REGIONAL HETEROGENEITY IN WAGE DISTRIBUTIONS: EVIDENCE FROM SPAIN*

ABSTRACT Regional differences in real wages have been shown to be both large and persistent in the United States and the U.K., as well as in the economies of other countries. Empirical evidence suggests that wage differentials adjusted for the cost of living cannot only be explained by the unequal spatial distribution of characteristics determining earnings. Rather, average wage gap decomposition reveals the important contribution made by regional heterogeneity in the price assigned to these characteristics. This paper proposes a method for assessing regional disparities in the entire wage distribution and for decomposing the effect of differences across regions in the endowments and prices of the characteristics. The hypothesis forwarded is that the results from previous studies obtained by comparing average regional wages may be partial and nonrobust. Empirical evidence from a matched employer–employee dataset for Spain confirms marked differences in wage distributions between regions, which do not result from worker and firm characteristics but from the increasing role of regional differences in the return to human capital.     

Regional Wage Inequality in China, 1996-2010

This paper examines regional wage inequality in China between 1996 to 2010, subdividing that time span into a period of increased wage inequality during 1996-2002 and one of stable to decreasing inequality for 2003-2010. Based on the interplay between wage levels and wage growth, the authors develop a typology whereby China's provinces can be assigned to either peripheral, emerging, lagging, or leading regions. The particular characteristics associated with each type of wage region, and the factors underlying shifts of particular provinces from one category to another between the two periods, enable them to identify specific causes for the reversal (after 2002) of the trend toward increasing wage inequality (the causes especially reflect wage patterns in the mining and energy industries, information and communication technology industries, and foreign-invested enterprises). The recent wage convergence involves instances of both interior provinces advancing from the "emerging" to the "leading" wage category as well as the decline of a few "leading" coastal provinces to "lagging" status.     

Child loss and maternal wages in China

Using data from a random sample of the 2005 National Population Survey of China, we investigate the association between child death and maternal hourly wages. Approximately 1.6 per cent of the population has experienced at least one child death. Such bereaved mothers’ hourly wages are 53 per cent lower than those of non-bereaved mothers. We find that child death carries a significant wage penalty. Son death has a larger impact than daughter death and its effect decreases as the number of children in the household increases. Our decomposition results show that number of children, maternal education and regional characteristics are the three most important contributors to the wage gap, yet unexplained differences remain large, especially at the lower end of the wage distribution.     

京津冀地区城市间行业工资差异及影响因素分析

基于2005-2012年京津冀各城市工资及其它社会经济数据,探讨了市场潜能、产业集聚、人力资本、制度改革等因素对城市间各行业工资差异的影响。结果表明：①市场潜能对各行业工资水平的增长均有一定的促进作用。②除消费性服务业外,各类产业集聚对地区平均工资水平的提高均有一定的促进作用,但制造业集聚带来的拥挤效应也已开始体现;生产性服务业集聚能够带动公共性服务业工资的提升,而公共性服务业缺乏对生产性服务业的反哺;产业集聚对消费性服务业工资缺乏带动作用。③在控制变量方面,交通基础设施对工资水平的带动作用逐渐弱化;科技投入、人力资本对服务业工资水平的带动作用较高,而对制造业影响较弱;市场经济体制改革对工资水平的带动作用仍未体现;政府市场干预能力的提高仅带动了公共性服务业工资的提升,而外向度的提升则仅对公共性服务业缺乏带动作用。     

Inter- and intraregional inequality in a spatial economy

In this paper, we develop a three-region economic geography model with workers of heterogeneous skills and mobility rates to consider how first-nature, regional differences impact both inter- and intraregional inequality. In our model, the skill premium within a region summarizes both the degree of intraregional inequality between mobile, skilled workers and immobile, unskilled workers and the interregional inequality through differences in the welfare of unskilled workers across regions. Regions with the highest skill premium have the greatest degree of intraregional inequality and provide the lowest level of welfare to unskilled workers, relative to other regions. We find that the skill premium will be higher in regions with a greater supply of unskilled labor, lower supply of housing, or are more remote. An increase in a region's housing supply or centrality will lower intraregional inequality and raise the welfare of the local, unskilled workforce. However, the magnitude of these changes are declining in the initial number of skilled workers in the region. The model is extended to consider imperfectly elastic housing supply. The larger the price elasticity of housing, the larger the range of values, such that more populated regions will host a disproportionate share of skilled workers, have lower levels of intraregional inequality, and provide higher levels of welfare for unskilled workers.     

Real wage rigidity in regional labor markets in the U.K., the U.S., and West Germany

"This paper examines the extent to which regional differences in wage rigidity exist and can help explain interregional differences in unemployment trends. Phillips-curve models of manufacturing wage inflation are estimated for the 10 largest states in the U.S., the 10 economic regions in the United Kingdom, and the 11 Lande in the Federal Republic of Germany over the 1971 to 1985 period. There is evidence of significant differences in the responsiveness of wage inflation to unemployment and the rate of change in consumer prices across the regions within each country and across the three nations."     

Policy Characteristics,Patterns of Politics,and the Minimum Wage: Toward a Typology of Redistributive Policies

The central hypothesis of all policy typologies is that distinctively different patterns of politics can be identified for different types of public policy issues. Lowi identified three different policy types, which he termed distributive, regulative, and redistributive, each of which triggers a distinctively different pattern of political behavior. Unfortunately, Lowi's categories were inductively derived and ambiguously defined, leading to disagreements over how to categorize particular policies. Hayes built on Lowi's seminal effort, deriving Lowi's three policy categories from two underlying dimensions and identifying additional categories Lowi's original formulation had missed. Using the minimum wage issue as an example, this article will identify a critical deficiency in both these typologies. While Hayes' typology defines the boundaries between policy categories more precisely than Lowi's, neither typology is equipped to deal with variations in political patterns occurring within a particular cell. As this article will show, the minimum wage issue, although consistently redistributive in Hayes' terms, has manifested three very different patterns of politics at different points in time. Accordingly, a typology of redistributive policies will be advanced to account for these variations in the redistributive politics of the minimum wage.     

Revisiting the Great Compression: Wage inequality in the United States, 1940–1960

Seminal work by Goldin and Margo (1992 Goldin, C. D. and R. A. Margo.1992. The great compression: The wage structure in the United States at mid-century. Quarterly Journal of Economics 107 (1):1–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/2118322.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) used the first available microdata samples of the United States decennial census to document the narrowing of the wage structure between 1940 and 1960, a pattern they refer to as the “Great Compression.” We revisit their findings using newly available, substantially enlarged samples of the decennial censuses covering this period. Our findings largely replicate the patterns initially reported by Goldin and Margo. However, differences emerge when estimating rates of return to education and experience for specific groups and in a decomposition exercise. A second goal is to indicate directions for future research that might benefit from the use of the complete count census data.     

The Determinants of Policy Introduction and Bill Adoption: Examining Minimum Wage Increases in the American States, 1997–2006

Faced with long intervals between federal minimum wage increases in recent years, state legislatures are increasingly likely to take action. Motivated by the relative dearth of empirical work on minimum wages in the American states, this article considered various explanations to determine which factors are associated with legislative efforts to pass wage increases. Taking seriously the view that disagreements over the effects of minimum wage increases enhances the influence of political factors, we drew on the policy adoption and diffusion literature to examine how internal determinants (political and economic variables) and regional diffusion pressures relate to both the introduction and adoption of minimum wage legislation in the American states in the years between the last two federal minimum wage increases (1997–2006). Employing negative binomial regression to analyze annual bill introductions, we found that a number of political variables are related to the consideration of minimum wage increases. However, using event history analysis to examine annual adoptions of minimum wage increases, we found few of the same variables matter. We concluded with a discussion of the empirical results within the context of the broader policy literature and cautioned future scholars to consider seriously whether political factors exert distinct influences at different stages of the policy process.     

中小企业薪酬留人：基于战略管理的模式设计

中小企业在我国社会经济中的地位和作用不断增强,但由于社会、历史和自身等诸多方面的原因,中小企业的人才流失相当严重,严重制约了自身的发展。基于战略目标的薪酬管理是把企业看成一个大家庭,员工是家庭的成员,企业的发展和个人的成长有机融合。因此,中小企业的薪酬管理应从企业的战略角度出发。塑造以人为本的薪酬理念,设计合理的薪酬体系,推进薪酬与绩效的有机融合。唯有如此,中小企业才能在市场竞争中有目的、有计划地留住人才。     

Does geographical location matter for ethnic wage gaps?

This paper analyzes ethnic wage gaps in Great Britain by comparing minorities to majority workers in the same local labor market and focuses on the variation of wage gaps across areas. As wage gaps vary across areas, using one single national measure may be misleading. Higher wage gaps across groups are associated with higher occupational segregation and ethnic diversity, while higher wage gaps within groups are associated with higher regional specialization and proportion of co-ethnics. Policies could help by improving job location and selection into occupations across groups.     

IMPACT OF RIGIONAL FACTORS ON PRODUCTIVITY IN CHINA*

ABSTRACT. The regional production environment in China is decomposed into five regional factors: education endowment, foreign direct investment, agglomeration, producer's market accessibility, and consumer's market accessibility. The impacts of these regional factors on the Chinese machinery building industry and food manufacture industry are estimated across 30 regions. The estimates are highly significant and show that these regional factors substantially affect regional productivity. Across regions and over time, the capital return rate is positively related to the ratio of the total regional factor impact to the wage rate.     

Regional labor markets and the household migration decision

"The current work extends the modeling of the household migration decision to take into account location-specific influences and relates these to regional wage differentials. This allows for more complete analysis of real wage gains or losses associated with migration and inferences regarding the nature of equilibrium or disequilibrium wage differentials between regions." Data are from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the period 1976-1978. "The results indicate systematic and often substantial influences of household location on the nominal wage and on both job and residence mobility. Based on these findings, comparisons of wage growth patterns are made for those changing jobs and region of residence status. Although compared to other households the wage growth of these migrants is on average lower before migration and higher after migration, the analysis provides no support for arguments that nominal regional wage differentials reflect systematic ordering of real wage differentials. This finding suggests that real wage gains are closely tied to the interregional migration decision but are not related to regional nominal wage differentials in a simple fashion."     

THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION ON REGIONAL WAGE INEQUALITY: A SEMIPARAMETRIC APPROACH

According to economic theory, regional migration is a primary mechanism through which regional wage convergence is predicted to occur. However, this does not necessarily imply that regional migration has an equalizing effect on regional inequality. Despite considerable literatures on regional migration and regional wage inequality, little attention has focused on the relationship between the two. This paper investigates one of the primary mechanisms through which migration affects individual region's wage distributions. It adopts a semiparametric procedure to examine how the regional wage distributions in Great Britain have changed as a result of migration using British Household Panel Survey data for 1991–2007.     

Regional Wage Rigidity: The European Union and United States Compared

In recent years it has been pointed out that regional unemployment disparities are much more entrenched across member states of the European Union (E.U.) than they are in the U.S. A 'conventional wisdom' has emerged to the effect that this difference is due in part to the greater degree of wage rigidity in E.U. regions. In this paper we explore this issue by estimating short run and long run real wage (in)flexibility for the regions in five core E.U. countries (Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) and for the U.S. states for the period 1976–1994. We find that real wage (in)flexibility varies across regions both in the E.U. and the U.S., but that, on average, regional wages are no less flexible in E.U. core regions than in U.S. states. The paper also examines some of the possible correlates ofregional variations in wage (in)flexibility.     

The Geography of Economic Development and Racial Discrimination in Brazil

This study investigates the relationship between unequal resource and population distribution and racial wage inequality in Brazil. Using sample data from the 1980 Brazilian census, monthly wages were estimated for white and Afro-Brazilian men working in nine metropolitan areas. Estimates showed that racial disparities in wages existed across all regional labour markets. Regression-based decomposition analysis found that a substantial portion of the racial wage gap was due to discrimination (unequal pay), while estimates of the magnitude of labour market discrimination indicated considerable variation by geographical area. Discrimination was higher in the predominantly white and highly developed areas of the South than in the former slave and underdeveloped regions of the Northeast.     

区域经济联系测度方法述评

区域研究是地理学的核心之一。区域经济联系测度是区域研究的焦点。在系统总结区域经济联系测度的理论与方法的基础上,本文认为区域经济联系测度一般依循尺度确定-区域划分-区域联系测度的路径;测度区域经济联系的主要指标有可达性、经济影响范围、经济联系强度、经济隶属度等。城市在区域网络中的作用、位置是区域经济联系测度的重点。通过区域经济联系强度的测度,有助于区域和城市发展定位,并指导规划。近年来城市化、信息化、全球化的快速发展对区域经济联系的测度提出了新的挑战,需要综合不同的方法或发展新方法来应对。     

The minimum wage and seasonal employment: Evidence from the US agricultural sector

Nearly 40% of agricultural workers in the United States earn an hourly wage that is within 10% of the prevailing state-level minimum wage. We evaluate the impact of the minimum wage on farm employment using county-level data from the United States Census of Agriculture. We employ long-differences specifications and find evidence of a dynamic, negative effect of the minimum wage on seasonal agricultural employment, but no effect on year-round agricultural employment. We estimate a long-run elasticity of total agricultural employment with respect to the minimum wage of about −0.40, which is both statistically and economically significant. Employers’ total expenditures on hired agricultural workers are not affected by the minimum wage. Finally, our analysis suggests that increases in minimum wages may lead to higher capital investment as well as the consolidation of farming operations in the agricultural sector.     

TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN MANUFACTURING FURTHER EVIDENCE FROM THE STATES*

In this paper, we first develop a measure of total factor productivity (TFP) growth and summarize a source-of-growth analysis for the manufacturing sector of 48 states. As have others, we find little association between TFP growth differentials and output growth differentials for census regions. At the staterather than the regional level, however, we find a positive association between TFP growth and output growth. We use cross-sectional data to estimate the determinants of the variation in TFP growth. Two results emerge that are important for regional policy and for understanding national productivity trends. First, state investments in education and in transportation infrastructure may affect TFP growth. Second, energy price increases in the early 1970s had no differential effects on productivity growth across states. We also explore the determinants of manufacturing output growth and find that TFP growth, demand growth, wage growth, wage levels, and state corporate income tax rates are significant.     

ALARMISM AND DENIALISM IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: THE CASE OF THE NUTRIENT POLLUTION IN THE BALTIC SEA IN THE 1960S AND 1970S

Between 1975 and 1983 the Swedish labour movement discussed a proposal to establish wage earner funds that would gradually shift the ownership in medium to large companies from employers to workers. This article starts by shedding light on the genesis of the proposal in the 1960s and 1970s and the reactions it provoked in Swedish society. Focus then switches to how the Meidner plan was understood in Italy in a time of pronounced social conflict marked, on one hand, by the redefinition of the relationship between trade unions and politics and, on the other hand, by soaring opposition among the various trade unions and the growing distance between the two major leftist parties. These divisions reverberated on the ways the wage earner funds – in their various versions – were understood by the organizations of the Italian labour movement; the assessment of the plan's feasibility and its applicability to the Italian case came to reflect conflicting views on industrial and economic democracy and on the relationship between Nordic social-democracies and Italian reformism.