The first in a series of books published with the IZA, this book presents and analyzes the work of one of the most important economists of the 20th century - Jacob Mincer. Mincer's work has had a ...lasting influence on contemporary labor economics in both theoretical and methodological terms. Mincer played a central role in shaping contemporary labor economics, not the least by largely determining its research agenda. His work in the 1960s and 70s on the determinants of individual earnings, notably human capital, and on labor force supply, particularly female participation, have had an enormous impact on the way others have approached labor economics. This book presents a systematic analysis of his extensive published work, emphasising its continuity as a lifetime research program that has made a lasting influence on modern labor economics. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0199211310/toc.html
THE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY GAP Gollin, Douglas; Lagakos, David; Waugh, Michael E.
The Quarterly journal of economics,
05/2014, Volume:
129, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
According to national accounts data, value added per worker is much higher in the nonagricultural sector than in agriculture in the typical country, particularly in developing countries. Taken at ...face value, this ‘‘agricultural productivity gap’’ suggests that labor is greatly misallocated across sectors. In this article, we draw on new micro evidence to ask to what extent the gap is still present when better measures of sector labor inputs and value added are taken into consideration. We find that even after considering sector differences in hours worked and human capital per worker, as well as alternative measures of sector output constructed from household survey data, a puzzlingly large gap remains.
This article reports the results from a randomized experiment designed to evaluate the direct and indirect (displacement) impacts of job placement assistance on the labor market outcomes of young, ...educated job seekers in France. We use a two-step design. In the first step, the proportions of job seekers to be assigned to treatment (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%) were randomly drawn for each of the 235 labor markets (e.g., cities) participating in the experiment. Then, in each labor market, eligible job seekers were randomly assigned to the treatment, following this proportion. After eight months, eligible, unemployed youths who were assigned to the program were significantly more likely to have found a stable job than those who were not. But these gains are transitory, and they appear to have come partly at the expense of eligible workers who did not benefit from the program, particularly in labor markets where they compete mainly with other educated workers, and in weak labor markets. Overall, the program seems to have had very little net benefits.
An important line of research using laboratory experiments has provided a new potential reason for gender imbalances in labour markets: men are more competitively inclined than women. Whether, and to ...what extent, gender differences in attitudes toward competition lead to differences in naturally occurring labour markets remains an open question. To examine this, we run a natural field experiment on job-entry decisions where we randomize almost 9000 job-seekers into different compensation regimes. By varying the role that individual competition plays in setting the wage and the gender composition, we examine whether a competitive compensation regime, by itself, can cause differential job entry. The data highlight the power of the compensation regime in that women disproportionately shy away from competitive work settings. Yet, there are important factors that attenuate the gender differences, including whether the job is performed in teams, whether the position has overt gender associations, and the age of the job-seekers. We also find that the effect is most pronounced in labour markets with attractive alternative employment options. Furthermore, our results suggest that preferences over uncertainty can be just as important as preferences over competition per se in driving job-entry choices.
With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the ...labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design, including the structure of benefits, the role of liquidity constraints and the pros and cons of a UI system in which the generosity of UI benefits is varying over the business cycle. Finally, we identify potential areas of future research.
Come potrà configurarsi il lavoro in futuro? Quali nuove realtà e valori emergeranno in seguito alle trasformazioni della Quarta Rivoluzione industriale? Quanto la partecipazione dei lavoratori ...risulterà decisiva per il successo delle organizzazioni? Il libro propone esperienze concrete di partecipazione âÂcreativa' di lavoratori e manager all'interno di aziende impegnate a sviluppare un'organizzazione intelligente. Nella prima parte del libro parlano operai, impiegati o dirigenti che possono avere anche ruoli negoziali in ordine alla contrattazione sindacale, ma che sono soprattutto impegnati affinché tutto funzioni, offrendo opportunità in grado di rigenerare i processi e valorizzare i lavoratori.
Nella seconda parte sono contenute riflessioni e proposte su come le esperienze di partecipazione possono sollecitare il mondo accademico, le relazioni sindacali, le politiche e il sistema legislativo ad approfondire e tener conto dei nuovi bisogni del lavoro, per costruire un circolo virtuoso che supporti imprese e lavoratori, direzione e partecipazione nelle sfide complesse poste dall'innovazione e dal mondo competitivo della produzione. Cipriani lavora con passione, per e con i lavoratori, nell'ambito dello sviluppo dell'innovazione, del benessere organizzativo e dei risultati condivisi. Esperto di sistemi organizzativi del lavoro, per Fim-Cisl svolge attività di progettazione e realizzazione di laboratori di innovazione organizzativa. In partnership con varie aziende sviluppa pratiche innovative di partecipazione dei lavoratori, soprattutto attraverso il lavoro in team. Autore di pubblicazioni sulle tematiche legate al lavoro, ai sistemi competitivi e alle relazioni industriali. Testo dell'editore.
Beauty in the eyes of the beholder Lindsay, Kellie B.; Smith, Ben O.; White, Dustin R.
Journal of economic behavior & organization,
January 2024, 2024-01-00, Volume:
217
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We investigate the unconscious influence of beauty on perceptions of commonly-sought employee traits. To do this, we develop a set of photos rated for “societal attractiveness” and use eye-tracking ...technology to measure participants' pupil sizes while they rate the same set of photos on perceived levels of competence, friendliness, and trustworthiness. We find that the same autonomic response to attractiveness occurs even when participants are asked to rate individuals on traits other than attractiveness. Each additional millimeter of pupil dilation results in about a seven percentage point increase in the perception of rated characteristics. Our data also suggest that societal and personal perceptions of beauty are substitutes rather than complements. These findings contribute to our understanding of the unconscious biases underlying the beauty premium and highlight the importance of considering both personal and societal perceptions of beauty in evaluating individuals. These results are important for labor market outcomes and suggest the need for further research on the unconscious role of beauty in shaping economic opportunities.
Household Choices and Child Development DEL BOCA, DANIELA; FLINN, CHRISTOPHER; WISWALL, MATTHEW
The Review of economic studies,
01/2014, Volume:
81, Issue:
1 (286)
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The growth in labour market participation among women with young children has raised concerns about its implications for child cognitive development. We estimate a model of the cognitive development ...process of children nested within an otherwise standard model of household behaviour. The household makes labour supply decisions and provides time and money inputs into the child quality production process during the development period. Our empirical results indicate that both parents' time inputs are important for the cognitive development of their children, particularly when the child is young. Money expenditures are less productive in terms of producing child quality. Comparative statics exercises demonstrate that cash transfers to households with children have small impacts on child quality due to the relatively low impact of money investments on child outcomes and the fact that a significant fraction of the transfer is spent on other household consumption and the leisure of the parents.
Propensity score matching (PSM) has become a popular approach to estimate causal treatment effects. It is widely applied when evaluating labour market policies, but empirical examples can be found in ...very diverse fields of study. Once the researcher has decided to use PSM, he is confronted with a lot of questions regarding its implementation. To begin with, a first decision has to be made concerning the estimation of the propensity score. Following that one has to decide which matching algorithm to choose and determine the region of common support. Subsequently, the matching quality has to be assessed and treatment effects and their standard errors have to be estimated. Furthermore, questions like ‘what to do if there is choice‐based sampling?’ or ‘when to measure effects?’ can be important in empirical studies. Finally, one might also want to test the sensitivity of estimated treatment effects with respect to unobserved heterogeneity or failure of the common support condition. Each implementation step involves a lot of decisions and different approaches can be thought of. The aim of this paper is to discuss these implementation issues and give some guidance to researchers who want to use PSM for evaluation purposes.
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