Tony Atkinson and his Legacy

By:	A Brandolini ; Stephen P Jenkins ; John Micklewright
Tony Atkinson is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in the classical sense, rejecting any sub-field labelling of his interests and expertise, and he made contributions right across economics. His death on 1 January 2017 deprived the world of both an intellectual giant and a deeply committed public servant in the broadest sense of the term. This collective tribute highlights the range, depth and importance of Tony’s enormous legacy, the product of over fifty years’ work.
Keywords:	Atkinson
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stippp:32&r=ltv

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The Difficult School-to-Work Transition of High School Dropouts: Evidence from a field experiment

By:	Cahuc, Pierre ; Carcillo, Stéphane ; Minea, Andreea
This paper investigates the effects of the labor market experience of high school dropouts four years after leaving school by sending fictitious resumes to real job postings in France. Compared to those who have stayed unemployed since leaving school, the callback rate is not raised for those with employment experience, whether it is subsidized or non-subsidized, in the market or non-market sector, if there is no training accompanied by skill certification. In particular, we find no stigma effect associated with subsidized or non-market sector work experience. Moreover, training accompanied by skill certification improves youth prospects only when the local unemployment rate is sufficiently low, which occurs in one fifth of the commuting zones only.
Keywords:	Job subsidies; Training; youth unemployment
JEL:	J60 J68
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12120&r=ltv

Populism and the Economics of Globalization

By:	Rodrik, Dani
Populism may seem like it has come out of nowhere, but it has been on the rise for a while. I argue that economic history and economic theory both provide ample grounds for anticipating that advanced stages of economic globalization would produce a political backlash. While the backlash may have been predictable, the specific form it took was less so. I distinguish between left-wing and right-wing variants of populism, which differ with respect to the societal cleavages that populist politicians highlight. The first has been predominant in Latin America, and the second in Europe. I argue that these different reactions are related to the relative salience of different types of globalization shocks.
Keywords:	Globalization; populism
JEL:	G02
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12119&r=ltv

Economics of a good night’s sleep

By:	Joan Costa-i-Font ; Sarah Flèche
Parents whose sleep quality is reduced by young children waking them in the night are less likely to work, work shorter hours and/or earn less than otherwise similar people who enjoy a good night’s sleep. The negative labour market effects of sleep disruption caused by children are particularly strong for low-skilled mothers. These are among the findings of research by Joan Costa-i-Font and Sarah Flèche, which uses data on 14,000 families in and around the city of Bristol in the UK to investigate the link between mothers’ employment outcomes and their quality of sleep, measured by how much they are woken by their children at night. The researchers note that before now, the effects of sleep deprivation on economic activity have received surprisingly scant attention.
Keywords:	child sleep, sleep, maternal employment, working hours, job satisfaction
JEL:	J13 J22 I18 J28
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:506&r=ltv

Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory

By:	David Card ; Ana Rute Cardoso ; Jörg Heining ; Patrick Kline
We synthesize two related literatures on firm-level drivers of wage inequality. Studies of rent sharing that use matched worker-firm data find elasticities of wages with respect to value added per worker in the range of 0.05 to 0.15. Studies of wage determination with worker and firm fixed effects typically find that firm-specific premiums explain 20% of overall wage variation. To interpret these findings we develop a model of wage setting in which workers have idiosyncratic tastes for different workplaces. Simple versions of this model can rationalize standard fixed effects specifications and also match the typical rent-sharing elasticities in the literature.
Keywords:	Rent sharing, two-way fixed effects, Monopsony
JEL:	D22 J31 J42
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:976&r=ltv

Big Data and Unemployment Analysis

By:	Simionescu, Mihaela ; Zimmermann, Klaus F.
Internet or “big” data are increasingly measuring the relevant activities of individuals, households, firms and public agents in a timely way. The information set involves large numbers of observations and embraces flexible conceptual forms and experimental settings. Therefore, internet data are extremely useful to study a wide variety of human resource issues including forecasting, nowcasting, detecting health issues and well-being, capturing the matching process in various parts of individual life, and measuring complex processes where traditional data have known deficits. We focus here on the analysis of unemployment by means of internet activity data, a literature starting with the seminal article of Askitas and Zimmermann (2009a). The article provides insights and a brief overview of the current state of research.
Keywords:	big data,unemployment,internet,Google,internet penetration rate
JEL:	C22 C82 E17 E24 E37
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:81&r=ltv

Why Are Some Immigrant Groups More Successful than Others?

By:	Edward P. Lazear
Success, measured by earnings or education, of immigrants in the US varies dramatically by country of origin. For example, average educational attainment among immigrants ranges from 9 to 16 years, depending on source country. Perhaps surprisingly, immigrants from Algeria have higher educational attainment than those from Israel or Japan. Also true is that there is a strong inverse relation of attainment to number of immigrants from that country. These patterns result because in the US, immigrant slots are rationed. Selection from the top of the source country’s ability distribution is assumed and modeled. The main implications are that average immigrant attainment is inversely related to the number admitted from a source country and positively related to the population of that source country. The results are unequivocally supported by results from the American Community Survey. Additionally, a structural model that is more explicit in the assumptions and predictions fits the data well.
JEL:	F22 J01 J15 J61 M5
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23548&r=ltv

Survey Under-Coverage of Top Incomes and Estimation of Inequality: What is the Role of the UK’s SPI Adjustment?

By:	Richard V. Burkhauser ; Nicolas Hérault ; Stephen P. Jenkins ; Roger Wilkins
Survey under-coverage of top incomes leads to bias in survey-based estimates of overall income inequality. Using income tax record data in combination with survey data is a potential approach to address the problem; we consider here the UK’s pioneering ‘SPI adjustment’ method that implements this idea. Since 1992, the principal income distribution series (reported annually in Households Below Average Income) has been based on household survey data in which the incomes of a small number of ‘very rich’ individuals are adjusted using information from ‘very rich’ individuals in personal income tax return data. We explain what the procedure involves, reveal the extent to which it addresses survey under-coverage of top incomes, and show how it affects estimates of overall income inequality. More generally, we assess whether the SPI adjustment is fit for purpose and consider whether variants of it could be employed by other countries.
JEL:	C81 D31
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23539&r=ltv

Gender, Age, and Competition: a Disappearing Gap?

By:	Jeffrey Flory ; Uri Gneezy ; Kenneth Leonard ; John List
Research on competitiveness at the individual level has emphasized sex as a physiological determinant, focusing on the gap in preference for competitive environments between young men and women. This study presents evidence that women’s preferences over competition change with age such that the gender gap, while large for young adults, disappears in older populations due to the fact that older women are much more competitive. Our finding that tastes for competition appear just as strong among older women as they are among men suggests a simple gender-based view of competitiveness is misleading; age seems just as important as sex. These findings are consistent with one of the most commonly cited views on the deeper origins of gender differences: that they stem at least in part from human evolution.
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:artefa:00611&r=ltv

How Restricted is the Job Mobility of Skilled Temporary Work Visa Holders?

By:	Jennifer Hunt
Using the National Survey of College Graduates, I investigate the degree to which holders of temporary work visas in the United States are mobile between employers. Holders of temporary work visas either have legal restrictions on their ability to change employers (particularly holders of intra-company transferee visas, L-1s) or may be reluctant to leave an employer who has sponsored them for permanent residence (particularly holders of specialty worker visas, H-1Bs). I find that the voluntary job changing rate is similar for temporary visa holders and natives with similar characteristics. For the minority of temporary workers who receive permanent residence, there is a considerable spike in voluntary moving upon receipt of permanent residence, suggesting mobility is reduced during the application period by about 20%. My analysis of reasons for moving suggests that applicants are prepared to pay a small but not large professional price for permanent access to the U.S. labor market.
JEL:	J61
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23529&r=ltv