Private Returns to Human Capital over Transition : A Case Study of Belarus

The gradualist approach to economic transition in Belarus would contribute to form the a priori expectation that the rate of return to education is low and the earnings profile by work experience flat, like they supposedly were under central-planning. However, the first available estimates of Mincerian earnings equations based on the Belarusian Household Survey on Incomes and Expenditure suggest that the skill payoff was high in 1996, at about 10.1% per year, and stable. The return to one year of work experience is also high at 5%. This result maintains also after controlling for sample selection bias, despite a general reduction in the annual rate of return to education by about 20-30%. Though, it is ambiguous whether the high-skill payoff is the consequence of market forces coming into play or of policy decisions, considering the pervasive role of the state in the process of wage determination

The determinants of female labour supply in Belarus

Unlike in many other transition countries, where the gender pay gap has remained stable while female employment rates have reduced, in the case of Belarus women' activity rate has been practically unchanged despite an increase in the gender pay gap. This paper investigates why this is the case by looking at the determinants of female labour force participation in 1996 and 2001 (data from the Belarusian Household Survey). The selectivity corrected wage equation is estimated to compute an expected wage offer for women. The latter is included, in the second step, as a regressor in the structural female labour supply equation, estimated by probit. Several measures for the care of children and elderly people, proxies for the opportunity cost of working, affect female participation, but do not generate sample selection mechanisms. The estimated elasticity of female participation to wages is low, at about 0.45 in 1996 and 0.41 in 2001. Moreover the data allows detecting poverty trap mechanisms, whereas women in low-income households have much lower than average participation rates. At the same time the elasticity of female labour supply with respect to the own wage appears to be much higher for the low-paid groups of women

When does transition increase the gender wage gap? An application to Belarus

This paper suggests an analytical framework to analyse the joint evolution of female participation and wages across countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU), of which Belarus is a particular case. In CEE, female participation has reduced relatively more than wages, due to greater wage rigidity; in the FSU, wages have reduced more than participation, due to labour hoarding practices. In Belarus, only wages adjust, since (mainly state owned) firms tend to largely maintain their entire workforce. Underneath slow transition and remarkably stable female participation rates (at over 80%), the unconditional gender gap in log hourly wages has increased by a half, while that in log of net and total monthly wages has more than doubled over almost a decade (1996-2004). The Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition suggests that the deterioration of women wages is caused by negative changes in observed characteristics (due to horizontal segregation) and in the remuneration for those characteristics. Instead, very bland changes in the residual wage distribution tended to reduce (not to increase) the gender wage gap: in fact, women have benefited both of changes in the degree of wage inequality and of gains in the mean female rank in the male residual distribution

The Distribution of Wages in Belarus

This paper uncovers evidence on the distribution of wages in Belarus in the second half of the 1990s. The returns to education and work experience are high and stable, which is atypical for a transition country. This might be due to the pervasive role of the state in fixing wages in the dominant budget sector, rather than to market forces coming into play. Women experience contained, though largely unexplained discrimination coupled with higher than average returns to education. A wage curve effect is found, which is similar in size to that of other transition countries, but much higher than in market economies

The Impact of the economic Crisis on the Situation of Women and men and on Gender Equality Policies

Analizza l'impatto della crisi economica sul mercato del lavoro dei diversi paesi membri privilegiando una prospettiva di genere. Analizza altresi' l'effetto della crisi e delle politiche di austerità su alcuni aspetti della coesione sociale, immigrazione e povertà in particolare. Utilizza sia dati statistici aggregati che microdati (tratti dalle indagini Survey of ncome and Living Conditions e Labour Force Survey) adottando una varietà di tecniche statistiche

Educational qualifications mismatch in Europe. Is it demand or supply driven?

Most papers dealing with individual overeducation risks focus on labour supply characteristics and workers behaviour. On the other hand, only few studies consider labour demand characteristics and technological change. In this paper we analyse the influence of both demand and supply factors on educational mismatch in a set of ten European countries. Our hypothesis, confirmed by results obtained using ordered probit model with sample selection, is that demand factors generally play major role in reducing educational mismatch in technologically more advanced countries, whereas supply factors are more important in countries that are lagging behind in the international division of labour. At the same time, important cross-country and gender differences have been identified in the way the demand/supply factors operate. All this calls for the fine-tuning of policies aimed to tackle the problem of educational mismatch. Apparently, EPL does not appear neither to hinder technological development, nor increase overeducation

The Gender Wage Gap in Belarus

gender pay gap, sample selection bias, quantile regression analysis, Belarus, J16, J31, P20,

Immigration and trade: the case study of Veneto region in Italy

This paper investigates the relation between immigration and trade by focusing on Veneto region in Italy. The reference period is 2008-2015, interfering with the economic crisis, thus the results obtained can be time specific. The presence of immigrants in Veneto was constantly on the rise, also during the crisis, although at a slower pace compared to pre-crisis years. The question is which role could this play in ascertaining the stability, if not expansion, of trade relations between the region and the countries of immigrants' origin. The estimates of gravity model suggest a non-linear relationship between the number of immigrants and total exports from (imports to) the host-province to (from) the country of origin. The type of this relation moreover differs by sector of origin of trade. The effect on imports is mainly concentrated in manufacturing, whereas that on exports is more evenly distributed among several sectors. In particular, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, water supply and wastes managements are the ones which react positively by exporting more in response to increase in the number of immigrants. This could mean that further inflow of immigrants can potentially induce shifts in the structure of local economy of Veneto region which is highly dependent on international trade

Innovazione e disuguaglianza dei redditi nell’economia italiana. Quale legame a livello regionale?

In Italia gli indicatori dell’attività innovativa assumono, nei confronti internazionali, valori molto bassi mentre l’opposto accade per gli indicatori della disuguaglianza relativa alla distribuzione personale dei redditi. Ciò suggerisce l’esistenza di una relazione negativa tra innovazione e disuguaglianza che sembra trarre conferma dall’osservazione dei dati regionali. Infatti, analizzando l’andamento di un indicatore di innovazione come la percentuale di brevetti e di un indicatore di disuguaglianza come il coefficiente di Gini, emerge una correlazione negativa: nelle regioni dove il primo indicatore è più alto, il secondo tende ad essere più basso e viceversa. Il legame tra innovazioni e disuguaglianza in Italia è l’oggetto del presente capitolo che, più precisamente, si propone di verificare sia il segno negativo di detto legame, sia l’ipotesi che i nessi di causalità tra le due variabili siano bi-direzionali, utilizzando un modello di tipo strutturale nonché dati a livello regionale, relativi all’attività di brevettazione e al grado di concentrazione dei redditi individuali di mercato. L’articolo è così organizzato. Nel primo paragrafo presenteremo un’analisi descrittiva delle principali differenze territoriali rispetto alle variabili che qui interessano. In particolare, si mostrerà che non vi è soltanto lo storico dualismo tra Centro/Nord e Sud (che è evidente in relazione alla tipologia delle innovazioni e ad alcune determinanti dell’innovazione e/o della disuguaglianza dei redditi), ma anche alcune peculiarità di carattere regionale (ad esempio, rispetto all’incidenza degli occupati nei settori high-tech). Nel successivo paragrafo passeremo brevemente in rassegna la letteratura sui rapporti tra innovazione e disuguaglianza per trarre indicazioni utili ai fini della strutturazione del modello che sarà presentato e stimato nel terzo paragrafo. Per la stima utilizzeremo dati panel regionali riferiti al periodo 2000-2011, in modo da coprire anni sia precedenti sia successivi alla crisi. Il principale risultato che emerge riguarda l’effettiva sussistenza di una relazione bi-direzionale tra innovazione e disuguaglianza che tendono ad alimentarsi reciprocamente in una spirale viziosa (debole innovazione e alta disuguaglianza) o virtuosa (sostenuta innovazione e bassa disuguaglianza). Questi risultati suggeriscono che laddove è in atto la spirale viziosa – come è il caso di alcune regioni e forse del paese nel suo complesso – la possibilità di una fuoriuscita non può essere affidata alle forze spontanee del mercato e neanche soltanto a singoli interventi di politica economica. Le strategie richieste sono più complesse e ad esse si farà cenno nel paragrafo conclusivo del capitolo

When does transition increase the gender wage gap? An application to Belarus

In the context of underlying stability in female participation rates, the gender wagegap, measured by the log of monthly wages, more than doubled in Belarus from 1996 to 2006. In this respect, the country has experienced a variant of the transition which occurred in the former Soviet Union where relative female wages fell by more than female participation. We have used the Machado and Mata (2005) analysis of the gender gap distribution. This reveals that the effect of coefficients on observed characteristics in widening the gap was increasing over time, especially in the lower and middle deciles of the wage distribution. At the same time, the effect of the characteristics themselves in reducing the gap was shrinking. The decomposition of changes in the gap over time, based on Juhn et al. (1991), confirms that the contraction of women’s relative wages has been caused both by a deterioration in the observed characteristics of female workers and by the associated remuneration. Changes in the residual wage distribution tend to slightly reduce the gap rather than, as is the case elsewhere, to increase it. The analysis carried out in line with Neuman and Oaxaca (2004) suggests that the increased gap was not caused by sample selection. Instead, two observed factors are found to be mainly responsible for the results: hours of work have increased for men more than for women and women have experienced segregation in low-wage industries