No Can Do?: A test of the textbook model of labour markets.

This paper first provides a twofold test of the Card and Lemieux [2001] hypothesis that variation in college attainment growth rates can have a substantial impact on cohort specific returns to college. Most importantly, this study exploits Britain’s expansion of its higher education system between 1988 and 1994 to show that the recent increase in college attainment growth rates has decreased college premiums for Britain’s youngest workers. This is in line with the predictions from an adverse supply shock in a simple aggregate model of relative demand for and supply of college labor. Moreover, this paper conjectures that a simple demand-supply model can go a substantial distance towards explaining the variation in the UK economy-wide average return to college and overall wage inequality.Labour market; Market; Markets; Model;

The impact of payroll tax reductions on employment and wages: A natural experiment using firm level data.

Labour market; Market; Markets; Model; Impact; Employment; Firm level data; Data;

Dangerous liaisons: a social network model for the gender wage gap

We combine stylized facts from social network literature with findings from the literature on the gender wage gap in a formal model. This model is based on employers’ use of social networks in the hiring process in order to assess employee productivity. As a result, there is a persistent gender wage gap, with women being underpaid relative to men after controlling for productivity characteristics. Networks exhibit inbreeding biases by productivity and by gender, which in combination with women’s lower network density cause women to be hired less often through referral, as well as receive a lower average referral wage premium. Finally, we use 2001-2006 UK Labour Force Survey data to test the hypotheses implied by our model. We find that networks do indeed account for a significant part of the gender wage gap for newly hired workers.social networks, gender wage gap, imperfect information

Lousy and Lovely Jobs: the Rising Polarization of Work in Britain

This paper argues that skill-biased technical change has some deficiencies as a hypothesis about the impact of technology on the labor market and that a more nuanced view recently proposed by Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) is a more accurate description. The difference between the two hypotheses is in the prediction about what is happening to employment in low-wage jobs. This paper presents evidence that employment in the UK is polarizing into lovely and lousy jobs and that a plausible explanation for this is the Autor, Levy and Murnane hypothesis.Labor Demand and Technology, Inequality

Dangerous liaisons: A social network model for the gender wage gap.

We combine stylized facts from social network literature with findings from the literature on the gender wage gap in a formal model. This model is based on employers’ use of social networks in the hiring process in order to assess employee productivity. As a result, there is a persistent gender wage gap, with women being underpaid relative to men after controlling for productivity characteristics. Networks exhibit inbreeding biases by productivity and by gender, which in combination with women’s lower network density cause women to be hired less often through referral, as well as receive a lower average referral wage premium. Finally, we use 2001-2006 UK Labour Force Survey data to test the hypotheses implied by our model. We find that networks do indeed account for a significant part of the gender wage gap for newly hired workers.Investment; Pricing; Decisions; Decision; Transport; Economy; Model;

Does Rent-Sharing Exist in Belgium? an Empirical Analysis Using Firm Level Data.

This paper is the first which provides evidence for rent-sharing in Belgium using firm level data. It uses a panel of annual firm level data and shows that a rise in the firm’s profitability leads after some years to an increase in worker’s income. The profit-per-head elasticity of wages is about 0.1 and Lester’s range of wages is estimated at approximately 60 percent of the mean wage.

Sinking the blues: The impact of shop closing hours on labor and product markets.

Labour market; Market; Markets; Model; Impact; Product;

Sinking the Blues: the Impact of Shop Closing Hours on Labor and Product Markets

There is a growing consensus among economists that extending shop opening hours createsjobs. While this is probably true in deregulating industries, this paper argues there are somedeficiencies in the existing hypotheses about how exactly deregulation affects employment.First, this paper exploits recent changes in Sunday Closing Laws in the US to find that totalemployment, total revenue and the number of shops increase in deregulating industries andpossibly decrease in non-deregulating industries. Second, a model assuming consumers likeshopping on Sunday, monopolistic competition and low barriers to entry is presented to showhow consumer behavior and retail competition can explain the observed impact ofderegulation on retail labor and product markets and therefore ultimately employment.Shop opening hours, labor demand, organization of retail markets

Explaining Job Polarization in Europe: The Roles of Technology, Globalization and Institutions

This paper shows the employment structure of 16 European countries has been polarizing in recent years with the employment shares of managers, professionals and low-paid personal services workers increasing at the expense of the employment shares of middling manufacturing and routine office workers. To explain this job polarization, the paper develops and estimates a simple model to capture the effects of technology, globalization, institutions and product demand effects on the demand for different occupations. The results suggest that the routinization hypothesis of Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) is the single most important factor behind the observed shifts in employment structure. We find some evidence for offshoring to explain job polarization although its impact is much smaller. We also find that shifts in product demand are acting to attenuate the polarizing impact of routinization and that differences or changes in wage-setting institutions play little role in explaining job polarization in Europe.Labor Demand, Technology, Globalization, Institutions