Thesis advisor: Matteo Iacoviello / This thesis focuses on investment, regulation and labor market frictions. The first paper is motivated by lumpiness of investment activity at the plant level. Investment episodes at firm level happen in lumps, period of great activity and periods of inaction. Previous research has suggested that, in a general equilibrium framework, accounting for such microeconomic behavior is irrelevant for explaining aggregate investment (Thomas (2002)). This paper re-evaluates previous findings in a two-sector economy, where non-convex costs of capital adjustment apply to each sector. Calibrating the model to be consistent with microeconomic evidence, I find that lumpy investment is relevant for the business cycle. Through limited intersectoral mobility of capital, non-convex capital adjustment costs impact the relative price of investment generating a synchronization of investment decisions at sectoral level. As a result, aggregate investment is amplified relative to neoclassical benchmarks in response to an aggregate productivity shock. In a one-sector model this mechanism is absent, since intersectoral capital mobility is perfect and the relative price of investment is independent from non-convex capital adjustment costs. In an empirical investigation of the model using 2-digit SIC industry data, I find evidence that sectoral measures of capital distribution forecast aggregate investment. The second paper investigates the effect of product market liberalization on employment and considers possible interactions between policies and institutions in product and labor markets. Using panel data for OECD countries over the period 1980-2002, we present evidence that product market deregulation is more effective at the margin when labor market regulation is high. The data also suggest that product market deregulation promotes labor market deregulation. These results are consistent with the basic predictions of a standard bargaining model, such as Blanchard and Giavazzi (2003), extended to allow for a richer specification of the fall back position of the union. In the third paper, we start from evidence that most countries in the Euro Area are characterized by high product (PMR) and labor market (LMR) regulation. We then study long and short to medium run macroeconomic effects of reforming PMR and LMR by developing a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model featuring endogenous producers entry and labor market frictions. We show that lowering PMR would increase steady state employment, wages and GDP but aggregate consumption would drop in the aftermath of the reform. Deregulating labor markets presents a less significant intertemporal trade off. Lower unemployment benefits would increase employment and GDP but reduce wages both in the short and long run. Smaller firing costs would trigger a positive effect on producers entry on impact, but employment and GDP would be negatively affected as time passes by. Regulation has also consequences for the business cycles properties of the economy. Lower barriers to entry and smaller unemployment benefits tend to smooth out aggregate fluctuations, while firing costs have a reverse effect. With a counterfactual exercise, we show that if the Euro Area would deregulate both product and labor markets at the US level it would adjust differently to aggregate shocks. A more flexible Euro Area would be more responsive to exogenous disturbances and the reversion to the steady state would be quicker. Our findings point out that concerns about the negative effect of strict regulation for the speed of recovery from downturns could be well placed, consistently with the idea that the European economy might be dynamically sclerotic. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Flinders University, National Institute of Labour Studies. / Typescript bound. Includes bibliographical references: (leaves 268-295) Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 2002. / Added t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis takes the form of three essays about the labour market implications of job quality. In the first essay, I demonstrate, by analysing a two-type, two-period example, that high introductory wage offers can signal the quality of experience jobs. In this game, one type of firm - the “good” type - offers higher expected quality jobs. If this type is less likely to exit from the industry than the “bad’ type, it can increase expenditure on introductory wages without being mimicked, distinguishing it from its inferior. The game has many equilibria with these separating wages. In each, the introductory compensating differentials have the opposite sign to the usual case: higher expected quality jobs pay more, rather than less. In the second essay, I present Canadian evidence that tests and supports the theory of compensating differentials for a variety of job characteristics. The data used are from the National Survey of Class Structure and Labour Process in Canada (NSCS). These self-report data are preferable to the more conventional occupational-trait data; they provide information on individual jobs rather than averages across broad occupational categories and industries. In the third essay, I focus on the mismatch between the educational requirements of jobs and the educational attainments of workers. Using NSCS data, I find that the returns to over- and undereducation for males are sensitive to the level of required education. There is evidence of positive returns to overeducation for jobs that require a university bachelor’s degree; but, in general, the returns are insignificant. Undereducated workers are penalised in jobs with low educational requirements. For females, I find that the returns to over- and undereducation are insignificant for all levels of required education.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-153). / Microfiche. / xii, 153 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-135) / Microfiche. / x, 135 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

This publication provides information about microdata available from the 2000 Survey of Employment Arrangements and Superannuation. / Catalogue no. 6361.0.55.002. "Susan Linacre, Acting Australian Statistician." Title from title screen (viewed on June 27, 2005). Also available on the World Wide Web, by subscription to AusStats.

Thesis (M.S.)--Cornell University, January, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universität Berlin, 1998.