Betriebliche Reorganisation, Entlohnung und Beschäftigungsstabilität (Organisational change, wages and job stability)

"This article analyses the effects of firm reorganisation on wages and job mobility at individual level. The analysis is based on German linked employer-employee data (LIAB), which combines firm survey data and employee data from the German Federal Employment Services. The period of observation is from 1996 to 2003. The results from fixed-effects estimates differ markedly by skill group and occupational group. For some groups, the introduction of teamwork is associated with higher wages and more job stability. The reorganisation of departments and changes in the shares of external production and in-house production of inputs raise wages for some groups of employees. Transfers of responsibilities to subordinates, however, bring about negative wage effects for some groups of employees. Negative wage effects are also found when firms introduced profit centres. Measures to ensure product quality have mixed effects on wages. In sum, positive effects on wages and job stability were identified more frequently for groups with medium or high skills. This suggests that organisational change is skillbiased. However, clear negative effects on the job stability of the low-skilled could not be found in this analysis. The results also suggest that organisational change generally either impacts on wages or on job mobility, but not on both. Organisational change is found to have an effect on job mobility alone more often than on wages alone. Furthermore, its indirect effect on job mobility via wages is small. The effects of organisational change on wages are more often positive than negative. Negative and positive effects on job mobility are equally frequent." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information Kurzfassung (deutsch) Executive summary (english)organisatorischer Wandel - Auswirkungen, Lohnhöhe, Beschäftigungsdauer, Gruppenarbeit, Qualitätskontrolle, IAB-Betriebspanel

Effect of an Aqueous Extract of Alchornea Cordifolia (Euphorbiacea) Leaves on Sperm Parameters and Reproductive Function of Male Wistar Rats

Alchornea cordifolia (euphorbiaceae) is a tree whose leaves are used in traditional medicine to cure several health problems. Little information, however, exist on the effects of this herb on the male reproductive system. In order to assess the effect of Alchornea cordifolia on reproductive male parameters and testosterone production, twenty-four male wistar rats divided into four groups of six rats were used. The aqualus extract of Alchornea cordifolia was administered at a dose of 100 mg/kg of bw, 200 mg/kg of bw, and 400 mg/kg of bw per day, orally for 60 days. A significant increase in androgen-dependent organs, testosterone quantity, mobility, and sperm concentration was observed at doses of 200 mg/kg of bw and 400 mg/kg of bw. Only the unwinger sperm count significantly increased at the 100 mg/kg of bw dose. These results revealed that the aqualius extract of the leaves of Alchornea cordifolia has the potential to improve sperm quality and have positive effects on the reproductive system

The impact of dairy policy-regulations on structural change, production costs, milk quality and N-excretion: evidence for the Flemish dairy sector

Since 1987, the EU allows dairy quota transfers within member states, but the trading rules differ across member states and in time. In the Flanders case, before 1996, quota transactions happened in a free market with high quota prices, from 1996 to 2004 they have been centrally organised with a fixed lower price. This study uses a Markov chain model to quantify observed quota transactions and the resulting structural development of the Flemish dairy sector. The results show that structural development is higher during the free market period and that this has also an influence on the aggregate sector performance with respect to total production cost, nitrate emission and milk quality. With the free quota market policy, structural development would lead in 2014 to a decline of the total production costs of 3.04%, a reduction of milk quality penalty points of 20% and a decrease in the N- excretion of 2.95%. With a restricted quota mobility, structural development resulted only in improvements of 2.58% (-15.1%), 14.26% (-28.7%) and 2.20 % (-25.4%) respectively

Impact of Stratigraphic Heterogeneity on Hydrocarbon Recovery in Carbonate Reservoirs: Effect of Fluid Properties and Development Strategy

Imperial Users onl

Exports and Wages: Rent Sharing, Workforce Composition or Returns to Skills?

We use linked employer-employee data from Italy to explore the relationship between exports and wages. Our empirical strategy exploits the 1992 devaluation of the Italian Lira, which represented a large and unforeseen shock to Italian firms’ incentives to export. The results indicate that the export wage premium is due to exporting firms both (a) paying a wage premium above what their workers would earn in the outside labor market – the “rent-sharing” effect, and (b) employing workers whose skills command a higher price after the devaluation – the “skill composition” effect. The latter effect only emerges once we allow for the value of individual skills to differ in the pre and post-devaluation periods. In fact, using a fixed measure of skills, as typically done in the literature, we would attribute the wage increase only to rent sharing. We also document that the export wage premium is larger for workers with more export-related experience. This indicates that the devaluation increased the demand for skills more useful for exporting, driving their relative price up

Pennies from Heaven? Using Exogeneous Tax Variation to Identify Effects of School Resources on Pupil Achievements

Despite important policy implications associated with the allocation of education resources, evidence on the effectiveness of school inputs remains inconclusive. In part, this is due to endogenous allocation; families sort themselves non-randomly into school districts and school districts allocate money based in order to compensate (or reinforce) differences in child abilities, which leaves estimates of school input effects likely to be biased. Using variation in education expenditures induced by the location of natural resources in Norway we examine the effect of school resources on pupil outcomes. We find that higher school expenditures, triggered by higher revenues from local taxes on hydropower plants, have a significantly positive effect on pupil performance at age 16. The positive IV estimates contrast with the standard cross-sectional estimates that reveal no effects of extra resources.pupil achievement, school resources

COVID-19 causes record decline in global CO2 emissions

The considerable cessation of human activities during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected global energy use and CO2 emissions. Here we show the unprecedented decrease in global fossil CO2 emissions from January to April 2020 was of 7.8% (938 Mt CO2 with a +6.8% of 2-{\sigma} uncertainty) when compared with the period last year. In addition other emerging estimates of COVID impacts based on monthly energy supply or estimated parameters, this study contributes to another step that constructed the near-real-time daily CO2 emission inventories based on activity from power generation (for 29 countries), industry (for 73 countries), road transportation (for 406 cities), aviation and maritime transportation and commercial and residential sectors emissions (for 206 countries). The estimates distinguished the decline of CO2 due to COVID-19 from the daily, weekly and seasonal variations as well as the holiday events. The COVID-related decreases in CO2 emissions in road transportation (340.4 Mt CO2, -15.5%), power (292.5 Mt CO2, -6.4% compared to 2019), industry (136.2 Mt CO2, -4.4%), aviation (92.8 Mt CO2, -28.9%), residential (43.4 Mt CO2, -2.7%), and international shipping (35.9Mt CO2, -15%). Regionally, decreases in China were the largest and earliest (234.5 Mt CO2,-6.9%), followed by Europe (EU-27 & UK) (138.3 Mt CO2, -12.0%) and the U.S. (162.4 Mt CO2, -9.5%). The declines of CO2 are consistent with regional nitrogen oxides concentrations observed by satellites and ground-based networks, but the calculated signal of emissions decreases (about 1Gt CO2) will have little impacts (less than 0.13ppm by April 30, 2020) on the overserved global CO2 concertation. However, with observed fast CO2 recovery in China and partial re-opening globally, our findings suggest the longer-term effects on CO2 emissions are unknown and should be carefully monitored using multiple measures

How does entry regulation influence entry into selfemployment and occupational mobility?

We analyze how an entry regulation that imposes a mandatory educational standard affects entry into self-employment and occupational mobility. We exploit the German reunification as a natural experiment and identify regulatory effects by comparing differences between regulated occupations and unregulated occupations in East Germany with the corresponding differences in West Germany after reunification. Consistent with our expectations, we find that entry regulation reduces entry into selfemployment and occupational mobility after reunification more in regulated occupations in East Germany than in West Germany. Our findings are relevant for transition or emerging economies as well as for mature market economies requiring large structural changes after unforeseen economic shocks