The thesis focuses on the demand side of the labour market in conjecturing that 'the degree of attractiveness' of industry and firms to high-skilled workers could be an important determinant of regional labour market mismatch. Using data from the unexplored Employers Skills Survey, a dichotomous mismatch index based on skill-shortage vacancies is modelled as a function of firm and industry-level characteristics. Oacaxa-Blinder (OB) type decompositions are implemented to investigate the extent to which the predictors affect mismatch differently in England and Scotland. Two exploratory extensions are considered: (i) the inclusion of the Pareto shape parameter of an industry's firm size distribution, as an index of industry-level (average) productivity; (ii) a control for whether a firm is part of a multi-site organisation, believed as indicative of a firm export-status. UK level mismatch appears to be negatively correlated with both firm size and skill intensity. This is consistent with both a wide body of empirical evidence and an emerging two-sided heterogeneity theoretical literature showing that more productive firms are larger and tend to attract better workers. We also find a negative relationship between both the Pareto shape parameter and the multi-plant control, and firmlevel mismatch. At a regional level the key determinants seem to lose predictive power in Scotland where only the multi-site control retains statistical significance. To our knowledge, no study for the UK has to date ever: (i) used the same mismatch measure; (ii) adopted firm and industry-level characteristics as predictors of skill mismatch; (iii) decomposed skill mismatch using OB procedures. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that addressing skill mismatch requires complementing policies targeting skill acquisition with interventions aimed at enhancing firms' and clusters' attractiveness to high skill workers. Migration, international trade openness and skill mismatch are in fact intrinsically intertwined and central to Scotland's post-Brexit future.

Chen, Fengjiao. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-35). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Wage Bargaining and Strike --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Outside Option --- p.7 / Chapter 3 --- The Model Setting --- p.9 / Chapter 4 --- Equilibrium Analysis --- p.12 / Chapter 4.1 --- Equilibrium when b < We --- p.12 / Chapter 4.2 --- Equilibrium when b = We --- p.13 / Chapter 4.3 --- Equilibrium when b > We --- p.15 / Chapter 4.4 --- Opting Out is an Equilibrium --- p.26 / Chapter 4.5 --- Implications on Preemption and Renegotiation --- p.27 / Chapter 5 --- Discussion --- p.28 / Chapter 5.1 --- Without Outside Option (HHFG Model) --- p.28 / Chapter 5.2 --- Committed to Strike (Shaked 1994) --- p.29 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Influence of discount factor 5 --- p.30 / Chapter 5.4 --- Equilibrium Refinement by Good Faith Bargaining Rule --- p.31 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.32

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on agricultural and labor markets in rural India. Chapter 1 estimates the role of improvements in transport infrastructure on households' production decisions in agriculture. The Central Government of India launched a large-scale rural road-building program in 2000, targeting villages that lacked any single all-weather connectivity. Strict guidelines governed eligibility and timing of program road provision. I exploit the precise timing of road construction as a source of exogenous variation in connectivity using a household-level panel in a difference-in-differences framework. I find that households who gain access to improved rural road infrastructure diversify their crop portfolio, increase take up of complementary productive inputs and intensify labor hiring. Households subsequently enter into the sales of farm output, indicating a transition from subsistence to market-oriented farming. Evidence from a field survey suggests that these effects operate through an increase in mobility of agricultural workers across connected village labor markets. These findings emphasize the substantial barrier to productive investments in agriculture generated by poor rural road connectivity that hampers the integration of labor markets across space. Chapter 2 (with Emily Breza and Supreet Kaur) investigates whether worker utility is affected by co-worker wages, which has potentially broad labor market implications. In a month-long experiment with Indian manufacturing workers, we randomize whether co-workers within production units receive the same flat daily wage or different wages (according to baseline productivity rank). We find that for a given absolute wage, pay inequality reduces output and attendance by 0.24 standard deviations and 12%, respectively. These effects strengthen in later weeks. Pay disparity also lowers co-workers' ability to cooperate in their self-interest. However, when workers can clearly observe productivity differences, pay inequality has no discernible effect on output, attendance, or group cohesion. Chapter 3 uses experimental evidence to understand the impacts of providing workers with meaningful short-term employment during the lean season in agriculture. I randomize job offers among Indian agricultural workers who express interest in a month-long employment opportunity in low-skill manufacturing, and I follow these workers several weeks after the employment opportunity concludes. I find reductions in labor supply and gains in consumption among workers who received job offers. These effects are concentrated among landless workers, suggesting that employment provision during the lean months alleviated a binding constraint for this subgroup.

Wong, Lun Man. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-73). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Chinese Abstract --- p.ii / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Contents --- p.iv / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- A Model of Immigration with Heterogeneous Labor Input --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1 --- The model --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Equilibrium balanced growth path --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Steady-state equilibrium and average household (m) --- p.11 / Chapter 2.4 --- Movements in the distribution of wealth (m) --- p.13 / Chapter 2.5 --- Transitional dynamics (m) --- p.14 / Chapter 3 --- Normalized CES Production Function --- p.17 / Chapter 3.1 --- Normalization of CES Production Function (benchmark) --- p.17 / Chapter 3.2 --- Steady-state equilibrium and average household (σ) --- p.25 / Chapter 3.3 --- Movements in the distribution of wealth (σ) --- p.27 / Chapter 3.4 --- Transitional dynamics (σ) --- p.28 / Chapter 4 --- Production Function with Capital-Skill Substitution --- p.31 / Chapter 4.1 --- Normalization of new CES production function --- p.31 / Chapter 4.2 --- Steady-state equilibrium and average household (σ) --- p.37 / Chapter 4.3 --- Movements in the distribution of wealth (σ) --- p.38 / Chapter 4.4 --- Comparison of the efficiency and distribution effect of σ and σ --- p.40 / Chapter 4.5 --- Transitional Dynamics (σ) --- p.41 / Chapter 4.6 --- Comparison of calibration results using different production functions --- p.42 / Chapter 5 --- Conclusion --- p.44 / Appendix --- p.46 / Figures --- p.50 / benchmark production function --- p.50 / new production function --- p.61 / References --- p.72

This thesis investigates the continuing significance of the internal labour market construct for shaping human resource management practices in an international investment banking organisation. By adopting a historical perspective this study departs from existing literature and presents new explanations for understanding internal labour market theory in the investment banking industry. It also adds to existing scholarship on labour markets by considering more human resources indicators than have been previously used to differentiate labour market types. A range of approaches have been adopted. The BZW/ ABN AMRO case study has been investigated using both qualitative and quantitative methods and longitudinal and cross-sectional data. The theoretical framework elaborated has two dimensions. The first involves a model which highlights the importance of the organisational historical context for analysing the origins and functions of internal labour markets. It draws attention to certain recurring interrelated features that ultimately result in the adoption of internalised market arrangements. This aspect of the model also highlights the importance of emerging patterns in internal labour market structures that become evident over time. The second part of the framework involves a typology that establishes the existence of three different labour market types. The study revealed that a historical perspective is extremely valuable for understanding the origins and functions of internal labour markets, and for identifying two internal labour market types, the firm and occupational internal labour market types and also the occupational labour market type or external labour market. It was concluded that despite the claim made by various scholars that internal labour market arrangements are in decline, the dramatic changes experienced by the investment banking industry have proven that these arrangements are very resilient.

Since the end of World War Two, the US unemployment rate has remained constant while the EU unemployment rate started to increase at the beginning of the 1970s. This increase in aggregate unemployment hides dramatic differences across skill groups: the increase has remained fairly small for high-skilled workers, while it is usually considerable for the least skilled workers. What caused these developments still remains a debated issue. A possible explanation is the size of the labor market institutions, much more developed on this side of the Atlantic. To study this question, we construct an intertemporal general equilibrium model. We start from the standard Real Business Cycle (RBC) model and we extend it by adding labor market frictions and institutions (minimum wage, employment protection and unemployment benefits). We also further develop the model along the skill dimension, by assuming that the population is composed of low- and high-skilled workers. The main conclusion is that rigid institutions, and especially rigid wages, may well play an important role, direct or indirect through the interactions with exogenous shocks, to explain the relative rise in the European unemployment rate, and especially the low-skilled unemployment rate. We also show that reductions in employer's contributions, targeted at the minimum wage, lead to a fall in the destruction of the less productive jobs and therefore strongly stimulate low-skilled employment, while increasing the welfare of all individuals.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

We study the labor market impact of opening borders to low-wage countries. The analysis exploits time and regional variation provided by the 2004 EU enlargement in combination with transport links to Sweden from the new member states. The results suggest an adverse impact on earnings of present workers in the order of 1 percent in areas close to pre-existing ferry lines. The effects are present in most segments of the labor market but tend to be greater in groups with weaker positions. The impact is also clearer in industries which have received more workers from the new member states, and for which across-the-border work is likely to be more common. There is no robust evidence on an impact on employment or wages. At least part of the effects is likely due to channels other than the ones typically considered in the literature.

This dissertation explores the effect of teen childbearing on the adult mother’s employment, earnings and welfare participation. This study contributes to the literature on the consequence of teen childbearing by relying on original datasets and using an array of samples and econometric methods to test the robustness of the results. We use state administrative data from several sources including the Georgia subset of the Vital Statistics for the years 1994-2002, the Wage and Employer files for the years 1990-2003, and the Welfare dataset for the years 1990-2005. We select three samples. The first sample is constructed with sisters raised in families on welfare, where one sister is a teen mother and the other a non-teen mother. The second sample is composed of young mothers who were pregnant as teens and whose first pregnancy ended with either a birth (teen mothers) or a fetal death (non-teen mothers). A third sample is selected by the propensity score matching technique on a subset of the second sample. For the labor market outcomes, this study suggests that teen childbearing has a negative effect on the employment and earnings of Blacks in the miscarriage sample and in the propensity score sample. However, White teen mothers are more likely to be employed and to earn more than the White non-teen mothers in the miscarriage sample. In contrast, the sisters’ sample does not show any statistical significant effect of teen childbearing on employment or earnings. These mixed results are probably due to the different distribution of the mothers’ race and socioeconomic status before pregnancy. Concerning welfare receipt, very few mothers in the sisters’ sample and no mothers in the propensity score sample receive welfare during the years of study. For the miscarriage sample, White teen mothers are less likely than the White non-teen mothers to receive welfare at any time. Blacks become less likely to receive welfare as their child’s age increases. The effect on Blacks might be due to the welfare reform that tightened the rules for welfare eligibility. This research suggests that as far as employment and earnings are concerned, policy dollars aimed at preventing teenage childbearing would be more efficiently used for the Blacks and low-income populations. However, the small magnitude of the teen coefficients in the employment and earnings analyses suggests that teen pregnancy prevention only will not have a very dramatic influence on the adult mothers’ standards of living. Therefore, policy dollars should also be directed to issues correlated with teen childbearing such as poverty or low education attainment. As for welfare participation, teen mothers are no more likely to rely on public assistance than non-teen mothers so their welfare dependence should not be a concern.

In the debate on the economic effects of labor market regulation much work has focused on minimum wages. A legal minimum wage remains one of the most controversial policy issues. The controversy arises for two main reasons: first, there is no consensus over the economic impacts of the minimum wage mandate, especially its effect on employment, and, second, there is a disagreement over the empirical methods used to identify the minimum wage effects. Although the standard competitive model predicts that wage floors should have a negative impact on employment, empirical work shows mixed results. This dissertation explores a number of adjustment channels that can explain the paradox of the small and insignificant employment effects uncovered in the MW literature. Specifically, the economic impact of the most recent 2007-2009 Federal minimum wage increase (from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour) is analyzed using a sample of quick-service restaurants in Georgia and Alabama. In contrast to prior studies, store-level bi-weekly payroll records for individual employees are used, allowing greater precision in measuring the relative cost-impact of the MW on establishments. Despite significant variation in the cost-impact of the three-stage MW increase across establishments, regression analysis finds lack of a negative effect on employment and hours following each MW increase. Additional channels of adjustment are explored using unique data from manager surveys. Evidence suggests that higher product prices, lower profit margins, wage compression, reduced turnover and higher performance standards largely account for insignificant employment effects. These results are consistent with a number of alternative theoretical models of labor markets. An expanded version of the perfectly competitive model that incorporates additional margins of adjustment is also compatible with the reported findings.