of the male female wage differential has shown that despite dramatic structural and behavioral changes in the labor supply of women a sizeable wage differential exists 19 2 9 6 4 o neill 16 s92 finds that a sex differential of about 40 as measured by full time annual earnings has persisted in the u s for the last four decades but while few doubt the existence of the wage gap there is considerable controversy regarding the role of the factors explaining the gap the conventional approach of economists has been to estimate earnings as a function of various socio economic characteristics the observed wage gap is decomposed into a part explained by productivity related factors and an unexplained residual traditionally labelled as discrimination while it is possible that the unexplained variation in earnings is the result of discrimination it is also possibly the result of model misspecification 2 in this present paper we address the misspecification that could possibly arise from omitted variables endogeneity and sample selection while these issues have been considered in the context of women s labor supply functions they have largely been ignored in studies on the wage differential 12 13 we approach the problem of omitted variables by formulating a fixed effects model in this way productivity related factors that are difficult to measure or have unsuitable proxies are netted out from the earnings equation furthermore some of the variables that are used to explain wages are themselves the outcome of discrimination in particular the labor market experience of a woman is dependent on her wages earned here we address the endogeneity that such a cause and effect relationship may bring about a third difficulty arises because a typical sample of working women is a non random selection of the female labor force giving rise to the problem of sample selection bias heckman s 12 213 17 procedure is used to formulate a sample selection model of earnings the organization of this paper proceeds as follows section ii begins with the traditional model of earnings and then develops an extended model which consolidates the issues of omitted variables endogeneity and sample selection section iii contains the empirical results of the

male female differences in hourly wages the role of human capital working conditions and housework this study uses a new data set from a 1986 survey of workers to examine simultaneously the wage effects of human capital household responsibilities working conditions and on the job training the analysis suggests that household responsibilities had a negative effect on women s earnings but the unexplained difference between the earnings of men and women is not greatly reduced by inclusion in the explanatory model of information on either housework or working conditions the presence of children appears to have had a positive effect on the wages of both men and women t wenty years of research on gender differences in earnings have failed to explain the entire wage gap as a consequence of measured differences between male and female workers some researchers view the unexplained residual as evidence of discrimination against female workers others take the position that the entire wage gap is potentially explicable by differences in labor supply according to the latter view an unexplained wage gap remains because the data sets in use do not contain adequate information on all productivity related characteristics this view implies that the unexplained wage gap will be reduced by more comprehensive infor

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

optimal growth with pollution how to use pollution permits abstract we study the optimal growth path and its decentralization in an overlapping generation model in the presence of externalities decentralization of an optimal path needs some specific taxes in addition to lump sum transfers the introduction of a market for permits neutralizes the external environmental effects we show that there is a unique management of permits such that the equilibrium coincides with the optimal path all permits should be auctioned i e no permits should be given to firms this conclusion is in contradiction with the usual practice of grandfathering

heteroskedastic sample selection and developing country wage equations many researchers have dealt with potential selectivity bias in developing country wage equations by employing heckman s 1979 two step method or related techniques despite the potential for such methods to produce misleading results if the assumptions on which they are based are incorrect this paper argues that the results produced even by parametric easy to implement selectivity bias correction methods can inspire more confidence than the typical applications to date when model selection testing is used to select from a specified diverse set assumptions for which there is support in the data and when sensitivity analysis is used to identify parameters whose estimates are robust across a wide range of assumptions in particular it highlights the importance of allowing for the nonlinearities implied by selection rule heteroskedasticity there is economic reason to suspect heteroskedasticity and econometric reason to believe that the nonlinearities it introduces into the first stage will improve

generating conditional expectations from models with selectivity bias comment abstract plugging identical values of the mills ratio into estimates of selectivity adjusted wage regressions for men and women generates wage predictions that pertain to men and women with identical unobserved characteristics only under highly restrictive conditions this calls into question the suggestion of vella 1988 and the details of several gender gap decomposition studies

trends in the well being of american women 1970 1995 this paper examines the trends in the well being of american women over the last 25 years a time of significant changes in the relative economic status of women and in the labor market as a whole a broad range of indicators are considered to capture changes in women s well being in the family as well as in the labor market for virtually all age and education groups substantial evidence is obtained of rising gender equality in labor market outcomes notably labor force participation wages and occupational distributions broad evidence is also found of greater gender parity within married couple families as the housework time of husbands increased relative to wives and the relative wages of wives rose compared to their husbands however parallel to the recent evidence of the declining labor market position of lower skilled men there has been a similar deterioration in the economic status of less educated women especially high school dropouts their labor force participation rates and wages have risen at a much slower pace than those of more highly educated women while their incidence of single headship has increased much more rapidly these findings for less educated women serve to underscore the widening gap between more and less skilled americans of both sexes as well as to emphasize its broad dimensions

public offerings of state owned and privately owned enterprises an international comparison we compare initial offer prices in privatizations to initial prices in public offerings of private companies the evidence indicates that government officials in the united kingdom underprice ipos significantly more than their private company counterparts in canada and malaysia however the opposite is true there does not appear to be a general tendency for privatizations to be underpriced to a greater degree than private company ipos we provide additional evidence on the determinants of privatization initial returns our findings indicate that initial returns are significantly higher in relatively primitive capital markets and for privatized companies in regulated industries

an overlapping generations model of growth and the environment this article analyzes the potential conflict between economic growth and the maintenance of environmental quality in an overlapping generations model short lived individuals make decisions which have long lasting effects on both factor productivity and the environment the model provides a theoretical explanation of observed correlations between environmental quality and income whereby economic growth is associated first with declines then improvements in environmental quality it suggests circumstances in which multiple pareto ranked steady state equilibria may arise and in which sustained growth of both capital and environmental quality may occur overmaintenance of the environment analogous to dynamically inefficient overaccumulation of capital may emerge copyright 1994 by royal economic society

venture capitalist certification in initial public offerings this paper provides support for the certification role of venture capitalists in initial public offerings consistent with the certification hypothesis a comparison of venture capital backed ipos with a control sample of nonventure capital backed ipos from 1983 through 1987 matched as closely as possible by industry and offering size indicates that venture capital backing results in significantly lower initial returns and gross spreads in effect the presence of venture capitalists in the issuing firms serves to lower the total costs of going public and to maximize the net proceeds to the offering firm in addition we document that venture capitalists retain a significant portion of their holdings in the firm after the ipo the ability of third party specialists to certify the value of securities issued by relatively unknown firms in capital markets that are characterized by asymmetric information between corporate insiders and public investors has attracted much academic interest in recent years several authors including james 1990 blackwell marr and spivey 1990 and barry muscarella peavy and vetsuypens 1991 have developed and tested models based at least in part on the formal certification hypothesis presented in booth and smith 1986 a related body of work represented by deangelo 1981 beatty and ritter 1986 titman and trueman 1986 johnson and miller 1988 carter 1990 simon 1990 and carter and manaster 1990 has examined how investment bankers and auditors help resolve the asymmetric information inherent in the initial public offering ipo process in this paper we examine whether the presence of venture capitalists as investors in a firm going public can certify that the offering price of the issue reflects all available and relevant inside information we hypothesize that venture capitalists can perform this function that it will be an economically

equity issue specific versus broad regulatory protections against expropriation risk international evidence from seos abstract we compare non issue specific broad investor protections against expropriation by firm s insiders with regulations that specifically protect investors of new equity issues issue specific since in nation regulations rarely change and are homogenous for all firms it is difficult to compare issue and non issue specific investor protection mechanisms in country specific studies we utilize cross country differences in regulations to study the relative importance of issue specific and broad regulatory protections using data on seasoned equity offerings seo we find that seo underpricing is related to broad protections in particular seo underpricing is negatively positively related with the strength of ex post ex ante anti self dealing laws independent of broad protections seo underpricing is unaffected by issue specific investor protections that is neither by disclosure requirements imposed on equity issuers nor by equity issue specific liability rights conferred on investors interactions between broad protections and issue specific protections indicate issue specific protections reduce seo underpricing only in countries with strong broad protections

the costs of going public abstract this paper presents evidence regarding the two quantifiable components of the costs of going public direct expenses and underpricing together these costs average 21 22 of the realized market value of the securities issued for firm commitment offers and 31 87 for best efforts offers for a given size offer the direct expenses are of the same order of magnitude for both contract types but the underpricing is greater for best efforts offers an explanation of why some firms choose to use best efforts offers in spite of their apparent higher total costs is given

schooling and changes in the inequality in male and female earnings in the united states over the 1970s ref jnl au fn j s sn akin eau au fn i sn garfinkel eau chti the quality of education and cohort variation in black white earnings ditferentials comment title american economic review vol 70 year 1980 fp 186 lp 191 ejnl bk au fn g sn becker eau title the economics of discrimination pub name university of chicago press cty chicago year 1957 epub ebk jnl au fn a h sn beller eau chti the impact of equal opportunity policy on sex differentials in earnings and occupations title american economic review vol 72 year 1982a fp 171 lp 175 ejnl jnl au fn a h sn beller eau chti occupational segregation by sex determinants and changes title journal of human resource vol 17 year 1982b fp 371 lp 192 ejnl jnl au fn b r sn bergmann eau chti the effect on white income of discrimination in employment title journal of political economy vol 6 year 1971 fp 294 lp 313 ejnl jnl au fn a s sn blinder eau chti wage discri

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

does drug use lower wages this study using microdata from the 1980 and 1984 waves of the national longitudinal survey of youth examines the effects of drug use on wages and employment contrary to most previous researcher