This thesis compares two datasets, the Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 (SEI) and the 1993 National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG), and looks at the impact of sex on full-time annual salary while controlling for different variables. The SEI provides a study based on data from 1999 about the sex effects on salary, adds controls, and records the changes in the effect of sex on salary. The SEI study finds after adding controls for worker heterogeneity and compensating wage differentials, women with bachelor's degrees earn 11.0% less, women with master's degrees earn 8.0% less, and women with doctoral degrees earn 8.4% less than their male counterparts. My analysis of the NSCG finds after adding controls, women with bachelor's degrees earn 18.5% less, women with master?s degrees earn 18.7% less, and women with doctoral degrees earn 15.3% less than their male counterparts. Additionally, in the NSCG and the SEI the field of degree impacted the sex effects the most for bachelor's and master's degree holders. This research is useful to study the difference between these datasets from different time periods. Specifically, the difference in the sex wage gap and in the changing importance of certain variables affecting the sex wage gap.

There was a well documented surge of wage inequality in the US that started from mid-70s and continued in 80s, slowing down by mid-90s, caused by increased dispersion both between and within groups of people with similar personal characteristics and skills. We analyze the US wage inequality in the more recent years to see if this trend continues. We apply the decomposition technique of Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1993) and quantile regression to March Current Population Survey data of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data and Luxembourg Income Study data for a few selected European countries. We find that the increase in wage inequality continues during the 90s, especially in the second half. In addition, the focus of wage inequality shifts into the upper half of the wage distribution after mid-80s. The European countries do not show a common trend in the direction of wage inequality during the 90s. However, the focus of their wage inequality seems to be shifting towards the lower half of the wage distribution as opposed to that of US.

The paper investigates the formation of wages in the New Member States in Central and Eastern Europe, in particular the question what the relative role of national and sectoral factors is. While the labor relations in these countries are still in the process of change, some pattern and national differences have emerged. The question is thus to what extent these differences in labor relations are reflected in wage formation. The literature on Western OECD economies is unanimous that coordination of wage bargaining does reduce the wage spread, but disagrees on its effects on unemployment and inflation. The paper analyses wage formation in Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania by means of a panel analysis for manufacturing sectors. The average wage (in the total economy) serves as a national factor and sectoral productivity serves as a sectoral factor. In variations of the basic estimation equation the role of FDI and openness and of capital intensity and skill are also discussed. The results between countries are compared with the recent index of the coordination of collective bargaining by Visser (2005) and with cross country data on union density. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

This thesis analyzes the pecuniary aspects of education in Turkey. It consists of three essays. The first essay deals with the demand for education, focusing on private tutoring expenditures of households. The study investigates the determinants of private tutoring expenditures of households using a Tobit model as the estimation method. It is found that wealthier households with higher levels of parental education are more likely to participate in private tutoring. The second essay concerns the wage inequality in the male wages in 1994 and 2002. The study found that the differences in the educational attainment levels are a major determinant of wage inequality. However, returns to education declined at each school level from 1994 to 2002. Wage inequality is also found to exist within the same educational categories. The study shows that differences in returns to the same level of education at distinct points of wage distribution became more pronounced in 2002 compared to 1994. Secondary schooling is found to benefit the least able more compared to those positioned in the middle quantiles of ability distribution. The last study in this thesis attempts to elucidate the determinants of self-employment versus wage employment choice and earnings in the two employment states. The study concludes that financial wealth and risk factor are important determinants of self-employment activity. As the educational attainment levels of individuals increase, the likelihood of becoming self-employed decrease. Education increases the earnings of both self-employed and wage earners. However, education returns are higher for the sub-group of wage employees compared to self-employed.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Göteborg University, 2008. / Added title page with thesis statement and English abstract laid in. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, DEpartment of English. / Includes bibliographical references.

In this thesis, I study the impact of minimum wage policy and city agglomeration on wages and employment in local labour markets. This is an important topic because having a better understanding of the determinants of regional wage differentials and employment offers insights into: the roles played by local production, consumption and city structures; the standard of living enjoyed by workers with different human capitals; and policy recommendations for the future minimum wage law and city planning regulations. I use local occupation and geographic information to assess how highly productive occupations and local consumption amenities sort workers and generate local wage differentials. I also use this information to construct instruments that enable the accurate estimation of the effects of policy interventions. After an introduction in chapter 1, chapter 2, The Impact of the Minimum Wage on the Wage Distribution: Evidence from China, provides an empirical estimation of the effects of minimum wages using a Chinese household survey. I introduce new instrumental variables, relating to transport costs and local productivity, to control for the potential median wage endogeneity. The instrument variable regressions indicate that the effective minimum wage, defined as the ratio between the minimum wage and the median wage, significantly reduces the lower tail wage inequality — measured by the wage differential between the 50th and the 10th percentiles— by up to 0.3 per cent. In chapter 3, The MinimumWage and Its Impact onWage and Employment, joint work with Coen Teulings, we propose a novel framework for estimating the effects of minimum wages by considering the neoclassical wage and labour participation equations at the same time. To estimate the non-linear censored model with correlated error terms, we provide a five-step procedure and use maximum likelihood estimation. After correcting the bias using occupation information and city size, we find that effective minimum wage correlate significantly with the proportion of workers earning below minimum wage. I study the structure of city and commuting in chapter 4, Consumer City and the Sharing Economy. Based on the international trade literature, I develop a theoretical model with multiple cities, which have different amenities and productivities. In equilibrium, the unobservable parameters are estimated using local employment, wage, and commuting information. Cities show strong agglomeration effects in both productivity and consumption amenities. A counterfactual technological improvement, providing a cheaper transportation for workers and consumers, leads to a more concentrated employment distribution, commuting pattern and higher utility. In the final chapter, Agglomeration and Sorting, joint work with Coen Teulings, we show that agglomeration externalities are strongly related to the occupational structure. At the same time, regional differences in house prices offset these externalities. We develop a multi-region model with regional heterogeneity in workers and jobs, tradable versus non-tradable commodities, consumption amenities, regional house prices, non-homothetic utility, and interregional labour mobility. The model fits the regional data on the fixed wage effects, the return and mean level of human capital, land prices, and the city-rural area distinction well. We use land values to calculate the value of agglomeration.

[pt] O Mercado de trabalho brasileiro passou por mudanças significativas entre 2003 e 2012. A desigualdade de salários, informalidade e desemprego caíram enquanto o salário mínimo real subiu. Evidências empíricas recentes sugerem que o papel das firmas foi importante nesses processos. Este artigo tem dois aspectos principais. Primeiro eu proponho um modelo de search e mathching com firmas e trabalhadores heterogêneos que leva em conta diversos atributos do mercado de trabalho brasileiro como informalidade, desemprego, salário mínimo e desigualdade de salários entre e intra firmas. Em seguida, com o modelo estimado que replica momentos importantes do mercado de trabalho em 2003, eu proponho exercícios contrafactuais para quantificar os determinantes por trás da redução da desigualdade de salários no Brasil. Os resultados do modelo sugerem que as mudanças no valor real do salário mínimo e da composição educacional da força de trabalho explicam grande parte da redução da desigualdade de salários no setor formal, mas são fatores mais limitados na redução da desigualdade de renda na economia como um todo. / [en] The labor market in Brazil had significant changes between 2003 and 2012. Wage inequality, informality and unemployment decreased while the real minimum wage rose. This paper has two major features. First, I propose a search and matching model with heterogeneous firms and workers that takes into account several attributes of the Brazilian labor market such as informality, unemployment, minimum wage, wage variance between and within firms and the educational composition of the workforce. Then, with an estimated model that fits important moments of the labor market in 2003, I make counterfactual exercises to quantify the determinants beneath the reduction of wage inequality. Results from the model suggest that changes in the real value of the minimum wage and the educational attainment of the workforce explain most of the reduction of wage inequality in the formal sector, but are more limited factors in the reduction of wage inequality in the whole economy.