Bibliography: leaves 84-87. / The objective of the study is to measure and investigate the sources of gender-wage differentials in the Eritrean labour market. The study uses primary data drawn from the Income and Expenditure Household Survey collected by National Statistics Eritrea in 1997. Three separate standard wage functions for males, females and a pooled one for both sexes are estimated, in which, the dependent variable (semi-log monthly wage) is a linear function of years of schooling, experience, experience squared, and hours worked, and dummy variables capturing, occupations, ethnicity, industry, employer, marital status, fighters (represents whether the individual employee belong to the group who participated in the army struggle for independence or not). The decomposition exercise involved subtracting the female wage equation from the male wage equation, and then the wage differential that is found is in tum decomposed using the standard Oaxaca -Blinder (1973) procedure. The econometric result showed that women earned about 66 % of what men earned. The wage differentials are decomposed into two components, the differential due to the measurable variables and that due to discrimination. The results from the decompositions of the gender-wage differentials show that 18 % of the wage differentials result from discrimination, while 82 % is accounted for by the measurable variables. These results signal that gender-wage differentials emanate both from human capital differences and unequal treatment in the labour market. The results from the wage equation of female workers showed that human capital followed by the variable fighters, hours worked per a week, marital status, industrial sectors, and type of employer were important determinant of female wages. Place of work and occupations were the least important, and ethnicity was insignificant in the wage determination process of the female employees. Likewise, the human capital followed by the variable fighter, place of work and occupations were important variables in determining the male wages. Ethnicity, industrial sectors, employer and marital status were least important in the wage determination process of the male employees in Eritrea in 1997.

The potential significance of employers' collective action for economic performance is widely acknowledged, but has not been complemented with corresponding theory-guided research on the probability of collective action and the conditions for effective action. This thesis examines the nature of, the conditions for, and the consequences of employers' collective action on further training, a crucial component of a successful high-skill strategy for industries and nations. The study addresses three core issues of labour economics: transferability of training, skill shortages, and sharing of training costs between employer and employees. The enquiry builds on and adds to previous contributions that analyse transferable training as a collective good. It scrutinises the theoretical foundation and compares its implications with those of human capital theory. Finally, the empirical study of further education and training in four Norwegian industries is offered as a strategic test of these two alternative theories. The collective action perspective shares core assumptions of human capital theory, but integrates the possibility of collective action as a solution to some of the market failures associated with investment in transferable human capital. This alternative view also predicts in what labour market settings such action is likely to occur, building on Olson's work and theories of employers' collective action. The collective action perspective differs crucially from human capital theory by predicting that transferability is endogenous i.e. significantly shaped by employers' individual and collective action, and not simply by technology. Thus, 'endogenous transferability' is a principal link between the constitution of labour markets and employers' choice of training and skill supply strategies. The results confirm the prediction that transferability is 'endogenous'. Moreover, they suggest that employers' collective action is more likely to succeed in ensuring transferability and encouraging employee investment than is using sanctions against employers to promote employer-financed transferable training.

This thesis studies important evolutions in three areas in labour economics: the flow approach, the efficiency wage hypothesis and unions. In part one I discuss gross job flows in the U.K., while part II is concerned with wage determination and firm performance. I give an introduction in chapter I where I motivate the study of gross job flows and I highlight the importance of spillovers from the product market to the labour market and vice versa. In chapter II I analyze a pattern of gross job creation and destruction in the U.K. during the 70's and early 80's. At any point in time and even within narrowly defined sectors simultaneous creation and destruction of jobs is observed, the latter being more variable over the cycle. Gross job reallocation, defined as the sum of gross job creation and destruction, is counter cyclical. Chapter III explores the relationship between firm size and job creation and destruction. The largest firms create and destroy most jobs. However, in percentage terms the gross job creation rate is largest in small firms, while the gross job destruction rate is lowest. I further investigate the size distribution dynamics and find that in the long run firms converge towards their average size, while plants do not. The final chapter of part I compares gross job flows across countries and shows the difficulties involved in making a consistent comparison. In part II I analyze vertical spillovers from the labour market to the product market and vice versa. I show that there exists a positive relationship between the wage paid in the firm and its market share performance, only under the hypothesis of efficiency wages. The theory is supported by evidence from firm level panel data. I show that important new insights may be obtained if the product market is explicitly taken into account when analyzing labour problems. Finally, in chapter VI I investigate the impact of unions on employment growth in the U.K. and find that unions have a negative effect on employment growth, but a positive effect on employment levels, although this effect is not robust with respect to time. Moreover, the union effect is weaker the more competitors the firm faces.

No description available.

This Ph.D. thesis consists of three essays on Labour Economics and the Economics of Education, having the goal of contributing to the scientific discussion and shed new light on a number of empirical questions. The remaining of the chapter presents a general motivation for the study, together with the main findings and policy implications, which are fully developed throughout the thesis. Motivation There is an ongoing debate in Economics of Education on the merits and drawbacks of school choice as opposed to a community-based model, where schools only serve the local neighbourhood. Advocates of school choice base their arguments on the economic theory of market efficiency. First, a more market oriented education system should improve the match between pupils and schools. In this sense, allowing families to select schools on the basis of their preferences and teaching needs should result in an improvement in the average academic achievement. Moreover, increased choice should help breaking the link between residential and school segregation induced by a community-based model, with wealthier families living in more affluent neighbourhoods also attending the best schools. The benefits of choice should be even more pronounced for low income children who are typically segregated in poor neighbourhoods served by low quality schools (Gibbons et al., 2008). Second, school choice is believed to have beneficial effects also on school performance. Indeed, community-based schools operate in an almost monopolistic market, implying little incentives to innovate and improve teaching performance. In a world 1 Introduction where parents have strong preferences for quality, a choice based model would increase competition among schools with the ultimate result of boosting performance (Hastings et al., 2005; Burgess et al., 2009; Gibbons and Silva, 2011). On the other hand, scholars in favour of a community-school model claim that teachers are more likely to perform well in a more stable environment with relatively low turnover. Moreover, greater choice would replace the link between neighbourhood and school segregation with sorting across schools on the basis of family background characteristics. In this sense, they advocate that it would be more desirable to stick to a community-based model and improve the performance of lower quality schools via redistribution of resources. The first two chapters of this thesis aim at shading additional light on the advantages and disadvantages of school choice models. Specifically, I explore the effects of a programme introduced in the UK, which aimed at increasing choice among low income families, on both students' choices and school behaviour. The third chapter addresses a different empirical question. Typically, when workers are rewarded on the basis of team effort the possibility arises that individuals free ride. However, past literature emphasised the importance of externalities when groups of agents are concerned. Specifically, group effects such as social pressure or shame may be strong enough to completely offset free riding (Kandel and Lazear, 1992; Mas and Moretti, 2009). Using Italian social security data on private sector employees, the last chapter contributes to the existing literature by exploring externalities in workers' shirking, which I recover from information on sick leave episodes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX75519/87. / Spine title: The work machine.

<p>This thesis investigates pubic policy actions and their spillovers to broader geographies.</p>

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation is a collection of three essays that use economic tools to address policy-relevant issues related to ageing, population health, and education. The use of economic modelling and econometric analyses has the potential to provide information on the consequences and effectiveness of policy interventions in these areas and enables policymakers to make better informed decisions. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to these topics and is followed by the three essays. In Chapter 2, I analyze how providing informal care to an elderly parent affects the caregiver's labour market outcomes, cognitive ability, and health; and study the influence of the institutional background on the caregiving decision and the effects of caregiving. My results show that negative effects on labour market outcomes can be avoided by the provision of formal care alternatives, but negative effects for caregivers' mental health persist. These findings give useful insights into the optimal provision of formal care in today's ageing societies. Self-reported health measures are commonly collected in numerous surveys but might be influenced by respondents' definitions and frames of reference of health. In Chapter 3, I address the issue of response bias in population surveys by constructing an objective measure of health. I find that using a common definition of health nearly eliminates the reported health differences between the U.S. and Canada. Socioeconomic differences in health are stronger in the U.S., but remain an issue in Canada. Chapter 4 studies the effect of post-secondary education on the continued development of reading proficiency during adolescence and young adulthood. Reading proficiency is essential for labour market success in a knowledge-based economy, but little is known about how advanced reading skills such as text interpretation and text evaluation are developed. The results show that university graduation increases students' reading proficiency relative to high school graduation, which demonstrates the importance of cognitive skill investments later in the life cycle. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2014-06-19 14:07:17.682