This dissertation consists of three chapters. First two chapters examines how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) react to the state level minimum wage increases, and the third chapter studies the effect of board interlock on the diffusion of innovation.In the first chapter, I investigate the impact of minimum wage increases on employment. I extend the literature by hypothesizing and showing a differential impact of state-level minimum wage increases on nonprofit organizations relative to for-profit organizations. While I find that increases in minimum wages reduce employment growth in both types of organizations, this decrease is substantially larger for nonprofit organizations. I also find that investment in automation, i.e., information technology, rises in nonprofits post minimum wage increase, consistent with the substitution of capital for labor. Minimum wage increases also increase the likelihood of nonprofit exit. In the second chapter, I investigate how CEO pay in nonprofit organizations responds to an exogeneous increase in labor cost resulting from state-level minimum wage hikes. I find that these increases in labor cost, which constrain budgets, are followed by declines in the total pay of NPO CEOs. In contrast, I do not find an impact on CEO pay in for-profit companies. I attribute the differential response between NPO and for-profit organizations to NPO CEOs acting as stewards of the NPO, whereby they are willing to take less to ensure the continued existence of the enterprise, as well as fulfillment of its mission. This phenomenon has previously been observed in the nonprofit sector and termed labor donation, whereby individuals who work for NPOs are intrinsically motivated and consequently, are willing to work for less money. Cross-sectionally I find the declines in compensation are larger in NPOs headquartered in smaller counties, in counties with higher levels of religiosity, and in counties with greater levels of social capital, and in NPOs that are run by their founders. In the last chapter, I propose that board interlocks can act as a channel of information transmission and social learning, hence enhancing the diffusion of innovation among firms. I find that a firm’s patents are more likely to be cited by patents from firms that have common directors (i.e., interlocked firm). The result is robust under a difference-in-differences setting, where the death or retirement of interlocking directors is used as an exogeneous shock to board interlock. The effect is more pronounced for interlocking directors who have longer experience in R&D-intensive industries, have a larger network, and have a higher compensation delta. While I find that board interlock enhances the diffusion of innovation across industries, it has no effect on within-industry knowledge diffusion. Finally, I document that board interlock enhances firms’ overall innovation output, measured by patent counts and citation counts per patent. The paper sheds light on an important role played by board of directors in promoting knowledge spillover and innovation. / Business Administration/Finance

This dissertation consists of three chapters concerning topics in economic history and labor economics. The first chapter studies how the 1906 San Francisco Fire impacted the biographies of those who lost their homes in the fire, while the second chapter shows that destination quality is a key determinant for the returns to childhood migration. The third chapter proposes a novel strategy to estimate the gender wage gap. The first chapter explores the short- and long-run consequences of the 1906 San Francisco Fire, one of the largest urban fires in American history. I use linked US Census records to follow San Francisco residents and their sons from 1900 to 1940. Implementing a spatial regression discontinuity design across the boundary of the razed district to identify the effect of the fire, I find that the fire displaced households away from San Francisco in the short- and medium-term, it forced men into lower-paying occupations, and out of entrepreneurship. Constructing a novel measure of kin presence, I provide suggestive evidence for risk-sharing among extended family in San Francisco, which mitigated the disruptive effects of the fire. While individuals recover over time in many dimensions, the negative effect on business ownership is persistent over decades. Moreover, affected children have lower educational attainment. Therefore, my findings reject the hope for a “reversal of fortune” for the victims, in contrast to what is found for more recent natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina. In the second chapter, I show that destination quality, measured as average educational attainment among permanent residents, is a key determinant for the returns to childhood migration in Indonesia. First, I document that average differences in educational outcomes are small between children who moved domestically and those who did not. However, conditional on having migrated, destination turns out to be very important. Exploiting variation in the age of migration, I show that children who spend more time growing up in better districts have higher graduation rates and more years of completed schooling. These effects are persistent and result in better labor market outcomes. In the third chapter (joint with Hannah Illing and Linh Tô), we propose a novel strategy to estimate the gender wage gap by comparing men and women who succeed each other in the same job position. We identify unexpected worker deaths in German social security data in 1980-2019, and then compute the wage gap between the deceased worker and their successor for different gender combinations. We find that holding the job position constant, men who replace deceased women earn substantially higher wages. The opposite is true when women follow deceased men. The implied "replacement gender wage gap" in the 1980 to 2019 period is about 15 to 19 percent. In addition, we find that the gap has decreased over time, and it is higher in West Germany compared to East Germany.

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This thesis analyzes the relation between female representation in private sector decision-making positions and the two predicted variables: the gender wage gap and the average female private-sector wage. Using regional data for Sweden’s 290 municipalities during the year 2014- 2018, OLS and panel fixed effect regression analysis is performed. A gender wage gap exists in all of Sweden’s municipalities. It is found that an increase in the representation of female decision-makers in the private sector significantly adds to the narrowing of the gender wage gap. The relation between female representation in private sector decision-making and average female wages is not found significant. Municipalities can use these findings as motivations for the importance of promoting female managers and when working to reduce the stigma and social norms surrounding females in decision-making positions.

The analysis studies the spill-over effect of the gender equality of the trading partner on the gender wage gap. The aim is to contribute to the gender aspect of the literature studying the effect of globalisation on wage inequality, and especially to the very limited literature on the spill-over effect of the trading partner. It uses a European multi-country approach and analyses both exports and imports, which has not been done previously. For the empirical analysis, cross-country panel data is used to construct a fixed effects model. The results show a strong positive effect on the gender wage gap for both exports and imports, although the effect is stronger for imports. It indicates that a change in the gender equality of the trading partners has a significant effect on the gender wage gap. Furthermore, the analysisis extended to also analyse the explaining mechanisms raised by the literature. The results give an indication that certain groups based on technology intensity are driving the results, implying that the explaining mechanism could be the adoption of technology favoring women, but needs further research to draw any conclusions. All in all, the results provide evidence on the existence of a spill-over effect and highlights the importance of including both imports and exports for further research into the explaining mechanisms.

The first two chapters examine the party's policy towards the wage-stop and the poverty trap. Until 1963 the party ignored the wage-stop but from then until 1975 a section of the party campaigned against the regulation expressing moral revulsion and concern about its administration but only rarely opposition to the principle. A Labour government removed the stop when its operation affected only a tiny minority of families. The party was quickly involved in the development of the poverty trap debate being particularly drawn to its disincentive characteristics, but Labour governments, like their Conservative counterparts, soon came to regard the idea as a mere statistical abstraction. After confirming the party's historical ambivalence about Family Allowances the thesis demonstrated that whenever it advocated allowances it did so because it believed the programme would alleviate family poverty rather than augment work incentives. However Labour governments consistently upheld the principle of substitutability, thus conferring de facto support on that less-eligibility dimension of Family Allowances which Macnicol has established informed the coalition government's decision to legislate for the programme in 1945. Despite the party's opposition to Family Income Supplement it became an important element in the Labour government's anti-poverty strategy after the Child Benefits debate in 1976. F.I.S. was criticised because of its contribution to the poverty trap and its potential for assisting in the pauperisation of the low paid, while Child Benefit was supported because it appeared to be a more equitable technique of delivering support to families with dependent children although some in the party were sensitive to the scheme's potential link with improved work incentives. In general, the Labour Party is seen to have failed to develop any coherent and sustained alternative to the ideas and programmes of its political opponents in this critical area of social policy.

The master's thesis consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, a bibliographic list, and applications. The theoretical part presents the basic concepts, grading theories, problems in the wage system. In the practical part, the general characteristics of the organization under study are described, and a grading study is carried out in the personnel wage system. Based on the data obtained, recommendations have been developed to improve the effectiveness of personnel management. In conclusion, the results are summed up in accordance with the tasks set. / Магистерская диссертация состоит из введения, двух глав, заключения, библиографического списка, приложений. В теоретической части представлены основные понятия, теории грейдирования, проблемы в системе оплаты труда. В практической части описывается общая характеристика исследуемой организации, проведено исследование грейдирования в системе оплаты труда персонала. На основе полученных данных разработаны рекомендации по повышению эффективности управления персоналом. В заключении подведены итоги в соответствии с поставленными задачами.

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