Neoclassical economic theorys assumption of a strictly utility of money maximizing economic actor has been unable to explain such economic phenomena as involuntary unemployment and above market clearing wages. Efficiency wage theory, in its various forms, has provided some explanation for these labour market features. Akerlofs (1982) Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis or Partial Gift Exchange model of the labour market explains involuntary unemployment through the productivity enhancing effects of higher wages. In Akerlofs model this is done through a sort of unspoken gift exchange in which higher wages given to the workers are returned to the firm in the form of higher effort or productivity. <p>The Partial Gift Exchange model can also be modeled in a laboratory setting where its various predictions and assumptions can be tested. This has been done by a number of researchers over the last 15 years, who have generally found support for the validity of the theory using a one sided oral auction procedure. This thesis seeks to conduct a similar experiment, but in the form of a survey, the focus of which is the relationship between wages and effort. <p>A number of the results of previous experiments supporting the Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis have also been generated in the survey, for example a positive relationship between wages and effort. New and interesting findings not previously examined in the lab or not present in previous experiment were also present in the survey: the negative effect of wage inequity; a positive coefficient for the gender dummy variable; and the negative effect of unemployment insurance. <p>The survey has produced some new and interesting results, transporting the survey back into the laboratory setting from which it was inspired would provide an interesting comparison.

This paper examines the effect of psychological traits on earnings and furthermore whether it helps explain the gender wage gap. Public-use data collected from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health is used to evaluate the impact on earnings on seven psychological factors: masculine traits, self esteem, analytical problem solving approach, willingness to work hard, impulsiveness, problem avoidance, and self-assessed intelligence. Findings show that gender differences in psychological traits are significant and returns to observable characteristics differ somewhat by gender as well. Among the young sample of U.S. employees evaluated in this study, I find that up to 21 percent of the gender wage gap can be explained, with psychological factors specifically explaining up to 1.5 percent of this gap.

Minorities hold a significantly smaller percentage of executive positions in companies within the S&P500. However, whether these minorities are under compensated relative to their non-minority counterparts has not been previously investigated. Using Compustat data, this paper documents the differences in compensation between minorities and non-minorities as a whole, minority and non-minority CEOs, and the differences in compensation for minorities and non-minorities within industries. I show that there is no minority/white wage gap overall, and in some cases, minorities earn a premium compared to non-minorities.

This study aims to measure the wage gap between the white and Mexican population residing in the United States. It also looks at male and female first- and second-and-higher generations in both white and Mexican populations. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) is used for the years 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. This study finds that first-generation white males are negatively affected by the wage gap, while second-and-higher-generation Mexican females have continuously benefited from the wage gap over the past thirty years.

Problem: The Swedish wage-setting has changed since the time for the breakthrough of the industrialism until today. Before that, wages often consisted of perquisites or goods that could be exchanged against other goods. Rural people were often self-sufficient. In some cases the farmer owned the land, in other cases they where tenants. At the time for the breakthrough of industrialism the demand for similar labour were increased. This situation in combination with urbanization leads to an increasing demand for money as means of payment. The wage-setting runs all through the story and is important for the development of a society. The cooperation between employers and employees is important and the institutions is a great part in these game. The question is how the wage-setting has developed from the middle of 19th century until today, and what the most important elements for development are. Purpose: The purpose with this thesis is to describe the Swedish wagesetting between 1850-2009, from an institutional point of view, and analyse important factors for these changings. Results: The Swedish wage-setting between 1850-2009 has gone from a situation with pure theory in the middle of the 1900 century, to a more complicated system for wage-setting in the middle of 20th century. After 1970 we can see a development towards the pure theory for wage-setting that is presented by Olivier Blanchard. Some reasons for that is the change from industrial society to service society, women are introduced on the labourmarket, globalization and an increasing competition from other countries outside Europe, and an increased public sector.

Neoclassical economic theorys assumption of a strictly utility of money maximizing economic actor has been unable to explain such economic phenomena as involuntary unemployment and above market clearing wages. Efficiency wage theory, in its various forms, has provided some explanation for these labour market features. Akerlofs (1982) Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis or Partial Gift Exchange model of the labour market explains involuntary unemployment through the productivity enhancing effects of higher wages. In Akerlofs model this is done through a sort of unspoken gift exchange in which higher wages given to the workers are returned to the firm in the form of higher effort or productivity. <p>The Partial Gift Exchange model can also be modeled in a laboratory setting where its various predictions and assumptions can be tested. This has been done by a number of researchers over the last 15 years, who have generally found support for the validity of the theory using a one sided oral auction procedure. This thesis seeks to conduct a similar experiment, but in the form of a survey, the focus of which is the relationship between wages and effort. <p>A number of the results of previous experiments supporting the Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis have also been generated in the survey, for example a positive relationship between wages and effort. New and interesting findings not previously examined in the lab or not present in previous experiment were also present in the survey: the negative effect of wage inequity; a positive coefficient for the gender dummy variable; and the negative effect of unemployment insurance. <p>The survey has produced some new and interesting results, transporting the survey back into the laboratory setting from which it was inspired would provide an interesting comparison.

Women, on average, are found in systematically different careers than men. The reason for this phenomenon is not fully understood, in part because expectations play a vital role in the process of career choice. Different religious groups have different beliefs on the importance of child bearing, so fertility expectations should differ by religious group. I include a woman's religious denomination in regressions on mea- sures of occupational flexibility. Jehovah's Witnesses choose the most flexible careers followed by Pentecostal, Catholic, Baptist, and Mainline Protestant women. Jewish women generally choose the least flexible careers. This is consistent with the human capital notion that women are choosing different careers than men rather than being forced into different job paths. If women are choosing jobs that allow them to take responsibility for home pro- duction, how does this affect their husbands? Male wage regressions that include marital status dummy variables find a marriage wage premium of 10 to 40%. This premium may occur because wives are taking responsibility for home production and husbands are free to focus their attention on productivity at work. It may also be that factors unobserved to the researcher may make a man more productive and more likely to marry. I use religious denomination as a proxy for specialization within the home. Men in more traditional religious denominations enjoy a higher marriage wage premium, which is evidence that household specialization of labor is an important cause of the wage premium. The choice of a career, whether to marry, and most other important life decisions are dependent on one's risk tolerance. The role of risk preferences in such choices is not fully understood, largely because relative risk aversion (y) is hard to empirically quantify. Chetty (2006) derives a formula for ° based on the link between utility and labor supply decisions. I estimate y at the micro level using the 1996 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I compare y to an estimate based on hypothetical gambles and find the measures substantially different. This supports Chetty's claim that ex- pected utility theory cannot suffciently explain choices under uncertainty in different domains.

Following Chang, Lai, and Chang(1999), this report discusses the policy assignment problem with efficient wage-employment bargaining under perfect capital mobility. Whether it can rescue the default of proposed by Ramirez (1988) that coordinate between fiscal and exchange rate policies to achieve given desirable targets. The conclusion of this report is as follows¡G Under fixed exchange rates with perfect capital mobility, however, an appropriate mixture between monetary and fiscal policies can dynamically adjust to attain simultaneously the internal goal of desired output and the external goal of official foreign reserves. It's conclusion as the same as proposed by Lai, Chang, and Chu (1990). But more importantly, it can rescue the default of proposed by Ramirez (1988) that coordinate between fiscal and exchange rate policies to achieve given the internal and external goals. Accordingly, we can understand that efficient wage-employment bargaining in the labor market plays a curial role in assessing the assignment or policy instrument to targets. Furthmore, this report extends the analysis results under fixed exchange rates shifting to the system of a managed floating regime. It can find that the policy assignment can still achieve given desirable target. Consequently, this report provides further evidence that the efficient wage-employment bargaining is very important for assignment problem.

Due to there is no record of migration in China, we estimate migration by Johnson¡¦s (2003) way. Estimates of migration among the provinces of China area were made by comparison of the provincial population from the 1994 to the 2003 censuses. The estimates were made by comparing every year between 1995 and 2004 population of each province with what it would have been if population had increased solely due to national growth-the excess of births over deaths. Unfortunately, the estimate of the increase in provincial populations due to migration was much greater than the estimate of the loss of population by migration. Possible reasons for the difference in the estimates due primarily to the underestimation of immigrants. Because this difference amounts to less than 3% of the 1995-2004 population of China, the data is still useful to us. Because wage is a kind of price, we adopt the method by Engel and Rogers (1996), and use the law of one price to examine the wage differential in China area. We find that high migration gap, long distance and the presence of coast all lead to an increase in wage differential in China area. We also find that distance and border reduce differential among provinces. Note that the distance has a positive effect on wage differential, and the square of distance has a negative effect. This means the distance relationship were concave. Finally, we examine the tendency in the standard deviation of wage differential and migration gap among the provinces of China during the period 1994-2003. The standard deviation of wage differential widened, and the standard of migration gap did not display strong increasing or decreasing. Although the growth rate of wage differential was positive, it reduced in recent years. The average growth rate of migration gap was close to zero, there is not significant tendency.

As the female workforce is increasing by year in the Taiwan labor market, it¡¦s visible that wage gap between male and female workers exists in the Taiwan labor market. No doubt that it is irony for people who strive for the gender equality in Taiwan. An empirical analysis of gender wage differential is presented by gaining labor force survey of 1981,1986,1991 and 1997, which has been conducted every year by Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Based on the concept and theory of human capital brought up mainly by Gary S. Becker (1975), several multiple regression functions are conducted in this research on purpose to understand how large the wage gap is, where the gap is stemmed from and what cause brings about this gap. The results of this research indicate that: 1. Femal wage is lower than male wage about 60%~70%. The gap is getting larger from 1981 to 1991; however, smaller after 1991. 2. Male workers get more wages by every year than female workers. 3. Except 1981, which female workers gain more wage by investing human capital by every year than male workers suggests that female workers hold larger invest-rate of education than male and invest-rate of education increases by time. 4. Female workers with more than high-school education degree have less wage differential compared with male workers than those who are with less than high-school education degree. This indicates that female workers investing more human capital have less wage gap compared with male workers in the labor market. 5. Wage gap stemmed from gender discrimination is ascending from 45% of 19981 to 69% of 1996; however, wage differential led from the characteristics of individual worker is descending by time. From the results of above, there is surely gender wage gap in Taiwan labor market, which is the outcome of interacting from diverse individual characteristic and subjective gender prejudice. It¡¦s very obvious that education enhances competitive advantage of female workers so as to decrease the wage differential, nevertheless, discrimination toward to female workers in the Taiwan labor market heavily wears down the endeavor of investing in human capital for them. How to motivate female workers to become more competitive and improve work place for female workers so as to make the best use of female human resources is the significant issue of Taiwan government in the near future.