Evaluating the effects of labour market reforms at the margin on unemployment and employment stability: the Spanish case

This study analyses the effects on unemployment and the quality of employment of the Spanish labour market reform in 2001 for the most important age groups. The content of the reform was based on the implementation of two policies: (i) a new permanent contract with lower firing costs than the ordinary one, and (ii) the reduction of the payroll taxes paid by firms to foster creation/ conversion of/ into permanent contracts. This reform extended to further groups of workers similar measures adopted in a previous reform in 1997. Using a data base of unemployed workers in the region of Madrid from January 1997 up to September 2003, and methods for non-experimental data, the results suggest that, regardless of gender, workers below 30 years are negatively affected by the reform, and workers above 55 years show positive but small effects. The influence of the reform for workers between 45 and 50 years is negligible. As regards education, graduates are more sensitive to the reform than workers with a lower level of education (primary and secondary education)

Diagnosing Market Power in Chile´s Electricity Industry

Chile’s electricity market is modeled as a Cournot duopoly with a competitive fringe. Due to the importance of hydro-storage resources (62% of total generation in 2000) particular care was given to the hydro scheduling issue. The model was estimated over a 1-month planning horizon using real cost and load data for April 2000. I found that the largest producer would be able to get markups that ranged from 66% to 76% (72% in average) when price elasticity was –1/3. In addition hydro resources are inefficiently allocated as production is shifted from high demand periods to low demand periods. Final equilibrium is sensitive to the value of the price elasticity of demand. Four different measures that could be implemented to reduce the potential for market power were analyzed: the divestiture of all or a fraction of Firm 1’s hydro capacity, the divestiture of all of its thermal plants and the role of contracts. Results indicated that since Firm 1 exercises its market power mainly through its hydro resources, the divestiture of the thermal plants would have a negligible effect in the degree of market power that is exercised, although total output and price are closer to the competitive equilibrium. The divestiture of hydro plants, although an effective measure in terms of reducing distortions, would probably be difficult to implement. Requiring producers to sign contracts in advance proved to be successful in reducing incentives to manipulate prices by the firms; in addition, I found that the more contracted is the firm, hydro scheduling is more efficient, meaning that more hydro production is allocated to periods of high demand and less to periods of low demand.

Student and School Predictors of High School Graduation in California

Based on surveys of tenth-grade students, teachers, principals, and parents, identifies alterable factors that predict high school graduation, including the student's ninth-grade performance, engagement in sports, and the school's academic climate

Evaluating the effects of labour market reforms at the margin on unemployment and employment stability: the Spanish case.

This study analyses the effects on unemployment and the quality of employment of the Spanish labour market reform in 2001 for the most important age groups. The content of the reform was based on the implementation of two policies: (i) a new permanent contract with lower firing costs than the ordinary one, and (ii) the reduction of the payroll taxes paid by firms to foster creation/ conversion of/ into permanent contracts. This reform extended to further groups of workers similar measures adopted in a previous reform in 1997. Using a data base of unemployed workers in the region of Madrid from January 1997 up to September 2003, and methods for non-experimental data, the results suggest that, regardless of gender, workers below 30 years are negatively affected by the reform, and workers above 55 years show positive but small effects. The influence of the reform for workers between 45 and 50 years is negligible. As regards education, graduates are more sensitive to the reform than workers with a lower level of education (primary and secondary education).

Market Power in Mixed Hydro-Thermal Electric Systems

This paper shows that, unlike what has been found in other papers, a hydro reservoir is an effective tool to exercise market power. Its appealing as a tool is enhanced by the fact that there is no need to constrain total hydro production - a practice too easy to detect -; it suffices to distort the intertemporal allocation of hydro production over time. A hydro-producer may increase his profits by exploiting differences in price elasticity of demand across periods, allocating too little supply to less elastic periods and too much to more elastic periods. Differences in price elasticity across periods may result from the combination of a fluctuating market demand and capacity or transmission constraints that bind intermitently. This hydro scheduling decision is only available to hydro producers as thermal generators are not able to "store electric power" and decide when to sell it. It is also shown that total hydro production is not a sufficient indicator of market power being exercised as hydro producers may exercise market power even when all the water available in the\reservoir is used. The real indicator of market power being exercised is the hydro scheduling strategy usedUtilities; Market Power; Scheduling of Hydro-Reservoirs.