The regionalization of labour markets by modelling commuting behaviour

There hardly exists any country in which regional employment issues do not play an important role in economic planning or policy making. The need for models to carry out policy analyses in this field of research is evident. In order to analyse regional labour markets administratively defined areas are usually taken as units of analysis. On the one hand, labour market policies targeted on these administratively defined areas may be less effective if the administrative boundaries do not follow functionally linked labour market areas. On the other hand, it may be very difficult for local planning authorities to set policy goals with regard to another subdivision of areas than the administrative subdivision. Therefore it is important for policy makers at the regional level to be aware of the functional interdependencies between regions, in particular when these regions are not functional regional labour markets. In our paper we subdivide functional regional labour markets by modelling the commuting behaviour of workers in the Netherlands. For a better understanding of regional labour markets and their dynamics, commuting behaviour of workers is analysed by using the distance travelled from home to work (see Isserman et al., 1986). The commuting decision depends on workers’ background characteristics like age, sex, education, income or region-specific variables. By analysing the impact of these determinants on commuting, we are able to compare the average commuter of a country, in our case the Netherlands, with the commuters at the municipality level. By taking a closer look at the commuters at the municipality level, we find municipalities in which commuters act significantly different from the average commuter. These differences in commuting behaviour at the municipality level give an impression of the relative labour market attractiveness of the municipalities and thereby of the ratio between labour demand and supply in regions. We use these differences in commuting behaviour to regionalize the labour market. Although many studies have analysed commuting behaviour, a regionalization of labour markets with respect to different groups of workers has rarely been made. In the paper commuting flows of different groups of workers are used to subdivide the national labour market into functional regional labour markets. Contrary to earlier research (for example Green et al. 1991), we prevent to use arbitrarily chosen cut-off points to regionalize the labour market. Instead, we model the commuting behaviour of individual workers and use statistical criteria to subdivide regional labour markets (see also Baumann et al. 1996). Moreover, we show that the resulting regionalization of the labour market strongly depends on the group of individual workers concerned in the analysis. For example, it is shown that workers travel on average 21,5 kilometres for the home-to-work journey and that this distance increases with the educational level of the commuters. Therefore the regional labour market for workers with a high level of education is relatively large. To perform our empirical analysis we use journey-to-work data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS, 2001).

Male and Female Labour Force Participation: The Role of Dynamic Adjustments to Changes in Labour Demand, Government Policies and Autonomous Trends

This study investigates the extent and speed of dynamic adjustment of labour supply to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends. We estimate error-correction models (ECMs) for male and female participation rates in the Netherlands between 1969 and 2004. The results show significant short and long-run effects of labour demand as well as a negative autonomous trend for male participation. In contrast, we find no significant long-run labour-demand effects and a very strong positive autonomous trend for female participation. Including female and male participation as additional explanatory variables in the male and female ECMs, respectively, reveals significant substitution effects between female and male participation. For male participation the substitution effects from female participation account for the negative trend in the basic ECM, while for female participation the substitution effects from male participation counterbalance labour demand effects that are now significant. In addition, we find very significant breakpoints in male and female participation at 1994, which indicate the effects of exogenous participation-promoting policies by the Dutch governments after 1994. The adjustments of the participation rates to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends are moderately fast.labour force participation, discouraged worker effect, business cycle effects, persistence, substitution effect, error-correction model

The Americanization of European Higher Education and Research

Over the past two decades there has been a substantial increase in the mobility of students in Europe, while also research has become much more internationally oriented. In this paper we document changes in the structure of research and higher education in Europe and investigate potential explanations for the strong increase in its international orientation. While higher education started to grow substantially around 1960, only a few decades later, research and higher education transformed gradually to the American standard. Decreased communication costs are likely causes for this trend. This transformation is most clearly revealed in the change of language used in research from the national language, Latin, German and French to English. Smaller language areas made this transformation earlier while there are also clear timing differences between research fields. Sciences and medicine tend to switch to English first, followed by economics and social sciences, while for law and arts only the first signs of such a transformation are currently observed. This suggests that returns to scale and the transferability of research results are important influences in the decision to adopt the international standard.higher education, research, Americanization

Occupational Structures across 25 EU Countries: The Importance of Industry Structure and Technology in Old and New EU Countries

This paper analyzes the occupational structures of 25 European Union countries during the period 2000-2004. Shift-share analyses have been used to decompose cross-country differences in occupational structure into within industry and between industry effects. The static analysis for 2004 shows that the new Member States employ a lower share of skilled workers because their industry structure is biased towards less skill-intensive industries and because they use fewer skills within industries. The differences in the shares of (high-skilled) non-production workers are dominated by the between (industrial) effect. In contrast, the dynamic analysis of 2000-2004 shows that changes in the share of high-skilled non-production workers are mostly driven by within industry changes, which are probably related to skill-biased technological change. The results indicate the weakening of this process, at least for non-production workers. The diffusion of the increased demand for skills within sectors is witnessed for the higher income EU12 country group, but less strongly for the EU25 country group.education, training and the labour market;

The Americanization of European Higher Education and Research

Over the past two decades there has been a substantial increase in the mobility ofstudents in Europe, while also research has become much more internationallyoriented. In this paper we document changes in the structure of research and highereducation in Europe and investigate potential explanations for the strong increase inits international orientation. While higher education started to grow substantiallyaround 1960, only a few decades later, research and higher education transformedgradually to the American standard. Decreased communication costs are likely causesfor this trend. Th is transformation is most clearly revealed in the change of languageused in research from the national language, Latin, German and French to English.Smaller language areas made this transformation earlier while there are also cleartiming diff erences between research fi elds. Sciences and medicine tend to switch toEnglish fi rst, followed by economics and social sciences, while for law and arts onlythe fi rst signs of such a transformation are currently observed. Th is suggests thatreturns to scale and the transferability of research results are important infl uences inthe decision to adopt the international standard.education, training and the labour market;

Male and female labour force participation: the role of dynamic adjustments to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends

This study investigates the extent and speed of dynamic adjustment of labour supply to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends. We estimate error-correction models (ECMs) for male and female participation rates in the Netherlands between 1969 and 2004. The results show significant short and long-run effects of labour demand as well as a negative autonomous trend for male participation. In contrast, we find no significant long-run labour-demand effects and a very strong positive autonomous trend for female participation. Including female and male participation as additional explanatory variables in the male and female ECMs, respectively, reveals significant substitution effects between female and male participation. For male participation the substitution effects from female participation account for the negative trend in the basic ECM, while for female participation the substitution effects from male participation counterbalance labour demand effects that are now significant. In addition, we find very significant breakpoints in male and female participation at 1994, which indicate the effects of exogenous participation-promoting policies by the Dutch governments after 1994. The adjustments of the participation rates to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends are moderately fast.labour economics ;

Male and female labour force participation: the role of dynamic adjustments to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends

This study investigates the extent and speed of dynamic adjustment of labour supply to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends. We estimate error-correction models (ECMs) for male and female participation rates in the Netherlands between 1969 and 2004. The results show significant short and long-run effects of labour demand as well as a negative autonomous trend for male participation. In contrast, we find no significant long-run labour-demand effects and a very strong positive autonomous trend for female participation. Including female and male participation as additional explanatory variables in the male and female ECMs, respectively, reveals significant substitution effects between female and male participation. For male participation the substitution effects from female participation account for the negative trend in the basic ECM, while for female participation the substitution effects from male participation counterbalance labour demand effects that are now significant. In addition, we find very significant breakpoints in male and female participation at 1994, which indicate the effects of exogenous participation-promoting policies by the Dutch governments after 1994. The adjustments of the participation rates to changes in labour demand, government policies and autonomous trends are moderately fast.education, training and the labour market;

Forecasting the labour market by occupation and education: Some key issues

In this paper, we focus on two key characteristics of ROA’s forecasting approach of the labour market by occupation and education. These concern the use of the gap approach, and the substitution of education programmes within occupations. We show that the gap between supply and demand constitutes a useful and informative concept, which can be justifiably used as long as too little is known about the adjustment process in the labour market. Then we discuss the structure of the substitution process, mainly focusing on substitution as a result of the initially expected gaps between supply and demand. We distinguish between active substitution, resulting from supply-demand mismatches for the education programme concerned, and passive substitution, which is due to spillover effects from supply-demand mismatches for other education programmes. Passive substitution between education programmes is included in the forecasts when the final gaps between supply and demand are calculated. Recent ROA forecasts are used to illustrate the meaning of the various substitution processes for expected labour demand and the gaps between supply and demand. We find that omitting substitution demand from the forecasting model results in future labour market prospects that are generally too pessimistic for the higher educated.education, training and the labour market;

Estimating employment dynamics across occupations and sectors of industry

In this paper, we estimate the demand for workers by sector and occupation using system dynamic OLS techniques to account for the employment dynamics dependence across occupations and sectors of industry. The short run dynamics are decomposed into intra and intersectoral dynamics. We find that employment by occupation and sector is significantly affected by the short run intersectoral dynamics, using Dutch data for the period 1988-2003. On average, these intersectoral dynamics account for 20% of the predicted occupational employment.macroeconomics ;