Understanding the Labour Market for Older Workers: A Survey

The paper asks why retirement can be so abrupt in countries such as France (½% of the workforce over 65), yet staged in Japan (8% over 65). We find part of the answer in tax laws that prevent people working and receiving a pension, and make little allowance for fair pension increases if retirement is deferred. While these laws have begun to change, we find another part of the answer in employment protection laws. These laws coupled with inflexible collectively agreed wages make employers choosy about hiring the old. The advent of "age discrimination" law reinforces employment protection and may well reduce older workers' hiring opportunities especially where wages are rigid.mandatory retirement, deferred pay, age discrimination, older workers

Recent X-ray observations of intermediate BL Lac objects

We present recent ROSAT, ASCA and SAX observations of intermediate BL Lac objects (IBLs), i.e. BL Lacs which are located between high-energy and low-energy peaked BL Lac objects with respect to alpha_rx. Both the statistical properties of IBLs from the RGB sample and a detailed broad band X-ray spectral analysis of two objects (1424+2401, 1055+5644) point towards a continuous distribution of synchrotron emission peak frequencies among BL Lac objects.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the conference "BL Lac Phenomenon" held in Turku, Finland, June 22-26, 199

Job Satisfaction and the Labor Market Institutions in Urban China

The determinants of worker job satisfaction are estimated using a representative survey of three major cities in China. Legally segregated migrants, floaters, earn significantly less than otherwise equivalent non-migrants but routinely report greater job satisfaction, a finding not previously reported. We confirm a positive role for membership in the communist party but find that it exists only for non-migrants suggesting a club good aspect to membership. In contrast to earlier studies, many controls mirror those found in western democracies including the "paradox of the contented female worker."job satisfaction, internal migrants, party membership, China

Building Blocks in the Economics of Mandates

The paper constructs an asymmetric information model to investigate the efficiency and equity cases for government mandated benefits. A mandate can improve workers' insurance, and may also redistribute in favour of more "deserving" workers. The risk is that it may also reduce output. The more diverse are free market contracts – separating the various worker types – the more likely it is that such output effects will on balance serve to reduce welfare. It is shown that adverse effects can be reduced by restricting mandates to larger firms. An alternative to a mandate is direct government provision. We demonstrate that direct government provision has the advantage over mandates of preserving separations.asymmetric information, labour mandates, compensation packages

Are union jobs worse? : are government jobs better?

The determinants of job satisfaction are estimated from difference equations using four waves of the British Household Panel Study. We find that those moving into union jobs report a drop in overall job satisfaction and those moving into the public sector an increase. This finding reduces the likelihood that cross-sectional results showing lower overall job satisfaction for union members and higher satisfaction for public sector workers reflect individual-specific effects (endogeneity). However, we find that cross-sectional results on satisfaction with the working environment and with pay do, indeed, reflect individual-specific effects. Our difference equations indicate that while union workers complain more about these aspects, they would complain more in either sector. Further, our results suggest public sector workers are by nature more satisfied with their pay

Job satisfaction and the labor market institutions in urban China

The determinants of worker job satisfaction are estimated using a representative survey of three major cities in China. Legally segregated migrants, floaters, earn significantly less than otherwise equivalent non-migrants but routinely report greater job satisfaction, a finding not previously reported. We confirm a positive role for membership in the communist party but find that it exists only for non-migrants suggesting a club good aspect to membership. In contrast to earlier studies, many controls mirror those found in western democracies including the paradox of the contented female worker