Verhaest, Dieter, Bogaert, Elene, Dereymaeker, Jeroen, Mestdagh, Laura, Baert, Stijn, (2016), “Crowding Out in the Labour Market: Do Employers Lend a Hand?”, IZA, January. We test the basic assumption underlying the job competition and crowding out hypothesis: that employers always prefer higher educated to lower educated individuals. To this end, we conduct a randomised field experiment in which duos of fictitious applications by bachelor and master graduates are sent to real vacancies requiring only a …Read More
The evolution of the gender gap in industrialized countries
Olivetti, Claudia, Petrongolo, Barbara, (2016), “The evolution of the gender gap in industrialized countries”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, January. Women in developed economies have made major inroads in labor markets throughout the past century, but remaining gender differences in pay and employment seem remarkably persistent. This paper documents long-run trends in female employment, working hours and relative wages for a wide cross-section of developed economies. It reviews existing work on the factors driving …Read More
Lost in assumptions: assessing the economic impact of migrants
Boot, Nuria, Huttl, Pia, (2016), “Lost in assumptions: assessing the economic impact of migrants”, Bruegel publications, 18 January What’s at stake: Many research institutes have estimated the economic impact of migrants, in particular regarding fiscal budgets and the labour market. These studies often give contradictory results. This blogs review looks at the different assumptions and approaches behind these results. Relevant Posts Carcea Carpus, Mihaela, Ciriaci, Daria, Lorenzani, Dimitri, Pontuch, Peter, …Read More
The Return of Public Investment
Rodrik, Dani, (2016), “The Return of Public Investment”, Project Syndicate, 13 January The idea that public investment in infrastructure – roads, dams, power plants, and so forth – is an indispensable driver of economic growth has always held powerful sway over the minds of policymakers in poor countries. It also lay behind early development assistance programs following World War II, when the World Bank and bilateral donors funneled resources to …Read More
Give Recovery a Chance
Timbeau, Xavier, et al., (2015), “GIVE RECOVERY A CHANCE”, independent Annual Growth Survey (iAGS) 2016, Fourth Report, 25 November. The ongoing recovery of the EA economy is too slow to achieve a prompt return to full employment. Despite apparent improvement in the labour market, the crisis is still developing under the covers, with the risk of leaving long-lasting “scars”, or a “scarification” of the social fabric in the EA. Moreover, the EA …Read More
Labour market policy: Parts of the picture are missing
Arni, Patrick, Lalive, Rafael, van den Berg, Gerard, (2016), “Labour market policy: Parts of the picture are missing”, Voxeu, 11 January The standard empirical evaluations of labour market policy only consider the direct effects of single programmes on their participants. This column argues that this fails to capture important aspects of real-world labour market policy – policy regimes and strategies. Using Swiss data, it employs a novel empirical approach that concurrently examines the effects of …Read More
Public investment efficiency and growth
Berg, Andrew, Presbitero, Andrea, Felipe Zanna, Luis, (2016), “Public investment efficiency and growth”, Voxeu, 5 January What is the growth impact of an increase in the rate of public investment spending? And in particular, how does this depend on the efficiency of public investment spending? These questions have emerged in the debate about the need to bolster public investment to exit a low-growth, high-unemployment conundrum in Europe (e.g. Summers 2014, Teulings and Baldwin 2014, …Read More
Capital shares and income inequality: Evidence from the long run
Bengtsson, Erik, Waldenström, Daniel, (2015), “Capital shares and income inequality: Evidence from the long run”, Centre for Economic Policy Research, December. This paper investigates the relationship between the capital share in national income and personal income inequality over the long run. Using a new historical cross-country database on capital shares in 19 countries and data from the World Top Income Database, we find strong long-run links between the aggregate role of capital …Read More
Income changes and their determinants over the lifecycle
Hood, Andrew, Joyce, Robert, (2015), “Income changes and their determinants over the lifecycle”, IFS Working Paper, 21 December. What explains the variation in how income changes as people age? Using household panel data, we investigate the contribution of different time-varying factors in explaining variation in income changes over prime working-age life (between 35-44 and 50-59). We find that demographic changes, such as acquiring or losing a partner and the entry or exit of …Read More
Euro area sees employment rebound
European Central Bank, (2015), “Euro area sees employment rebound”, Economic Bulletin, 14 December Euro area headcount employment has increased by over 2.2 million since the post-crisis low in the middle of 2013. This article investigates the sources and characteristics of this rebound, finding that it is heavily concentrated in some of the worst-hit labour markets, to a considerable extent in low productivity sectors. Relevant Posts ECB (2015) Update on Economic …Read More