a review of the recent empirical literature on displaced workers this article reviews the empirical literature on job displacement job displacement is widespread and strongly countercyclical tending to peak during economic downturns but concentrated in indus

wage loss following displacement the role of union coverage using two canadian data sets the authors explore the role of union coverage in displaced workers wage losses while only 32 of the workers had unionized jobs prior to displacement the wage loss suffered by these workers represented about 80 of the wages lost by all displaced workers in both samples losing union status was associated with large losses whether or not a worker switched industries after displacement extrapolating the results to the united states the authors estimate that one third to one half of u s displaced workers wage losses may be due purely to the loss of union coverage

private agri food standards implications for food policy and the agri food system abstract this paper provides a brief introduction to the evolution and nature of private food safety and quality standards highlighting the resultant impacts on the structure and modus operandi of supply chains for agricultural and food products and the challenges posed for processes of agricultural development it serves as an introduction to a series of papers that provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge regarding private food safety and quality standards in both an industrialised and developing country context in so doing it aims to provide a catalyst for further research on this rapidly evolving field of inquiry

industry specific human capital occupation and firm size evidence from taiwan this paper investigates the importance of various types of human capital and highlights the role played by industry tenure in determining wages in taiwan it also aims to offer possible explanations as to why industry specific human capital is much less significant than it is in the united states empirically it is found that other things being equal accumulating industry tenure decreases earnings for both the least skilled workers and those employed in mid sized firms industry specific skills are not yet deeply implemented in most occupations and firms of all sizes this might also account for the remarkable level of labor reallocation among industries that is observed in taiwan furthermore the capital stock accumulated through education is found to be the most crucial in determining wages in all estimations and a factor considered the engine of growth during the miraculous development of taiwan s economy however the importance of other types of human capital on earnings namely general labor market experience and firm specific human capital varies substantially across groups

wage losses for displaced workers many studies have shown that displaced workers experience substantial wage reductions that are strongly related to their predisplacement job tenure and experience this paper is an assessment of whether firm closures or downturns in more broadly defined labor markets drive the extreme wage losses of high tenure high experience displaced workers i show that the relatively high wage losses of high experience displaced workers are primarily due to their heightened sensitivity to downturns in their state industry and occupation however the large wage losses of high tenure displaced workers are not explained by their sensitivity to these local downturns one interpretation of these facts is that firm specialization is linked primarily to firm specific experience but not to general labor market experience

the globalization of organic agro food networks summary this article analyzes the booming world trade in organic agro foods such as tropical products counterseasonal fresh produce and processed foods research focuses on expanding south north networks linking major us and european markets with major production regions particularly in latin america employing a commodity network approach i analyze organic production distribution and consumption patterns and the roles of social political and economic actors in consolidating international trade organic certification proves central to network governance shaping product specifications production parameters and enterprise participation my analysis identifies key contradictions between mainstream agro industrial and alternative movement conventions in global organic networks 2004 published by elsevier ltd

immigration search and loss of skill this article develops and estimates an on the job search model of the entry of highly skilled immigrants from the former soviet union into the israeli labor market the estimated parameters of the model together with information on the wages of immigrants from earlier waves imply that on average immigrants can expect lifetime earnings to fall short of the lifetime earnings of comparable natives by 57 of this figure 14 percentage points reflect frictions associated with nonemployment and job distribution mismatch and 43 percentage points reflect the gradual adaptation of imported schooling and experience to the local labor market

labor market conditions and the reemployment of displaced workers the authors of this study use data from the january 1984 current population survey to examine the impact of local labor market conditions on the financial losses of displaced manufacturing workers they find that strong overall growth in the local economy reduced the economic losses of white collar workers whose industry of displacement was declining but not of blue collar workers in the same situation most older poorly educated blue collar workers with long tenure at their pre layoff job suffered large financial losses even when displaced in a growing local economy all workers including those who were young and well educated suffered large financial losses when located in a depressed local economy

unemployment through the filter of memory this paper uses data from the annual work experience survey to construct a new unemployment series based on respondents recollection of unemployment over the previous year it is argued that the ratio of this new series to the official series computed from the monthly current population survey provides an index of the salience or painfulness of unemployment over the past two decades this ratio has declined secularly about 30 percent of this decrease is due to shifts in the composition of unemployment toward demographic groups with low ratios of remembered to currently reported unemployment the remainder is due to a secular decline in salience for younger and older people

union membership in the united states 1973 1981 this paper reports estimates of union membership gathered from may current population surveys from 1973 to 1981 the authors present data by occupation industry selected states and smsas race gender and educational attainment the paper both extends and differs from that by freeman and medoff which presents unionism estimates for the private sector for 1968 75 to facilitate longitudinal analysis this paper reports three year moving averages of occupational and industry data and annual estimates of demographic classifications the data include public sector as well as private sector workers and they exclude workers not covered by the national labor relations act also the authors provide only union membership estimates not estimates on workers covered by union contracts this paper suggests that the percentage of all workers that are unionized in the united states remained fairly constant over the 1973 81 period

earnings losses of displaced workers revisited recent literature reviews conclude that job displacement results in sustained earnings losses bruce c fallick 1996 lori g kletzer 1998 and that estimates of the size of those reductions vary with the type of data used in the analysis the industry within which displacement occurs and business cycle conditions the largest estimated losses were obtained using administrative data from pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s louis s jacobson robert j lalonde and daniel g sullivan 1993a the data covered a period of high unemployment in a heavily indus trialized state characterized by disproportionate job losses in manufacturing thus the ability to generalize those results to more favorable economic times and states with a greater reliance on service sector employment has been questioned to address these issues administrative data are used to similarly examine the impact of job displacement on earnings losses of workers in connecticut from 1993 to 2004 the work of jacobson lalonde and sullivan jls also provided important methodologi cal advancement by adapting analytical techniques developed for program evaluation james j heckman and v joseph hotz 1989 to the context of job displacement the same techniques fixed effects and time trend estimators as those used in the original jls publication are initially employed here then the methods are extended to include matching estimators developed since their publication both nearest neighbor estimators of average treatment on the treated att and differenced average treatment on the treated datt are adapted to the context of this study heckman hidehiko ichimura and petra todd 1997 heckman et al 1998 and rajeev h dehejia and sadek wahba 1999 2002 the results presented here for connecticut differ in some ways from those found in the work of jls using data from pennsylvania in the period immediately following job loss regardless of the technique employed earnings reductions for workers displaced through mass layoff range from 32 percent to 33 percent jls reported immediate losses of more than 40 percent six years later using the same estimators as jls earnings reductions in connecticut range from 13 percent to 15 percent they report sustained losses in pennsylvania of 25 percent the smaller long term impacts in connecticut demonstrate that under more ordinary economic times esti mated losses from administrative data lie within the range observed using other data sources this finding resolves a long standing conflict among the results of high quality studies that have used differing data sources to study earnings reductions following job loss 1 using two different matching estimators earnings losses six years after mass layoff are 12 percent the matching estimators compare those who experienced mass layoff to compari sons with the same ex ante probability of the event these smaller losses are consistent with the

interindustry variation in the costs of job displacement job displacement entails a substantial wage reduction for most displaced workers we show that the mean reduction the tenure profile of reductions and the experience profile of reductions all vary substantially across industries we then link this interindustry variation to analogous variation in firm size unionization wage levels and the incidence of employer provided training while these industry characteristics explain some of the interindustry variation in mean wage reductions they do not explain variation in the tenure or experience profiles of wage reductions

eco labels as a multidimensional research topic trends and opportunities abstract this study analyzes the importance of ecolabels as an eco innovation tool that can contribute to the sustainable design production and consumption of products our research has a dual objective the first is to build a theoretical framework that explains the relationship between ecolabels and eco innovation their determinants demand supply and institutional and political influences and the dimensions that arise from them second according to this framework a systematic literature review was carried out to identify the trends and opportunities in ecolabeling as a multidimensional topic from empirical geographical and sectorial perspective the main contributions of this paper are a proposal for cyclical ecolabeling innovation process an understanding of the ecolabeling dimensions according to the studies analyzed and ecolabel performance in the market additionally the systematic literature review revealed that ecolabels have been mainly explored in food sectors and developed countries and researchers tend to assess their performance from the dimension of market dynamics

greener than thou the political economy of fish ecolabeling and its local manifestations in south africa summary developing country governments and industries have been reluctant to support ecolabels fearing their potentially protectionist effects this reluctance has been countered by international organizations such as fao and ecolabel initiatives with assurances of transparency non discrimination and technical assistance the analysis of the marine stewardship council msc label shows that developing country fisheries and small scale ones in particular have been marginalized furthermore the msc certification of the hake industry in south africa illustrates that ecolabeling is sought in the context of competitive pressures and specific political economies not simply on the basis of value free science and systemic management this article concludes that developing country producers need dedicated systems of standards and verification procedures not only special flexibilities

addressing the global sustainability challenge the potential and pitfalls of private governance from the perspective of human capabilities contemporary global politics is characterized by an increasing trend toward experimental forms of governance with an emphasis on private governance a plurality of private standards codes of conduct and quality assurance schemes currently developed particularly though not exclusively by tncs replace traditional intergovernmental regimes in addressing profound global environmental and socio economic challenges ranging from forest deforestation fisheries depletion climate change to labor and human rights concerns while this trend has produced a heated debate in science and politics surprisingly little attention has been paid on the effects of private governance on questions of distribution and justice this is highly problematic at the beginning of the twenty first century global inequalities are greater than ever before while rapid economic social political and environmental changes threaten to further derail sustainable development and humanitarian objectives if private governance creates or intensifies some of the pressing global inequalities e g food security and alleviates others e g environmental degradation from a business ethics perspective we need to know which aspects need to be strengthened and where appropriate interventions are necessary and desirable this paper proposes a framework to examine and classify the distributive outcomes of private governance institutions through the lenses of one particular approach to distributive justice the capability approach empirically it focuses on agrifood one area where the controversy regarding the distributive concerns of private governance are particularly pronounced

long run wage and earnings losses of displaced workers displacement related losses are estimated using national longitudinal survey of youth data that span the years 1979 2000 the typical displaced worker faces losses of 34 065 during the period 4 years prior through 5 years following displacement proportionally this represents a 10 8 loss compared to earnings of similar nondisplaced workers over the period considerable variation in losses is reported across worker types union male and more mature workers suffer greater losses respectively than do their nonunion female and younger counterparts college graduates and high school dropouts are found to suffer lower losses compared to high school diploma holders and those who completed some college

contribution of fisheries and aquaculture to food security and poverty reduction assessing the current evidence following a precise evaluation protocol that was applied to a pool of 202 articles published between 2003 and 2014 this paper evaluates the existing evidence of how and to what extent capture fisheries and aquaculture contribute to improving nutrition food security and economic growth in developing and emergent countries in doing so we evaluate the quality and scientific rigor of that evidence identify the key conclusions that emerge from the literature and assess whether these conclusions are consistent across the sources the results of the assessment show that while some specific topics are consistently and rigorously documented thus substantiating some of the claims found in the literature other areas of research still lack the level of disaggregated data or an appropriate methodology to reach consistency and robust conclusions more specifically the analysis reveals that while fish contributes undeniably to nutrition and food security the links between fisheries aquaculture and poverty alleviation are complex and still unclear in particular national and household level studies on fisheries contributions to poverty alleviation lack good conceptual models and produce inconsistent results for aquaculture national and household studies tend to focus on export value chains and use diverse approaches they suggest some degree of poverty alleviation and possibly other positive outcomes for adopters but these outcomes also depend on the small scale farming contexts and on whether adoption was emergent or due to development assistance interventions impacts of fish trade on food security and poverty alleviation are ambiguous and confounded by a focus on international trade and a lack of consistent methods the influences of major drivers decentralization climate change demographic transition are still insufficiently documented and therefore poorly understood finally the evaluation reveals that evidence based research and policy narratives are often disconnected with some of the strongest and long lasting policy narratives lacking any strong and rigorous evidence based validation building on these different results this paper identifies six key gaps facing policy makers development practitioners and researchers

consumer choices for quality and sustainability labelled seafood products in the uk there has been a growing interest in recent years in the potential use of product differentiation in seafood products mainly through eco type labelling as a means of promoting and rewarding the sustainable management and exploitation of fish stocks the potential encapsulated by product differentiation has however yet to be tested in the market place within many countries including the uk this paper draws on a study exploring the nature and extent of the response of uk consumers to the introduction of labelled seafood products and explores the potential of product differentiation to promote sustainable fisheries from the results presented in this paper the scale of the effect has been shown to be greater for sustainability and quality forms of product differentiation than the effect generated by any of the other potential labels the origin and mode of production also generated sizeable and significant effects these results suggest that moves underway to implement certification schemes can be justified in support of sustainable fisheries management the important policy implication is that improvement in the supply side management of fisheries will be needed to facilitate more widespread adaptation of certification schemes nonetheless the opportunities for higher premiums and greater market share due to certification will provide additional incentives for the required management improvements

differences in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan u s family income inequality a cross county comparison abstract u s family income inequality is examined using 1990 cenus of population data for the 3109 counties and independent cities in the 48 contiguous states use of counties as the unit of analysis extends previous research on u s income inequality that relied on national state or metropolitan level data in addition including both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties allows us to determine whether income inequality differs between them after controlling for a variety of labor market demographic and regional characteristics as another innovation we also consider whether counties that experienced recent structural changes in industry composition have higher income inequality

which workers get insurance within the firm abstract industry level time series data suggest that low skilled workers get less insurance within the firm than high skilled workers in particular wages respond relatively more to productivity shocks in low skilled industries than high skilled industries our theory is that low skilled workers get relatively less insurance from their firms because they have relatively lower displacement costs under limited commitment lower displacement costs make the workers outside options more attractive and hence decrease the amount of risk sharing sustainable within the firm evidence on average displacement costs by industry support the theory s predictions

in the market but not of it fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification as market based social change summary this paper discusses two well known market based social change initiatives fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification which harness market forces to pursue social and environmental objectives a serious challenge for both is to operate in the conventional market without undermining their original objectives a global commodity chain analysis approach is combined with insights from economic sociology embeddedness theory to explore the social cultural and organizational factors shaping the initiatives governance structures both initiatives are seen to move along opposite organizational trajectories but face similar pressures from conventional market logics practices and dominant actors a preliminary framework is proposed for comparative assessment focusing on distribution of benefits how conventional market institutions may be questioned and how internal governance manages diverse stakeholder interests and influence

standards as a new form of social contract sustainability initiatives in the coffee industry abstract in the former age of national capitalism the achievement of market fairness was embedded in a normative framework generated by government labor unions and perhaps religious authority in the current age of global capitalism new actors such as ngos industry associations and public private partnerships provide the normative framework that corporations use for social legitimacy in this context standard setting processes operate as new forms of social contract where the state rather than being directly involved between the parties provides a form of basic guarantee while more or less accountable ngos and firms are in charge of hammering out the bargains this article examines the dynamics of this new configuration through the case study of sustainability initiatives in the coffee sector it addresses four questions 1 are these standards effective in communicating information and creating new markets 2 to what extent do they embed elements of collective and private interests 3 is sustainability content actually delivered to their intended beneficiaries and 4 what is the role of public policy in addressing their shortcomings

on nonrenewable resource oligopolies the asymmetric case we give a full characterization of the open loop nash equilibrium of a nonrenewable resource game between two types of firms differing in extraction costs we show that i there almost always exists a phase where both types of firms supply simultaneously ii when the high cost mines are exploited by a number of firms that goes to infinity the equilibrium approaches the cartel versus fringe equilibrium with the fringe firms acting as price takers and iii the cheaper resource may not be exhausted first a violation of the herfindahl rule that may be detrimental to social welfare

a qualitative meta synthesis of the benefits of eco labeling in developing countries eco labeling or environmental certification is often promoted as a regulatory instrument capable of incentivizing sustainable resource use even in the absence of stringent government environmental regulations despite slow uptake in developing countries and high producer costs a growing body of case study evidence suggests that producers benefit in varied ways from certification a qualitative meta synthesis approach is applied to this body of evidence in order to assess the type and extent of producer benefits reported in case studies of forest stewardship council fsc and marine stewardship council msc certification in developing countries while benefits from price premiums and market access appear to be limited less tangible benefits were more common including learning governance community empowerment and reputational benefits these benefits may justify the cost of certification

the human capital and economic growth nexus in east and south asia abstractthis study adopts a disaggregated regional focus to test for the human capital hc growth nexus in selected nine asian countries it utilizes the empirical bayesian methodology which addresses not only the heterogeneity issue but it also utilizes the common structural priors of regional countries to yield informationally efficient estimates of the impact of hc on the stock and levels of gdp various measures of hc are utilized to determine which of these produces a better explanation of economic growth in the two asian regions the study finds that primary and secondary education was more prominent in explaining the fluctuations of economic growth in east asia whereas tertiary and vocational education showed positive effects on economic growth in south asia government expenditures on education were also found to positively affect economic growth in both regions the results shed new evidence to establish that the differences in growth rates within east and south asia are associated with diffe

labour leverage in global value chains the role of interdependencies and multi level dynamics the global segmentation of production and distribution has resulted in highly complex global value chains gvcs where vertical and horizontal dynamics are equally important in determining working conditions and providing points of leverage for labour borrowing notions of multi level governance we propose an analytical framework for describing and explaining success and failure of labour agency when attempting to improve working conditions along gvcs our starting point is that the high complexity of gvcs and the absence of a global overarching authority have been balanced by the emergence of governance mechanisms of different forms and at different levels an assessment of these mechanisms which emphasize process over institutions reveals how different types of interactions and interdependencies along gvcs impact on labour s use of power we argue that in order to fully situate labour agency within governance debates any future research agenda needs to be driven by micro level bottom up approaches

does the availability of high wage jobs for low skilled men affect welfare expenditures evidence from shocks to the steel and coal industries abstract we study shocks to the coal and steel industries to measure the effect of long term changes in demand for low skilled workers on welfare expenditures the coal and steel industries have historically paid high wages to low skilled men we find a substantial increase in welfare expenditures in response to the collapse of the steel and coal industries in the 1980s and an even more substantial reduction in welfare expenditures during the coal boom of the 1970s additional analysis indicates the reduction in welfare expenditures during the coal boom is due in part to a decline in single parent households