<p>  </p> <p>This dissertation assesses three aspects of the economic implications of heat stress-related labor-capacity losses. Given that low-income countries around the tropics are at most risk, our analyses focus on these and the vulnerable households within them. First, we consider the optimal allocation of labor for small-scale agricultural households. We build an agricultural household that takes into consideration that these households will be affected by heat stress as producers, consumers, and workers simultaneously. Using this model and a sample of households from Pakistan, we determine that for most households it would be optimal to increase their supply of family labor to agricultural self-employment. However, if work preferences are also affected, even modestly, then decreased supply of family labor to agriculture would be observed. </p> <p>Next, we turn to country-level welfare losses across the globe focusing on the role of trade in mitigating or exacerbating these. We consider nine West African economies and determine which benefit from international trade, which are made worse-off, and we fully delineate the factors and channels that determine this. Broadly, we find that net exporters of agricultural commodities will benefit via global price changes, and conversely net importers will be made worse off by global price changes. However, countries that experience especially large labor capacity losses in their export sectors can also see loss-mitigating effects from trade as their export prices rise more sharply that the global average. An alternative perspective shows that some countries are affected more by their own heat stress-related productivity losses, while others are affected more due to global changes. </p> <p>Lastly, we consider the poverty impacts of heat stress-induced labor capacity losses in West Africa. Using a macro model, we determine changes in real incomes of households near poverty in seven West African countries, then use household microsimulations to determine poverty impacts. We find that poverty impacts are heterogenous in direction and magnitude across household-types and countries. In five of the seven countries, poverty headcounts increase, ranging from 1.5% in Cote d’Ivoire to 7.8% in Nigeria. In two countries, there is either little change or a decrease in poverty: in Cameroon poverty increases by 0.6% and in Guinea it decreases by 1.7%. The key channel behind this heterogeneity is how loss of labor productivity affects relative returns to factors of production. Returns to unskilled agricultural labor can increase due to increased demand for this labor to dampen losses of agricultural output. </p>

Les objectifs de notre thèse sont d'étudier les évolutions du marché du travail depuis Doï Moï (la réforme économique au VN en 1986) et les impacts de l'intégration internationale de l'économie du Vietnam, en mettant l'accent sur une distinction des secteurs formel et informel. Dans notre thèse, nous étudions les impacts de la libéralisation commerciale et l'augmentation des salaires minimums dans les secteurs domestiques. Ce dernier peut également être considéré comme un facteur relatif à l'intégration internationale puisqu'il a suivi les engagements du Vietnam dans le cadre de l'adhésion à WTO. Pour les impacts de la libéralisation commerciale, nous examinons les effets sur les allocations de main-d'œuvre entre différents types d'emplois, y compris le travail salarié dans les secteurs formels et les entreprises ménagères, ainsi que les emplois autonomes dans les secteurs manufacturiers. Les impacts sur les écarts de revenus dans les différents types d'emplois sont également exploités. Pour les impacts de l'augmentation des salaires minimums, nous exploitons les effets sur le total des emplois, les mouvements entre les secteurs formels et les autres types d'emplois, la répartition des salaires dans les secteurs formel et informel et les écarts de salaire entre les deux secteurs à différents centiles. Chapitre 1. Libéralisation commerciale, allocation du travail et dynamique des revenus au Vietnam Abstrait Cette étude vise à répondre à deux questions inter-liées au Viet Nam: (i) comment la libéralisation commerciale influence l'allocation des travailleurs, entre travail indépendant, travail salarié dans les entreprises familiales et le travail salarié dans le secteur formel (entreprises privées, étrangères et publiques); et (ii) les écarts de revenus entre ces types d'emplois. Une extension du modèle « deux étapes » de Goldberg et Pavcnik (2003) et sa modification sont utilisées pour répondre aux questions. Les données proviennent de cinq enquêtes traditionnelles sur le vieillissement du ménage du Viet Nam de 2002 à 2010 et des mesures disponibles de la libéralisation commerciale au Viet Nam. Les résultats indiquent que la libéralisation commerciale n'a pas d'impact significatif sur les écarts de revenus entre les types d'emplois. Parallèlement, les augmentations de l'exposition au commerce international réduisent les salaires dans les entreprises familiales, par rapport à celles des secteurs formels. L'augmentation de la libéralisation commerciale a également des répercussions sur les emplois autonomes, mais il semble que les orientations des impacts dépendent des statuts de l'importation nette ou de l'exportation nette d'industries du Viet Nam. Chapitre 2. Impacts de l'unification des salaires minimum entre les secteurs sur les allocations de travail et la dynamique des revenus au Vietnam Abstrait Les taux de salaire minimum au Viet Nam ont augmenté considérablement depuis 2009 en tant qu'engagements d'unification entre les IDE et les secteurs domestiques dans le cadre de l'adhésion à WTO. Cette croissance a été considérée comme supérieure à la croissance de la productivité de l'économie. En utilisant les données des Enquêtes sur la population active du Vietnam et les enquêtes sur le niveau de vie des ménages de 2010 à 2014, le document actuel examine les répercussions des salaires minimum sur les statuts de l'emploi, la répartition des salaires dans les secteurs formel et informel ainsi que les écarts de salaire entre les deux secteurs. Les résultats impliquent que le salaire minimum n'a pas d’effet significatif sur l'ensemble des emplois de l'ensemble de la population. Ce résultat est quelque peu différent de ceux rapportés dans des études antérieures pour le Viet Nam. / The objectives of the current thesis are to investigate evolutions of the labor market since Doi Moi and impacts from the international integration of Vietnam’s economy, with focuses on a distinction of formal and informal sectors. In the current state of the thesis, the impacts of the trade liberalization and the increases in the minimum wages of the domestic sectors are studied. Indeed, the latter factor, the increase in the minimum wages, can be also considered as a factor relating to the international integration as it followed Viet Nam’s commitments under the WTO accession. For the impacts of the trade liberalization, the thesis investigates the impacts on labor allocations between different types of employments including wage work in the formal sectors and household businesses as well as self-employments in manufacturing sectors. The impacts on income differentials across the types of employments are also exploited. For the impacts of the increases in the minimum wages, the thesis exploits the effects on the total employments, movements between the formal sectors and other types of employments, wage distributions within the formal and informal sectors and wage gaps between the two sectors at different percentiles. Chapter 1. Trade liberalization, labor allocation and income dynamics in Vietnam Abstract This study seeks to answer two inter-related questions for Viet Nam: (i) how trade liberalization affects the allocation of workers across self-employment, wage work in household businesses and wage work in the formal sector (private, foreign invested and state enterprises); and (ii) income differentials between these kinds of employment. An extension of the two-step model in Goldberg and Pavcnik (2003) and its modification are employed to answer the questions. Data is sourced from five Viet Nam Household Living Standard Surveys from 2002 to 2010 and available measures of the trade liberalization in Viet Nam. The results indicate that the trade liberalization does not have significant impacts on income differentials between types of employments. Meanwhile, increases in exposing to the international trade reduce wage works in household businesses, compared with that in the formal sectors. The increase in the trade liberalization also has impacts on self-employments but it seems that the directions of impacts depend on statues of net import or net export of industries of Viet Nam. Chapter 2. Impacts of unification of minimum wages across sectors on labor allocations and income dynamics in Vietnam Abstract Rates of minimum wages in Viet Nam have increased drastically since 2009 as commitments of unification between those in FDI and domestic sectors under the WTO accession. This growth has been considered as being higher to productivity growth of the economy. Employing data of Vietnam Labor Force Surveys and Household Living Standard Surveys from 2010 to 2014, the current paper investigates impacts of the minimum wages on employment statues, wage distributions in formal and informal sectors as well as wage gap between the two sectors. The results imply that the minimum wages do not have significant impacts on the total employments of the whole population. This result is somewhat different from those reported in previous studies for Viet Nam. Our different specifications detect that the differences in the results are attributed to inclusions of trends in studying. Similar to the work of Hansen et al. (2015), the results indicates that that the minimum wages positively affects the wage distribution in the formal sectors. However, we find that the effects do not stop at the median as the result of Hansen et al. but also on higher percentiles. Finally, the minimum wages increases the wage gap between the formal and informal sectors with stronger effects at higher percentiles of the wage distribution.

Human health is frequently omitted from household-level studies on agricultural productivity, land-use choices, and forest degradation and deforestation. Intuition, however, suggests that it could be an extremely important factor. This dissertation is built on three essays that use household survey data from the Brazilian Amazon to examine the conditions under which human health and other critical market conditions are important factors in determining household agriculture production choices and efficiency. Essay I (Chapter 2) examines how health affects the labor allocation and production choices of migrant smallholders in the Brazilian Amazon. We show that the impacts of illness on household decisions depend critically on labor market function in the rural areas of the tropics. Furthermore, results from a formal statistical test of the labor markets shows that they do not work well, in other words are incomplete or thin, in the study area. These results are important both in specification of future smallholder household economic models and in targeting policies to better alleviate poverty and encourage more sustainable use of forest and land resources in similar tropical regions. Essay II (Chapter 3) investigates the role of health as a productive input and non-input factor of production. By using a non-neutral stochastic production approach, the impact of health is decomposed into direct effect on the production function and indirect effects on technical efficiency. The finding of the essay suggests that poor health has significant negative impacts on rural household production. The most important policy implication is that careful designing of agriculture development and rural settlements programs is important, and the provision of health care should be tied to these development projects. Essay III (Chapter 4) examines the demand for labor applied to land clearing, staple food production, livestock, working off-farm, and time taking care of sick people in the household. Specifically the empirical application examines the impact of disease on labor allocation, accounting for time lost by households taking care of sick members as a non-productive activity. Disease plays an important role in household decisions because farm activities are performed inefficiently by sick households and changes in household labor efficiency brings about a change in the relative price of competing uses for a household's time. Chapter 5 provides a summary and general conclusion of the work, and then provides comments on policy design and recommendations for further studies. In summary, the combined results of these studies show that both health condition and the quality of labor markets have significant interacting impacts on the labor allocation decisions by smallholders with accompanying welfare and deforestation implications. / Doctor of Philosophy / Most of the rural population of the Brazilian Amazon is made up of small-scale farmers – the so-called 'smallholders' – who are characterized by a lack of access to formal credit, a disconnection from social services, poor access to markets, and a dependency on their own labor as the main input in agricultural production, and thus survival. Since labor is the main input used in smallholder activities, albeit to different extents, anything that changes total household labor or labor efficiency adjusts the relative returns of competing uses, and thus labor allocation decisions. This PhD dissertation is an effort to understand whether markets, family health, and seasonality affect labor allocation decisions, and furthermore, whether those allocation decisions vary depending on productive activity. Based on cross-sectional farm data from the Brazilian Amazon, I find that the impacts of illness on household decisions depend critically on how well labor market function in rural areas. The results from a statistical test of the labor markets shows that they do not work well in the study area. These results are important both in specification of future smallholder household economic models and in targeting policies to better alleviate poverty and encourage more sustainable use of forests and land resources in similar settings. Also, I find that poor health has a significant negative impact on technical efficiency of rural household farm production. The most important policy implication is that careful designing of agriculture development and rural settlements programs is important, and the provision of health care care should be tied to these development projects. Finally, in the context of the region of study, where labor markets are thin, disease plays an important role on in household decisions because farm activities are performed inefficiently by sick households and change in labor efficiency brings about a change in relative prices of competing uses of household's time. My empirical work supports the hypothesis that health influence labor allocation decisions. In conclusion, the combined results of these studies show that both health conditions and the quality of labor markets have significant interacting impacts on the labor allocation decisions by smallholders with accompanying welfare and deforestation implications.