Canada and the "OECD Hypothesis": Does Labour Market Inflexibility Explain Canada's High Level of Unemployment?

One of the most remarkable features of international economic performance in the last decade has been the employment performance of the United States. While unemployment rates in almost all other developed countries remain high by postwar standards, the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to levels not seen in decades. Even more spectacular than the decline in unemployment is the increase in the fraction of the U.S. population employed, which has exceeded that in almost all developed countries. A phenomenon of such magnitude of course calls out for an explanation. Probably more than any other single factor, some form of “labour market inflexibility” has recently been blamed for the high unemployment rates outside the United States. In a number of forums, including the policy recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “rigid” labour markets, with considerable government and/or union involvement in wage-setting, and considerable restrictions on firms’ abilities to adjust the size of their work forces, are commonly seen as more prone to unemployment and less conducive to employment growth than more flexible ones. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical assessment of the popular notion that differences in labour market “flexibility” explain the recent differences in employment and unemployment rates between the U.S. and other developed countries. In addressing this issue I shall focus particular attention on a comparison between two countries, the United States and Canada. On the surface, the recent experience of these two countries would appear to support the hypothesis, with the more “rigid” country --Canada, where unions have much more influence on the wage-setting process and employment protection is stronger-- experiencing much worse unemployment performance since the early 1980's. Indeed the proximity of the countries and their similarity along other dimensions may yield an ideal comparison for assessing the labour market flexibility hypothesis.

An airborne FLIR detection and warning system for low altitude wind shear

It is shown through some preliminary flight measurement research that a forward looking infrared radiometer (FLIR) system can be used to successfully detect the cool downdraft of downbursts (microbusts/macrobursts) and thunderstorm gust front outflows that are responsible for most of the low altitude wind shear (LAWS) events. The FLIR system provides a much greater safety margin for the pilot than that provided by reactive designs such as inertial air speed systems. Preliminary results indicate that an advanced airborne FLIR system could provide the pilot with remote indication of microburst (MB) hazards along the flight path ahead of the aircraft. Results of a flight test of a prototype FLIR system show that a minimum warning time of one to four minutes (5 to 10 km), depending on aircraft speed, is available to the pilot prior to the microburst encounter

Vulnerable Seniors: Unions, Tenure and Wages Following Permanent Job Loss

A well known finding in the literature on displaced workers is the apparent “portability” of tenure across firms: controlling for experience and other observable characteristics, workers with high levels of predisplacement tenure earn higher postdisplacement wages (e.g. Kletzer 1989). Using four data sets on displaced workers, we show that this finding is reversed for workers losing unionized jobs. Our finding cannot be explained by firm- or industry-specific human capital accumulation, deferred-pay policies, standard matching models, or by a correlation between tenure and re-entry rates into unionized jobs. We argue instead that it can reflect only two possible processes: negative selection of senior union workers, or a negative causal effect of unionism on workers’ alternative skills. An important implication of our findings is that, despite a much flatter predisplacement tenure-wage profile, displaced union workers’ wage losses increase with tenure at a comparable or higher rate to that of nonunion workers.

Self-Employment Dynamics and Self-Employment Trends: A Study of Canadian Men and Women, 1982-1995

Self-employment has risen dramatically in Canada, accounting for a disproportionate share of job growth since the 1980's. Using hitherto-unexploited information on labour force transitions from 13 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances between 1982 and 1995, we show that the changes in transition patterns underlying these increases were very different for women and men. For women, most of the increase in self-employment is attributable to an increase in their retention rates in self-employment. For men, most is attributable to a decrease in the stability of paid employment, i.e. a rise in transitions from employment to non-employment. This generates an increase in self-employment because non-employed men are much more likely than employed men to enter self-employment. Changes in demographic characteristics account for very little of these altered transition probabilities. Somewhat paradoxically, self-employment thus rose both in secularly improving (women's) and deteriorating (men's) labour markets, due to different changes in the underlying transition processes.

The Expanding Workweek? Understanding Trends in Long Work Hours Among U.S. Men, 1979-2004

According to Census and CPS data, the share of employed American men regularly working more than 48 hours per week is higher today than it was 25 years ago. Using CPS data from 1979 to 2006, we show that this increase was greatest among highly educated, highly-paid, and older men, was concentrated in the 1980s, and was largely confined to workers paid on a salaried basis. We rule out a number of possible explanations of these changes, including changes in measurement, composition effects, and internet-facilitated work from home. Among salaried men, increases in long work hours were greatest in detailed occupations and industries with larger increases in residual wage inequality and slowly-growing real compensation at 'standard' (40) hours.

Is Discrimination Against Women Really Declining? The Puzzle of Survey Reports

This paper seeks to explain why young women are much more likely to report being harmed by gender discrimination than older women. Using a recent sample of job seekers, we conclude that the answer does not lie in higher "objective" discrimination, as usually measured by economists, since measured discrimination is not higher against young women on any dimension we can measure. Because young women are also more likely to report that they were the beneficiaries of labor market discrimination than older women, and because young men are more likely than older men to report that they were harmed by discrimination, we conclude that the answer is also unlikely to lie in a higher overall level of unmeasured discrimination against young women. Using a formal model of the reporting decision, we conclude that the most likely cause of young women's higher reports is a difference in reporting behavior between young and old workers of both sexes: young workers are more willing to interpret departures in either direction from gender-neutral treatment as discriminatory than older workers.

Pay Inequality, Pay Secrecy, and Effort: Theory and Evidence

We study worker and firm behavior in an efficiency-wage environment where co-workers' wages may potentially influence a worker's effort. Theoretically, we show that an increase in workers' responsiveness to co-workers' wages should lead profit-maximizing firms to compress wages under quite general conditions. Our laboratory experiments, on the other hand, show that --while workers' effort choices are highly sensitive to their own wages-- effort is not affected by co-workers' wages. As a consequence, even though firms in our experiment tended to compress wages when wages became public information, this did not raise their profits. Our experimental evidence therefore provides little support for the notion that inter-worker equity concerns can make wage compression, or wage secrecy, a profit-maximizing policy.

Assimilation and Economic Success in an Aboriginal Population: Evidence from Canada

Like immigrants, aboriginal populations are endowed with skills and cultural traits which are not necessarily optimal for economic success in the “majority” culture where they reside. As for immigrants, Aboriginal economic success may thus be enhanced by the acquistion of such skills and traits via greater contact with the majority culture. Using 1991 Canadian Census data, we document three stylized facts that support this assimilation hypothesis: Aboriginal labour market success is greater for Aboriginals whose ancestors intermarried with the non-Aboriginal population, for those who live off Indian reserves, and for those who live outside the Yukon and Northwest Territories. While each of these results, individually, could also be explained by other processes, such as differential discrimination, physical remoteness, and selection, we argue that none of these other processes can provide a convincing explanation of all three.

Adapting the 23Things programme for health librarian professional education

In the UK, as elsewhere, continuing professional development is seen to be a necessary professional activity. However resourcing is problematic and funding varies between employing agencies. The 23Things programme has evolved to address these constraints. In particular it reduces the time for staff to be absent from core functions and makes maximum use of peer support. Within a common structure the programme delivers development to personnel at all professional levels. Activities are learner defined and relevant to their personal context. The pace of progress is learner determined. Cambridge University Medical Library (CUML) has designed its own 23Things programme. While conforming to the general model of 23Things, CUML adapted the programme in three ways. 1. to meet the specific learning needs of the library staff 2. to select topics and tasks related to the subject focus of the library 3. to include a new strand of professional development called Follow That.. Follow That... was designed to foster better understanding of each team members role in delivering core services in the library, and to improve the integration and awareness of expertise within a relatively large team This paper will describe the way in which the programme was set up, the selection of tasks and activities, and the pitfalls encountered. Also included will be an overall evaluation of the programme from the perspective of the participants and the programme designers