Did the National Minimum Wage Affect UK Prices?

One potential channel through which the effects of the minimum wage could be directed is that firms who employ minimum wage workers could have passed on any higher labour costs resulting from the minimum wage in the form of higher prices. This study looks at the effects of the minimum wage on the prices of UK goods and services by comparing prices of goods produced by industries in which UK minimum wage workers make up a substantial share of total costs with prices of goods and services that make less use of minimum wage labour. Using sectoral-level price data matched to LFS survey data on the share of minimum wage workers in each sector, it is hard to find much evidence of significant price changes in the months that correspond immediately to the uprating of the NMW. However over the longer term, prices in several minimum wage sectors - notably take-away foods, canteen meals, hotel services and domestic services - do appear to have risen significantly faster than prices of non-minimum wage sectors. These effects were particularly significant in the four years immediately after the introduction of the minimum wage.Minimum wage, prices

Wage Arrears and the Distribution of Earnings in Russia

The increase in wage inequality in Russia during its transition process has far exceeded the increase in wage dispersion observed in other European countries undergoing transition. Russia also has an extremely large incidence of wage arrears. We analyse to what extent wage arrears affect the wage distribution and measures of wage inequality in Russia. We present counterfactual distributions, derived from a variety of different methods, which suggest that conventional measures of earnings dispersion would be some 20 to 30 per cent lower in the absence of arrears. We then go on to show how wage gaps at various points in the pay distribution across gender, education, region and industry are influenced by a failure to allow for wage arrears. Using our counterfactual estimates we show, for example, that the median gender wage gap would be around twenty-five points higher than the actual gap that we observe. Similarly, the counterfactual ratio of mean graduate pay to mean pay of those with primary education is around twenty points lower than observed. We show that the parameters of the counterfactual wage distributions are very similar to the parameters of the observed wage distributions of those not in arrears. This means that for those wishing to study aspects of wage differentials and inequality in Russia, it may be feasible to use the subset of those not in arrears and still get close to the true population parameters.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39805/3/wp421.pd

The Impact of Chernobyl on Health and Labour Market Performance in the Ukraine

Using longitudinal data from the Ukraine we examine the extent of any long-lasting effects of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl disaster on the health and labour market performance of the adult workforce. The variation in the local area level of radiation fallout from the Chernobyl accident is considered as a potential instrument to try to establish the causal impact of poor health on labour force participation, hours worked and wages. There appears to be a significant positive association between local area-level radiation dosage and health perception based on self-reported poor health status, though much weaker associations between local area-level dosage and other specific health conditions or labour market performance. Any effects on negative health perceptions appear to be stronger among women and older individuals.Chernobyl, health, labour market performance

Changing Patterns in the Relative Economic Performance of Immigrants to Great Britain and the U.S., 1980-2000

This report examines changes in the pace of the economic assimilation of immigrants over the last three decades. The evidence suggests that immigrants lagged farther behind U.S.-born workers in 2000, than they had in 1990 and 1980.

Two Sides to Every Story: Measuring the Polarisation of Work

Individual and household based aggregate measures of joblessness can, and do, offer conflicting signals about labour market performance if work is unequally distributed. Thispaper introduces a simple set of indices that can be used to measure the extent of divergencebetween individual and household-based jobless measures. The indices, built around acomparison of the actual household jobless rate with that which would occur if work wererandomly distributed over the working age population, conform to basic consistency axiomsand can be decomposed to try to identify the likely source of any disparity betweennonemployment rates calculated at the 2 levels of aggregation. Applying these measures todata for Britain, we show that there has been a growing disparity ¿ polarisation - between theindividual and household based jobless measures that are largely unrelated to changes inhousehold structure or the principal characteristics associated with individual joblessness.Workless households, Distribution of work, Polarisation, Joblessness

Give PCs a Chance: Personal Computer Ownership and the Digital Divide in the United States and Great Britain

This paper summarizes inequalities in PC ownership using data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) and the British General Household Survey (GHS) for the period 1984-98. Between 1988 and 1994, British households were more likely than US households to own a personal computer (PC). After 1994, however, US PC ownership rates accelerated rapidly, pushing the United States ahead of Britain. Differences in computer ownership rates are however much larger within the two countries, measured by income, education, age, family status, and race. Both the United States and Britain show large and growing inequality in PC ownership over the 1980s and 1990s. Analysis of ownership patterns of four other household consumer durables suggests that there may be significant limitations to relying solely on the market to eradicate PC inequality quickly.Inequality, Personal Computers

Jobs in the recession

The recession of 2008-09 inflicted a larger cumulative loss of UK output than any of the previous post-war recessions, yet there has been a relatively low loss of employment, at least so far. Paul Gregg and Jonathan Wadsworth look for an explanation.labour market, recession, unemployment, wages

In brief: Chernobyl: the long-term health and economic consequences

Hartmut Lehmann and Jonathan Wadsworth assess the long-lasting effects of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl disaster on the people of Ukraine.Chernobyl, health, labour market performance

The Impact of Chernobyl on Health and Labour Market Performance in the Ukraine

Using longitudinal data from the Ukraine we examine the extent of any long-lasting effects of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl disaster on the health and labour market performance of the adult workforce. The variation in the local area level of radiation fallout from the Chernobyl accident is considered as a potential instrument to try to establish the causal impact of poor health on labour force participation, hours worked and wages. There appears to be a significant positive association between local area-level radiation dosage and health perception based on selfreported poor health status, though much weaker associations between local area-level dosage and other specific health conditions or labour market performance. Any effects on negative health perceptions appear to be stronger among women and older individuals.Chernobyl, Health, LabourMarket Performance

Tenures that Shook the World: Worker Turnover in Russia, Poland and Britain

We study worker turnover in a transition economy to investigate to what extent the length of time a worker has been employed by a firm shapes the turnover process. Using data from the Polish Labour Force Survey and The Russian Longitudinal Monitor Survey we compare the pattern of turnover with a Western economy, Britain. We show tenure profiles are higher and flatter in Russia and steeper and lower in Poland than in Britain. The characteristics of workers hired in the state and private sectors do not look very different. State and private sector firms in Poland offer the same wages to new recruits, but new private sector jobs in Russia appear to offer wage premia relative to new state jobs. We argue that these observations are consistent with a framework where the value of seniority in jobs begun under the old order may be small and the value of a continued job match unsure, offset, in Poland at least, by insider resistance to layoffs.Job tenure, worker turnover, transition economics