Humboldt-Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. 333 - 350.

O presente estudo tem como propósito fazer uma análise empírica da estrutura dos custos de ajustamento do emprego em indústrias no Brasil, a partir de dados microeconômicos de empresas industriais do Rio Grande do Sul. O estudo é motivado pelas grandes mudanças no emprego industrial nos anos 90 e 2000 e o fato estilizado de grande heterogeneidade na flutuação do emprego revelado na literatura de fluxos de emprego. Inicialmente, identifica-se a existência de diferentes estruturas teóricas para custos de ajustamento do emprego, que podem ser agrupadas em custos convexos e nãoconvexos e funções quadráticas (simétricas) e não lineares. Uma revisão da literatura empírica revela que poucos estudos no mundo e nenhum usando dados brasileiros consideram a possibilidade de custos não quadráticos e/ou convexos. A identificação da estrutura de custos de ajustamento divide-se em metodologias empíricas complementares. Primeiro, uma metodologia semi-paramétrica de flutuação do emprego industrial empregando modelos de sobrevivência e matrizes de transição, de modo inovador no Brasil, para diferenciar se os custos são convexos ou não. Segundo, dentro de um modelo paramétrico de demanda por emprego usual, permitindo comparações com a literatura, a estimação de forma funcional da função de demanda com custos de ajustamento quadrático e linear. Os resultados mostram que o modelo dinâmico com custos de ajustamento quadrático pode se útil para dar uma idéia da dinâmica do ajuste do emprego, porém não é o modelo mais adequado. Isso fica evidente a partir do momento em que os resultados do modelo geral, o qual contempla os custos de ajustamento quadrático e fixo, demonstram a necessidade de incorporar ambos os custos. Ao mesmo tempo, os modelos semi-paramétrico sugerem que os custos de ajustamento não-convexos têm mais apoio nos dados. / The aim of this study is, from microeconomic data from industrial companies of Rio Grande do Sul, to perform an empirical analysis of the employment adjustment costs in industries in Brazil. This study is motivated by the changes in industrial employment in the last and present decades and by the stylized fact of heterogeneity in job flows revealed in jog flow literature. Initially, is showed the existence of different theoretical structures to explain employment adjustment costs, which can be classified as convex and non-convex costs and quadratic (symmetrical) and non-linear functions. An empirical literature review reveals that few studies in the world, none of them using brazilian data, consider the possibility of non-quadratic and/or non-convex costs. The identification of the structure of adjustment costs is split in complementary empirical methodologies. First, an industrial job flow semi-parametrical methodology that uses survival models and transition matrixes, innovative in Brazil, to state if the costs are convex or not. Second, in the context of a usual employment demand parametric model, allowing comparisons with the literature, the estimation of the quadratic and linear adjustment costs’ demand function’s functional form. Results show that the dynamic model with quadratic adjustment can be useful to give a clue about the job adjustment dynamic, but that it’s not the most adequate one. This stays clear from the moment in which the results of the general model, which considers the lumpy and quadratic adjustment costs, show the need of incorporating both of these costs. At the same time, the semi-parametric models suggest that the non-convex adjustment costs have more data appeal.

O presente estudo tem como propósito fazer uma análise empírica da estrutura dos custos de ajustamento do emprego em indústrias no Brasil, a partir de dados microeconômicos de empresas industriais do Rio Grande do Sul. O estudo é motivado pelas grandes mudanças no emprego industrial nos anos 90 e 2000 e o fato estilizado de grande heterogeneidade na flutuação do emprego revelado na literatura de fluxos de emprego. Inicialmente, identifica-se a existência de diferentes estruturas teóricas para custos de ajustamento do emprego, que podem ser agrupadas em custos convexos e nãoconvexos e funções quadráticas (simétricas) e não lineares. Uma revisão da literatura empírica revela que poucos estudos no mundo e nenhum usando dados brasileiros consideram a possibilidade de custos não quadráticos e/ou convexos. A identificação da estrutura de custos de ajustamento divide-se em metodologias empíricas complementares. Primeiro, uma metodologia semi-paramétrica de flutuação do emprego industrial empregando modelos de sobrevivência e matrizes de transição, de modo inovador no Brasil, para diferenciar se os custos são convexos ou não. Segundo, dentro de um modelo paramétrico de demanda por emprego usual, permitindo comparações com a literatura, a estimação de forma funcional da função de demanda com custos de ajustamento quadrático e linear. Os resultados mostram que o modelo dinâmico com custos de ajustamento quadrático pode se útil para dar uma idéia da dinâmica do ajuste do emprego, porém não é o modelo mais adequado. Isso fica evidente a partir do momento em que os resultados do modelo geral, o qual contempla os custos de ajustamento quadrático e fixo, demonstram a necessidade de incorporar ambos os custos. Ao mesmo tempo, os modelos semi-paramétrico sugerem que os custos de ajustamento não-convexos têm mais apoio nos dados. / The aim of this study is, from microeconomic data from industrial companies of Rio Grande do Sul, to perform an empirical analysis of the employment adjustment costs in industries in Brazil. This study is motivated by the changes in industrial employment in the last and present decades and by the stylized fact of heterogeneity in job flows revealed in jog flow literature. Initially, is showed the existence of different theoretical structures to explain employment adjustment costs, which can be classified as convex and non-convex costs and quadratic (symmetrical) and non-linear functions. An empirical literature review reveals that few studies in the world, none of them using brazilian data, consider the possibility of non-quadratic and/or non-convex costs. The identification of the structure of adjustment costs is split in complementary empirical methodologies. First, an industrial job flow semi-parametrical methodology that uses survival models and transition matrixes, innovative in Brazil, to state if the costs are convex or not. Second, in the context of a usual employment demand parametric model, allowing comparisons with the literature, the estimation of the quadratic and linear adjustment costs’ demand function’s functional form. Results show that the dynamic model with quadratic adjustment can be useful to give a clue about the job adjustment dynamic, but that it’s not the most adequate one. This stays clear from the moment in which the results of the general model, which considers the lumpy and quadratic adjustment costs, show the need of incorporating both of these costs. At the same time, the semi-parametric models suggest that the non-convex adjustment costs have more data appeal.

This aim of this thesis is to analyse the demand for labour from trade with a selection of South Africa’s trading partners. It is expected that labour demand will be greater in trade with developed blocs. Trade between developing blocs, however, is thought to be more skilled labour intensive and such trade should have greater linkages. This ought to feed through into greater labour demand so that South-South trade may be more ‘labour creating’ than expected. As it is more skill intensive, it may also be more dynamic, which has implications for future growth and development. Factor content methodology is used to assess labour demand. Calculations consider linkages to other sectors (which will increase labour demand) and the use of scarce resources (which has an opportunity cost to labour). The findings support the claim that trade with developing blocs is more professional labour intensive. Evidence that it may be more dynamic and have greater linkages to labour is borne out in exports to SADC. Greater labour demand through linkages, however, is not evident in net trade to SADC. Neither are they of significance in trade with any of the other developing blocs so labour effects due to linkages appear to be negligible. The advantages of South-South trade may rather lie in the dynamic benefits that trade in higher technology goods provides. When scarce resources such as capital and professional labour are taken into account, it is found that labour demand is negative in net trade to all blocs. However, even without the problem of scarce resources, most blocs have a negative demand for labour in net trade. The indication is that with the present trade patterns, South Africa cannot expect trade to increase labour demand. Policy which could improve this situation would be to increase labour force skills, improve the flexibility of the labour market and develop sectors which are both more advanced as well as labour intensive. Despite the negative impact of trade on labour in general, it is found that trade does differ by direction and that for each labour type there are certain blocs where labour demand is positive. This is also the case in net trade for particular sectors. Such information could be used as part of a targeted trade policy to assist in the marketing of particular sectors in trade and also for increasing labour demand for certain labour groups.

O presente estudo tem como propósito fazer uma análise empírica da estrutura dos custos de ajustamento do emprego em indústrias no Brasil, a partir de dados microeconômicos de empresas industriais do Rio Grande do Sul. O estudo é motivado pelas grandes mudanças no emprego industrial nos anos 90 e 2000 e o fato estilizado de grande heterogeneidade na flutuação do emprego revelado na literatura de fluxos de emprego. Inicialmente, identifica-se a existência de diferentes estruturas teóricas para custos de ajustamento do emprego, que podem ser agrupadas em custos convexos e nãoconvexos e funções quadráticas (simétricas) e não lineares. Uma revisão da literatura empírica revela que poucos estudos no mundo e nenhum usando dados brasileiros consideram a possibilidade de custos não quadráticos e/ou convexos. A identificação da estrutura de custos de ajustamento divide-se em metodologias empíricas complementares. Primeiro, uma metodologia semi-paramétrica de flutuação do emprego industrial empregando modelos de sobrevivência e matrizes de transição, de modo inovador no Brasil, para diferenciar se os custos são convexos ou não. Segundo, dentro de um modelo paramétrico de demanda por emprego usual, permitindo comparações com a literatura, a estimação de forma funcional da função de demanda com custos de ajustamento quadrático e linear. Os resultados mostram que o modelo dinâmico com custos de ajustamento quadrático pode se útil para dar uma idéia da dinâmica do ajuste do emprego, porém não é o modelo mais adequado. Isso fica evidente a partir do momento em que os resultados do modelo geral, o qual contempla os custos de ajustamento quadrático e fixo, demonstram a necessidade de incorporar ambos os custos. Ao mesmo tempo, os modelos semi-paramétrico sugerem que os custos de ajustamento não-convexos têm mais apoio nos dados. / The aim of this study is, from microeconomic data from industrial companies of Rio Grande do Sul, to perform an empirical analysis of the employment adjustment costs in industries in Brazil. This study is motivated by the changes in industrial employment in the last and present decades and by the stylized fact of heterogeneity in job flows revealed in jog flow literature. Initially, is showed the existence of different theoretical structures to explain employment adjustment costs, which can be classified as convex and non-convex costs and quadratic (symmetrical) and non-linear functions. An empirical literature review reveals that few studies in the world, none of them using brazilian data, consider the possibility of non-quadratic and/or non-convex costs. The identification of the structure of adjustment costs is split in complementary empirical methodologies. First, an industrial job flow semi-parametrical methodology that uses survival models and transition matrixes, innovative in Brazil, to state if the costs are convex or not. Second, in the context of a usual employment demand parametric model, allowing comparisons with the literature, the estimation of the quadratic and linear adjustment costs’ demand function’s functional form. Results show that the dynamic model with quadratic adjustment can be useful to give a clue about the job adjustment dynamic, but that it’s not the most adequate one. This stays clear from the moment in which the results of the general model, which considers the lumpy and quadratic adjustment costs, show the need of incorporating both of these costs. At the same time, the semi-parametric models suggest that the non-convex adjustment costs have more data appeal.

The Transvaal Colony experienced a huge problem with the scarcity of African labour for the mines and for the farms after the South African War. From 1901 to 1906 African labourers displayed great reluctance to meet the labour demands of the Transvaal colony. Both black and white witnesses to the Transvaal Labour Commission (TLC) and the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) gave their views regarding the reasons why African labourers were unavailable for wage labour. The Chamber of Mines dominated the proceedings of the TLC so that in the end very little objective information could be gained from the TLC. Africans themselves, testifying before SANAC stated a number of grievances which might have been responsible for the widespread withdrawal from employment on the mines. It became clear that Africans preferred to work independently rather than to provide labour for whites who ill-treated them. This they could only do if land was available to them. / History / M.A. (History)

The Transvaal Colony experienced a huge problem with the scarcity of African labour for the mines and for the farms after the South African War. From 1901 to 1906 African labourers displayed great reluctance to meet the labour demands of the Transvaal colony. Both black and white witnesses to the Transvaal Labour Commission (TLC) and the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) gave their views regarding the reasons why African labourers were unavailable for wage labour. The Chamber of Mines dominated the proceedings of the TLC so that in the end very little objective information could be gained from the TLC. Africans themselves, testifying before SANAC stated a number of grievances which might have been responsible for the widespread withdrawal from employment on the mines. It became clear that Africans preferred to work independently rather than to provide labour for whites who ill-treated them. This they could only do if land was available to them. / History / M. A. (History)

Diese Dissertation besteht aus vier Aufsätzen, die sich mit der funktionalen Einkommensverteilung beschäftigen und leistet einen Beitrag in den Bereichen Arbeitsmärkte und Makroökonomie. Der erste Aufsatz ist ein Literaturüberblick über den Einkommensanteil von Arbeit am Gesamteinkommen. Der zweite Aufsatz analysiert den Einfluss von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) auf den relativen Lohnanteil von hoch-, mittel- und niedrig qualifizierten Arbeitnehmern. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung legen nahe, dass IKT die relativen Lohnanteile beeinflusst, dieser Einfluss jedoch nicht im gleichen Maße über Zeit und Länder auffindbar ist. Einzelne Industrien werden aufgezeigt, in denen Investitionen in IKT den relativen Lohnanteil hochqualifizierter Arbeitnehmer steigern. In anderen Industrien führen Investitionen in IKT zu einer Polarisierung am unteren Ende der Verteilung. Der dritte Aufsatz untersucht die Einflüsse auf die Lohnquote in Westeuropa. Die Studie zeigt einen großen und persistenten negativen Einfluss von internationaler wirtschaftlicher Integration auf die Lohnquote über die mittlere Frist. Starke Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen steigern die Lohnquote. Der vierte Aufsatz untersucht durch welchen Kanal IKT die Lohnquote beeinflusst. Das Modell von Bental und Demougin (2010), welches die Hypothese aufstellt, dass die Lohnquote fällt da IKT die Beobachtbarkeit von Anstrengung erhöht und so die Informationsrente der Arbeitnehmer bei gleicher Anstrengung senkt, wird zu Daten von neun Westeuropäischen Ländern kalibriert. Dies zeigt, dass das Modell die Trends der Lohnquote als auch die der Reallöhne in Effizienzeinheiten und der Arbeit in Effizienzeinheiten durch den Kapitalstock, replizieren kann. Desweiteren zeigt die Analyse von Individualdaten aus dem Deutschen Sozio-Ökonomischen Panel, dass die gefühlte Beobachtung der Arbeitsleistung im Durchschnitt zwischen 1985 und 2001 gestiegen ist. / This dissertation consists of four essays on the functional distribution of income and contributes to the body of research on labor markets and macroeconomics. The first essay reviews the literature on the income share of labor. The second essay analyzes empirically the impact of investments into information and communication technology (ICT) on the relative compensation of high-, medium-, and low-skilled workers. The results imply that, although ICT investments influence the relative demand of workers by skill, this impact is not persistent over time and across countries. Nevertheless, individual industries are identified in which ICT investments increase the relative compensation of high-skilled workers and industries in which ICT investments polarize compensation at the bottom of the skill distribution. The third essay investigates the empirical influences on the labor share in Western Europe. The results show a large and persistent negative impact of economic integration on the labor share in the medium-run for an industry-level measurement. Stronger labor market institutions increase the labor share. Furthermore, the results suggest a common negative impact of ICT and economic globalization on labor share, while ICT itself seems complementary to labor in production. The fourth essay assesses empirically through which channel ICT decreases the labor share. The model of Bental and Demougin (2010), which argues that ICT reduces the labor share by improving monitoring technology and therefore lowering the workers rent at every level of output, is calibrated and simulated using data from nine OECD countries. The results show that the model can generate the observable trends in the labor shares as well as real wages in efficiency units and labor in efficiency units over capital. Furthermore, an analysis of micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel indicates an overall average increase of perceived monitoring of workers between 1985 and 2001.

The Transvaal Colony experienced a huge problem with the scarcity of African labour for the mines and for the farms after the South African War. From 1901 to 1906 African labourers displayed great reluctance to meet the labour demands of the Transvaal colony. Both black and white witnesses to the Transvaal Labour Commission (TLC) and the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) gave their views regarding the reasons why African labourers were unavailable for wage labour. The Chamber of Mines dominated the proceedings of the TLC so that in the end very little objective information could be gained from the TLC. Africans themselves, testifying before SANAC stated a number of grievances which might have been responsible for the widespread withdrawal from employment on the mines. It became clear that Africans preferred to work independently rather than to provide labour for whites who ill-treated them. This they could only do if land was available to them. / History / M.A. (History)

The Transvaal Colony experienced a huge problem with the scarcity of African labour for the mines and for the farms after the South African War. From 1901 to 1906 African labourers displayed great reluctance to meet the labour demands of the Transvaal colony. Both black and white witnesses to the Transvaal Labour Commission (TLC) and the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) gave their views regarding the reasons why African labourers were unavailable for wage labour. The Chamber of Mines dominated the proceedings of the TLC so that in the end very little objective information could be gained from the TLC. Africans themselves, testifying before SANAC stated a number of grievances which might have been responsible for the widespread withdrawal from employment on the mines. It became clear that Africans preferred to work independently rather than to provide labour for whites who ill-treated them. This they could only do if land was available to them. / History / M. A. (History)