Worker Endowments and the Effects of Institutions on Earnings Realization: A Cross-National Comparison

In this study we investigate how differential institutions, and their observance within regional labor markets, impact potential earnings realization. We investigate institutional linkages to labor market outcomes by means of cross-nation comparisons between the United States and the Netherlands. In this regard, better job-matching (information) programs, higher relative unemployment benefits and minimum wages, and a greater prevalence of both trade unionism and collective bargaining likely work to the favor of Dutch workers, and in turnaugment their reservation wages during job search. The predictable outcome of higher earnings realization among Dutch workers is tested econometrically by frontier estimation.     

上海市就业市场状况与城市犯罪的空间计量分析

基于2008年上海市经济普查数据和城市犯罪数据,改变以往学者以失业率描述就业市场状况的做法,构建就业市场状况指数,并将其扩展到所有行业;同时,构建空间计量模型,研究上海市就业市场状况与刑事犯罪率之间关系,结果表明:1)就业市场状况对刑事犯罪率影响显著,不同行业的影响并不相同;其中,批发零售业、租赁和商业服务业、居民服务和其他服务业、公共管理和社会组织业就业的集中会引发犯罪活动的发生。2)空间计量模型在解释就业市场状况与刑事犯罪率之间关系时,计量效果良好。3)"空间效应"是影响刑事犯罪率的重要因素,其影响来自"空间邻近效应"和"空间误差效应"。     

Undocumented Immigration and Host‐Country Welfare: Competition Across Segmented Labor Markets*

Abstract. In this paper's model, undocumented workers are endogenously sorted into secondary labor markets. When further illegal immigration occurs, some new migrants follow their fellows into already migrant‐dominated jobs, lowering migrant wages and raising real incomes of host‐country labor and capital. Some submarkets switch from employing legal workers to employing migrants, lowering demand for and wages of legal workers. Undocumented immigration is Pareto‐improving when enforcement reserves primary‐sector jobs for legal workers. Pareto‐dominant policies target the number of migrant‐dominated submarkets, not the number of migrants. This appears consistent with U.S. enforcement practices. The effects of deportations, employer sanctions, and amnesties are explored.     

Big City Labor Markets and Immigrant Economic Performance

Franklin J. James spent much of his career working to understand and improve our metropolitan communities. His interests were varied, ranging from impacts of fiscal and economic distress on urban areas to understanding socioeconomic forces reviving our central cities. During the last several years, Professor James had turned his attention to examining the positive economic impacts immigrants and ethnic communities have for reinvigorating our central cities-and beginning to investigate how non-native American's will impact America's suburbs in metropolitan settings
This preliminary exploration examines destination choices of immigrants, the characteristics of immigrant labor markets, and the determinants of immigrant earnings. The article begins to explore indirect evidence on the economic efficiency with which immigrants and native workers distribute themselves within and among labor markets as well as the assimilation process facing new immigrants. Evidence is presented to explain how the earnings of recent immigrants are affected by their human capital characteristics, their race, and ethnicity, and other factors. We reject the hypothesis that immigrants participate in a tertiary sector of urban labor markets and conclude that the determinants of immigrant earnings are similar enough to those of U.S. natives that it makes sense to assume that they work in the same primary labor market in which most native White Americans work. We find that urban labor markets for immigrants are surprisingly efficient, thus enabling immigrants to take advantage of economic opportunities. A major exception concerns what appears to be a powerful effect of discrimination on the economic progress of Black immigrants.     

GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM OF SPATIAL PRODUCT AND LABOR MARKETS*

ABSTRACT A simple general equilibrium model relates spatial product markets and spatial labor markets. The firm is treated as being a spatial monopolist or as a Löschian competitor in the output market and as a spatial monopsonist in the labor market. Derived free spatial demand and free regional labor supply are defined, and their properties examined. The model provides the framework for analyzing the impact of a technological improvement in labor productivity on the structure of the spatial markets. The impact of entry on spatial labor supply is an important determinant of whether or not entry lowers wages and raises output prices. Unlike the spaceless competitive paradigm, zero-profit long-run equilibrium can occur in a space economy under conditions of increasing returns to scale.     

Working,Shopping, and House Rents

The interaction between household demand for goods and for leisure and the supply of labor at various distances from an urban center is investigated for the case where rents are endogenous and adjust to equalize differences in utility produced by the greater time and money costs of the journey to shop and the journey to work. The model is solved for a set of realistic parameter values and this confirms that when rents are equal everywhere the demand for leisure can increase and the supply of labor decrease for households nearer the center, while once rents are endogenous the reverse must be true. For a household at a given location the elasticities of demand for goods and leisure and the elasticity of labor supply are calculated for all the parameters of the model. It is shown that the unavoidable costs of travel to work have strong effects on the rent gradient while the costs of the journey to shop have only weak effects, being offset by the variable frequency of shopping.     

台资企业台籍人员职业倦怠、休闲调适策略与休闲知觉自由关系之研究

本文以广州市台资企业台籍人员为例,通过实证研究探讨职业倦怠、休闲调适策略与休闲知觉自由三者间的关系及不同产业型态受试者程度表现的差异性。研究主要结果表明,职业倦怠与休闲知觉自由呈显著负相关;职业倦怠与休闲调适策略呈显著正相关;休闲调适策略除与休闲知觉自由呈显著正相关外,同时对职业倦怠与休闲知觉自由的影响关系具有显著的中介调节效果。此外,技术制度企业群聚区台籍人员的职业倦怠与休闲调适程度相对低于传统劳力企业群聚区台籍人员,而在休闲知觉自由程度方面则相对高于传统劳力企业群聚区台籍人员。研究成果对于台资企业健全台籍人员工作与休闲生活管理机制具有一定的参考价值。     

北京居民日常休闲行为的性别差异

休闲的性别差异研究是西方休闲研究的重要研究主题。本文以北京市2007年居民活动日志问卷调查数据作为基础,多角度地分析了居民日常休闲行为中的性别差异。研究发现:男性拥有更多的休闲机会;女性休闲时间显著少于男性,并要花费更多时间在家务和照料活动,同时,女性更乐意将时间用在社交活动,而男性更倾向于将时间用在体育锻炼和上网活动;对于休闲地点的选择,男性和女性居民选择家内和家外休闲差异不大,但对于文化娱乐活动,男性平均出行距离更远,女性更倾向于选择较近的地点;在休闲中,男性倾向于一个人休闲而女性更倾向与家人一起休闲,表明女性更重视休闲活动中的社会关系。     

MIGRATION,SKILL FORMATION,AND THE WAGE STRUCTURE*

ABSTRACT We analyze the impacts of migration and of labor market integration on the distribution of skills and the wage structure in both the short and the long run. To do so, we develop a framework where workers have heterogeneous skills and where in‐migration expands the range of available skills in the economy. In the short run, this expansion leads to productivity gains, which may more than offset the negative endowment effects of a larger labor supply so that all workers may be better off. In the long run, in‐migration impacts wages further by altering the workers' incentives to acquire skills, thereby affecting the wage structure indirectly by changing the economy's skill composition. Since the short and the long‐run effects of in‐migration on wages may differ, compositional changes may be an important element to take into consideration. A numerical illustration calibrated on U.S. data suggests that the immigration of skilled workers negatively affects the incentives for domestic skill formation, thereby suggesting that endowment effects dominate externalities. We finally extend the model to cope with the simultaneous impacts that migration and skill formation have on the host and the source region, and we show that more migration increases wage disparities and the skill gap across regions.     

Residence and Workplace Relocation: A Bivariate Duration Model Approach

Different economic theories suggest that residential and labor market relocations are mutually related. This has been verified in various empirical studies. We analyze this relationship based on a bivariate duration model of residential and labor market mobility. This specification is motivated by a search model that allows for simultaneous search on the labor and housing market, taking commuting costs into account. We investigate this relationship by using information on job and residence durations. In order to be able to analyze properly empirical duration data, we derive the statistical distributions of interest. Our empirical results based on a Dutch sample of full-time employed workers show that residential and labor market mobility depend positively on one another, which is in line with the theoretical search model presented. Moreover, we present easy-to-interpret measures for this dependency.     

WHAT ATTRACTS FOREIGN MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS? EVIDENCE FROM BRANCH PLANT LOCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT. The location decisions of foreign multinational corporations (FMNCs) are analyzed using a conditional logit model with states as the choice set. We consider the establishment of new manufacturing plants and separately analyze the site selection of all MNCs, Japanese MNCs, and European MNCs. The results indicate that access to markets, labor market conditions, state promotional efforts to attract foreign investment, and state and local personal taxes are significant fadors in the location decision. The decision determinants for Japanese and European MNCs are found to be different.     

Working women in the city and urban wage growth in the United States

Although the female labor force participation rate of women has been steadily rising in the United States, there is substantial variation across cities. Previous cross‐county studies find that gender inequality in employment reduces economic efficiency hindering growth. This result is examined in a regional context, across metropolitan areas in the United States. Throughout multiple model formulations including instrumental variables approaches, higher initial female labor force participation rates are positively related to subsequent wage growth in metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2010. Specifically, every 10 percent increase in female labor force participation rates is associated with an increase in real wages of nearly 5 percent.     

Whither labor geography and the rise of the robots?

The rise of the robots suggests a technological revolution like no other. It heralds potentially profound impacts on jobs and labor markets. Geographers have so far remained relatively quiet about such transformations. This commentary suggests ways in which social and cultural geographers can expand upon a robust labor geography and the debates surrounding the relationship between robots, robotic technologies, and labor. Six areas of engagement are offered that outline the richness and nuance of social and cultural geographical analysis related to the ‘rise of the robots’ at a time where much of the popular discourse around robotics is characterized by the extremities of either dystopian angst or positive boosterism. We call on social and cultural geographers to engage in conceptually rigorous and empirically informed research that provides novel ways of making sense of the multiple dimensions of our robotic futures.     

Employment Opportunities,Wages and International Migration in Sweden 1970–1989

In this study I focus on the impact of aggregate labor turnover and regional labor market conditions on gross in- and out-migration within the framework of a neoclassical flexible-wage (equilibrium) model and a fixed-wage (labor-market disequilibrium) model. Using annual panel data on internal gross migration flows in Sweden from 1970 to 1989, I find that regional differences in employment opportunities have the expected effects on migration. The empirical relationship between real wages and gross migration flows is found to be less congruent with theory implications, indicating that compensated regional income prospects are equalized primarily via the interaction between employment opportunities and gross migration flows. Cyclical changes in hirings are shown to have a robust and strongly significant positive scale effect on migration.     

CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND THE SUPPLY OF HOUSING STRUCTURE*

ABSTRACT Construction costs account for the bulk of the price of new houses in most markets, but their study has been relatively neglected. We document that there are economically large differences in construction costs across U.S. housing markets. We also estimate a very elastic supply for physical structure; hence, differences in construction activity across markets do not explain the variation in costs. Supply shifters that collectively do account for differences in building costs include the extent of unionization within the construction sector, local wages, local topography in terms of the presence of high hills and mountains, and the local regulatory environment.     

Regional Occupational Employment Projections: Modeling Supply Constraints in the Direct‐Requirements Approach*

Detailed industry‐occupation employment forecasts are an important class of regional labor market information produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In theory, the forecasts should improve the national, interregional, and intertemporal matching efficiency of labor markets. But the efficiency argument is dependent on the quality of the forecasts. The methodology used to produce the projections is still fundamentally a demand‐requirements approach that implicitly assumes that labor supply is infinitely elastic for every occupation. This paper examines the validity of that assumption and evaluates a demographically based labor supply module as an adjunct to the current methodology.     

Optimizing the Spatial Structure of the Agricultural Production Function

Important characteristics of spatial agricultural production functions are derived by introducing a non‐negative curvilinear spatial demand function for production input intensities. Given the usual neoclassical rationale assumptions of spatial demand for capital and labor inputs under competitive environment of farming in developing agricultural economies, the optimal production levels are determined by optimizing spatial demand for production inputs. Decreasing price‐to‐transport costs ratio (that is, decrease in the prices of capital goods or increase in freight rates) and increasing wage‐to‐travel costs ratio (that is, increase in labor wages or decrease in the travel rate) expand the limits of the (spatial) optimal boundary of the demand for agricultural capital goods and labor input respectively. These effects occur on account of the operation of (positive) spatial price gradient and (negative) wage‐gradient in the market region. It may be noted that elasticities of demand for production factors are spatially variant and have significant effects on the alterations in the structure of agricultural production. However, the spatial optimal solution of production has a complicated relationship with them. The price elasticity has negative and wage elasticity has positive spatial gradients in the market region. Farmers located in the periphery of the market region are not much affected by the proportionate changes occurring in the prices of agricultural capital goods but are more sensitive to the proportional changes in labor wages. Because of a decreasing trend in capital input demand and increase in labor input with distance from the market, capital‐product diminishes with a decreasing rate and labor‐product increases with an increasing rate in the spatial structure of agricultural production. As a result, capital‐labor ratio falls toward zero, which raises profit rate per unit of capital investment especially in the outer part of the market region. The equilibria of optimal production with price elasticity as well as of capital intensity with labor employment (that is, capital‐labor ratio as unity) determine spatial limits of the optimal production zone which is shifted outward subject to the provision of cheap transportation, stabilizing market prices and/or increasing wage rate at the market center. It will help in extending outwardly the optimal spatial limits of capital investment and will mobilize capital resources of farmers in the periphery for efficient and competitive capital‐dominated farming.     

Do Urban Agglomeration Effects and Household Amenities have a Skill Bias?*

There are several hypotheses why urban scale affects wages. Most focus on agglomeration economies that increase labor demand, especially for high‐skilled workers (e.g., dynamic externalities stress knowledge transfers, and imply the urban wage gap favors skilled workers). Others stress urban amenities that increase labor supply and decrease wages. Amenities should have a stronger influence on affluent households if they are normal goods. By examining whether urban‐scale affects net returns to education, it can be determined whether skilled workers are influenced more by urban productivity or amenities. Empirical results suggest net returns to education decline with urban scale, implying a key role for urban amenities in affecting skilled workers.     

Public policy,local labor demand,and migration in Sweden, 1979-84

"A model of private local labor demand and interjurisdictional migration is presented and estimated using data from Swedish counties and municipalities for 1979-84. Our goal is to compare the effects on local labor markets of distinctive public-sector programs with those of traditional market variables. We find that local income taxes and tax-equalization grants have important effects on local labor markets; regional development policy measures and geographical-mobility subsidies do not. Thus, recent efforts scaling back some of these programs may not materially alter the regional economy's performance. Wages and other traditional market variables are also often found to influence significantly local labor markets."     

Museums as Leisure

Museums are shifting from a focus upon education alone towards an accommodation of leisure markets. The authors do not consider these concepts of education and leisure, often presented as oppositional, to be irreconcilable within museum practice. Nevertheless, it is apparent that museum practice is changing, in part as a response to the pressures and opportunities of becoming assimilated into leisure markets, predominantly, but not only, as touristic attractions and often as key resources in local economic development. Stakeholders such as users, citizens or governments appear to be unconcerned about these changes in emphasis, whilst some within professional museum practice (also stakeholders) do not wholeheartedly welcome the moves. The authors argue that, historically, museums have been attributed a role in 'entertaining' users and that, in part at least, this was accepted by practitioners where the primary orientation was acquisition and conservation within the project of modernity. In such circumstances, the consumption of museum services was seen as mainly for academic, or educational, utility. More recently, consumption of museums shows evidence of being at least equally associated with meaning as well as utility, i.e. that exhibitions contribute to the assembly of particular lifestyles associated with touristic behaviour.