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 gegenwärtig zu beobachtende Ausweitung der Lohndifferentiale zwischen verschiedenen Tätigkeiten wird in diesem Sinne als effizient, wenngleich auch als möglicherweise ungerecht gedeutet. Der technische Fortschritt führe eben dazu, daß 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 Überqualifikation in allen Arbeitsmarktsegmenten gegenüber, die eher auf eine Qualifikationsschwemme als auf eine Knappheit an Qualifikationen hindeutet. Dieser Beitrag liefert eine theoretische Deutung der Parallelentwicklung von Lohnspreizung und Überqualifikation. Die zunehmende Lohnspreizung ergibt sich aus dem Lohnsetzungsverhalten der Unternehmungen angesichts einer zunehmenden Bedeutung von Qualifikationsunterschieden bei den Arbeitskräften. Diese Entwicklung führt zum gleichzeitigen Auftreten von Überqualifikation und Lohnspreizung. Beide Entwicklungen sind allokativ nachteilig. Maßnahmen, die -- ganz im klassischen Sinne -- die Lohndifferentiale an kompensierende Differentiale heranführen 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" Ökonomen verstanden. Im Bereich der Arbeitsmarkttheorie sind zwei Bereiche von besonderem Interesse: Seine Untersuchungen über den Zusammenhang zwischen Lohn, Arbeitszeit und Arbeitsleistung und seine Überlegungen zur Bildung von kollektiven Formen der Lohnsetzung. Diese beiden Themen werden unter Einbeziehung gesamtwirtschaftlicher und methodischer Aspekte und einiger moderner Gesichtspunkte diskutiert

Explaining Africa’s 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 “procyclicality trap” 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