In Great Britain and m the United States, legal minimum wage regulation has, by and large, been devoted to the purpose of raising the wages of the lowest-paid workers. One would expect, therefore that the immediate impact of minimum wage laws would be a source of wage advantage for the lowest-paid industries, thereby narrowing the relative wage differential between low-wage and high-wage industries. Have the British and the American minimum wage laws achieved this purpose? This is the principal question which this study attempts to give some answer. Available evidence has indicated that the initial (immediate) impact of minimum wage legislation has been to reduce the interindustry wage dispersion. However, over a longer period of time, after the initial wage advantage in favour of the low-wage industries, high-wage industries have tended to grant larger than average percentage increases in wages, as a result, low-wage industries lagged behind. This tendency was observed in the British Wages Council industries during the 1948-1950 period; and in the American low-wage industries throughout the duration of the 1950 75 cents minimum, 19'50-1955. Existing explanations have leaned towards the view that minimum wage regulation itself has been causing, directly or indirectly, widening of the wage structure. What we have termed the Bowlby type hypothesis, suggest that in fact minimum wage legislation instead of being a source of wage advantage for low-wage industries they are intended to help, causes a widening of the wage structure. Such explanations of wage lags are inadequate since they fail to isolate minimum wage legislation from other possible causes of wage changes. Wage structure studies have indicated some of the more important of these wage determinants that make for interindustry wage variations. The need to relate the two areas of wage study more closely minimum wage theory and wage structure theory -- seems obvious. Our contribution in this study is an attempt at a partial synthesis of the two types of wage studies, and to suggest an alternative wage-lag hypothesis to interpret wage lags in terms of wage structure variables. No attempt is made to subject the alternative wage-lag hypothesis to rigorous testing. Rather the attempt has been to provide some supporting evidence that factors other than a legal minimum have been causing the wage lag m the periods 1948-1956 m the United Kingdom, and the 1950-1955 period in the United States. Instead of using correlation and regression analysis, the standard tools of wage structure studies, we employ a two sector model -- a high-wage sector and a low-wage sector. A comparison is then made between the high-wage and low-wage sectors with respect to differences m wage movements, m output, productivity, and employment trends, concentration, profits, and unionism, to ascertain whether these variables have, on balance, worked to the advantage of the high-wage industries and to the detriment of the low-wage sector, thus accounting for the divergencies in wage movements. The main finding with respect to wage movements in both countries is that the high-wage sectors have tended to "lead" industry wage movements, and the low-wage sectors to lag behind general wage increases. The other significant finding is that the leading high-wage sectors were m general, more highly concentrated, more profitable, and more strongly unionized than the low-wage sectors. Subject to the limitations of data and method, our findings do indicate that under "facilitating environmental circumstances," the high-wage sectors have been able to make greater than average wage increases, while the low-wage sectors, because of their unfavourable combination of low-concentration, low-profits, and low-degree of unionization, have lagged behind. These conclusions therefore tend to refute the Bowlby wage-lag hypothesis and its variants -- that minimum wage legislation has caused the widening of the wage structure -- and to lend considerable weight to our alternative wage-lag hypothesis. The alternative wage-lag hypothesis leads to its collorary hypothesis: that in the absence of minimum wage laws which set a floor under wages, wages in low-wage non-regulated industries would experience greater wage lags than if there are such limits to wage declines. The collorary hypothesis suggests, that even if minimum wage laws have not been able to reduce wage dispersion over a longer period of time, they at least achieve the limited purpose of preventing a further widening of the wage structure. From a policy standpoint, the alternative wage-lag hypothesis and its collorary thus suggest, that minimum wage laws in Great Britain and the United States, have been a source of improved standards for low-wage industries. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Zhu Yandan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-47). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- Literature Review on Foreign-wage Premium --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Literature Review on Size-wage Premium --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3 --- Literature Review on Industry Wage Differentials --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4 --- Literature Review on MZ Twins Approach --- p.21 / Chapter 3 --- Method --- p.22 / Chapter 4 --- Data --- p.24 / Chapter 5 --- Empirical Results --- p.27 / Chapter 5.1 --- Return to Foreign Firms --- p.27 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- OLS Regressions Using the Whole Sample --- p.27 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- OLS Regressions Using the MZ Twins Sample --- p.28 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Within-Twin-Pair Estimations --- p.29 / Chapter 5.2 --- Return to Large Firms --- p.30 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- OLS Regressions Using the Whole Sample --- p.30 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- OLS Regressions Using the MZ Twins Sample --- p.32 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Within-Twin-Pair Estimations --- p.32 / Chapter 5.3 --- Inter-industry Wage Differentials --- p.33 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- OLS Regressions Using the Whole Sample --- p.33 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- OLS Regressions Using the MZ Twins Sample --- p.34 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Within-Twin-Pair Estimations --- p.35 / Chapter 5.4 --- "Effects of Ownership, Firm Size, and Industry Type on Earnings" --- p.35 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- OLS Regressions Using the Whole Sample --- p.35 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- OLS Regressions Using the MZ Twins Sample --- p.36 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Within-Twin-Pair Estimations --- p.37 / Chapter 5.5 --- OLS and FE Estimates Considering Working Hours --- p.38 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- OLS and FE Estimates Using Working Hours --- p.38 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- OLS and FE Estimates Using Hourly Earnings --- p.39 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusions --- p.40 / Chapter 7 --- Bibliography --- p.42 / Chapter 8 --- Tables --- p.48 / Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Different Samples --- p.48 / Table 2: Descriptive Statistics of MZ Twins --- p.49 / Table 3: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Ownership on Earnings --- p.50 / Table 4: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Size on Earnings --- p.51 / Table 5: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Industry Type on Earnings --- p.52 / "Table 6: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Ownership, Firm Size and Industry Type on Earnings" --- p.53 / Table 7: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Ownership on Working Time --- p.54 / Table 8: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Size on Working Time --- p.55 / Table 9: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Industry Type on Working Time --- p.56 / "Table 10: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Ownership, Firm Size and Industry Type on Working Time" --- p.57 / Table 11: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Ownership on Hourly Earnings --- p.58 / Table 12: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Size on Hourly Earnings --- p.59 / Table 13: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Industry Type on Hourly Earnings --- p.60 / "Table 14: Ordinary Least Squares and Fixed-Effects Estimates of the Effect of Firm Ownership, Firm Size and Industry Type on Hourly Earnings" --- p.61

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-127).

Wage structure has shown to be crucial for firms and workers. However, there existwage dispersion for identical workers in labor markets. The paper measures the effectof industry and firm size on wages in Sweden. The results show that both industry andfirm size have significant effects on wages. Regarding the explanation factors, thefinding is that human capital factors can explain a portion of the industry wagedifferentials, but have less impact on wage differentials across firm size. However,compensating differentials and union organization are not the determinants of theindustry wage differentials and firm size-wage effects. In addition, unobservedindividual characteristics can partly explain firm size effect on wages, but cannotexplain industry wage differentials based on our samples.

Yang Wang

This thesis focuses on the industry wage differentials, rent-sharing and the gender wage gap. I empirically investigate: i) the interaction between inter-industry wage differentials and the gender wage gap in six European countries, ii) how rent sharing interacts with the gender wage gap in the Belgian private sector and iii) the existence of inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, through the unobserved ability hypothesis. The first chapter is devoted to the analysis of the interaction between inter-industry wage differentials and the gender wage gap in six European countries, i.e. Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. To do so, we have relied on a unique harmonised matched employer-employee data set, the 1995 European Structure of Earnings Survey. As far as we know, this paper is the first to analyse with recent techniques, on a comparable basis, and from a European perspective: i) inter-industry wage differentials by gender, ii) gender wage gaps by industry, and iii) the contribution of industry effects to the overall gender wage gap. It is also one of the few, besides Kahn (1998), to analyse for both sexes the relationship between collective bargaining characteristics and the dispersion of industry wage differentials. Empirical findings show that, in all countries and for both sexes, wage differentials exist between workers employed in different sectors, even when controlling for working conditions, individual and firm characteristics. We also find that the hierarchy of sectors in terms of wages is quite similar for male and female workers and across countries. Yet, the apparent similarity between male and female industry wage differentials is challenged by standard statistical tests. Indeed, simple t-tests show that between 43 and 71% of the industry wage disparities are significantly different for women and men. Moreover, Chow tests indicate that sectoral wage differentials are significantly different as a group for both sexes in all countries. Regarding the dispersion of the industry wage differentials, we find that results vary for men and women, although not systematically nor substantially. Yet, the dispersion of industry wage differentials fluctuates considerably across countries. It is quite large in Ireland, Italy and the U.K., and relatively moderate in Belgium, Denmark and Spain. For both sexes, results point to the existence of a negative and significant relationship between the degree of centralisation of collective bargaining and the dispersion of industry wage differentials. Furthermore, independently of the country considered, results show that more than 80% of the gender wage gaps within industries are statistically significant. The average industry gender wage gap ranges between -.18 in the U.K. and -.11 in Belgium. This means that on average women have an inter-industry wage differential of between 18 and 11% below that for men. Yet, correlation coefficients between the industry gender wage gaps across countries are relatively small and often statistically insignificant. This finding suggests that industries with the highest and the lowest gender wage gaps vary substantially across Europe. Finally, results indicate that the overall gender wage gap, measured as the difference between the mean log wages of male and female workers, fluctuates between .18 in Denmark and .39 in the U.K. In all countries a significant (at the .01 level) part of this gap can be explained by the segregation of women in lower paying industries. Yet, the relative contribution of this factor to the gender wage gap varies substantially among European countries. It is close to zero in Belgium and Denmark, between 7 and 8% in Ireland, Spain and the U.K., and around 16% in Italy. Differences in industry wage premia for male and female workers significantly (at the .05 level) affect the gender wage gap in Denmark and Ireland only. In these countries, gender differences in industry wage differentials account for respectively 14 and 20% of the gender wage gap. To sum up, findings show that combined industry effects explain around 29% of the gender wage gap in Ireland, respectively 14 and 16% in Denmark and Italy, around 7% in the U.K. and almost nothing in Belgium and Spain. In conclusion, our results emphasize that the magnitude of the gender wage gap as well as its causes vary substantially among the European countries. This suggests that no single policy instrument will be sufficient to tackle gender pay inequalities in Europe. Our findings indicate that policies need to be tailored to the very specific context of the labour market in each country. The second chapter examines investigates how rent sharing interacts with the gender wage gap in the Belgian private sector. Empirical findings show that individual gross hourly wages are significantly and positively related to firm profits-per-employee even when controlling for group effects in the residuals, individual and firm characteristics, industry wage differentials and endogeneity of profits. Our instrumented wage-profit elasticity is of the magnitude 0.06 and it is not significantly different for men and women. Of the overall gender wage gap (on average women earn 23.7% less than men), results show that around 14% can be explained by the fact that on average women are employed in firms where profits-per-employee are lower. Thus, findings suggest that a substantial part of the gender wage gap is attributable to the segregation of women is less profitable firms. The third and final chapter contributes to the understanding of inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering the period 1995-2002. Findings show the existence of large and persistent wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics and working conditions, employed in different sectors. The unobserved ability hypothesis may not be rejected on the basis of Martins’ (2004) methodology. However, its contribution to the observed industry wage differentials appears to be limited. Further results show that ceteris paribus workers earn significantly higher wages when employed in more profitable firms. The instrumented wage-profit elasticity stands at 0.063. This rent-sharing phenomenon accounts for a large fraction of the industry wage differentials. We find indeed that the magnitude, dispersion and significance of industry wage differentials decreases sharply when controlling for profits.

This thesis explores several aspects of the labour market in Serbia and Croatia during the process of transition from socialism to a market economy. First, it examines how women??s position in the labour market has changed in Serbia. Using five annual Labour Force Surveys (2001-2005), I find that the gender wage gap is still very low in Serbia, and is even decreasing during this period. However, decompositions that apply the Oaxaca (1974) methodology reveal that the unexplained component of the gap is very large, and is increasing. Likewise, quantile decompositions suggest that while the raw gap is falling at each of the quantiles analysed, the unexplained component is increasing at most quantiles at the same time. Thus, the relatively small gap in earnings could be masking considerable discrimination in the labour market. Second, changes in men??s wage inequality in Serbia in the period from 2001 to 2005 are analysed using five annual Labour Force Surveys. Changes in the distribution of earnings are examined using the Lemieux (2002) decomposition methodology. I find that the change in wage inequality is mostly driven by changes in wage premiums, while the effect of changes in the composition of the labour force is very small. Isolating the effect of the emerging private sector reveals that changes in the private sector size and wage premium account for an average 25 percent of the changes in inequality during this period. Third, the effect that the recent war in Croatia (1991-1995) had on the educational and employment trajectories of the 1971 birth cohort of men is investigated. This birth cohort was most affected by the armed forces draft. I treat the occurrence of the war as a natural experiment and use data from the Croatian and Slovenian Labour Force Surveys. Applying the difference-in-difference framework and comparing this cohort to adjacent cohorts, women, and to respective cohorts in Slovenia, a neighbouring country that did not experience war, I find that the war has had a negative effect on educational outcomes and a small positive effect on the employment and earnings outcomes of this cohort of men.

This thesis explores several aspects of the labour market in Serbia and Croatia during the process of transition from socialism to a market economy. First, it examines how women??s position in the labour market has changed in Serbia. Using five annual Labour Force Surveys (2001-2005), I find that the gender wage gap is still very low in Serbia, and is even decreasing during this period. However, decompositions that apply the Oaxaca (1974) methodology reveal that the unexplained component of the gap is very large, and is increasing. Likewise, quantile decompositions suggest that while the raw gap is falling at each of the quantiles analysed, the unexplained component is increasing at most quantiles at the same time. Thus, the relatively small gap in earnings could be masking considerable discrimination in the labour market. Second, changes in men??s wage inequality in Serbia in the period from 2001 to 2005 are analysed using five annual Labour Force Surveys. Changes in the distribution of earnings are examined using the Lemieux (2002) decomposition methodology. I find that the change in wage inequality is mostly driven by changes in wage premiums, while the effect of changes in the composition of the labour force is very small. Isolating the effect of the emerging private sector reveals that changes in the private sector size and wage premium account for an average 25 percent of the changes in inequality during this period. Third, the effect that the recent war in Croatia (1991-1995) had on the educational and employment trajectories of the 1971 birth cohort of men is investigated. This birth cohort was most affected by the armed forces draft. I treat the occurrence of the war as a natural experiment and use data from the Croatian and Slovenian Labour Force Surveys. Applying the difference-in-difference framework and comparing this cohort to adjacent cohorts, women, and to respective cohorts in Slovenia, a neighbouring country that did not experience war, I find that the war has had a negative effect on educational outcomes and a small positive effect on the employment and earnings outcomes of this cohort of men.

Unemployment and the duration of stay in this labour market state have motivated many empirical studies in the last three decades. The main focus of the empirics, up until recently, has been to model the total duration of unemployment, defined by the termination of a job and the commencement of a new labour market state. This new labour market state is most often defined by the start of a new job. However, many labour markets function within a system of wage replacement benefits for unemployed workers via state-run Unemployment Insurance (UI) programmes. More recent studies have focused on the period of insured unemployment in relation to specific programme rules such as wage replacement level (the benefit level) and maximum weeks of benefit entitlement. This thesis takes advantage of rule changes to the benefit level and maximum entitlement within the Canadian UI programme in the early 1990s to examine their impact on UI durations. A random sample of UI claims filed by male claimants from thirteen geographic regions within the four provinces of Atlantic Canada was selected. Unemployment Insurance durations are defined both by the last week of UI benefit receipt and the first week of active labour market activity while on claim. The analysis uses non-parametric, semi-parametric and parametric estimation techniques in obtaining covariate and baseline hazard influences on the duration of UI claims. The estimation results indicate that there are statistically significant benefit and entitlement effects as well as UI duration differences by region, occupation and industry. Unique UI durations were also revealed for exit events defined by the start of part-time earnings, full-time earnings and the start date of training while on a UI claim. Overall, programme changes which have reduced programme generosity have shortened UI durations primarily by reducing the maximum number of weeks ofUI entitlement

No description available.