Estimating German overqualification with stochastic earnings frontiers

We estimate individual potential income with stochastic earnings frontiers to measure overqualification as the ratio between actual income and potential income. To do this, we remove a drawback of the IAB employment sample, the censoring of the income data, by multiple imputation. The measurement of overqualification by the income ratio is also a valuable addition to the overeducation literature because the well-established objective or subjective overeducation measures focus on some ordinal matching aspects and ignore the metric income and efficiency aspects of overqualification.     

Glass Ceilings or Glass Doors? Wage Disparity Within and Between Firms

We investigate whether immigrant and minority workers’ poor access to high-wage jobs—that is, glass ceilings—is attributable to poor access to jobs in high-wage firms, a phenomenon we call glass doors. Our analysis uses linked employer–employee data to measure mean and quantile-wage differentials of immigrants and ethnic minorities, both within and across firms. We find that glass ceilings exist for some immigrant groups, and that they are driven in large measure by glass doors. For some immigrant groups, the sorting of these workers across firms accounts for as much as half of the economy-wide wage disparity they face. This article has the supplement materials online.     

The Implications of Demographic-Specific Inflation Rates for Trends in Real Educational Wage Differentials

We use data from consumer expenditure surveys to investigate the impact on trends in real wage differentials of using group-specific price indexes. We find that inflation rates decrease monoton-ically with the education of the household head throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, and real educational wage differentials, calculated using education-specific price indexes, widened somewhat more than nominal differentials. We also find that differences by education level in fuel and energy consumption, whose relative prices increased during the 1970s, account for the majority of the educational index differences.     

The Minimum Wage

Do moderate increases in the minimum wage reduce employment? If not, do they nevertheless raise wages? To examine these questions, we apply techniques of time series analysis and systems estimation that are commonly used in macroeconomics and finance to five panels of data that contain between 11 and 34 low-wage industries. Our answers are “No” and “Yes,” respectively. We find that increases in the federal minimum wage between 1947 and 1997 have raised average wages in many of these industries, especially the lowest wage ones. The effect on employment, however, is mixed and typically nonsignificant, even when average wages have risen.     

The internal relocation premium: are migrants positively or negatively selected? Evidence from Italy

This paper analyzes the wage returns from internal migration for recent graduates in Italy. We employ a switching regression model that accounts for the endogeneity of the individual's choice to relocate to get a job after graduation: the omission of this selection decision can lead to biased estimates, as there is potential correlation between earnings and unobserved traits, exerting an influence on the decision to migrate. The empirical results sustain the appropriateness of the estimation technique and show that there is a significant pay gap between migrants and non-migrants; migrants seem to be positively selected and the migration premium is downward biased through OLS estimates. The endogeneity of migration shows up both as a negative intercept effect and as a positive slope effect, the second being larger than the first: bad knowledge of the local labor market and financial constraints lead migrants to accept a low basic wage but, due to relevant returns to their characteristics, they finally obtain a higher wage than the others.     

工资与物价会螺旋波动吗？

VECM模型分析表明,我国工资与物价间存在明显的螺旋波动关系。将工资进一步分解为城镇劳动力工资和农民工工资后发现,这一螺旋关系是由城镇劳动力工资与物价之间的直接螺旋关系以及农民工工资与物价之间的间接螺旋关系组合而成的。城镇劳动力的工资波动会对物价构成直接压力,而农民工工资波动会通过城镇劳动力工资对物价构成间接压力。文章进一步从二元就业制度下劳动供给机制扭曲的角度分析了两类螺旋关系的原因。     

劳动力成本上升与中国制造业转移

制造业合理有序的转移对于我国经济的稳定平衡发展具有重要意义。本文使用1998-2013年中国工业企业数据库加总得到的城市层面制造业数据和最低工资代表的劳动力成本数据,首次考察了最低工资与制造业空间分布的因果关系。研究结果表明,最低工资标准的提高降低了城市制造业产值的份额、就业人数份额和规模以上企业数目份额,并推动制造业就近转移。同时,最低工资对制 造业份额的影响存在着明显的异质性,资本密度越高和国有企业占比越多的地区制造业份额受影响越小。进一步的机制检验发现,最低工资标准的上升抑制新企业的设立,促进企业跨区域资本配置和推动企业退出。本文的研究结论有助于厘清劳动力成本上升对制造业空间分布的影响效应,为制造业在区域间的分布和转移提供了重要的政策借鉴。     

连续群组的Oaxaca-Blinder分解方法与应用

Oaxaca-Blinder分解为两个群组间工资差异的定量分解提供了一个标准范式。在实际应用中,经常会遇到连续群组的情况,现有的Oaxaca-Blinder方法通常需要将连续群组简化为两个群组后才能进行分解。通过一些连续的数学变换,推导了连续群组的分解方法及其估计,拓展了已有的Oaxaca-Blinder分解,并将该方法应用于已有文献中的一个案例,研究表明,城镇居民与不同城市化程度的农民工群组都存在工资差异,且其工资结构效应占工资总差距的比例随着城市化程度降低而增加,也就是城市化程度越低的农民工,在劳动力市场上越处于劣势。与已有文献比较可知,新的分解方法取得了比标准Oaxaca-Blinder分解更为广泛和深入的结果。     

Bayesian optimal design for changepoint problems

We investigate Bayesian optimal designs for changepoint problems. We find robust optimal designs which allow for arbitrary distributions before and after the change, arbitrary prior densities on the parameters before and after the change, and any log‐concave prior density on the changepoint. We define a new design measure for Bayesian optimal design problems as a means of finding the optimal design. Our results apply to any design criterion function concave in the design measure. We illustrate our results by finding the optimal design in a problem motivated by a previous clinical trial. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 37: 495–513; 2009 © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

The ageing curve and partial orderings of life distributions

In this paper we define a new measure to describe the process of ageing of lifetime distributions. In terms of this measure we will define three partial orderings of lifetime distributions. The relationships between these orderings and other classical orderings are studied.     

Deriving a lower bound for the proportion of perceivers in replicated difference tests by means of multiple test theory

Analyzing repeated difference tests aims in significance testing for differences as well as in estimating the mean discrimination ability of the consumers. In addition to the average success probability, the proportion of consumers that may detect the difference between two products and therefore account for any increase of this probability is of interest. While some authors address the first two goals, for the latter one only an estimator directly linked to the average probability seems to be used. However, this may lead to unreasonable results. Therefore we propose a new approach based on multiple test theory. We define a suitable set of hypotheses that is closed under intersection. From this, we derive a series of hypotheses that may be sequentially tested while the overall significance level will not be violated. By means of this procedure we may determine a minimal number of assessors that must have perceived the difference between the products at least once in a while. From this, we can find a conservative lower bound for the proportion of perceivers within the consumers. In several examples, we give some insight into the properties of this new method and show that the knowledge about this lower bound might indeed be valuable for the investigator. Finally, an adaption of this approach for similarity tests will be proposed.     

Optimal Bayesian estimators for latent variable cluster models

In cluster analysis interest lies in probabilistically capturing partitions of individuals, items or observations into groups, such that those belonging to the same group share similar attributes or relational profiles. Bayesian posterior samples for the latent allocation variables can be effectively obtained in a wide range of clustering models, including finite mixtures, infinite mixtures, hidden Markov models and block models for networks. However, due to the categorical nature of the clustering variables and the lack of scalable algorithms, summary tools that can interpret such samples are not available. We adopt a Bayesian decision theoretical approach to define an optimality criterion for clusterings and propose a fast and context-independent greedy algorithm to find the best allocations. One important facet of our approach is that the optimal number of groups is automatically selected, thereby solving the clustering and the model-choice problems at the same time. We consider several loss functions to compare partitions and show that our approach can accommodate a wide range of cases. Finally, we illustrate our approach on both artificial and real datasets for three different clustering models: Gaussian mixtures, stochastic block models and latent block models for networks.     

工作条件、工资补偿与劳动力市场城乡分割测量

鉴于工资既是对劳动者生产率贡献的支付同时又是对劳动者承受负面工作条件的补偿这一复杂性,鉴于城镇劳动力市场上城乡两类劳动者在艰苦危险程度不等岗位上分布的显著差异性,依据调查工资的城乡差异来测量劳动力市场上城乡分割的程度可能不尽客观。本文关注岗位的工作条件及其工资补偿,依据两类劳动者的可比工资差异观察城乡分割状态。研究发现：在绝对意义上,无论城镇工还是农民工,艰苦危险的工作条件未能带来显著更高的工资正效应;但相对于城镇工,农民工的工资中包含了更多的基于艰苦危险工作条件的岗位补偿部分;在岗位补偿可比口径下,城乡劳动者的工资差异显著大于调查工资口径下的工资差异。以此判断,我国城镇劳动力市场存在以负面工作条件补偿不足为形式的隐性分割,次级劳动力市场中,尤其是哪些最为艰苦和危险的工作岗位上,城乡劳动者看似基本一致的工资水平并不代表农民工获得了平等的生产率回报。     

Modeling Endogenous Mobility in Earnings Determination

ABSTRACT

We evaluate the bias from endogenous job mobility in fixed-effects estimates of worker- and firm-specific earnings heterogeneity using longitudinally linked employer–employee data from the LEHD infrastructure file system of the U.S. Census Bureau. First, we propose two new residual diagnostic tests of the assumption that mobility is exogenous to unmodeled determinants of earnings. Both tests reject exogenous mobility. We relax exogenous mobility by modeling the matched data as an evolving bipartite graph using a Bayesian latent-type framework. Our results suggest that allowing endogenous mobility increases the variation in earnings explained by individual heterogeneity and reduces the proportion due to employer and match effects. To assess external validity, we match our estimates of the wage components to out-of-sample estimates of revenue per worker. The mobility-bias-corrected estimates attribute much more of the variation in revenue per worker to variation in match quality and worker quality than the uncorrected estimates. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

基于S基尼系数的中国行业工资差距分析

针对行业工资数据的特点,本文提出了一个S基尼系数变化的分解模型,说明了导致S基尼系数变化的三个因素：工资水平变动、行业排序变化以及职工在不同行业之间的流动。实证研究表明,我国行业工资差距的扩大趋势非常明显,其中工资增长的非均衡性与行业排序变化是导致行业间工资差距扩大的重要原因,而职工流动虽然在一定程度上缓解了行业间工资差距的扩大,但是近期职工流动缓解工资差距的效果逐步减弱。为了有效控制行业间工资差距的扩大,一方面需要着力解决工资水平增长的不合理差异,另一方面要完善劳动力市场,推动劳动力在不同行业之间正常有序流动。     

Interregional Price Difference in the New Orleans Auctions Market for Slaves

Our article investigates the variation of winning bids in slave auctions held in New Orleans from 1804 to 1862. Specifically, we measure the variation in the price of slaves conditional on their geographical origin. Previous work using a regression framework ignored the auction mechanism used to sell slaves. This introduced a bias in the conditional mean of the winning bid because it depended on the number of bidders participating in the auction. Unfortunately, the number of bidders is unobserved by the econometrician.We adopt the standard framework of a symmetric independent private value auction and propose an estimation strategy to attempt to deal with this omitted variable bias. Our estimate of the mean number of bidders doubled from 1804 to 1862. We find the number of bidders had a significant positive effect on the average winning bid. An increase from 20 to 30 bidders in an auction raised the average winning bid by around 10%%. The price variation according to the geographical origin of slaves found in earlier work continues to persist after accounting for the omitted variable. We also find a new result that a considerable premium is paid for slaves originating from New Orleans. However, this price variation disappears once we account for regional productivity differences.     

我国城镇不同行业职工工资分配公平性测度

我国不同行业间工资差距问题越来越受到理论界关注,但在公平性测度上存在研究不足。为此,本文依据市场效率原则、收益与风险对称原则以及社会公平原则,综合探讨我国城镇职工不同行业间工资分配公平性问题。研究结果表明：我国不同行业职工工资分配确实存在不公平现象,并且当前的不公平程度高于前十年;在不同行业之间,综合工资收益已经形成分层次状态,水利、环境和公共设施管理业,公共管理和社会组织,科、教、文、卫业的职工工资综合收益处于高层次水平;而工业,批发、住宿、租赁、服务业的职工工资综合收益处于底层次水平,其他行业介于二者之间;行业工资差距对我国城镇职工收入总体基尼系数贡献达到1/3。     

Optimal investment-consumption-insurance strategy in a continuous-time self-exciting threshold model

In this paper, we consider an optimal investment-consumption-insurance purchase problem for a wage earner. We assume that the price of the risky asset is governed by a continuous-time, finite state self-exciting threshold model. In this model, the state space of the price of the risky asset is partitioned by a set of thresholds and the parameters depend on the region which the current value of the price falls in. The wage earner’s objective is to find the optimal investment-consumption-insurance strategy that maximizes the expected discounted utilities. The optimal strategy for power utility function is derived by the martingale approach and the dynamic programming approach. Numerical examples are also provided to illustrate the effect of the thresholds.     

Modelling work history patterns in the Italian labour market

We focus on work histories of new entrants in 1998 in the Italian labour market. For workers in the private sector, we define a standard and three non-standard history patterns. We profile the workers through a mixed-effect multinomial logit model and show that certain features may be associated with the probability of belonging to one or the other category. Furthermore, we show that there are differential effects on wages associated with non-standard patterns. A closer look at best performing non-standard workers shows that even for them an early contractual stabilization may not always be expected.     

Parental partnership and joblessness in childhood and their influence on young people's outcomes

Summary.  The paper estimates the relationship between several outcomes in early adulthood (education, inactivity, early birth, distress and smoking) and experiences of life in a single-parent family and with jobless parent(s) during childhood. The analysis is performed using a sample of young adults, who are selected from the first nine waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1991–1999) and can be matched with at least one parent and one sibling over the same period. This sample allows us to estimate the relationship of interest by using sibling differences. We also use another sample of young adults from the British Household Panel Survey, matched to at least one parent, to estimate more conventional level models and to compute nonparametric bounds and point estimates. The estimates based on sibling differences require weaker assumptions (compared with the assumptions that are imposed by nonparametric estimators under conditional independence and level estimators) for the identification of the effects of family structure and parental joblessness on the outcomes under analysis. We find that experiences of life in a single-parent family and with jobless parents during childhood are usually associated with disadvantageous outcomes for young adults, the effect of family structure is in general significantly greater (in absolute value) than the effect of parental worklessness and most of the unfavourable outcomes are linked to an early family disruption, when the child was aged 0–5 years, whereas the timing of parental joblessness during childhood has more complex effects, with different outcomes being more strongly influenced by parental worklessness at different ages of the child.