School-to-Work Transitions in Mongolia

Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in Mongolia. This paper addresses the issue by taking advantage of a recent ad hoc School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS) on young people aged 15-29 years carried out in 2006. After a period of sharp reduction in the 1990s, educational attainment is increasing, as compared to other countries in the area. Nonetheless, important constraints seem to affect the supply of education, especially in rural areas. In addition, as application of the new ILO school-to-work transition classification shows, the country is unable to provide young people with a sufficient number of decent jobs. This translates into high youth unemployment in urban areas and very low productivity jobs in rural areas. Mincerian estimates confirm that human capital is an important determinant of earnings in urban, but not in rural areas.Economic Transition from Plan to Market; School to Work Transitions; Youth Labour Supply and Demand; Earnings; Gender Pay Gap; Urban/Rural Divide; Mongolia

Assessing the Impact of Incomes Policy: The Italian Experience

The Saint Valentine's decree (1984) and the ensuing hard fought referendum (1985), which reduced the automatisms of scala mobile, started a process of redefinition of wage fixing in Italy, which culminated with the final abolition of scala mobile (1992) and the approval of Protocollo d'intesa (1993). Since then, following New Corporatist principles, a national system of centralised wage bargaining (concertazione) and the so-called "institutional indexation" have governed the determination of wages. This paper aims to assess the impact of such incomes policy agreements on the long and short run equilibrium relationship between real wages, labour productivity and unemployment. Different time series econometric tools confirm that incomes policy has altered the relationship between real wages and productivity, generating not only a permanent downward impact on prices, but also on real wages. In a sense, incomes policy has caused a new form of (upward) wage rigidity. Interestingly, no impact of incomes policy on the weak relationship between real wages and unemployment is detected. The analysis calls for a careful revision of the 1993 Protocol aimed at: a) better protecting the purchasing power of real wages without losing control on inflation; b) introducing growth generating mechanisms.structural break testing, cointegration analysis, New Keynesian macroeconomic theory, neo-corporatism, models of industrial relations, Phillips Curve, incomes policy, centralised wage bargaining, macroeconomic policy evaluation, income distribution, scala mobile, Protocollo d'intesa, Italy

The Gender Gap in Early Career in Mongolia

Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in general and about gender differences in Mongolia, one of the fifty poorest countries in the world. This paper addresses the issue by taking advantage of a School to Work Survey (SWTS) on young people aged 15-29 years carried out in 2006. On average, female wages are not lower than those of males. However, women have a much higher average educational level than men: in fact, although not statistically significant among teenagers (15-19), the conditional gender gap becomes significant and sizeable for the over-20. The Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1993) decomposition confirms that, if wages were paid equally, women should have 11.7% more considering only their educational advantage and overall 22% more, a substantial gap for the low earnings of Mongolians.school-to-work transitions, earnings equations, decomposition analysis, gender wage gap, Asia, Mongolia

The Gender Wage Gap among Young People in Italy

This paper provides evidence of the gender wage gap among young people (18-24) in Italy based on the YUSE data set and involves the Oaxaca and Ransom (1994) decomposition of the unconditional gender wage gap into discrimination and productivity components. About 70% of the overall gap is unexplained, a component which is higher than among adults. Almost 11% of the gap is explained by segregation of women in low wage industries. In the Northern Veneto, the explained component of the gap is almost double that in the Southern Campania (36.4%). This is clear evidence of the remarkable discrimination that young women experience especially in Southern regions, similar to the adult women.gender wage gap; returns to education; young people; Italy

A numerical study of one-patch colloidal particles: from square-well to Janus

We perform numerical simulations of a simple model of one-patch colloidal particles to investigate: (i) the behavior of the gas-liquid phase diagram on moving from a spherical attractive potential to a Janus potential and (ii) the collective structure of a system of Janus particles. We show that, for the case where one of the two hemispheres is attractive and one is repulsive, the system organizes into a dispersion of orientational ordered micelles and vesicles and, at low $T$, the system can be approximated as a fluid of such clusters, interacting essentially via excluded volume. The stability of this cluster phase generates a very peculiar shape of the gas and liquid coexisting densities, with a gas coexistence density which increases on cooling, approaching the liquid coexistence density at very low $T$.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. in press (2010

The Youth Experience Gap: Explaining Differences across EU Countries

This note aims to provide a theoretical framework to think of the youthunemployment problem and a classification of EU countries according to the way they address it.The key factor to explain youth unemployment is what we call the youth experience gap. To helpyoung people fill it in and ease school-to-work transitions, every EU country provides a mix ofpolicy instruments, including different degrees and types of labour market flexibility, of educationaland training systems, of passive income support schemes and fiscal incentives. Five differentcountry groups are detected whose outcomes in terms of youth unemployment are dramaticallydifferent: a) the North-European; b) the Continental European; c) the Anglo-Saxon; d) the South-European; e) New Member States. The Lisbon strategy provides guidelines in line with thetheoretical framework discussed here, but it is costly and hard to implement.Youth Unemployment Problem, Youth Experience gap, Youth Employment Policy, Lisbon Strategy

Training Policy for Youth Unemployed in a Sample of European Countries

The aim of this paper is evaluating the impact of training on the employability of young long-term unemployed (18-24) within the EU. The analysis focuses on three countries representing different educational and training systems: Spain and Sweden are examples of a rigid and of a flexible sequential system, respectively; Germany is the best example of a dual educational and training system. Following a new wave in the literature on evaluation of employment policy, the paper attempts a target-oriented approach, as opposed to a programme-oriented approach. The effect of training on the labour market participation of young people is estimated by a multinomial LOGIT model relative to five labour market statuses: unemployment, employment, training, education and inactivity. The impact of the policy is analysed controlling for other important individual determinants, such as human and social capital endowment, the reservation wage and unemployment duration. The estimates provide little evidence in favour of a positive impact of ALMP in Spain and Germany. Only in Sweden the probability to be employed is significantly dependent on participation on training programmes. This result could be also due to the poor targeting of the policy to the weakest groups, especially in Southern European countries. It raises the issue of whether ALMP is a good instrument to fight youth unemployment and suggests a reform of the general education system could be more “effective”.european employment strategy; youth unemployment; active labour market policy; europe; regional unemployment differentials

Talking about the Pigou Paradox: Socio-Educational Background and Educational Outcomes of AlmaLaurea

Italy has an immobile social structure. At the heart of this immobility is the educational system, with its high direct, but especially indirect cost, due to the extremely long time necessary to get a degree and to complete the subsequent school-to-work transition. Such cost prevents the educational system from reallocating the best opportunities to all talented young people and from altering the "typical" market mechanism of intergenerational transfer of human capital and social status. About ten years after the Bologna declaration and the "3+2" reform of the university system, AlmaLaurea data relative to 2008 shows a framework not much different from that of 2000. This is apparent by looking at the socio-educational background of university graduates. Parents' educational level seems to be the main determinant of the probability to get a university degree and to get it with the highest possible grade. As previous studies have also shown, the effect of the socio-educational background on children success at the university is not direct, but through the high school track. In fact, although any secondary high school gives access to the university, nonetheless lyceums provide students with far higher quality of education than technical and professional schools.intergenerational transfers, human capital, social status, Bologna declaration, "3+2" university reform, AlmaLaurea, Italy