438 research outputs found
Lohnspreizung und Effizienz
Wage Dispersion and Efficiency. It is often assumed that markets generate efficient allocations, but these are not necessarily fair. The widening of wage differentials that is currently observed is interpreted in this manner: Skill-biased technological progress increases demand for skilled work and makes unskilled labor redundant. Increasing wage dispersion is seen as a market response to an increased scarcity of skilled workers.
While wage differentials are widening, we observe at the same time increasing over-qualification in all segments of the labor market. This suggests an increasing abundance of skilled workers, rather than shortage. This paper suggest an explanation for the joint occurrence of wage dispersion and over-qualification. Wage dispersion is brought about by the wage-setting policies of firms that respond to an increased importance of skill differences among workers. The widening wage differentials render the acquisition of skills more rewarding. As a result, wage dispersion and over-qualification increase together. Both are inefficient. Policies that bring wage differentials closer to compensating differentials will increase both efficiency and fairness, quite in line with the classical position taken by Adam Smith on these issues.Marktergebnisse, so wird oft vermutet, seien effizient, aber nicht unbedingt gerecht. Die gegenwĂ€rtig zu beobachtende Ausweitung der Lohndifferentiale zwischen verschiedenen TĂ€tigkeiten wird in diesem Sinne als effizient, wenngleich auch als möglicherweise ungerecht gedeutet. Der technische Fortschritt fĂŒhre eben dazu, daĂ anspruchsvolle Arbeit zunehmend knapp und weniger anspruchsvolle Arbeit zunehmend redundant werde. Die zunehmende Lohnspreizung wird als Marktkonsequenz dieser Entwicklung gesehen.
Dieser Deutung steht die ebenfalls zu beobachtende Zunahme der Ăberqualifikation in allen Arbeitsmarktsegmenten gegenĂŒber, die eher auf eine Qualifikationsschwemme als auf eine Knappheit an Qualifikationen hindeutet. Dieser Beitrag liefert eine theoretische Deutung der Parallelentwicklung von Lohnspreizung und Ăberqualifikation. Die zunehmende Lohnspreizung ergibt sich aus dem Lohnsetzungsverhalten der Unternehmungen angesichts einer zunehmenden Bedeutung von Qualifikationsunterschieden bei den ArbeitskrĂ€ften. Diese Entwicklung fĂŒhrt zum gleichzeitigen Auftreten von Ăberqualifikation und Lohnspreizung. Beide Entwicklungen sind allokativ nachteilig. MaĂnahmen, die -- ganz im klassischen Sinne -- die Lohndifferentiale an kompensierende Differentiale heranfĂŒhren dienen zugleich der Verbesserung der Effizienz und der Gerechtigkeit
Excited by a quantum field: Does shape matter?
The instantaneous transition rate of an arbitrarily accelerated Unruh-DeWitt
particle detector on four-dimensional Minkowski space is ill defined without
regularisation. We show that Schlicht's regularisation as the zero-size limit
of a Lorentz-function spatial profile yields a manifestly well-defined
transition rate with physically reasonable asymptotic properties. In the
special case of stationary trajectories, including uniform acceleration, we
recover the results that have been previously obtained by a regularisation that
relies on the stationarity. Finally, we discuss evidence for the conjecture
that the zero-size limit of the transition rate is independent of the detector
profile.Comment: 7 pages, uses jpconf. Talk given at NEB XII (Nafplio, Greece, 29 June
- 2 July 2006
Considerations on the Unruh Effect: Causality and Regularization
This article is motivated by the observation, that calculations of the Unruh
effect based on idealized particle detectors are usually made in a way that
involves integrations along the {\em entire} detector trajectory up to the
infinitely remote {\em future}. We derive an expression which allows
time-dependence of the detector response in the case of a non-stationary
trajectory and conforms more explicitely to the principle of causality, namely
that the response at a given instant of time depends only on the detectors {\em
past} movements. On trying to reproduce the thermal Unruh spectrum we are led
to an unphysical result, which we trace down to the use of the standard
regularization t\to t-i\eps of the correlation function. By consistently
employing a rigid detector of finite extension, we are led to a different
regularization which works fine with our causal response function.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, v2: some minor change
Der Bruch der Theorie in der Praxis durch Not
Some Remarks on Lujo Brentano's View of Labor Market Problems
Lujo Brentano (1844-1931) aimed for "realism" in economics. Regarding labor market theory, two topics are of particular interest: His investigations on "Hours and Wages in Relation to Production" (Scribner's 1894) and his analysis "On the History and Development of Gilds and the Origins of Trade Unions" (Trubner 1870). The topics of are discussed with a view on recent developments in labor economics.Lujo Brentano (1844-1931) hat sich als "realistischen" Ăkonomen verstanden. Im Bereich der Arbeitsmarkttheorie sind zwei Bereiche von besonderem Interesse: Seine Untersuchungen ĂŒber den Zusammenhang zwischen Lohn, Arbeitszeit und Arbeitsleistung und seine Ăberlegungen zur Bildung von kollektiven Formen der Lohnsetzung. Diese beiden Themen werden unter Einbeziehung gesamtwirtschaftlicher und methodischer Aspekte und einiger moderner Gesichtspunkte diskutiert
Explaining Africaâs public consumption procyclicality : revisiting old evidence
This paper compiles a novel dataset of time-varying measures of government consumption cyclicality for a panel of 46 African economies between 1960 and 2014. Government consumption has, generally, been highly procyclical over time in this group of countries. However, sample averages hide serious heterogeneity across countries with the majority of them showing procyclical behavior despite some positive signs of graduation from the âprocyclicality trapâ in a few cases. By means of weighted least squares regressions, we find that more developed African economies tend to have a smaller degree of government consumption procyclicality. Countries with higher social fragmentation and those are more reliant on foreign aid inflows tend to have a more procyclical government consumption policy. Better governance promotes counter- cyclical fiscal policy whileincreased democracy dampens it. Finally, some fiscal rules are important in curbing the procyclical behavior of government consumption.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Selection Wages and Discrimination
Applicants for any given job are more or less suited to fill it, and the firm will select the best among them. Increasing the wage offer attracts more applicants and makes it possible to raise the hiring standard and improve the productivity of the staff. Wages that optimize on the trade-off between the wage level and the productivity of the workforce are known as selection wages. As men react more strongly to wage differentials than females, the trade-off is more pronounced for men and a profit-maximizing firm will offer a higher wage for men than for women in equilibrium
How often does the Unruh-DeWitt detector click? Regularisation by a spatial profile
We analyse within first-order perturbation theory the instantaneous
transition rate of an accelerated Unruh-DeWitt particle detector whose coupling
to a massless scalar field on four-dimensional Minkowski space is regularised
by a spatial profile. For the Lorentzian profile introduced by Schlicht, the
zero size limit is computed explicitly and expressed as a manifestly finite
integral formula that no longer involves regulators or limits. The same
transition rate is obtained for an arbitrary profile of compact support under a
modified definition of spatial smearing. Consequences for the asymptotic
behaviour of the transition rate are discussed. A number of stationary and
nonstationary trajectories are analysed, recovering in particular the Planckian
spectrum for uniform acceleration.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure. v3: Added references and minor clarification
Is life a thermal horizon ?
This talk aims at questioning the vanishing of Unruh temperature for an
inertial observer in Minkovski spacetime with finite lifetime, arguing that in
the non eternal case the existence of a causal horizon is not linked to the
non-vanishing of the acceleration. This is illustrated by a previous result,
the diamonds temperature, that adapts the algebraic approach of Unruh effect to
the finite case.Comment: Proceedings of the conference DICE 2006, Piombino september 200
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