There is a considerable amount of heterogeneity in the individual success of workers on the labour market. This justifies the existence of social insurance and of redistribution programs. However, when investigating these policies, it is essential to take into account the search and informational frictions that characterize the labour market. The different chapters of this thesis all rely on dynamic macroeconomic representation of the economy in order to address labour market issues from either a positive or a normative perspective. The first chapter characterizes the optimal design of labour market institutions in a dynamic search model of the labour market. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between the different policy instruments due to the search-induced general equilibrium effects. The following chapter investigates, from a positive perspective, the impact of growth by creative destruction on the rate of unemployment when on-the-job search is allowed. Chapter 3 solves for the optimal provision of disability insurance in a dynamic context with imperfectly observable health. Chapter 4 characterizes the optimal redistributive policy with an endogenous decision to retire. Finally, the last chapter investigates, theoretically and empirically, the long-run interactions between the provision of unemployment insurance and the cultural transmission of work ethic.

The aim of this study is to explore the living conditions and responses of individuals and their households with employment problems in Costa Rica. The study, based on a survey of households, addresses questions regarding both the effects which individuals associate with employment problems and the mechanisms which they and their households adopt to offset these effects, in the absence of an income maintenance programme. With respect to the effects of employment problems, one-third of the respondents linked changes in their health, family life and education to their employment situation. They referred to ill- health, limited access to health services, disruption of family life, academic failure and school leaving as the major effects related to their employment problems. The majority of individuals and their households resorted to social support and the use of alternative sources of work and income such as informal sector and home production, to counteract the impact resulting from their employment problems. Additionally, most unemployed people searched intensively for jobs while participating in the informal sector. Moreover, public assistance programmes did not play a major role as a mechanism for survival because few respondents knew about them and even fewer were beneficiaries of these programmes. The thesis concludes with policy proposals derived from the findings of the survey. The objectives of these proposals are, in the short-term, to mitigate the impact of employment problems and, in the long-term, to generate more employment opportunities. In addition, based on the lessons drawn from the present study, several recommendations are made for future research on the effects of, and responses to, employment problems.

The aetiology and impact of inappropriate behaviour in Malaysia is not well understood. This study was designed to explore inappropriate behaviour at work in Malaysia among health care employees. In this research, inappropriate behaviour was defined as harassment, bullying or mobbing, according to the definitions from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and Labour Relations Agency (2006). The research was conducted in three stages: an explanatory study; a large-scale quantitative survey; and an interview-based qualitative study. Results indicated that 42.6% of employees experience inappropriate behaviour in the.workplace. The inappropriate behaviour perpetrators are both superiors and co-workers, but the pattern of findings suggests that there is no association between demographics and the reports of inappropriate behaviour. This suggests that inappropriate behaviour occurs throughout the workforce. However, there was little variation in ethnicity in the sample, so conclusions about this variable are tenuous. When compared to participants who had not experienced harassment, those who did were less satisfied with the support provided by the organisation in this situation and were less satisfied at work, according to scores on the Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS). Additionally, the research suggests that the factor structure of the JSS may not be appropriate in a Malaysian sample and an alternative factor structure is proposed. In the final qualitative study, participants from different professions expressed feelings of frustration at their experiences of inappropriate behaviour and a sense of helplessness/hopelessness that anything could be done to remedy this situation. Consequently, participants found themselves in a situation where they felt forced to tolerate the inappropriate behaviour because they feared the adverse consequences of making a complaint about their experiences. Overall, these findings contribute to an awareness of inappropriate behaviour at work, its enablers and its consequences in a culturally diverse, non-Western society.

The South-eastern Project or GAP (its Turkish acronym) is one of the largest dam and development projects ever planned in Turkey. The project includes agriculture, energy, irrigation, telecommunications, healthcare and education, investments and developments. Beside its potential benefits the implementation of the GAP project has raised tensions, because it has been argued that the project, far from improving the well being of local people has caused problems for significant numbers of people displaced following the construction of dams. The Birecik Dam was chosen as the focus for this study because it is the first and only example of a dam in this region for which a resettlement and rehabilitation project has been planned and implemented in order to minimise the effects of displacement on the effected communities. In addition Halfeti is chosen as a sample because it is one of the small towns that has been affected by the Birecik Dam and much of its population was resettled with government assistance. This study shows that the building of a dam can have different impacts on different households. It is observed that the more assets people have, the more resilient they are to the challenges of resettlement. Nevertheless displaced households have considerable capacity to make changes to their livelihoods and this study focuses on the achievements of people who have increased their capabilities and who have created different livelihoods despite the difficult circumstances. It was observed that resettlers have shifted from agricultural work to waged employment following the resettlement. In some households resettlement has fostered women’s participation in wage labour. This was an important improvement for young women in particular many of whom were now better educated and had increased freedom to rebuild their lives and make their own choices.

This thesis constructs a consistent data set of labour market variables from the annual British General Household Survey for the years 1974 to 1988. It uses this data to investigate the nature and causes of key developments in the distribution of earnings and incidence of unemployment for working age males. The principal findings of the thesis are: (1) Financial returns to education and experience increased substantially during the 1980s, probably due to a large increase in demand for skilled labour. Despite relative losses, real earnings for workers without educational qualifications increased by about 15 percent between 1974 and 1988. (2) After declining slightly during the 1970s, overall earnings inequality increased sharply in the 1980s. The increase in education and experience differentials accounted for only one-third to one-half of the increase in overall inequality. The rest of the rise occurred within education and experience groups. A shift in relative labour demand in favour of workers with high levels of labour market skills again appears to be the most likely explanation. (3) Education and experience levels have an important impact on an individuals probability of becoming and remaining unemployed. Adjusting conventional estimates of the returns to education and experience significantly increases the measured returns to these skills. (4) Once unemployed, changes in the level of unemployment benefits over the range prevailing in Britain during 1979-82 have no measurable effect on the search effort of unemployed benefit claimants.

We study unemployment and growth dynamics. A search theoretic approach, augmented by exogenous and endogenous growth considerations, is used. We apply a variety of macro-econometric tools, across OECD countries, namely: structural vector autoregression (SVAR) analysis; simulations; frequency domain analysis and panel data regression analysis, to test out a variety of hypotheses drawn from the theoretical literature. First, we look at unemployment dynamics, using a search model and an SVAR methodology, and discover that the European Community and the US have faced similar shocks, mainly aggregate ones, but have reacted very differently. The exception is Spain, where most of the unemployment dynamics have been driven by reallocation. Overall, this implies that EEC economies might be 'dynamically sclerotic' when compared to the US, though simulations do not confirm this result. Next, we re-examine the link between growth and unemployment. Using: frequency domain analysis, panel data regression analysis and looking at cross correlations, we find that the interactions are weak, with at best a marginally significant negative effect of growth on unemployment. This is consistent with theories that predict capitalization effects dominate creative destruction, in the effect of growth on unemployment. It is not consistent with theories that imply a strong effect of unemployment on growth, through: loss of skills; learning by doing; cleansing effects and savings effects. Even when the capitalization effect is significant, it is not very large. A 1% increase in steady state growth would only reduce equilibrium unemployment by 1%. Finally, we look at the links between growth, R&D and job flows, as an alternative way to isolate creative destruction effects. We find that creative destruction mechanisms are only important for US, i.e. for a country on the technological frontier.

Despite much anecdotal and oftentimes empirical evidence that black and ethnic minority employees do not feel integrated into organisational life and the implications of this lack of integration for their career progression, there is a dearth of research on the nature of the relationship black and ethnic minority employees have with their employing organisations. Additionally, research examining the relationship between diversity management and work outcomes has returned mixed findings. Scholars have attributed this to the lack of an empirically validated measure of workforce diversity management. Accordingly, I sought to address these gaps in the extant literature in a two-part study grounded in social exchange theory. In Study 1, I developed and validated a measure of workforce diversity management practices. Data obtained from a sample of ethnic minority employees from a cross section of organisations provided support for the validity of the scale. In Study 2, I proposed and tested a social-exchange-based model of the relationship between black and ethnic minority employees’ and their employing organisations, as well as assessed the implications of this relationship for their work outcomes. Specifically, I hypothesised: (i) perception of support for diversity, perception of overall justice, and developmental experiences (indicators of integration into organisational life) as mediators of the relationship between diversity management and social exchange with organisation; (ii) the moderating influence of diversity climate on the relationship between diversity management and these indicators of integration; and (iii) the work outcomes of social exchange with organisation defined in terms of career satisfaction, turnover intention and strain. SEM results provide support for most of the hypothesised relationships. The findings of the study contribute to the literature on workforce diversity management in a number of ways. First, the development and validation of a diversity management practice scale constitutes a first step in resolving the difficulty in operationalising and measuring the diversity management construct. Second, it explicates how and why diversity management practices influence a social exchange relationship with an employing organisation, and the implications of this relationship for the work outcomes of black and ethnic minority employees. My study’s focus on employee work outcomes is an important corrective to the predominant focus on organisational-level outcomes of diversity management. Lastly, by focusing on ethno-racial diversity my research complements the extant research on such workforce diversity indicators as age and gender.

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This thesis analyses different approaches to address the unemployment volatility puzzle. In the first two chapters, we develop two types of search frictions model with efficiency wages. The models can match observed fluctuations in unemployment and job vacancies in the U.S economy. Moreover, the models also capture labour market dynamics well. In the third chapter, we analyse two proposed solutions to the unemployment volatility puzzle: sticky wages and a small `hiring surplus'. We investigate a widely used calibration strategy in the literature and argue that it is a key factor in generating large unemployment volatility. In the fourth chapter, we reassess the following arguments on the unemployment volatility puzzle: strategic wage bargaining; large fluctuations in discount rates in the financial market; and endogenous job separations caused by idiosyncratic productivity shocks.

No description available.