Content Type: Working Paper / Topic: Labor Issues

101. Does Change in Intellectual Property Rights Induce Demand for Skilled Workers? Evidence from India

Author:: Pavel Chakraborthy and Prachi Gupta
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: Do incentives to innovate create demand for skilled workers more than proportionately? We study the question using the implementation of the Patent (Amendment) Act in India in 2002 to comply with the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement. We find, first, stronger intellectual property protection has a sharper impact on demand for skilled workers for high patentable industries. Demand for skilled workers increased by 0.5%–2.9% for industries that are more patentable. The average compensation for skilled workers went up by 10% in high patentable industries but decreased for unskilled workers by about 2%. Second, the increase in wage inequality can partly be attributed to the increase in wages rather than incentives. Third, the increase in demand for skilled workers is due to both the increase in intensive margin (or price) and extensive margin (number). Fourth, the aggregate effect is completely driven by industries producing intermediate goods and big plants. Finally, the reforms led to a significant reallocation of resources between industries. The high patentable industries invested more in technology adoption, started to produce more product varieties at higher quality, and filed for more product patent claims. Broadly, we demonstrate that stronger intellectual property protection leads to higher wage inequality between industries.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Intellectual Property/Copyright, and Skilled Labor
Political Geography:: India and Asia

102. Minimum wage and the EU: Happily ever after?

Author:: Claire Dhéret and Mihai Palimariciuc
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: Once deemed a pipe dream, a concrete plan for a European framework on minimum wages might finally be in the cards. The framework will have to be ambitious enough to deliver progress for low-wage workers, but also flexible enough to accommodate the very diverse wage-setting regimes present across the EU. On top of that, the Commission must deal with the opposition to EU interventions in determining wages, and convince sceptics of the economic, social and political benefits of having a European framework. The Commission should, therefore, strive for (i) the creation of an egalitarian wage structure that supports decent living standards; and (ii) building broad political consensus.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Reform, European Union, and Minimum Wage
Political Geography:: Europe

103. Intended and Unintended Consequences of a New Limit on Working Hours in South Korea: Implications for Precarious Employment

Author:: Sungchul Park and Hansoo Ko
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:: Effective as of July 1, 2018, South Korea set a new cap on employees’ weekly working hours, decreasing the maximum number from 68 to 52. In this study, we comprehensively analyze the effectiveness of the law’s implementation by observing changes in work time, health status, health care utilization, health behavior, monthly expenses, and satisfaction between pre- and post-implementation periods (2014–2017 vs. 2019). We find evidence of both intended and unintended consequences—and, in this last category, some are beneficial and some not. As intended, employees eligible for the 52-hour work week saw their average working hours decrease, while their monthly spending on leisure increased substantially. A beneficial unintended consequence was that work time also decreased in firms with less than 300 employees that had not yet implemented the 52-hour work schedule (they have done so since, in January 2020). Among adverse unintended consequences, the most notable were heterogeneous effects across employment types (full-time vs. precarious employment) and, in particular, negative impacts on precarious employees (that is, those facing relatively high levels of job insecurity). Despite almost no change in their work time, precarious employees saw substantial increases in outpatient visits and monthly expenses for health care, indicating suggestive evidence of adverse health consequences. Another adverse unintended consequence was that overall job satisfaction decreased among several groups of employees. This may reflect a heavy workload among employees still expected to work overtime, especially experienced employees or those working in large firms. While employment rates increased after the new schedule’s implementation, the majority were in precarious jobs. This has negative implications because of the adverse health impacts of being in precarious employment; also, the workload of experienced employees in this field might have intensified amid all the new hiring. Our findings suggest key policy recommendations for how to leverage the benefits of the 52-hour cap on weekly working hours while addressing its negative unintended consequences.
Topic:: Health, Labor Issues, Employment, and Labor Policies
Political Geography:: Asia and South Korea

104. What Matters for Urban Women’s Work?

Author:: Shamindra Nath Roy and Partha Mukhopadhyay
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:: India is one of the lowest globally in terms of female labour force participation (FLFP), ranking only better than Pakistan in South Asia. While the decline in FLFP in rural areas is starkly visible, the urban FLFP has been consistently low since the 1980s despite higher economic growth and increasing level of education among females. The economic cost of such low FLFP (16.8%) is huge and if, for instance, it could be raised to the level of FLFP in China (61.5%), it has the potential to raise India’s GDP up to 27%. This paper attempts to investigate the structural deficiencies behind this consistently low urban FLFP through a variety of perspectives, ranging from measuring the complexity of women’s work to the implications of caste, location and family structure. It finds factors like presence of female-friendly industries, provision of regular salaried jobs and policies that cater to women’s needs to work near home like availability of part-time work, can improve the situation, though prejudices arising from patriarchy require to be addressed to make these measures truly transformative and not palliative.
Topic:: Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Inequality, and Economy
Political Geography:: South Asia and India

105. Gender Gaps in Education: The Long View

Author:: David Evans, Maryam Akmal, and Pamela Jakiela
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Global Development
Abstract:: Many countries remain far from achieving gender equality in the classroom. Using data from 126 countries between 1960 and 2010, we document four facts. First, women are more educated today than fifty years ago in every country in the world. Second, they remain less educated than men in the vast majority of countries. Third, in many countries with low levels of education for both men and women in 1960, gender gaps widened as more boys went to school, then narrowed as girls enrolled; thus, gender gaps got worse before they got better. Fourth, gender gaps rarely persist in countries where boys are attaining high levels of education. Most countries with large, current gender gaps have low levels of male educational attainment. Many also perform poorly on other measures of development such as life expectancy and GDP per capita. Improving girls’ education is an important goal in its own right, but closing gender gaps in education will not be sufficient to close critical gaps in adult life outcomes.
Topic:: Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Inequality, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:: Global Focus

106. The Economics and Politics of Social Democracy: A Reconsideration

Author:: Servaas Storm
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: Questions about the decline of Social democracy continue to excite wide interest, even in the era of Covid-19. This paper takes a fresh look at topic. It argues that social democratic politics faces a fundamental dilemma: short-term practical relevance requires it to accept, at least partly, the very socio-economic conditions which it purports to change in the longer run. Bhaduri’s (1993) essay which analyzes social democracy’s attempts to navigate this dilemma by means of ‘a nationalization of consumption’ and Keynesian demand management, was written before the rise of New (‘Third Way’) Labor and before the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-8. This paper provides an update, arguing that New Labor’s attempt to rescue ‘welfare capitalism’ entailed a new solution to the dilemma facing social democracy based on an expansion of employment, i.e. an all-out emphasis on “jobs, jobs, jobs”. The flip-side (or social cost) of the emphasis on job growth has been a stagnation of productivity growth—which, in turn, has put the ‘welfare state’ under increasing pressure of fiscal austerity. The popular discontent and rise of ‘populist’ political parties is closely related to the failure of New Labor to navigate social democracy’s dilemma.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Democracy, Capitalism, Economic Growth, Welfare, Productivity, and Social Democracy
Political Geography:: United Kingdom and Europe

107. How the Disappearance of Unionized Jobs Obliterated an Emergent Black Middle Class

Author:: William Lazonick, Philip Moss, and Joshua Weitz
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: During the 1960s and 1970s, blacks with no more than high-school educations gained significant access to well-paid unionized employment opportunities, epitomized by semi-skilled operative jobs in the automobile industry, to which they previously had limited access. Anti-discrimination laws under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act with oversight by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission supported this upward mobility for blacks in the context of a growing demand for blue-collar labor. From the late 1970s, however, the impact of global competition and the offshoring of manufacturing combined with the financialization of the corporation to decimate these stable and well-paid blue-collar jobs. Under the seniority provisions of the now beleaguered industrial unions, blacks tended to be last hired and first fired. As U.S.-based blue-collar jobs were permanently lost, U.S. business corporations and government agencies failed to make sufficient investments in the education and skills of the U.S. labor force to usher in a new era of upward socioeconomic mobility. This organizational failure left blacks most vulnerable to downward mobility. Instead of retaining corporate profits and reinvesting in the productive capabilities of employees, major business corporations became increasingly focused on downsizing their labor forces and distributing profits to shareholders in the form of cash dividends and stock buybacks. Legitimizing massive distributions to shareholders was the flawed and pernicious ideology that a company should be run to “maximize shareholder value.” As the U.S. economy transitioned from the Old Economy business model, characterized by a career with one company, to the New Economy business model, characterized by interfirm labor mobility, advanced education and social networks became increasingly important for building careers in well-paid white-collar occupations. Along with non-white Hispanics, blacks found themselves at a distinct disadvantage relative to whites and Asians in accessing these New Economy middle-class employment opportunities. Eventually, the downward socioeconomic mobility experienced by blacks would also extend to devastating loss of well-paid and stable employment for whites who lacked the higher education now needed to enter the American middle class. By the twenty-first century, general downward mobility had become a defining characteristic of American society, irrespective of race, ethnicity, or gender. Since the 1980s, the enemy of equal employment opportunity through upward socioeconomic mobility has been the pervasive and entrenched corporate-governance ideology and practice of maximizing shareholder value (MSV). For most Americans, of whatever race, ethnicity, and gender, MSV is the not-so-invisible hand that has a chokehold on the emergence of the stable and well-paid employment opportunities that are essential for sustainable prosperity.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Civil Rights, Unions, Black Politics, African American Studies, and Workforce
Political Geography:: United States

108. The Political Economy of Inequality in Chile and Mexico: Two Tales of Neoliberalism

Author:: Giorgos Gouzoulis and Collin Constantine
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:: This article offers a historical and econometric study on the determinants of functional income inequality in Chile and Mexico between 1980-2011. This is the first study on the determinants of the labour share in developing economies using single- country analysis that covers the historical period before 1990. We find robust evidence that government consumption is a positive driver of the respective wage shares. Since Chile has experienced persistent cuts in government welfare as opposed to Mexico, fiscal austerity is a fundamental explanation for its falling wage share. Private debt is the second most important explanation for why wage shares have fallen in Chile. We find no evidence of this channel in the Mexican case. However, globalisation has exposed Mexico’s labour-intensive industries to wage competition and this lowers its wage share. In contrast, Chile’s commodity exports and wage share have benefitted from trade globalisation. These comparative results demonstrate the importance of country-level studies as each country’s historical evolution and varied implementation of neoliberalism can tell unique distributional stories and provide more accurate policy insights for an inclusive growth strategy.
Topic:: Political Economy, Labor Issues, Inequality, and Neoliberalism
Political Geography:: South America, North America, Mexico, and Chile

109. The Evolution of Female Labour Force Participation in Jordan

Author:: Alma Boustati
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of female labour force participation in Jordan vis-à-vis institutional and economic development. When it comes to institutions, the primary focus will be on family law and labour law. Within the economic development framework, the focus will be on how the social contract motivated the structuring of the economy, labour market, and approach to welfare during three stages of Jordan’s economic development, namely the industrialisation period (1967-1982), the economic bust period (1983-1992), and the economic adjustment period (post-1993). Within each period, the implications of these factors on the composition and size of the female labour force participation is discussed. The findings indicate that a patriarchal approach to welfare, and consequently the low female labour force participation, was sustainable through economic policy which relied on high male wages and high non-wage income achieved through a combination of aid, remittances, and cheap foreign labour.
Topic:: Economics, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, and Welfare
Political Geography:: Middle East and Jordan

110. Latin America Under CoronaShock: Social Crisis, Neoliberal Failure, and the People’s Alternatives

Author:: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:: The emergence of COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean has accelerated – sometimes dramatically – a series of economic and social processes that had long been underway and revealed the result of decades of neoliberal policies. The increasingly authoritarian policies, precariousness of labour, and the current social crisis are among the consequences of the neoliberal model, which puts capital before people.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Neoliberalism, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Political Crisis
Political Geography:: South America, Latin America, and North America

111. Gendered laws and women in the workforce

Author:: Marie Hyland, Simeon Djankov, and Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:: This paper provides the first global look at how gender discrimination by the law affects women’s economic opportunity and charts the evolution of legal inequalities over five decades. Using the World Bank’s newly constructed Women, Business and the Law database, it documents large and persistent gender inequalities, especially with regard to pay and treatment of parenthood. The paper finds positive correlations between more equal laws pertaining to women in the workforce and more equal labor market outcomes, such as higher female labor force participation and a smaller wage gap between men and women.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Inequality, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:: Global Focus

112. Doing Business in Bolivia: a case study in the Andean regulatory framework

Author:: Jorge Ignacio Del Castillo Machicado
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
Abstract:: This article researches on the evolution of the business regulatory framework of Bolivia from 2006 to 2017 and its relationship with the country’s Labor productivity, Total Factor Productivity, and its Informal Economy size. To do this, it analyzes the Doing Business annual reports and standardizes each year overall score to the most recent methodology developed by the World Bank Group. Furthermore, it complements its finding with qualitative data through semi-structured interviews to key actors in the Bolivian economy. Overall, this paper finds that few steps have been taken to improve Bolivia’s Business regulatory framework from the period of 2006-2017, result in a lower rank in the Doing Business report and keeping its score constant. The lack of initiative in working towards more efficient policies, complex nature and poor adaptability of new technological practices have stagnated the improvements of business regulations along their lifecycles. As a consequence, Bolivia Total Factor Productivity, Informal Economy size and Labor productivity have shown no improvement over the last 10 years.
Topic:: Economics, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, World Bank, Regulation, and Business
Political Geography:: Latin America and Bolivia

113. Does Employment Protection Affect Unemployment? A Meta-analysis

Author:: Philipp Heimberger
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:: Despite extensive research efforts, the magnitude of the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on unemployment remains unclear. Existing econometric estimates exhibit substantial variation, and it is therefore difficult to draw valid conclusions. This paper applies meta-analysis and meta-regression methods to a unique data set consisting of 881 observations on the effect of EPL on unemployment from 75 studies. Once we control for publication selection bias, we cannot reject the hypothesis that the average effect of EPL on unemployment is zero. The meta-regression analysis, which investigates sources of heterogeneity in the reported effect sizes, reveals the following main results. First, the choice of the EPL variable matters: estimates that build on survey-based EPL variables report a significantly stronger unemployment-increasing impact of EPL than estimates developed using EPL indices based on the OECD’s methodology, where the latter relies on coding information from legal provisions. Second, we find that employment protection has a small unemployment-increasing effect on female unemployment, compared with a zero impact on total unemployment. Third, using multi-year averages of the underlying data tends to dampen the unemployment effects of EPL. Fourth, product market regulation is found to moderate the effect of EPL on unemployment.
Topic:: Labor Issues, European Union, Employment, Unemployment, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Political Geography:: Europe and Global Focus

114. Distributional National Accounts (DINA) for Austria, 2004-2016

Author:: Stefan Jestl and Emanuel List
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:: This paper constructs distributional national accounts for Austria for the period 2004-2016. We enrich survey data with tabulated tax data and make it fully consistent with national accounts data. The comprehensive dataset allows us to analyse the distribution of macroeconomic growth across the income distribution and to explore the evolution of income inequality in pre-tax income over time. Our results suggest that the distribution of growth has changed over time, which had considerable repercussions on inequality. Inequality started to decline at the very beginning of the economic and financial crisis in 2007, however it has increased again after 2012. We further provide novel insights into the evolution of capital income for top income groups and explore redistribution mechanisms that operated in Austria. Government spending was found to play a key role for redistributive effects across the income distribution. In particular, the transfer system redistributes pre-tax income to a large extent.
Topic:: Migration, Labor Issues, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:: Europe and Austria

115. Immigration and Offshoring: Two Forces of Globalisation and Their Impact on Employment and the Bargaining Power of Occupational Groups

Author:: Michael Landesmann and Sandra Leitner
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:: This paper estimates conditional demand models and, using a joint approach for the period 2008-2017, examines the impact of immigration and different measures of offshoring on the labour demand and demand elasticities of native workers in four different types of occupational groups: managers/professionals, clerical workers, craft (skilled) workers and manual workers. The analysis is conducted using data for four EU economies: Austria, Belgium, France and Spain. Our results point to important and occupation-specific direct and indirect effects of immigration and offshoring. Both offshoring – particularly services offshoring – and immigration have negative direct employment effects on all occupations, but native clerks and manual workers are affected the most, and native managers/professionals the least. Generally, offshoring exerts a stronger direct negative employment effect than does immigration. Our results also identify an important (labour demand) elasticity-channel of immigration and offshoring and show that some groups of native workers can also actually gain from globalisation through an improvement in their wage-bargaining position. Overall, our results indicate a deterioration in the bargaining power of native manual workers arising from both immigration and offshoring; an improvement in the bargaining position of native craft workers in the case of both immigration and offshoring; and an improvement in the bargaining position of native clerical workers and managers/professionals in the case of offshoring only. Finally, our analysis of the cross-effects of immigration highlights the important role of migrant managers/professionals for the labour demand and demand elasticities (bargaining power) of native clerical workers, craft and manual workers.
Topic:: Globalization, Labor Issues, Immigration, Employment, and Work Culture
Political Geography:: Europe, France, Belgium, Spain, and Austria

116. Japan and the Visegrad 4: The Unsensational Strategic Partners

Author:: Rudolf Furst
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract:: The Euro-Japanese rapprochement stimulates the Japanese interest in the new EU member states, which are then matched with Japanese investments and Japan’s global trade strategy. The V4 countries benefit from their geographical position, existing infrastructure and political stability, industrial tradition, and low labour costs, emphasizes Rudolf Fürst.
Topic:: Economics, Bilateral Relations, Labor Issues, European Union, Political stability, and Industry
Political Geography:: Japan, Europe, and Asia

117. Pandemic, informality, and vulnerability: Impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods in India

Author:: Surbhi Kesar, Rosa Abraham, Rahul Lahoti, Paaritosh Nath, and Amit Basole
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: We analyze findings from a large-scale survey of around 5000 respondents across 12 states of India to study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic containment measures (lockdown) on employment, livelihoods, food security and access to relief measures. We find a massive increase in unemployment, an equally dramatic fall in earnings among informal workers, large increases in food insecurity, depletion of savings and patchy coverage of relief measures. Two-thirds of our respondents lost work. The few informal workers who were still employed during the lockdown experienced more than a fifty percent drop in their earnings. Even among regular wage workers, half received either no salary or reduced salary during the lockdown. Almost eighty percent of surveyed households experienced a reduction in their food intake and a similar percentage of urban households did not have enough money to pay next month's rent. We also use a set of logistic regressions to identify how employment loss and food intake varies with individual and householdlevel characteristics. We find that migrants and urban Muslims are significantly worse off with respect to employment and food security. Among employment categories, self-employed workers were more food secure. The Public Distribution System (PDS) system was seen to have the widest reach among social security measures. However, even under PDS, 16 percent of vulnerable urban households did not have access to government rations. Further, half of the respondents reported not receiving any cash transfers (state or central). We conclude that much more is needed in the way of direct fiscal support that has been announced thus far by state and central governments in India.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Unemployment, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: India

118. Occupational change, artificial intelligence and the geography of EU labour markets

Author:: Sybrand Brekelmans and Georgios Petropoulos
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Bruegel
Abstract:: From 2002 up to 2009, the economies of European Union countries went through a skill upgrading, rather than a polarisation between low-skill and high-skill jobs. After 2009, this changed, with declining real wages and a significant increase in the share of workers in low-skill jobs. This assessment evaluates these changes in connection with labour market variables, population densities and the emergence of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Topic:: Labor Issues, European Union, Economy, Innovation, Artificial Intelligence, Strategic Competition, and Geography
Political Geography:: Europe

119. Job Search and Hiring with Two-Sided Limited Information about Workseekers' Skills

Author:: Eliana Carranza, Robert Garlick, Kate Orkin, and Neil Rankin
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: This paper presents field experimental evidence that limited information about workseekers’ skills distorts both firm and workseeker behavior. Assessing workseekers’ skills, giving workseekers their assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases workseekers’ employment and earnings. It also aligns their beliefs and search strategies more closely with their skills. Giving assessment results only to workseekers has similar effects on beliefs and search, but smaller effects on employment and earnings. Giving assessment results only to firms increases callbacks. These patterns are consistent with two-sided information frictions, a new finding that can inform the design of information-provision mechanisms.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Employment, Business, and Job Creation
Political Geography:: Global Focus

120. Gender Differences in Professional Career Dynamics: New Evidence from a Global Law Firm

Author:: Ina Ganguli, Ricardo Hausmann, and Martina Viarengo
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: We examine gender gaps in career dynamics in the legal sector using rich panel data from one of the largest global law firms in the world. The law firm studied is representative of multinational law firms and operates in 23 countries. The sample includes countries at different stages of development. We document the cross-country variation in gender gaps and how these gaps have changed over time. We show that while there is gender parity at the entry level in most countries by the end of the period examined, there are persistent raw gender gaps at the top of the organization across all countries. We observe significant heterogeneity among countries in terms of gender gaps in promotions and wages, but the gaps that exist appear to be declining over the period studied. We also observe that women are more likely to report exiting the firm for family and work-life balance reasons, while men report leaving for career advancement. Finally, we show that various measures of national institutions and culture appear to play a role in the differential labor-market outcomes of men and women.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Employment, Inequality, Human Capital, and Legal Sector
Political Geography:: Global Focus

121. The Story of the Open Pension Funds and the Employee Capital Plans in Poland. Will It Succeed This Time?

Author:: Barbara Blaszczyk
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:: Poland’s new Employee Capital Plans (PPK) scheme, which is mandatory for employers, started to be implemented in July 2019. The article looks at the systemic solutions applied in the programme from the perspective of the concept of the simultaneous reconstruction of the retirement pension system. The aim is to present arguments for and against the project from the point of view of various actors, and to assess the chances of success for the new system. The article offers a detailed study of legal solutions, an analysis of the literature on the subject, and reports of institutions that supervise pension funds. The results of this analysis point to the lack of cohesion between certain solutions of the 1999 pension reform and expose a lack of consistency in how the reform was carried out, which led to the eventual removal of the capital part of the pension system. The study shows that additional saving for old age is advisable in the country’s current demographic situation and necessary for both economic and social reasons. However, the systemic solutions offered by the government appear to be chiefly designated to serve short-term state interests and do not create sufficient incentives for pension plan participants to join the programme.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Employment, Social Policy, and Capital
Political Geography:: Eastern Europe and Poland

122. Wage effects of employer-mediated transfers

Author:: Santiago Garriga and Dario Tortarolo
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:: We explore how the way in which tax credits are disbursed affects employer’s behavior, wages, and employment. We exploit a change in the payment system in Argentina that was gradually rolled out between 2003 and 2010. Under the old system, employers were in charge of delivering family allowances to their employees together with the monthly salary, and the transfer was deducted from employer social security contributions. For transparency purposes, the government eliminated the intermediary role of firms and started depositing the transfer directly into workers’ bank accounts. Using employer-employee administrative data and an event-study approach, we show that the way tax credits are disbursed matters for the final economic incidence. Our evidence suggests that employers shift part of the incidence of the transfer by paying lower wages. We document larger wage effects in small and less unionized firms and we do not find evidence of pay equity concerns (e.g., effect mostly driven by new hires rather than incumbent workers). Our findings are therefore in line with the hypothesis that transfers are not all captured dollar for dollar by workers. These results raise questions about the use of employers as intermediaries to disburse the transfer; where less salient schemes may lead to capture by employers.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Work Culture, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:: Argentina and Latin America

123. It takes two to tango: Labour responses to an income tax holiday in Argentina

Author:: Dario Tortarolo, Guillermo Cruces, and Victoria Castillo
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:: We exploit a large, quasi-randomized, 2.5-year-long income tax holiday to identify intertemporal labor responses of high-wage earners to net wage changes. In August 2013, the Argentine government exempted a group of wage earners from the income tax for 2.5 years while leaving in place the tax on other high-wage earners. Eligibility was based on whether past wage earnings were below a fixed threshold, thus levying sharply different marginal and average tax rates—effectively 0% for workers below the threshold. Using rich population-wide administrative data and a regression discontinuity design, we estimate a precise and very small wage earnings elasticity of 0.017 for this large, salient, and temporary income tax change. Responses are larger for more flexible outcomes (overtime hours) and for more elastic groups (job switchers and managers). We also find avoidance responses from new entrants who faced no tax if their first monthly wage was below the fixed threshold. This strategic entry below the threshold to dodge taxes required coordination with employers. Our findings indicate rigidities in the labor market that require employer-employee cooperation to be overcome for wage earners to be able to respond to tax changes.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Income Inequality, and Tax Systems
Political Geography:: Argentina and Latin America

124. Imperfect competition in product and labour markets. A quantitative analysis

Author:: Dario Tortarolo and Roman D. Zarate
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:: We disentangle the extent of imperfect competition in product and labor markets using plant level data. We derive a formula for the ratio between markups and markdowns assuming costminimizing firms that face upward-sloping labour supply and downward-sloping product demand curves. We then separate this combined measure of market power by estimating firm-level labour supply elasticities instrumenting wages with a different set of instruments: including the use of intermediate inputs, input price shocks, and TFP shocks. Our results suggest that both markets exhibit imperfect competition, but the variation is mainly driven by markups. We also estimate the relative gains of removing market power dispersion on allocative efficiency, finding that markups are more important on TFP than markdowns.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Finance, Labor Market, Supply Chains, and Price
Political Geography:: Global Focus

125. Informal employment and wages in Poland

Author:: Jacek Liwiński
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:: Purpose: This paper tries to identify the wage gap between informal and formal workers and tests for the two-tier structure of the informal labour market in Poland. Design/methodology/approach: I employ the propensity score matching (PSM) technique and use data from the Polish Labour Force Survey (LFS) for the period 2009–2017 to estimate the wage gap between informal and formal workers, both at the means and along the wage distribution. I use two definitions of informal employment: a) employment without a written agreement and b) employment while officially registered as unemployed at a labour office. In order to reduce the bias resulting from the non-random selection of individuals into informal employment, I use a rich set of control variables representing several individual characteristics. Findings: After controlling for observed heterogeneity, I find that on average informal workers earn less than formal workers, both in terms of monthly earnings and hourly wage. This result is not sensitive to the definition of informal employment used and is stable over the analysed time period (2009–2017). However, the wage penalty to informal employment is substantially higher for individuals at the bottom of the wage distribution, which supports the hypothesis of the two-tier structure of the informal labour market in Poland. Originality/value: The main contribution of this study is that it identifies the two-tier structure of the informal labour market in Poland: informal workers in the first quartile of the wage distribution and those above the first quartile appear to be in two partially different segments of the labour market.
Topic:: Demographics, Labor Issues, Employment, Social Policy, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:: Europe and Poland

126. A General Equilibrium Analysis of the Impact of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Turkey’s Economy and a Policy Alternative to Protect Labor Incomes

Author:: Ebru Voyvoda and Erinc Yeldan
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:: The COVID-19 pandemic is being experienced as a multidimensional systemic crisis based on the simultaneous manifestations of the supply, demand, and financial shocks. These effects have already been realized in the exacerbation of deep inequalities in income distribution, in functional, regional, and gender terms; in access to public services that are commercialized; and therefore, in an environment where poverty is experienced with social exclusion due to severe inequalities of income. The crisis has hit the Turkish economy under a conjuncture where the adverse effects of the 2018 financial turbulence have not yet been alleviated, and the macroeconomic balances have not been resolved in a sustained fashion. Turkey has displayed already high rates of unemployment (at the rate of 13.6%) and inflation (11%) by the end of 2019. Projections by the IMF also reveal that as a result of the economic measures of isolation and employment disruption, Turkey’s GDP will likely contract by 5% in 2020. Given this background, our aim in this study is to analyze the upon-impact effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on Turkish economy and to investigate policy alternatives that can be implemented against these impacts. We utilize a macroeconomic applied general equilibrium model designed for this purpose; and examine the effects of the crisis conjuncture caused by the COVID-19 outbreak on sectoral production, employment, wages, and capital revenues, national income, and foreign trade balances. Then, we provide an analysis of defensive policies that can be developed against the crisis.
Topic:: Political Economy, Labor Issues, Economy, Finance outlook, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

127. Gender and Work Patterns in Indian Cities: A Socio-Spatial Analysis

Author:: Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:: Using an original household survey conducted in Hyderabad and Mumbai that identifies intracity spatial coordinates of residents, we present a socio-spatial analysis of gender and paid work. We show that the ease of movement through the city, allocation of care work related considerations and educational attainment are all crucial to understanding the labor force participation patterns of urban women. A gender lens identifies key facets of access and mobility characterizing urbanization in developing countries. Spatial heterogeneity of residence has very different outcomes for the labor force participation of women and men.
Topic:: Development, Labor Issues, Women, Work Culture, Cities, and Gender
Political Geography:: South Asia and India

128. Child Skill Production: Accounting for Parental and Market-Based Time and Goods Investments

Author:: Elizabeth Caucutt, Lance Lochner, Joseph Mullins, and Youngmin Park
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP), Western University
Abstract:: This paper studies the multidimensional nature of investments in children within a dynamic framework. In particular, we examine the roles of parental time investments, purchased home goods/services inputs, and market-based child care services. We first document strong increases in total investment expenditures by maternal education; yet expenditure shares, which skew heavily towards parental time, vary little with parental schooling. Second, we develop an intergenerational lifecycle model with multiple child investment inputs to study these patterns and the impacts of policies that alter the prices of different inputs. We analytically characterize investment behavior, focusing on the substitutability of different investment inputs and the way parental skills affect the productivity of family-based inputs. Third, we develop an estimation strategy that exploits intratemporal optimality conditions based on relative demand to estimate substitutability between inputs, the relative productivity of different inputs, and the role played by parental education. This approach requires no assumptions about the dynamics of skill investment, preferences, or credit markets. We also account for mismeasured inputs and wages, as well as unobserved heterogeneity in parenting skills. We further show how noisy measures of child achievement (measured several years apart) can also be incorporated in a generalized method of moments approach to additionally identify the dynamics of skill accumulation. Fourth, we use data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the skill production technology for children ages 12 and younger. Our estimates suggest complementarity between parental time and home goods/services inputs as well as between these family-based inputs and market-based child care, with elasticities of substitution ranging from 0.2 to 0.5. We find no systematic effects of parental education on the relative productivity of parental time and other home inputs. Finally, we use counterfactual simulations to explore the extent and sources of variation in investments across families, as well as investment responses to changes in input prices. We find that variation in prices explains 48% of the overall variance in investment expenditures, and differences in wages explain more than half of the investment expenditure gap between college-educated and non-college-educated parents. We further show that accounting for the degree of input complementarity implied by our estimates has important implications for the responses of individual inputs to any price change and for the responses in total investments and skill accumulation to large (but not small) price changes.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Children, Human Capital, Economic Mobility, Credit, Productivity, Skilled Labor, and Price
Political Geography:: Global Focus

129. Returns to Skill and the Evolution of Skills for Older Men

Author:: Qian Liu, Lance Lochner, Youngmin Park, and Youngki Shin
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP), Western University
Abstract:: This paper shows that repeated cross-section data with multiple skill measures (one continuous and repeated) available each period are sufficient to nonparametrically identify the evolution of skill returns and cross-sectional skill distributions. With panel data and the same available measurements, the dynamics of skills can also be identified. Our identification strategy motivates a multi-step nonparametric estimation strategy. We further show that if any continuous repeated measurement is shown to be linear in skills, a much simpler GMM estimator can be used. Using HRS data on men ages 52+ from 1996-2016, we show that one of the available (continuous and repeated) skill measures is linear in skills and implement our GMM estimation approach. Our estimates suggest that the returns to skill were fairly stable from the mid-1990s to the Great Recession, rising thereafter. We document considerable differences in skills and lifecycle skill profiles over ages 52–70 across cohorts, with more recent cohorts possessing lower skills in their mid-50s but experiencing much weaker skill declines with age. We also document skill differences by education and race, which are stable across ages and explain roughly one-third and one-half, respectively, of the corresponding differences in wages. We observe substantial differences in skills for men in their mid-50s choosing to retire at different ages, but no clear evidence of sharp declines in skills surrounding retirement ages. Finally, we show that individual fixed effects account for more than a third of all skill variation at age 60, with considerable persistence in year-to-year skill innovations.
Topic:: Global Recession, Labor Issues, Human Capital, Men, Productivity, Skilled Labor, and Retirement
Political Geography:: Global Focus

130. The EITC and Maternal Time Use: More Time Working and Less Time with Kids?

Author:: Jacob Bastian and Lance Lochner
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP), Western University
Abstract:: Parents spend considerable time and resources investing in their children's development. Given evidence that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) aects maternal labor supply, we investigate how the EITC aects a broad array of time-use activities, focusing on the amount and nature of time spent with children. Using 2003-2018 time-use data, we nd that federal and state EITC expansions increase maternal work time, which reduces time devoted to home production, leisure, and time with children. However, for children of all ages, almost none of the reduction comes from time devoted to investment activities, such as active learning and development activities.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Children, Women, Income Inequality, Tax Systems, Human Capital, Family, and Productivity
Political Geography:: United States

131. Marriage, Children, and Labor Supply: Beliefs and Outcomes

Author:: Yifan Gong, Todd Stinebrickner, and Ralph Stinebrickner
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP), Western University
Abstract:: While a large literature is interested in the relationship between family and labor supply outcomes, little is known about the expectations of these objects at earlier stages. We examine these expectations, taking advantage of unique data from the Berea Panel Study. In addition to characterizing expectations, starting during college, the data details outcomes for ten years after graduation. Methodological contributions come from approaches to validate quality of survey expectations data and the recognition that expectations data, along with longitudinal data, can potentially help address endogeneity issues arising in the estimation of the causal effect of family on labor supply.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Human Capital, Family, Labor Market, and Productivity
Political Geography:: Canada and Global Focus

132. Perceived and Actual Option Values of College Enrollment

Author:: Yifan Gong, Ralph Stinebrickner, and Todd Stinebrickner
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP), Western University
Abstract:: An important feature of post-secondary schooling is the experimentation that accompanies sequential decision-making. Specifically, by entering college, a student gains the option to decide at a future time whether it is optimal to remain in college or to drop out, after resolving uncertainty that existed at entrance about factors that affect the return to college. This paper uses data from the Berea Panel Study to quantify the value of this option. The unique nature of the data allows us to make a distinction between “actual” option values and “perceived” option values and to examine the accuracy of students’ perceptions. We find that the average perceived option value is 65% smaller than the average actual option value ($8,670 versus $25,040). A further investigation suggests that this understatement is not due to misperceptions about how much uncertainty is resolved during college, but, rather, because of overoptimism at entrance about the returns to college. In terms of policy implications related to college entrance, we do not find evidence that students understate the overall value of college, which depends on the sum of the option value and expectations at entrance about the returns to college.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Human Capital, Higher Education, Economic Mobility, and Productivity
Political Geography:: Global Focus

133. Self-Employment and Development

Author:: Juan Herreno and Sergio Ocampo
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP), Western University
Abstract:: Selection into self-employment among the poor is dominated by subsistence concerns, which leads to high levels of unproductive self-employment in developing countries. We incorporate this view into an otherwise benchmark macro-development model by allowing for labor frictions. Standard models that rely only on financial frictions are at odds with crucial features of the data, including large self-employment rates among the poor and the response of labor markets after well-identified labor demand shocks. We study the efficacy of a wide range of development policies on occupational choices, prices, and productivity. We find that providing unemployment benefits improves selection into self-employment, increasing total-factor productivity (TFP). Self-employment grants and unconditional transfers lower TFP by making self-employment more attractive to low-productivity individuals. Finally, financial reforms that improve access to credit succeed in raising productivity, but they do not address the subsistence concerns of poor individuals. Self-employment is still concentrated among the poor after the reforms take place.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Human Capital, Macroeconomics, Economic Development, and Productivity
Political Geography:: Global Focus

134. Immigration and Worker-Firm Matching

Author:: Gianluca Orefice and Giovanni Peri
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:: The process of matching between firms and workers is an important mechanism in determining the distribution of wages. In a labor market characterised by large dispersion of workers' productivity and worker-firm complementarity, high quality firms have strong incentives to screen for the quality of workers. This process will increase the positive quality association of firm-worker matches known as positive assortative matching (PAM). Immigration in a local labor market, by increasing the variance of workers abilities, may drive stronger PAM between firms and workers. Using French matched employer-employee (DADS) data over the period 1995-2005 we document that positive supply-driven changes of immigrant workers in a district increased the strength of PAM. We then show that this association is consistent with causality, is quantitatively significant, and is associated with higher average productivity and firm profits, but also with higher wage dispersion. We also show that the increased degree of positive assortative matching is mainly reached by high-productive firms "losing" lower quality workers and "attracting" higher quality workers.
Topic:: Economics, International Political Economy, Labor Issues, Immigration, Immigrants, and Migrant Workers
Political Geography:: France

135. Weather Shocks and Migration Intentions in Western Africa: Insights from a Multilevel Analysis

Author:: Simone Bertolia, Frédéric Docquier, Hillel Rapoport, and Ilse Ruyssen
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:: We use a multilevel approach to characterize the relationship between weather shocks and (internal and international) migration intentions. We combine individual survey data on migration intentions with measures of localized weather shocks for Western African countries over 2008-2016. A meta-analysis on results from about 310,000 regressions is conducted to identify the specification of weather anoma-lies that maximizes the goodness of fit of our empirical model. We then use this best specification to document heterogeneous mobility responses to weather shocks, which can be due to differences in long-term climatic conditions, migration percep- tions, or adaptation capabilities. We find that droughts are associated with a higher probability of migration intentions in Senegal, Niger and Ivory Coast. The effect on international migration intentions are only significant in Niger. These effects are amplified, but qualitatively similar, when restricting the sample to rural low-skilled respondents.
Topic:: Economics, International Political Economy, Migration, Labor Issues, Skilled Labor, and Weather
Political Geography:: West Africa, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Niger

136. Motherhood, Labor Market Trajectories, and the Allocation of Talent: Harmonized Evidence on 29 Countries

Author:: Inés Berniell, Lucila Berniell, Dolores de la Mata, María Edo, Yarine Fawaz, Matilde P. Machado, and Mariana Marchionno
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:: In this paper we assess whether changes in labor market decisions upon motherhood lead to potential inefficient allocations of talent. Using an event study approach with retrospective data drawn from SHARE for 29 European countries we show that motherhood effects go beyond the well studied effects of labor market participation decisions: the arrival of the first child substantially affects the uptaking of alternative modes of employment, such as part-time and self-employment, that are characterized by flexible or reduced work schedules but also lower pay on average. We also show that the size of labor market responses to motherhood are larger in societies with more conservative social-norms or with weak policies regarding work-life balance. To assess the effects of motherhood over the allocation of talent, we explore how labor market responses to parenthood vary by alternative measures of talent or ability. We find that all women, even those with the highest level of ability and abler than their husbands face large motherhood effects, while men show virtually no changes in the labor market when becoming fathers. We also find that mothers who become self-employed after the birth of the first child are those that are less entrepreneurial-able according to cognitive ability and personality traits shown to impair business survival. Overall, our results suggest relevant changes in the allocation of talent caused by gender differences in nonmarket responsibilities that can have sizable impacts on aggregate market productivity.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Children, and Employment
Political Geography:: Global Focus

137. Job loss and household labor supply adjustments in developing countries: Evidence from Argentina

Author:: Matias Ciaschi
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:: Using longitudinal data for Argentina, this paper measures the labor supply reaction of different household members to a breadwinner’s job loss. Firm events and local unemployment shocks are exploited as exogenous sources of variation to estimate the causal effect. Our main findings show that job loss by the male household head has a significant and substantial effect on the labor supply response of other household members, both at the extensive and intensive margin. While we do not find any effect on daughters, female partners and sons increase their labor market participation. The latter are also more likely to drop out from the educational system. These results are stronger among economically vulnerable households.
Topic:: Development, Education, Labor Issues, and Employment
Political Geography:: Global Focus

138. The short- and long-term costs to the United States of the Trump administration’s attempt to deport foreign students

Author:: Sherman Robinson, Marcus Noland, Egor Gornostay, and Soyoung Han
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:: On July 6, 2020, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced modifications to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program eliminating temporary exemptions for nonimmigrant students taking all classes online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in the fall 2020 semester. Foreign students violating the rule would be subject to deportation. Under public pressure, the Trump administration rescinded the order on July 14. Had the policy been implemented, more than 1 million foreign students studying in the United States could have been deported. The authors use an economywide simulation model to estimate the economic impact on the United States if the policy had been implemented. They find that the policy would have cost the US economy up to 752,000 jobs and $68 billion in lost GDP in the short run. Their estimates are larger than those reported in other studies because they consider both direct and indirect effects of the policy. In the long run, the move would have reduced the research productivity of American universities and adversely affected research, innovation, and entrepreneurship across the economy, in both the private and public sectors.
Topic:: Education, Migration, Labor Issues, Donald Trump, COVID-19, and Protectionism
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

139. Trade surplus or deficit? Neither matters for changes in manufacturing employment shares

Author:: Robert Z. Lawrence
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:: Many countries have launched industrial policy programs to improve their manufacturing competitiveness based on the idea that countries with larger trade surpluses or smaller deficits in manufacturing will have higher shares of manufacturing employment. And as countries try to generate a recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, these programs are being enlarged. But while the higher productivity in manufacturing that these programs generate may initially increase manufacturing output and expand trade surpluses in manufacturing, it will also reduce the manufacturing jobs required to manufacture those goods for domestic spending and generating the larger trade balances. As a result, the impact on employment is likely to be substantially smaller than might be expected. Improved productivity implies that goods can be manufactured more cheaply using fewer workers, so unless there is high enough demand at home and abroad for the lower-priced or new products that productivity growth generates, any additional jobs created could be substantially lower than might be expected. This is not just a theoretical possibility. Using data from a sample of 60 countries, this paper shows that between 1995 and 2011, on average countries with trade surpluses in manufacturing experienced declines in manufacturing employment shares that were slightly larger than the declines in countries with manufacturing trade deficits. Additionally, the declines in manufacturing employment shares were as large in countries where the manufacturing trade balance moved in a positive direction as in those where it declined. This suggests that even if industrial policies generate larger trade surpluses in manufacturing, they may not succeed in reversing the trend declines in manufacturing employment shares that have persisted in many countries for several decades.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Employment, Manufacturing, Trade Policy, Protectionism, and Trade Deficit
Political Geography:: Global Focus

140. Employers’ Skills Requirements in the Austrian Labour Market: On the Relative Importance of ICT, Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills over the Past 15 Years

Author:: Sandra Leitner and Oliver Reiter
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:: This paper analyses job advertisements to identify the particular skills, abilities and characteristics that are in demand on the Austrian labour market. It takes a novel approach and uses information extracted from over 1.5 million job advertisements over the past 15 years from Austria’s largest online job portal, karriere.at, to shed light on employers’ skills needs and the relative importance of, and demand for, different skill types over time. It develops a taxonomy which classifies observable skills into information and communications technology (ICT) skills (which are of increasing importance as a result of the ongoing digital revolution), cognitive skills, cognitively based skills and non-cognitive (soft) skills; but it also takes into account other factors that frequently appear in job advertisements, such as previous work experience, physical appearance, and the willingness to travel, work overtime, weekends or shifts, among others. It shows that Austrian employers are quite demanding: cognitive skills, previous work experience and ICT skills were the three most frequent requirements, appearing in (almost) every second job advertisement in 2019. Over the years, these categories have also become increasingly important to employers. Among cognitively based skills, language skills were the most important, also appearing in every second job advertisement. The ability to work as part of a team, communication skills, independence, flexibility and accuracy were the top five non-cognitive (soft) skills demanded by employers.
Topic:: Economics, International Political Economy, Communications, Labor Issues, Employment, Labor Market, Skilled Labor, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:: Austria

141. Building a Social Security Architecture for Informal Workers in India, Finally!

Author:: Santosh Mehrotra
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Social protection and social security have very limited coverage in India. This reality has not changed since independence, one of greatest failures of the development strategy India adopted in the early fifties. The labour force is predominantly unorganized. As much as 91 per cent of the labour force are in informal employment, i.e. without any social insurance we estimated from the NSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (2017-18) (Mehrotra and Parida, 2019). This is barely down 2 percentage points from 93% in 2011-12 (NSO’s 68th Round). In fact, regardless of the growth rate of GDP, this high share of informality in the workforce had not changed until 2012, and when it fell recently, it did so by merely 2 points. The rest 9 per cent of the workforce has varying levels of social security in the form of provident fund, paid leave, medical insurance and other benefits.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Social Policy, Social Security, Welfare, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:: India

142. Did Employment Rise or Fall in India between 2011 and 2017? Estimating Absolute Changes in the Workforce

Author:: Amit Basole and Paaritosh Nath
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: The recently released data from the 2017-2018 Periodic Labour Force Survey have created a controversy regarding the quantity of employment generated in the past few years in India. Estimates ranging from an absolute increase of 23 million to an absolute decline of 15.5 million have been published. In this paper we show that some of the variation in estimates can be explained by the way in which populations are projected based on Census 2011 data. We estimate the change in employment using the cohort-component method of population projection. We show that for men total employment rose but the increase fell far short of the increase in working age population. For women, employment fell. The decline is concentrated among women engaged in part-time or occasional work in agriculture and construction.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, and Workforce
Political Geography:: India

143. Income Distribution and Effective Demand in the Indian Economy

Author:: Zico Dasgupta
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Does there exist a trade-off between labour’s income share and output growth rate? Or does a reduction in wage share in itself reduces the output growth rate? These questions have returned to the centre stage in the midst of India’s present crisis as the government sought the dilution and suspension of labour laws as a counter-cyclical policy instrument. In the absence of any other stimulus or countervailing factors, the impact of such a policy would hinge on the relationship between income distribution and effective demand. This paper attempts to lay bare this relationship for the Indian economy through an empirical analysis of India’s macro data and a theoretical model on the basis of regression results.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, and Demand
Political Geography:: India

144. Economic Transition, Dualism, and Informality in India: Nature and Patterns of Household-level Transitions

Author:: Surbhi Kesar
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: We examine the Indian economy during a peak period of high growth between 2005-2012 to analyze nature and patterns of household-level transitions across the different sectors of the economy and to relate these transitions to the broader process of structural change. We use a pan-India household-level panel data to categorize households according to their primary income sources into seven sectors characterized by varying degrees of formality/informality and various production structures and labour processes. We find that even this this relatively brief period, there has been a very large volume of transitions of households across these sectors. However, despite such volumes of transitions, the overall economic structure, and its segmentations, has continued to be reproduced, along with a regeneration of ‘traditional’ informal spaces that were often expected to dissolve over time with high economic growth. To ascertain the nature of these transitions – ‘favorable’ or ‘unfavorable’ – in terms of economic well-being of households, we employ a counterfactual analysis. We find that a majority of the transitions in the economy during the period of analysis have been ‘unfavourable’ in nature, with large proportion of households transitioning to sectors that are not ‘optimal’ locations for them, given their socio-economic characteristics. Further, using a multinomial logit regression framework, we find that the likelihood and nature of these transitions significantly vary with household characteristics, some of which, like social caste, are structurally given and cannot be optimally chosen by households. This dynamic process of reproducing a rather stagnant structure, along with substantial ‘unfavourable’ transitions towards ‘traditional’ informal economic spaces that are continuously reshuffled and reconstituted, provide insights into the complexity of India’s development trajectory that is often glossed over in the literature.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Economic Growth, and Economic Development
Political Geography:: India

145. Mechanisms of Surplus Appropriation in the Informal Sector: A Case Study of Tribal Migrants in Ahmedabad’s Construction Industry

Author:: Rahul De
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: This paper is based on fieldwork I had undertaken regarding tribal migrant workers in the construction sector, in Ahmedabad in May-July 2018, coordinated by Aajevika Bureau(AB). I had undertaken this fieldwork to assess the work of AB and advise them about strategies to collectivize migrant labour groups. While interacting with a particular social group (Bhil tribals from South West Rajasthan) who work in the construction sector, I struggled to capture the specificity of their experience through the concept of informal labour. This paper is an attempt to characterize the specificity of their social experience, while also, reframing the concept of informal labour. I use the concept of labour process (Michael Burawoy: Manufacturing Consent) to argue that there is not a binary or one-dimensional power relationship between informal labour and owner/state/capital, but instead, the process of surplus appropriation occurs at multiple nodes through different agents. In this paper, I have identified multiple modes of surplus extraction which are embedded as institutions or social norms in the labour process. Further, I argue that there is a close link between the status of tribal workers as marginalized within society, and their status as displaced and marginalized in their living areas and workplace. This difference translates into identity based discrimination faced in the city, as well as, structural exclusion from the governance apparatus faced as migrants. Therefore, tribal migrant workers do not earn enough to subsist and are highly dependent on early child birth, non-remunerated services of their family and the social security net provided by their village community. This paper concludes that primitive accumulation, fragmenting land ownership and indebtedness creates a supply of tribal migrants, who have no other recourse to employment and are forced to work in the deplorable conditions found in the construction sector. Tribal migrant workers in the informal sector are an important population to target for social policies, because they are more vulnerable than other social identities. This paper hopes to contribute to the framing of interventions and policies that civil society organizations and state authorities can implement to improve the terms of employment and working conditions of informal labour.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, and Migrant Workers
Political Geography:: India

146. Who’s Responsible Here? Establishing Legal Responsibility in the Fissured Workplace

Author:: Tanya Goldman and David Weil
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: The nature of work is changing, with workers enduring increasingly precarious working conditions without any safety net. In response, this Article proposes a new “Concentric Circle framework” which would improve workers’ access to civil, labor, and employment rights. Many businesses, including app-based platforms, have restructured toward “fissured workplace” business models. They treat workers like employees (specifying behaviors and closely monitoring outcomes) but they classify workers as independent contractors (engaging them at an arms-length and cutting them off from rights and benefits tied to employment). These arrangements confound legal classifications of “employment” and expose deficiencies with existing workplace protections, which are based on “employment relationships.” As a result, a growing number of workers lack both bargaining power and critical workpalce rights and benefits. We propose a Concentric Circle framework to better govern workers’ rights in the modern era. At the core, we maintain that certain rights and protections should not be tethered to an employment relationship, but to work itself. Thus, the right to be compensated for work and paid a minimum wage; freedom from discrimination and retaliation; access to a safe working environment, and the right to associate and engage in concerted activity should belong to all workers, not just employees. Second, as a middle circle, we argue for a rebuttable presumption of employment to address those rights that remain exclusive to employees (and not independent contractors), and we propose an updated legal test of employment. Finally, at the outer ring of the framework, we suggest policies that could enhance workers’ access to benefits that promote worker mobility and social welfare. Other scholarship has focused exclusively on either independent contractors or employees, or it has proposed a new category of worker altogether. We contend that this comprehensive framework better assigns rights, responsibilities, and protections in the modern workplace than do current legal doctrines or alternative proposals.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Law, Legal Theory, Civil Rights, Legal Sector, and Workforce
Political Geography:: Global Focus

147. Payroll Share, Real Wage and Labor Productivity across US States

Author:: Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, Codrina Rada, Ansel Schiavone, and Rudi von Arnim
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: This paper analyzes regional contributions to the US payroll share from 1977 to 2017 and the four major business cycles throughout this period. We implement two empirical exercises. First, we decompose the US payroll share across states. Utilizing a Divisia index decomposition technique yields exact contributions of real wages, employment structure, labor productivity and relative prices across the states to the aggregate change in the payroll share. Key findings are that the decline in the aggregate (i) is driven by decoupling between real wage and labor productivity; and (ii) is initially driven by the rust belt states, but subsequently dominated by relatively large states. Second, we employ mixture models on real wages and labor productivity across US states to discern whether distinct mechanisms appear to generate these distributions. Univariate models (iii) indicate the possibility that two distinct mechanisms generate state labor productivities, raising the question of whether regional dualism has taken hold. Lastly, we use bivariate mixture models to investigate whether such dualism and decoupling manifest in the joint distributions of payroll shares and labor productivity, too. Results (iv) are affirmative, and further suggest a tendency for high performing states to have relatively high payroll shares initially, and low payroll shares more recently.
Topic:: Economics, Political Economy, Labor Issues, Productivity, and Workforce
Political Geography:: United States

148. Endogenous Growth, Skill Obsolescence and Output Hysteresis in a New Keynesian Model with Unemployment

Author:: Wolfgang Lechthaler and Mewael F. Tesfaselassie
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:: We embed human capital-based endogenous growth into a New-Keynesian model with search and matching frictions in the labor market and skill obsolescence from long-term unemployment. The model can account for key features of the Great Recession: a decline in productivity growth, the relative stability of inflation despite a pronounced fall in output (the "missing disinflation puzzle"), and a permanent gap between output and the pre-crisis trend output. In the model, lower aggregate demand raises unemployment and the training costs associated with skill obsolescence. Lower employment hinders learning-by-doing, which slows down human capital accumulation, feeding back into even fewer vacancies than justified by the demand shock alone. These feedback channels mitigate the disinflationary effect of the demand shock while amplifying its contractionary effect on output. The temporary growth slowdown translates into output hysteresis (permanently lower output and labor productivity).
Topic:: International Political Economy, Global Recession, Labor Issues, Economic Growth, Inflation, Keynes, and Capital
Political Geography:: Global Focus

149. Skills in African Labor Markets and Implications for Migration to Europe

Author:: Andreas Backhaus
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:: This paper assesses the potential for skilled labor migration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. It utilizes representative surveys from Ghana and Kenya to shed light on the quality and distribution of skills in the labor markets of these countries. Skills in both countries are found to be unevenly distributed, with significant parts of the labor force being essentially unskilled. Similarly designed surveys from France, Germany, and the UK further allow comparing skills and formal education between the African and the European countries. On average, the labor force in the sub-Saharan African countries is less skilled and less educated than the European labor force. Importantly, even at the same levels of formal education, workers in Ghana and Kenya are substantially less skilled than workers in Europe. The paper further considers a number of hypothetical scenarios for skilled labor migration from the African to the European countries. It is demonstrated that the European countries would have to recruit workers from the very top end of the African skill distribution to match European demands for skills. In turn, the average worker from the African labor markets would fit only into the low end of the European skill distribution where employment rates are low. Hence, more regular and skilled labor migration from African countries will unlikely be a remedy for skill shortages in Europe unless migrants are positively selected on their skills. In that case, however, additional opportunities for skilled labor migration would risk a brain drain from African countries that could harm economic development there. Improving the quality of education in sub-Saharan Africa on a broad scale remains indispensable for mutually beneficial migration between Africa and Europe.
Topic:: International Political Economy, Migration, Labor Issues, Migrant Workers, and Skilled Labor
Political Geography:: Kenya, Africa, Europe, Ghana, and Sub-Saharan Africa

150. Labor force participation, job search effort and unemployment insurance in the laboratory

Author:: Wolfgang Lechthaler and Patrick Ring
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:: How the provision of unemployment benefits affects employment and unemployment is a debated issue. In this paper, we aim at complementing theoretical and empirical contributions to this debate with a laboratory experiment: We simulate a job market with search effort and labor force participation decisions while varying the maximum length of unemployment benefit eligibility. Our results reveal two separable, opposing effects: Individuals within the labor force search with lower effort when unemployment benefits are extended. However, individuals are more likely to participate in the labor force and to actively search for a job. Concerning employment, the second effect dominates so that unemployment benefits raise employment.
Topic:: Economics, International Political Economy, Markets, Labor Issues, Employment, Unemployment, and Job Creation
Political Geography:: Global Focus

151. Expanding Legal Labour Migration Pathways to the EU: Will This Time Be Different?

Author:: Martin Ruhs
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: The European Commission’s recently published “New Pact on Migration and Asylum” calls on EU member states to increase legal labour migration pathways, including for lower-skilled workers. To help achieve this goal, the Pact proposes greater and more effective cooperation with non-EU countries through so-called “Talent Partnerships”. These proposals are not new. The idea of partnerships with non-EU countries that include expanded labour migration programmes was at the heart of the EU’s “Global Approach to Migration” launched in 2005, and this approach has been further discussed and developed over the past 15 years. These ideas, however, have never led to a significant opening of European labour markets to lower-skilled non-EU workers. An obvious question therefore arises: Will this time be different? Will EU member states (which have primary competence in regulating labour immigration from outside the EU) engage with non-EU countries to develop new policies that expand legal labour migration opportunities in meaningful ways? Will these opportunities be inclusive of low- and medium-skilled workers?
Topic:: Migration, Politics, Labor Issues, European Union, Institutions, and Asylum
Political Geography:: Europe

152. Improving Single Male Laborers’ Health in Qatar

Author:: Center for International and Regional Studies
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University in Qatar
Abstract:: The aim of this policy brief is to provide some understanding of the health constraints faced by single male laborers (SMLs), the policy efforts underway to enhance their access to healthcare, and further actions that ought to be undertaken to strengthen and improve healthcare for this group of migrant workers in Qatar.
Topic:: Health, Labor Issues, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:: Middle East and Qatar

153. The Impact of Global Value Chain Integration on Wages: Evidence from Matched Worker-Industry Data in Thailand

Author:: Sasiwimon W. Paweenawat
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: Using a two-stage estimation of matched worker-industry data from 2000 to 2011, this study investigates the impact of global value chain (GVC) integration on wages and the skill premium in 32 industries in Thailand, a country with recent heavy involvement in GVCs. This study employs foreign value added in both final and intermediate goods exports as a proxy for the degree of industry integration in GVCs and applies a panel fixed effects estimation on constructed panel data to investigate its relationship with wages. The main finding indicates that a higher level of industry integration with GVCs leads to higher wages and a higher skill premium, confirming the positive effect of GVC involvement on wages and the complementary effect of high demand for skilled workers in GVC-oriented industries in Thailand. Workers in industries with positions close to the end of the value chain (downstream position) will earn a higher wage than those working in the upstream position. These results have significant policy implications. The Thai government should not only attempt to increase industry involvement in GVCs overall, but also aim to lift industries to higher positions in the GVC to gain the most benefits for Thai workers and the country overall.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Inequality, Wage Subsidies, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:: Asia and Thailand

154. Value Added Exports and the Local Labour Market: Evidence from Vietnamese Manufacturing Firms

Author:: Duc Anh Dang
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: The formation of global value chains (GVCs) has reshaped production processes across countries. This paper investigates the relationship between GVCs and firms’ employment by using panel data on Vietnamese small manufacturing firms for 2005–2011. The results suggest that increased foreign value added in exports results in higher wages, increased productivity, and a greater share of production workers in domestic small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, it brings about a lower share of professionals and makes smaller firms retrain their existing workers. At the same time, domestic value added in the export of intermediate products has negative impacts on employment and increases wages, particularly in medium-sized firms. All of these may come from the increased competition for labour from larger firms.
Topic:: International Cooperation, Labor Issues, Trade, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:: Asia and Vietnam

155. Domestic Value Added, Exports, and Employment: An Input-Output Analysis of Indonesian Manufacturing

Author:: Arianto A. Patunru
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: The paper is motivated by the current emphasis on the share of domestic value added in exports (SVEX) as a policy criterion for export development strategy in developing countries. Our hypothesis is that the policy emphasis on SVEX, which harks back to the import substitution era, is inconsistent with the objectives of achieving economic growth with employment generation in this era of economic globalisation. We test this hypothesis by examining the relationship of the SVEX with both export-induced employment and the total domestic value added, or the contribution of exports to gross domestic product, by applying the standard input–output methodology to data from Indonesian manufacturing. Our findings do not support the view, widely held in policy circles, that industries characterised by a higher SVEX have the potential to make a greater contribution to employment generation and total domestic value added. The policy inference is that, in this era of economic globalisation, policy makers should focus on the export potential of industries in designing export development policy, rather than on the SVEX.
Topic:: Globalization, Labor Issues, Trade, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:: Indonesia and Indo-Pacific

156. Global Value Chains and Formal Employment in Viet Nam

Author:: Trinh Q. Long, Le T. Trang, and Matthias Helble
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: This study investigates the impacts of integration into global value chains (GVCs) on formal and informal employment in Viet Nam. Utilising the Viet Nam Household Living Standard Surveys and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Trade in Value Added database (in 2010, 2012, and 2014), we examine how GVCs’ engagement affects the share of formal employment (through a fixed effects estimator) and the likelihood of being a formal employee (through a probit estimator). Our estimation results show a positive relationship between the level of GVC engagement and the share of formal employment at the provincial level. While the GVC participation index (measured as the sum of backward and forward participation indices) does not have a statistically significant effect on the share of formal employment at the provincial level, each component of GVC participation (i.e. backward and forward participation) has effects at the provincial level in different directions. At the individual level, we find that provincial GVC engagement is also positively correlated with individuals’ likelihood of being formally employed. However, the probability of being a formal employee (individual) is not directly affected by GVC engagement at the provincial level, but is indirectly affected through the local labour market. Such results indicate that individual and household characteristics are robust determinants of being employed as a formal employee.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Employment, and Global Value Chains
Political Geography:: Asia and Vietnam

157. The Impact of Economic Globalisation on Firm Performance and the Labour Market: Evidence from Japan

Author:: Keiko Ito
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: This paper summarises the major findings and arguments in the literature on the impact of globalisation on firm performance and the labour market, focusing on the case of Japan. Internationalised firms show better performance. Although offshoring has shifted labour demand towards skilled workers, thedirect contribution of globalisation to the widening wage gap is quite limited. The empirical evidence for Japan is more or less consistent with that for other developed countries, but some observations on Japan are worth pointing out. First, several empirical studies confirm a learning-by-exporting effect. Second, there is no strong evidence that increases in imports from China have reduced domestic employment. Increases in imports from China have a positive effect on value added growth in downstream industries, implying that imports from China are likely to be complementary to domestic production in Japan.
Topic:: Globalization, Industrial Policy, Labor Issues, Exports, and Imports
Political Geography:: Japan, China, and Asia

158. Economic Consequences of Globalisation: Case Study of Thailand

Author:: Archanun Kohpaiboon
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:: The paper reviews empirical works examining the effect of globalisation in Thailand, beginning with a discussion of its integration into the economy. Three drivers of economic globalisation are emphasised: international trade, foreign direct investment, and cross-border labour mobility. The findings point to globalisation’s potential to create a favourable economic impact. Opening up to international trade could promote productivity and drive economic growth. Large foreign direct investment inflows enticed by export-oriented industrialisation are likely to generate horizontal technological spillovers within a given industry; vertical spillovers through the linkages were not a robust result. There is no evidence that employing foreign workers retards firm productivity; rather, the opposite is the case. Well-performing firms are in a position to attract foreign workers and maintain production capacity. Global production sharing (GPS) does not necessarily mean the participating countries are trapped at the low end of the quality ladder. The Thai experience supports the case for further globalising its economy. Any possible side effects of globalisation can be mitigated by other policies such as strengthening the social safety net.
Topic:: Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Labor Issues, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:: Asia and Thailand

159. Fixing the European Social Malaise: Understanding and Addressing the Grievances of European Workers

Author:: Lorenza Antonucci
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
Abstract:: Policy Paper titled: “Fixing the European Social Malaise: Understanding and Addressing the Grievances of European Workers” has been published by the Mercator European Dialogue. As it is mentioned in the Paper: European citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with their standard of living and unhappy about their work conditions. This ‘social malaise’ is resulting in growing distrust toward national and EU institutions as well as support for anti-establishment political forces. Against this backdrop, this paper provides policymakers and Members of Parliament with an analysis of the drivers and implications of such trends as well as some policy solutions to mitigate these phenomena. Two key questions require urgent attention: 1. What drivers explain this rising social malaise in Europe? Is there a causal link between the deteriorating work conditions for Europeans and the growth in anti-establishment forces? 2. How have recent developments in the realm of workers’ rights, employment insecurity, and growing gaps in European social security contributed to the surge of anti-establishment sentiments across Europe? Finally, further reflection is needed in terms of concrete policy options to tackle social security gaps at the national and EU level, including through the European Pillar of Social Rights.
Topic:: Labor Issues, European Union, and Social Security
Political Geography:: Europe

160. Measuring the Spatial Misallocation of Labor: The Returns to India-Gulf Guest Work in a Natural Experiment

Author:: Michael Clemens
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Global Development
Abstract:: ‘Guest workers’ earn higher wages overseas on temporary low-skill employment visas. This wage gap can be used to measure gaps in the productivity of workers due to where they are, not who they are. This paper estimates the effects of guest work on Indian applicants to a construction job in the United Arab Emirates, where an economic crisis allocated guest work opportunities as-good-as-randomly among several thousand families. Guest work raised the return to poor families' labor by a factor of four, with little evidence of systematic fraud.
Topic:: Migration, Labor Issues, Migrant Workers, and Guest Workers
Political Geography:: India and Asia

161. Women and the Future of Work: Fix the Present

Author:: Charles Kenny
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Global Development
Abstract:: There is a lot we don’t know about what automation will mean for jobs in the future, including its impact (if any) on gender inequality. This note reviews evidence and forecasts on that question and makes four main points: Past automation has been (broadly) positive for women’s average quality of life, economic empowerment, and equality. Forecasts of the gendered impact of automation and AI going forward based on the current distribution of employment suggest considerable uncertainty and a gender inequality of impact that is marginal compared to the potential impact overall. The bigger risk—and/or opportunity—is likely to be in the combined impact of automation, policy, and social norms in changing the type of work that is seen as male or female. Minimizing any potential aggravating impact of automation and AI on inequalities in economic power in the future can best be achieved by maximizing economic equality today.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Employment, Inequality, and Feminism
Political Geography:: Global Focus

162. The future of work: Towards a progressive agenda for all

Author:: Claire Dhéret, Simona Guagliardo, and Mihai Palimariciuc
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: The world of work is changing, fast. Globalisation, coupled with the fragmentation of production and value chains, ageing societies, and digitalisation are all having a transformative impact on European labour markets and are putting pressure on our social welfare systems. The challenges that these disruptions pose are tremendous, and policymakers are still unsure of how to address the implications of the changing nature of work. In this Issue Paper, the result of the European Policy Centre research project “The future of work – Towards a progressive agenda for all”, authors Claire Dhéret, Simona Guagliardo and Mihai Palimariciuc take an in-depth look at how labour is evolving throughout Europe and put forward a set of policy recommendations for the EU, which despite its limited competences, can still be the driving force behind a progressive agenda for the future of work. Their analysis focuses on four different areas: the impact of new technologies on jobs in various sectors; the rise of ‘atypical’ work; the impact of labour market transformations on the welfare state and social contracts; and the effect of policy responses so far. Based on their findings, they argue that instead of trying to push back against new technologies and forms of work, we must embrace the changes brought on by the fourth industrial revolution. At the same time, the EU must endorse and support policies that align welfare state reform with emerging working structures and the conscious and controlled deployment of new technologies. The overall aim should be to establish an inclusive and competitive European labour market that is reinforced by future-fit social protection systems. Previous industrial revolutions upended traditional structures and led to widespread social malaise and suffering in the short term, despite major socio-economic gains in the long run. Many fear that this latest iteration will leave millions of people in precarious employment or even without jobs altogether. But this is not a given. How the future of work unfolds is still in human hands. With sound decision-making, the EU and its member states can harness the benefits of new technologies, counter the polarisation of labour markets and make sure that no one is left behind.
Topic:: Globalization, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, European Union, and Economy
Political Geography:: Europe

163. Maximizing the Shared Benefits of Legal Migration Pathways: Lessons from Germany’s Skills Partnerships

Author:: Michael Clemens, Helen Dempster, and Kate Gough
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Global Development
Abstract:: The world is experiencing significant demographic shifts. By 2100, Europe’s working-age population will have declined, and sub-Saharan Africa’s working-age population will have greatly increased. Many of these new labor market entrants will seek opportunities in Europe, plugging skill gaps and contributing to economies in their countries of destination. Germany is one country piloting and implementing projects that can help alleviate such demographic pressures and maximize the potential mutual benefits of legal labor migration. We discuss these projects, and highlight differences in their potential impact on development in the country of origin. We recommend that European governments build on, adapt, and pilot-test one of Germany’s approaches, also known as the Global Skill Partnership model: training potential migrants in their countries of origin before migration, along with non-migrants. Ideally, governments should pursue such pilot-tests with those countries that exhibit rising future migration pressure to Europe, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Neither the conclusion nor the results of this analysis reflect the opinion of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) or Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
Topic:: Migration, Labor Issues, Immigration, and Border Control
Political Geography:: Africa, Europe, Germany, and Sub-Saharan Africa

164. Automation and a Changing Economy: Policies for Shared Prosperity

Author:: Alastair Fitzpayne, Conor Mckay, and Ethan Pollack
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: Part I of this report, Automation and a Changing Economy: The Case for Action, explores how automation has impacted and will continue to impact the economic security and opportunity of the American worker. But technology is not destiny. The impact of innovation on the American worker is mediated by policies and institutions. We can choose to create an economy that: promotes technological progress; prepares workers to take advantage of the opportunities technology presents; supports those who are negatively impacted by automation return to stable work; and shares technology’s gains more broadly. These goals are achievable with the right support, but the policy structures currently in place are inadequate. This part of the report, Automation and a Changing Economy: Policies for Shared Prosperity, outlines a policy agenda for addressing these challenges and opportunities. Doing so requires an all-of-the-above approach, from targeted, specialized interventions to those with systems-level impact; from place-based policies to national-level reforms to safety net programs. The paper identifies four objectives that guide its recommendations
Topic:: Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Automation, and Job Creation
Political Geography:: Global Focus

165. Automation and a Changing Economy: The Case for Action

Author:: Alastair Fitzpayne, Conor Mckay, and Ethan Pollack
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: Technology fuels our economy, captures our collective imaginations, and promises extraordinary possibilities. It permeates almost all aspects of our lives. From electrification and the internal combustion engine, to search engines and smartphones, technology has changed how we travel, access information, buy products, and communicate with each other. As technology changes our personal lives, it also changes work. For generations, economic change has replaced products, jobs, and industries with innovative new models. The American economy has transitioned from agrarian to industrial, service to digital, and with each evolution, America has prospered even as it grappled with the profound challenges of change. The American ideal embraces the promise that economic progress can create an inclusive society in which prosperity is broadly shared. Work is more than simply a way to earn a living. It gives structure, dignity, and purpose to our lives. For this reason, workers should not be treated as a cost of doing business but recognized for their productivity and creativity. For too many Americans, the promise of work is not being kept. New technologies are creating great wealth for some, but we are simultaneously experiencing historic income and wealth inequality. Without robust policies and strong institutions, new innovations risk exacerbating the economic insecurity and political and civil divides that we are experiencing today. Emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced robotics, have the potential to automate many tasks currently performed by workers. Historically, automation has been an important ingredient driving economic growth and progress. Automation has enabled us to feed a growing population while allowing workers to transition from subsistence farming to new forms of work. Automation helped move us from a craft system to mass production, from blue-collar to white-collar to “new-collar” work—with better work, higher wages, more jobs, and better living standards. Similar to past innovations, these new technologies offer the potential to help us meet human needs while supporting new jobs and industries never before imagined. However, automation can also have negative effects on individuals and communities. Those who lose their jobs suffer economic, social, and psychological hardship. Communities that relied on single industries that have been automated have struggled to recover. New jobs are being created, but their geographic distribution and skill requirements often make them inaccessible to the individuals and the communities where those whose jobs were lost. This dislocation has played a role in exacerbating America’s economic, political, geographic, and social divides. The answer to the dislocations that can result from automation should not be to stifle innovation. Policies and reforms should encourage both the development of new technologies and the promise of work. Workers need access to the opportunities technology creates. Policymakers and employers can help by providing access to skills training, ensuring the availability of good jobs, and improving the systems that are in place to help those who will transition from declining to growing occupations. While there are many unanswered questions about what the future holds, this report attempts to explain how automation impacts the labor market and how to better prepare American workers to benefit from the changes to come.
Topic:: Economics, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Automation, and Job Creation
Political Geography:: Global Focus

166. Climate Change and National Security: How Can Public Policy Change the World?

Author:: Aspen Institute
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: The Aspen Institute partnered with the University of Chicago’s Inter-Policy School Summit on March 1-3, 2019, to host 40 graduate students from around the world to explore and consider the intersection between Climate Change and National Security, a topic that will come to play an increasingly important role in the policy realm for decades to come. The participants were asked to research various topics within the larger theme and write white papers proposing rigorous and tangible solutions for the quaternary effects of climate change, especially when they pertain to national security.
Topic:: Security, Agriculture, Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Migration, National Security, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:: United States of America and North America

167. Harnessing Digital Technology for Frontline Worker Mobility: Eat’n Park’s Partnered Approach

Author:: Vivian Vazquez, Jenny Weissbourd, and Amy Blair
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: Online upskilling programs have the potential to support continuous, lifelong learning that can help adults learn new skills and advance in a changing labor market. Yet the online learning landscape can be difficult to navigate. Many workers face challenges balancing digital courses with work and personal commitments, accessing and using technology, and determining which of the many available programs signal value to employers. Companies can play an important role in making online upskilling accessible and relevant to frontline workers. Our latest report documents one partnered approach to designing and piloting an online training program for incumbent workers, led by a food service company, a civic leadership organization, and a local university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It explores how Eat’n Park partnered with Robert Morris University and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development to design and deliver digital training to frontline Eat’n Park employees. Our profile shares findings from a pilot customer service training program, focusing on the experiences of workers who participated and their managers. It includes information on program content and design, and the business case for launching training. It also offers four key practices that workers noted were important to their motivation and ability to complete the program
Topic:: Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Retail, Digitalization, and Customer Service
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

168. The Time is Now: Next Steps Toward a More Secure Retirement for All Americans

Author:: Aspen Institute
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: Even after a decade of economic growth, the retirement outlook for many Americans remains precarious at best. By one estimate, half of working-age Americans are at risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living when—or if—they stop working. Spurred by this reality, the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program convened its third annual Leadership Forum on Retirement Savings in April. More than 70 experts and industry leaders gathered in Warrenton, Va., to share, evaluate, and refine solutions to the nation’s retirement crisis.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Employment, Finance, Family, and Retirement
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

169. Female Labor in Jordan: A Systematic Approach to the Exclusion Puzzle

Author:: Semiray Kasoolu, Ricardo Hausmann, Tim O'Brien, and Miguel Ajgel Santos
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: Women in Jordan are excluded from labor market opportunities at among the highest rates in the world. Previous efforts to explain this outcome have focused on specific, isolated aspects of the problem and have not exploited available datasets to test across causal explanations. We develop a comprehensive framework to analyze the drivers of low female employment rates in Jordan and systematically test their validity, using micro-level data from Employment and Unemployment Surveys (2008-2018) and the Jordanian Labor Market Panel Survey (2010-2016). We find that the nature of low female inclusion in Jordan’s labor market varies significantly with educational attainment, and identify evidence for different factors affecting different educational groups. Among women with high school education or less, we observe extremely low participation levels and find the strongest evidence for this phenomenon tracing to traditional social norms and poor public transportation. On the higher end of the education spectrum – university graduates and above – we find that the problem is not one of participation, but rather of unemployment, which we attribute to a small and undiversified private sector that is unable to accommodate women’s needs for work and work-family balance.
Topic:: Education, Gender Issues, Political Economy, Labor Issues, Women, and Inequality
Political Geography:: Middle East and Jordan

170. Incentivising Pro-Labour Reforms

Author:: Alice Evans
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: This paper shows that countries may reduce labour repression if they perceive this as conducive to export growth. This paper traces what happened before, in the presence of, and then following the withdrawal of international economic incentives for pro-labour reforms in Vietnam and Bangladesh. The Government of Vietnam announced it would allow independent trade unions, in order to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and increase market access. Similarly, the Government of Bangladesh rescinded restrictions on unions, following global condemnation of Rana Plaza and fear of buyers leaving en masse. Both governments reduced labour repression to promote export growth. With high-level authorisation, Vietnamese and Bangladeshi activists and reformists became less fearful, and mobilised for substantive change. However, these economic incentives were short-lived: after Trump’s election, the USA withdrew from TPP; buyers continued to source from Bangladesh, and squeezed prices (without requiring labour reforms). Both governments then amped up labour repression - notwithstanding private regulation, economic upgrading, industry growth, and mass strikes.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Reform, Economic Growth, and Trans-Pacific Partnership
Political Geography:: Bangladesh, South Asia, and Vietnam

171. Jordan: The Elements of a Growth Strategy

Author:: Ricardo Hausmann, Tim O'Brien, Miguel Angel Santos, Ana Grisanti, Semiray Kasoolu, Nikita Taniparti, Jorge Tapia, and Ricardo Villasmil
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: In the decade 1999-2009, Jordan experienced an impressive growth acceleration, tripling its exports and increasing income per capita by 38%. Since then, a number of external shocks that include the Global Financial Crisis (2008-2009), the Arab Spring (2011), the Syrian Civil War (2011), and the emergence of the Islamic State (2014) have affected Jordan in significant ways and thrown its economy out of balance. Jordan’s debt-to-GDP ratio has ballooned from 55% (2009) to 94% (2018). The economy has continued to grow amidst massive fiscal adjustment and balance of payments constraints, but the large increase in population – by 50% between 2008 and 2017 – driven by massive waves of refugees has resulted in a 12% cumulative loss in income per capita (2010-2017). Moving forward, debt sustainability will require not only continued fiscal consolidation but also faster growth and international support to keep interest payments on the debt contained. We have developed an innovative framework to align Jordan’s growth strategy with its changing factor endowments. The framework incorporates service industries into an Economic Complexity analysis, utilizing the Dun and Bradstreet database, together with an evaluation of the evolution of Jordan’s comparative advantages over time. Combining several tools to identify critical constraints faced by sectors with the greatest potential, we have produced a roadmap with key elements of a strategy for Jordan to return to faster, more sustainable and more inclusive growth that is consistent with its emerging comparative advantages.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Women, GDP, International Development, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:: Middle East and Jordan

172. Economic Consequences of the U.S. Convict Labor System

Author:: Michael Poyker
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: I study the economic externalities of convict labor on local labor markets and firms. Using newly collected panel data on U.S. prisons and convict-labor camps from 1886 to 1940, I calculate each county’s exposure to prisons. I exploit quasi-random variation in county’s exposure to capacities of pre-convict-labor prisons as an instrument. I find that competition from cheap prison-made goods led to higher unemployment, lower labor-force participation, and reduced wages (particularly for women) in counties that housed competing manufacturing industries. The introduction of convict labor accounts for 0.5 percentage-point slower annual growth in manufacturing wages during 1880– 1900. At the same time, affected industries had to innovate away from the competition and thus had higher patenting rates. I also document that technological changes in affected industries were capital-biased.
Topic:: Economics, Political Economy, Labor Issues, Capitalism, Domestic Politics, Macroeconomics, Mass Incarceration, and Manufacturing
Political Geography:: United States

173. Labor Laws and Manufacturing Performance in India: How Priors Trump Evidence and Progress Gets Stalled

Author:: Servaas Storm
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: Strong labor protections for ordinary workers are often portrayed as a ‘luxury developing countries cannot afford’. No study has been more influential in propagating this perversity trope in the context of the Indian economy than the QJE article of Besley and Burgess (2004). Their article provides econometric evidence that pro-worker regulation resulted in lower output, employment, investment and productivity in India’s registered manufacturing sector. This paper reviews existing critiques of Besley and Burgess (2004), which highlight conceptual and measurement errors and uncover econometric weaknesses. The paper takes a step beyond these: it reports a failure to replicate Besley and Burgess’ findings and demonstrate the nonrobustness of their results. My deconstruction is not only about the econometrics, however. I show that Besley and Burgess’ findings are not just inconsistent with their theoretical priors, but also internally contradictory and empirically implausible, taxing any person’s capacity for belief. The paper, written by two ‘useful economists’, exhibits a gratuitous empiricism in which priors trump evidence. On all counts, it fails the test of being useful to the purpose of ‘evidence-based’ public policy advice.mp Evidence and Progress Gets Stalled
Topic:: Economics, Political Economy, Labor Issues, Inequality, and Labor Policies
Political Geography:: India and Asia

174. Demand-Driven Youth Training Programs: Experimental Evidence from Mongolia

Author:: José Galdo, Bayarmaa Dalkhjavd, Altantsetseg Batchuluun, Soyolmaa Batbekh, and Maria Laura Alzúa
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:: Because of its high incidence and potential threat to social cohesion, youth unemployment is a global concern. This study uses a randomized controlled trial to analyze the effectiveness of a demand-driven vocational training program for disadvantaged youth in Mongolia. Mongolia, a transitional country whose economic structure shifted from a communist, centrally planned economy to a free-market economy over a relatively short period, offers a new setting in which to test the effectiveness of standard active labor market policies. This study reports positive and statistically significant short-term effects of vocational training on monthly earnings, skills matching, and self-employment. Substantial heterogeneity emerges as relatively older, richer, and better-educated individuals drive these positive effects. A second intervention that randomly assigns participants to receive repetitive weekly newsletters with information on market returns to vocational training shows positive impacts on the length of exposure to and successful completion of the program. These positive effects, however, are only observed at the intensive margin and do not lead to higher employment or earnings outcomes.
Topic:: Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, Labor Issues, Employment, Youth, and Labor Policies
Political Geography:: Mongolia and Asia

175. Living with the Neighbors: The Effect of Venezuelan Forced Migration on Wages in Colombia

Author:: Leonardo Peñaloza Pacheco
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:: The aim of this paper is to estimate the causal effect of the migration of Venezuelans to Colombia on the Colombian real wage, since 2016. In the second semester of 2016, the borders between Colombia and Venezuela were reopened after a year of being closed due to a political crisis between the two countries; this re-opening is exploited as an identification strategy. Using data from the Unidad Administrativa Especial de Migraci´on Colombia and the Registro Administrativo de Migrantes Venezolanos in Colombia, it is estimated that the migratory flow of Venezuelans to Colombia increased the Economically Active Population of the border areas of La Guajira and Norte de Santander by approximately 10% and 15%, since its reopening. Differences-in-differences methodology and Synthetic Control Method are implemented and the results show that the increase in labor supply in these regions that resulted from the migratory flow generated a decline in real hourly wages of approximately 6%-9% on average. This decrease in real wages appears to be greater for men as compared to women. There is also evidence of a greater drop in real wages among people with lower levels of qualification and in conditions of informal employment.
Topic:: Economics, Migration, Political Economy, Labor Issues, Employment, and Income Inequality
Political Geography:: Colombia, Latin America, and Venezuela

176. Multiple Violations of Labor Market Regulations: Patterns in the Peruvian Labor Market and the Impact of Enforcement

Author:: Mariana Viollaz
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:: This paper quantifies labor law violations and how the enforcement efforts impact on the compliance level by considering the possibility of different labor regulations being violated simultaneously. The findings for the Peruvian labor markets over the period 2004-2013 indicate that: (i) multiple violations of labor regulations are an important feature of Peruvian labor markets; (ii) young workers, workers with low level of education, indigenous workers, workers in micro firms and workers employed in the agricultural sector have higher chances of being deprived of several labor benefits simultaneously; (iii) the enforcement of labor regulations, captured through the number of labor inspections at the region level, is effective in detecting and penalizing extreme situations of multiple violations of the labor law, but the evidence also suggests that firms adjust only partially as an attempt to reduce the amount of a potential fine if discovered, and that laid off workers during the adjustment process moved to the informal sector where firms are not inspected. These findings are useful from a policy perspective indicating that there is space to improve firms’ incentives when facing an increase in the enforcement effort.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Law Enforcement, Law, Regulation, Labor Policies, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:: Latin America and Peru

177. Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions

Author:: David Jaume and Alexander Willén
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:: Temporary school closures (TSC) represent a major challenge to policymakers across the globe due to their potential impact on instructional time and student achievement. A neglected but equally important question relates to how such closures affect the labor market behavior of parents. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of temporary school closures on parental labor market behavior, exploiting the prevalence of primary school teacher strikes across time and provinces in Argentina. We find clear evidence that temporary school closures negatively impact the labor market participation of mothers, in particular lower-skilled mothers less attached to the labor force and mothers in dual-income households who face a lower opportunity cost of dropping out of the labor force. This effect translates into a statistically significant and economically meaningful reduction in labor earnings: the average mother whose child is exposed to ten days of TSCs suffers a decline in monthly labor earnings equivalent to 2.92% of the mean. While we do not find any effects among fathers in general, fathers with lower predicted earnings than their spouses also experience negative labor market effects. This suggests that the parental response to TSCs depend, at least in part, on the relative income of each parent. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggest that the aggregate impact of TSCs on annual parental earnings is more than $113 million, and that the average mother would be willing to forego 1.6 months of labor earnings in order to ensure that there are no TSCs while her child is in primary school.
Topic:: Economics, Education, Markets, Political Economy, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:: United States

178. Formal Employment and Organized Crime: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Colombia

Author:: Jorge Tamayo, Anant Nyshadham, Carlos Medina, and Gaurav Khanna
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:: Canonical models of crime emphasize economic incentives. Yet, causal evidence of sorting into criminal occupations in response to individual-level variation in incentives is limited. We link administrative socioeconomic microdata with the universe of arrests in Medellίn over a decade. We exploit exogenous variation in formal-sector employment around a socioeconomic-score cutoff, below which individuals receive benefits if not formally employed, to test whether a higher cost to formal-sector employment induces crime. Regression discontinuity estimates show this policy generated reductions in formal-sector employment and a corresponding spike in organized crime, but no effects on crimes of impulse or opportunity.
Topic:: Crime, Economics, Political Economy, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:: Colombia and Latin America

179. Education and Labour Market Activity of Women in Botswana

Author:: Goitseone Khanie
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
Abstract:: This study examines the prevalence of female participation in labour market activities and investigates the role played by education in this participation. Using the 2015/16 Botswana Multi Topic Household Survey data and a multinomial logit model, the study found that women with tertiary education are more likely to be wage employed relative to self-employment, whereas those with lower to no education are more likely to be unemployed or out of the labour force. This is because higher education is normally considered a prerequisite for most wage jobs. It is therefore imperative for the government to continue educating women beyond secondary level as it will better equip them to participate in more meaningful labour market activities. On the other hand, there is need to stimulate the demand side of the labour market in order to accommodate the rising numbers of women with high levels of education. In order to encourage participation of women in high rewarding self-employment activities, there is need to intensify empowerment schemes that are largely oriented towards their self-employment.
Topic:: Education, Markets, Labor Issues, and Women
Political Geography:: Africa and Botswana

180. Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives in Bangladesh After Rana Plaza: Global Norms and Workers’ Perspectives

Author:: Naila Kabeer, Lopita Haq, and Munshi Sulaiman
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), Brac University
Abstract:: The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in April, 2013 resulting in the death and injury of more than 2,000 workers from the country’s export garment industry was one of the worst industrial disasters in recorded history. The tragedy galvanized a range of stakeholders to take action to prevent future disasters. Prominent in these efforts were two multi-stakeholder agreements which brought together lead buyers, trade unions, and NGO’s in a concerted effort to improve health and safety conditions in the industry. These initiatives represent a move away from the buyer-driven compliance-based model that continues to dominate CSR to what is being described as a “cooperation-based” model which brings together multiple stakeholders who affect and are affected by the business operations of lead MNC’s in global value chains. This paper is concerned with the experiences and perceptions of workers with regard to these new initiatives. It examines competing interpretations of stakeholder analysis within the CSR literature and uses these to frame its key research question: has the shift from compliance to co-operation as the basis of CSR a promising way forward or merely a shift in rhetoric? We use a survey of garment workers to explore the extent to which these initiatives have brought about improvements in wages and working conditions in the garment industry, where progress has been slowest and why. The paper then provides recommendations, derived from its findings, to protect ‘the innocent’.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Norms, Garmet Industry, and Stakeholders
Political Geography:: Bangladesh and South Asia

181. Changes in Women’s Lives Through Paid Work and NGO Membership: Qualitative Evidence From Two Villages in Bangladesh

Author:: Sufia Khatun
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), Brac University
Abstract:: Changing women’s lives through empowerment resources is important, but there are debates on how different resources of empowerment change women’s lives differently. Paid work is seen to be one of the major resources for women’s empowerment and NGO membership is one of the factors encouraging women’s self-employment. This paper is based on qualitative evidence from 25 in-depth case studies of women, conducted in two districts of Bangladesh. This paper provides evidence of the role of paid work and NGO membership in enabling women’s empowerment in their individual, family, and community life. It also examines how paid work and NGO membership together strengthens women’s self-confidence, self-worth, decision-making, financial control, mobility, and value at the individual level in the family and community. The paper tries to analyze the relative importance of paid work and NGO membership on different aspects of women’s empowerment. It also identifies some other factors influencing women’s empowerment. The paper concludes that while NGO membership, in conjunction with paid work, has a positive impact on women’s empowerment, on its own, it may not be an empowering resource in all aspects of women’s empowerment, for instance in terms of decision-making. Furthermore, norms play a role in mediating the impact of paid work and NGO membership in terms of the type of work women do, decision-making, value in the family and mobility. Additionally, other demographic characteristics, husband’s support and women’s own personality also play a role in women’s empowerment.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Women, Employment, and NGOs
Political Geography:: Bangladesh and South Asia

182. Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice

Author:: Anna Popova, David Evans, Mary E. Breeding, and Violeta Arancibia
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Global Development
Abstract:: Many teachers in low- and middle-income countries lack the skills to teach effectively, and professional development (PD) programs are the principal tool that governments use to upgrade those skills. At the same time, few PD programs are evaluated, and those that are evaluated show highly varying results. In this paper, we propose a set of indicators—the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument—to standardize reporting on teacher PD programs. Applying the instrument to 33 rigorously evaluated PD programs, we find that programs that link participation to career incentives, have a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative interviews, program implementers also report follow-up visits as among the most effective characteristics of their professional development programs. We then use the instrument to present novel data on a sample of 139 government-funded, at-scale professional development programs across 14 countries. The attributes of most at-scale teacher professional development programs differ sharply from those of programs that evidence suggests are effective, with fewer incentives to participate in PD, fewer opportunities to practice new skills, and less follow-up once teachers return to their classrooms.
Topic:: Development, Education, Labor Issues, Academia, and Teaching
Political Geography:: Global Focus

183. Labor Institutions and Development Under Globalization

Author:: Servaas Storm and Jeronim Capaldo
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: Labor market regulation is a controversial area of public policy in both developed and developing countries. After decades of de-regulatory advice, international financial institutions have recently come to a less extreme position. But any concessions to labor regulation are based on concerns for social stability or for short-term support to aggregate demand, while regulation continues to be viewed as harmful to economic efficiency. In this paper we take a deeper look at the impact of labor institutions on economic development in two ways. First, we propose a macroeconomic model with balance-of-payments constraint for a “small” developing country open to trade and foreign capital. This helps us clarify the importance of a dynamic view of economic efficiency, as opposed to the static view embedded in mainstream policy advice. Secondly, we discuss the political economy of labor regulation. We argue that labor institutions promote economic development though positive effects on aggregate demand, labor productivity and technology.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Regulation, Labor Market, and Labor Cost
Political Geography:: Global Focus

184. Myths about Human Trafficking in Africa

Author:: Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Human trafficking remains a significant problem in Africa, exploiting vulnerable individuals—children, women, and men—for forced labor as well as prostitution.
Topic:: United Nations, Labor Issues, Children, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:: Africa, South Africa, North Africa, West Africa, and East Africa

185. Education and Labour Market Activity of Women in Botswana

Author:: Goitseone Khanie
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
Abstract:: This study examines the prevalence of female participation in labour market activities and investigates the role played by education in this participation. Using the 2015/16 Botswana Multi Topic Household Survey data and a multinomial logit model, the study found that women with tertiary education are more likely to be wage employed relative to self-employment, whereas those with lower to no education are more likely to be unemployed or out of the labour force. This is because higher education is normally considered a prerequisite for most wage jobs. It is therefore imperative for the government to continue educating women beyond secondary level as it will better equip them to participate in more meaningful labour market activities. On the other hand, there is need to stimulate the demand side of the labour market in order to accommodate the rising numbers of women with high levels of education. In order to encourage participation of women in high rewarding self-employment activities, there is need to intensify empowerment schemes that are largely oriented towards their self-employment.
Topic:: Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, and Employment
Political Geography:: Africa and Botswana

186. Unemployment in the SADC Region

Author:: Johanne Motsatsi
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
Abstract:: The objective of this study is to estimate the determinants of unemployment in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region using annual data from 2000 to 2016. Given the characteristic of the data, the study adopts Fixed Effect (FE) estimation technique. For further analysis, the study also estimated the ARDL panel model to capture persistence effect of unemployment in the region. The FE results reveals that real GDP, foreign direct investment, consumer price index, credit to the private sector and interest rate are negatively related to unemployment. While trade openness, labour productivity and population have a positive sign. The results estimated with ARDL model are not very different from those of FE model, but we obtained a noticeably smaller estimates for ARDL model. Variables which have negative association with unemployment suggest that they are likely to reduce unemployment. Therefore, such indicators may be of interest to policy makers when formulating unemployment reduction strategies. In terms of policy advise, the study recommends the government of SADC member states to encourage the education system that can equip leaners with entrepreneurial skills and in-job practical skills, in order to promote high success rate of SMMEs as well as to provide skills needed in the labour market. It also recommended enforcement of free trade of goods and services in the region as a means of making the industrial sector an engine of economic growth in order to create much needed employment.
Topic:: Development, Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Labor Policies, Macroeconomics, and Unemployment
Political Geography:: Africa and Botswana

187. Financial Inclusion and its Impact on Employment Creation in Botswana

Author:: Koketso Molefhi
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
Abstract:: The study examines the impact of financial inclusion on employment creation in Botswana using quarterly time series data for the period 2004-2016. Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, we find that availability of bank branches, ownership of bank account and borrowing from the commercial bank have a positive impact on employment creation in the short run. Similarly, in the long run, availability of bank branches, ownership of bank account has a positive relationship with employment creation in the long run. Depositors with commercial banks has a negative bearing on employment creation, both in the short run and in the long run. Therefore, policies should be aimed at ensuring easy access into the financial sector by way of reducing costs associated with account opening as well as creating affordable deposit and borrowing windows to the financially excluded groups.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Finance, Financial Markets, and Macroeconomics
Political Geography:: Africa and Botswana

188. A Brief History of South Africa’s Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (1919-1931)

Author:: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:: The Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) – a trade union, rural peasant movement, and urban squatters’ movement – formed on the docks in Cape Town in 1919. Within a decade, the ICU had expanded across Southern Africa without regard for national borders and counted people from various African countries and the Caribbean in its leadership, as well as people who were Indian and mixed race. The largely forgotten history of the ICU is well worth recovering in a time of escalating chauvinism and xenophobia. Our Dossier #20 offers an introduction to this extraordinary popular movement.
Topic:: Industrial Policy, Labor Issues, Trade Unions, and Labor Unions
Political Geography:: Africa and South Africa

189. The Only Answer is to Mobilise the Workers. An Interview with K. Hemalata, President of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

Author:: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:: In the face of increasing neoliberal policies, the working-class movement in India has seen several major general strikes. Our eighteenth dossier – an interview with K Hemalata, President of the Centre of India Trade Unions – discusses the challenges and struggles facing the Indian working class and how they are able to organise workers who initially were apprehensive and afraid to join working class movement.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Class, Unions, and Mobilization
Political Geography:: India and Asia

190. Fiscal Transfers and Inflation: Evidence from India

Author:: Girish Bahal and Anand Shrivastava
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Controlling for monetary policy, government transfers are potentially inflationary. This, however, may not be true when the economy is demandconstrained. Using a panel data of 17 Indian states over 30 years, we show that government transfers via welfare programs do not lead to inflation. For identification, we use a narrative shock series of transfer spending that is based on the introduction of new welfare programs. We then look at a specific program, NREGA, which has been shown to increase rural wages, and show that its implementation did not increase inflation.
Topic:: Economics, Government, Labor Issues, Monetary Policy, Employment, Inflation, and Demand
Political Geography:: India

191. The Size Structure of India’s Enterprises: Not Just the Middle is Missing

Author:: Tuhinsubhra Giri and Santosh Mehrotra
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Most international development economics and industrial organization literature emphasises the importance of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) as important to output, but especially to employment generation. Countries have different definitions for SMEs. In India the MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) are defined in terms of investment in plant and machinery or equipment. The MSME Ministry (Annual Report, Government of India 2017–18) stated that the sector accounts for 45% of the manufacturing output and 40% of the total exports of the country; also that MSMEs accounted for 30.74% of GDP in 2014– 15. Not surprising, MSMEs are considered a driving force of the economy.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Manufacturing, and Economic Development
Political Geography:: India

192. India’s Employment Crisis: Rising Education Levels and Falling Non-agricultural Job Growth

Author:: Jajati Parida and Santosh Mehrotra
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Falling total employment is an unprecedented trend seen from 2011-12 to 2017-18. Due to a decline of employment in agriculture and manufacturing and slow growth of construction jobs, the process of structural transformation, which had gained momentum post-2004-5, has stalled since 2012. Mounting educated youth unemployment, and lack of quality non-farm jobs have resulted in an increase of the disheartened labour force. Though the share of regular and formal employment increased marginally due to growth of formal jobs in the private sectors, the share of informal jobs within government/public sector increased. A dominant share of jobs is still generated by micro and small units of the unorganized sectors without any formal or written job contract. In both government and private sectors the number of contract jobs (with less than a year’s contract) is on the rise post 2011-12. Not surprisingly, real wages have not increased in either rural or urban areas.
Topic:: Economics, Education, Labor Issues, Employment, Economic Growth, and Job Creation
Political Geography:: India

193. Inequalities in the Gendered Labour Market: What can be Done?

Author:: Santosh Mehrotra
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Globally, research has shown that, there is a high correlation between the level of per capita income and the rate of female labour force participation. At the same time the agency and autonomy of women in a country improve with the level of female labour force participation. Sen (2000) has argued that the autonomy and agency of women in a society and their empowerment is enabled by four conditions in their lives. First the higher the education level of women, the more empowered they are likely to feel. Second, if they are working outside the home, they are likely to feel a sense of autonomy and empowerment. Third, they should also have an independent source of income from that of the significant other in their household. Finally, their empowerment can be usually enhanced if they own assets and have access to them. One can see from this analysis that the first three requirements for women’s’ empowerment are related to each other and to some extent co-dependent. We will keep these considerations in mind as we analyse labour markets and how women engaged with them in different parts of the world.
Topic:: Development, Economics, Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Employment, and Inequality
Political Geography:: India

194. How Comparable are India’s Labour Market Surveys?: A comparison of NSS, Labour Bureau and CMIE Estimates

Author:: Anand Shrivastava and Rosa Abraham
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: With the lack of official government data on unemployment and other labour market indicators, the most viable and recent source have been the regular household surveys conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). Given the differences in methods in data collection, it becomes exceedingly important to establish some comparability between the government and the CMIE datasets. This paper attempts to do that using two methods. First we fit a model of employment status on the CMIE data and see how well it predicts outcomes in the older Labour Bureau 2015-16 and NSS 2011-12 data. Then we compare state-level estimates of broad labour market indicators from CMIE 2016 and Labour Bureau 2015-16 datasets. The broad results are that despite differences in methodologies, the estimates for men are quite comparable between the surveys, while measures of women’s participation in the labour force seem particularly sensitive to the way questions are asked in surveys.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Work Culture, Labor Policies, and Participation
Political Geography:: India

195. Towards higher female work participation in India: what can be done?

Author:: Santosh Mehrotra and Sharmistha Sinha
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: A continuous and sharp decline in the already depressed female labour force participation rate in India post 2005, particularly in the face of its rapid economic growth raises questions about the inclusiveness of the growth process. The paper recommends a set of policies based on the analysis of the nature and trends of female work participation and a brief analysis of the underlying reasons behind such trends. Women are moving out of the low productivity agricultural sector, which necessitates an increase in employment opportunities in the nonagricultural sector, particularly in rural and in semi-urban locations. Improving skills for employability, especially in manufacturing clusters (which is where the jobs are) located close to young girls’ rural homes, would help the females to join the labour force if non-agricultural jobs are growing. To release women from unpaid work in the household to join the paid labour force, it is essential to improve child care facilities and other basic service facilities, which again calls for raising the share of public expenditure in some sectors and specific facilities. For instance, increasing single working women’s housing, making public transport safer, and modifying public programmes to cater to women’s needs can pave the way for more women to engage and remain in the labour force, become active participants in the growth process, and thus achieve greater economic empowerment.
Topic:: Economics, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, and Employment
Political Geography:: India

196. The Evolving Discourse on Job Quality- From Normative Frameworks to Measurement Indicators: The Indian Example

Author:: Divya Prakash and Sabina Dewan
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:: Indians are optimistic. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2017 Global Attitudes Survey, three out of four Indians believe that, “when children today in India grow up, they will be better off financially than their parents” (Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2017). Families hinge their hopes on the ability of the next generation to work hard, earn a living, and be a source of financial support. For years now, the nation has done the same, pinning its economic ambitions to a demographic advantage, or youth bulge, that is set to continue only for the next two decades. Unless there are pathways to productive and high-quality employment, the nation’s youth will not be able to deliver on these expectations. How has India’s economy fared on job creation over the past decade? The country had just under 466 million people in the labour force1 in 2015, with a participation rate of 50.3 percent (Labour Bureau, 2015/16). An analysis of Labour Bureau data over a period of four years from 2012 to 2015 shows that on average, 4.75 million people were added to the labour force per year. According to the Labour Bureau’s Employment-Unemployment survey, between 2012 to 2015, the economy generated a total of 9 million jobs, based on Usual Principal Status -- the activity that an individual is engaged in for a major part of the reference year (Labour Bureau, 2011/12 to 2015/16).
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Work Culture, and Job Creation
Political Geography:: India

197. Innovation and Precarity Workplace Discourse in Twenty-First Century Capitalism

Author:: Sidney Rothstein
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:: This paper analyzes discourse in the workplace in order to explain puzzling patterns of pre- carity in twenty-first century capitalism. Tech workers’ central role in digital transformation endows them with labor market power reflected by their high wages, but during economic downturns, when demand for their skills decreases, even they are vulnerable to downsizing. Comparing workers’ responses to downsizing at two sites of an American tech firm, this paper shows how management disempowers workers by framing the employment relation- ship in a financial discourse. Disposing workers to believe that their jobs are threatened by market forces beyond their control, rather than by managers’ decisions, this financial dis- course undermines labor’s established power resources by persuading workers that mobiliz- ing will be ineffective in protecting their jobs. Relying on detailed case study evidence, this paper demonstrates the importance of discourse to explaining variation in worker power. It argues that the workplace should play a larger role in comparative political economy, par- ticularly in explaining labor market outcomes related to digital transformation.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Hegemony, Capitalism, and Discourse
Political Geography:: United States and North America

198. Great Expectations and Grim Realities in AMLO's Mexico

Author:: Mary Speck
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, assumed office in December 2018 with a robust electoral mandate having trounced traditional parties and secured a clear majority in the Mexican Congress. With approval ratings at about 80 percent, López Obrador seems so far to be satisfying his supporters’ expectations.1 To the delight of those disgusted with elite privileges, AMLO flies commercial (in coach), plans to sell the presidential plane, and slashed the salaries of top officials (including his own), putting their government vehicles up for auction.2 He has acted quickly to redistribute wealth by increasing pensions for the elderly, offering scholarships or apprenticeships to millions of young people, and providing additional subsidies to marginalized small farmers.3 López Obrador has also solidified labor union support by reversing some of his predecessor’s most controversial “neo-liberal” measures. He suspended an education reform enacted to improve the country’s underperforming public schools.4 And he has started to undo an energy overhaul designed to modernize the state-dominated oil industry, promising workers that he will rescue the heavily indebted government company, Petróleos Mexicanos or Pemex, by investing billions in a new refinery to make the country self- sufficient in gasoline.5 But the new president still faces his toughest challenge: reducing violence in a country plagued by some of the world’s most vicious criminal gangs. About 230,000 people were murdered between 2008 and 2017, more than double the number killed in the previous decade.6 This tsunami of violence continues to crest: during the first quarter of 2019 homicides have risen nearly 10 percent from the same period in 2018.7 On security, Mexico’s radical new president has thus far offered more continuity than change. He favors the same top-down, militarized approach that failed to curb violence over the past decade. The government’s marquee security reform is the creation of a national guard with at least 50,000 members recruited largely from the armed forces. Under fire from human rights defenders, López Obrado agreed to place the force under the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection, though its commander will be General Luis Rodriguez Bucio, an active duty officer who is in the process of retiring.8 López Obrador has taken steps to address past atrocities (appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the 2014 killing of 43 students) and to prevent future abuses (signing an agreement with the UN to oversee the guard’s human rights training).9 But critics worry that a force led by and recruited from the military will simply reproduce past patterns of repression, gang fragmentation, and dispersion, followed by violent escalation. An iron-fist approach to crime, moreover, fails to address Mexico’s fundamental problem: rampant impunity. Government victimization surveys suggest that authorities fail to investigate more than 90 percent of the crimes committed, often because citizens don’t bother to report crimes to state or municipal police regarded as incompetent, impotent, or corrupt.10 More than a decade of federal military intervention has undermined, not strengthened, the country’s approximately 345,000 state and local police.11 Poorly trained, under-resourced, and often under threat themselves, municipal and state authorities have little incentive to combat Mexico’s increasingly diverse and localized criminal gangs. López Obrador must grapple with the reality that federal power alone is unlikely to bring violence under control. There is no populist playbook for building effective police and an efficient, fair judicial system. The criminal groups operating in Mexico have proven remarkably resilient, surviving the killing or arrest of cartel leaders by morphing into smaller factions that not only produce and transport illegal drugs for sale in the US market but also steal gasoline, derail and rob rail cars, run illegal mining and logging operations, and hold entire communities hostage to extortion and kidnapping rings. The United States has a huge stake in Mexico’s success: the criminal organizations responsible for rising violence in Mexico have also fueled a U.S. drug epidemic resulting in 72,000 fatal overdoses during 2017 alone. U.S. agencies have worked closely with Mexican police and military forces to capture drug kingpins; Congress has also appropriated nearly $3 billion in equipment, training, and capacity building assistance.12 This is only a fraction of the approximately $14 billion Mexico spends each year. But by accepting shared responsibility for the illegal drug trade—long a Mexican demand—the United States has secured cooperation on security issues that would have been unthinkable less than a generation ago. This article examines the evolution of security policy under Presidents Felipe Calderón, 2006-2012, and Enrique Peña Nieto, 2012-2018. López Obrador could learn much from his predecessors’ failures. Calderón began his term with a frontal attack on drug cartels, though he came to understand that Mexico could not control organized crime without social programs and institutional reforms. Peña Nieto initially promised demilitarization and violence prevention, but soon abandoned these efforts, reverting again to military intervention. Neither president strengthened the country’s embattled state and local police who are responsible for enforcing the law after federal troops depart.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Elections, Unions, and Liberalism
Political Geography:: North America and Mexico

199. Training the Next Revolution in American Manufacturing

Author:: Charles Carson and Jonathan Robinson
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: In the United States, there is currently a dichotomy: employers are unable to fill manufacturing jobs, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers looking for jobs. How can this be? Many point to a skills deficit across the U.S. workforce. Much like other aspects of daily life and the economy, technology is changing the way U.S. based companies manufacture goods for the global market. As technology permeates and alters the manufacturing industry, it has created a massive boost in manufacturing productivity, while simultaneously requiring fewer workers to maintain and increase production. For those still employed in the manufacturing sector, they also need to be better equipped with the skills to handle the new demands such advanced technology and techniques impose. This report analyzes different workforce development programs for advanced manufacturing across the nation, seeking to better understand what is required to educate and retrain the worker of the future.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Manufacturing, and Skilled Labor
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

200. Are Your Labor Shares Set in Beijing? The View through the Lens of Global Value Chains

Author:: Ariell Reshef and Gianluca Santoni
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
Abstract:: We study the evolution of labor shares in 1995-2014 while taking into account international trade based on value added concepts. On average, the decline in labor shares (starting around 1980) accelerates in 2001-2007, after which labor shares recover somewhat. In contrast, skilled labor shares consistently increase. The acceleration in the decline in labor shares is associated with increased intensity of intermediate input exporting; this manifests in a sharp increase in the foreign component in upstreamness of industries and countries in global value chains (GVCs). China's global integration accounts for much of this. Declines in the price of investment together with capital-skill complementarity can explain both the consistent increase in skilled labor shares and the reversal of trend in overall labor shares. Compared to shares in GDP, labor shares in gross national product (GNP) are higher in countries with positive net FDI positions; the uneven spread of multinational activity contributes to greater inequality through this channel.
Topic:: Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Labor Issues, Trade, Global Value Chains, and Skilled Labor
Political Geography:: China and Global Focus

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS