Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2007

Using data drawn from in-depth interviews collected in three Chinese cities and the countrywide China General Social Survey, this dissertation examined how people found jobs during the historic period of China’s employment system change. This dissertation is written in the format of three publishable papers. The first paper revisited China’s employment system change, by focusing on individual reactions towards the changing employment policies. Perceiving the persistent political authority, individuals pursued higher education, accumulated political advantages, and mobilized network resources, to get state-assigned jobs. Individual job-seeking strategies, in turn, boosted the state’s hiring criteria, as well as facilitated the growth of the market principle. Consequently, state power and market strength have been co-developed in this process. Following my analysis of institutional constraints, in the second paper, I addressed the question of how individual job seekers and job positions are matched together. I examined how contact use matches individual qualifications to the employer’s hiring expectations, from an innovative perspective of the certifiability of job requirements. I demonstrated that informal methods facilitate job-person matching success when used in combination with formal methods, rather than being used alone. My third dissertation paper provides strong empirical evidence of the advantages of the joint use of formal and informal methods. I found that individuals who used formal and informal job search methods jointly tend to obtain more job information and thus apply for more positions. They are also more likely to exit job search successfully within a three-month time period. Using the Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model, I found that the joint channel itself is more likely to lead one to late-stage career success, as indicated by one’s recent income. Above all, my dissertation systematically investigated the use of contacts in the labor market of post-socialist China, regarding its institutional constraints, working mechanisms, and advantages.

Using data drawn from in-depth interviews collected in three Chinese cities and the countrywide China General Social Survey, this dissertation examined how people found jobs during the historic period of China’s employment system change. This dissertation is written in the format of three publishable papers. The first paper revisited China’s employment system change, by focusing on individual reactions towards the changing employment policies. Perceiving the persistent political authority, individuals pursued higher education, accumulated political advantages, and mobilized network resources, to get state-assigned jobs. Individual job-seeking strategies, in turn, boosted the state’s hiring criteria, as well as facilitated the growth of the market principle. Consequently, state power and market strength have been co-developed in this process. Following my analysis of institutional constraints, in the second paper, I addressed the question of how individual job seekers and job positions are matched together. I examined how contact use matches individual qualifications to the employer’s hiring expectations, from an innovative perspective of the certifiability of job requirements. I demonstrated that informal methods facilitate job-person matching success when used in combination with formal methods, rather than being used alone. My third dissertation paper provides strong empirical evidence of the advantages of the joint use of formal and informal methods. I found that individuals who used formal and informal job search methods jointly tend to obtain more job information and thus apply for more positions. They are also more likely to exit job search successfully within a three-month time period. Using the Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model, I found that the joint channel itself is more likely to lead one to late-stage career success, as indicated by one’s recent income. Above all, my dissertation systematically investigated the use of contacts in the labor market of post-socialist China, regarding its institutional constraints, working mechanisms, and advantages.

Submitted by Miquelina Nicolini (mique_n@hotmail.com) on 2015-05-28T22:51:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Miquelina Nicolini vf.pdf: 2513293 bytes, checksum: ab98c481446052a17578824f94e12f0b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2015-06-17T13:34:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Miquelina Nicolini vf.pdf: 2513293 bytes, checksum: ab98c481446052a17578824f94e12f0b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2015-06-18T12:07:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Miquelina Nicolini vf.pdf: 2513293 bytes, checksum: ab98c481446052a17578824f94e12f0b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-18T12:08:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Miquelina Nicolini vf.pdf: 2513293 bytes, checksum: ab98c481446052a17578824f94e12f0b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-27 / The current essay shows how health service market is afected by assimetric information, that results in government intervention. To understand that, an analisis of how this market works has been done, taking in account assimetric information, specially the one brought by adverse selection, shown in Akerlof’s and Rothschild and Stiglitz’s models. Then, specificities of health market were discussed and the intervention of government, justified. At this point, the income distribution that comes from the government intervention is also approached. Finally, as an example, Brazil’s and United States’ models are shown and analised. As a conclusion, the implication of each one of these models, as well as sugestions for another studies in this area. / O presente trabalho buscou investigar como o mercado de serviços de saúde é afetado pela assimetria de informação, que acaba por justificar a intervenção do governo. Foi realizada uma análise do funcionamento do setor de serviços de saúde e como a assimetria de informação, principalmente a proveniente de seleção adversa, o afeta. Para tanto, foram levados em consideração os modelos de Akerlof e Rothschild e Stiglitz. Em um momento seguinte, foram discutidas as características e particularidades deste setor e porque a intervenção do governo acaba sendo necessária. Neste ponto discutem-se também as questões distributivas de renda ligadas ao setor de saúde. Finalmente, como exemplo, as soluções adotadas por Brasil e Estados Unidos são apresentadas e analisadas. Na conclusão são apresentadas e discutidas as implicações da cada uma destas escolhas, bem como apresentadas sugestões para novos estudos nessa área.

[pt] A literatura econômica que estuda migração sempre esteve preocupada com o impacto da migração sobre o bem-estar, seja na forma de imigração ou na forma de brain drain. Os dois artigos que compõem esta tese estão relacionados a este tema. Apesar do modelo de Roy concluir que os emigrantes são negativamente selecionados se a taxa de retorno à educação é maior na economia de origem, os trabalhos empíricos encontram evidências de emigrantes positivamente selecionados. O primeiro artigo utiliza um modelo para argumentar que se o mercado de crédito é imperfeito, tanto investimentos em educação como a decisão de emigração dependem da riqueza inicial do agente. Isto permite explicar a controvérsia entre a literatura teórica e empírica e o porquê da classe média ser aquela com maior mobilidade em alguns países. A segunda parte da tese está diretamente relacionada à literatura de beneficial brain drain. Os trabalhos nessa área argumentam que a possibilidade de um trabalhador educado de emigrar para outro país que remunera melhor sua mão-de-obra qualificada aumenta a taxa de retorno à educação na economia de origem e conseqüentemente os investimentos em capital humano. O artigo utiliza como experimento a construção de Palmas, capital do Tocantins, para investigar esta hipótese. Os resultados empíricos encontrados a partir dos microdados dos Censos de 1991 e 2000 indicam uma relação negativa entre investimentos em educação e a distância rodoviária até a capital - usada como proxy dos custos de emigração - para o período posterior à fundação de Palmas e uma relação nula para o período anterior. As evidências são interpretadas como favoráveis à existência do brain effect, uma vez que o aumento na escolaridade foi maior para os indivíduos que mais se beneficiaram com a construção da capital. / [en] The Economic literature which studies migration has always been concerned about its impact on welfare. Two different lines of research in this field focus on impacts of immigration and brain drain. The two articles which comprise the thesis are related to these subjects. Although Roy s model claims that emigrants are negatively self- selected if the rate of return is higher in the origin economy, empirical works have found positively selected emigrants. The first article uses a model to argue that both investments in education and the decision to emmigrate depend on wealth if credit markets are imperfect. This argument allows us to explain the controversy between the theoretical and empirical literature as well as why the middle-class is the most mobile one in some countries. The second part of the thesis is directly related to the beneficial brain drain literature. Works in this field claim that the possibility for an educated worker of emmigrating to another country in which skilled labor is better paid raises the rate of return to education in the origin country and consequently the investments in human capital. The article uses as an experiment the creation of Palmas, a state capital in Brazil, to investigate this hypothesis. The empirical results obtained from microdata evidence a negative relation between investments in human capital and the distance to the capital-used as a proxy to emmigration costs-in the period after the creation of the capital and no relation in the period before. Those findings are interpretated as favorable to the brain effect hypothesis, once the increase in education was greater for individuals who benefited the most from the foundation of the capital.

The software development business today is a land of constant change. The change requires the organizations who operate within this business to be flexible and quick to respond. This has led to multiple agile organization methods being developed, one of them is DevOps. A cornerstone in DevOps is self-selection - a method for assembling teams. This method gives hope of less administration, autonomy in teams and increased performance. In this essay we investigate the promises - the challenges and the possibilities - of self-selection. The case in this essay is IFS - a big software development company, implementing self-selection department by department also facing the challenges of combining traditional project values with the short iterations of an agile method. Our qualitative study investigates which the main challenges and possibilities are. We also investigate how these findings should be managed. How could the diversity, team size and autonomy be enhanced or diminished? We found that some parts of the case, and practice, were like our prior literature - but some were not. For example, the feeling of being in homogeneous teams were not always negative, and the majority of those taking part of the self-selection at IFS said they chose team by assignment - not social network as the prior literature said. Our conclusion reveals that there are several different factors to consider when having selfselection implemented in a traditional project environment. The main areas where we have found possible improvements are Team Choice, Team Diversity, Overlapping Assignments, Experienced Ownership, Management Influence and Performance.

This thesis consists of an introductory part and two self-contained chapters related to the supply of volunteers to the Swedish Armed Forces. Chapter [I] represents the first effort to explore the relationship between civilian labour market conditions and the supply of labour to the military in the all-volunteer environment that Sweden entered after the abolishment of the peacetime draft in 2010. The effect of civilian unemployment on the rate of applications from individuals aged 18 to 25 to initiate basic military training is investigated using panel data on Swedish counties for the years 2011 through 2015. A linear fixed-effects model is estimated to investigate the relationship, while controlling for a range of socio-demographic covariates and unobserved heterogeneity on the regional level, as well as aggregate trends on the national level. The results indicate a positive and statistically significant relationship between the unemployment rate and the application rate. The results are robust to non-linear form specifications, as well as allowing the civilian unemployment rate to be endogenous. As such, the results suggest that the civilian labour market environment in Sweden can give rise to non-trivial fluctuations in the supply of applications to initiate basic military training within the Swedish Armed Forces. Chapter [II] studies how local labour market conditions influence the quality composition of those who volunteer for military service in Sweden. A fixed-effects regression model is estimated on a panel data set containing IQ scores for those who applied for military basic training across Swedish municipalities during the period 2010 to 2016. The main finding is that low civilian employment rates at the local level tend to increase the mean IQ score of those who volunteer for military service, whereas the opposite is true if employment rates in the civilian labour market move in a more favourable direction. As such, the results suggest that the negative impact of a strong civilian economy on recruitment volumes is reinforced by a deterioration in recruit quality.

The intent of this study was to identify subgroups within the college population having a heightened risk for eating disorders. The information for this analysis was retrieved from an existing data set. The two variables that were compared were self selection of college major at the initial collection during freshman year. The sample size of 1,924 was used to see if subgroups of college majors had a heightened risk. Twenty groups composed of similar majors were studied. The majors of Dance, Dietetics, Physical Education, and Communications had heightened risk according to analysis percentage of each group in the clinical range on the Eating Attitudes Test-40 (EAT-40), EAT-40 mean, and/or EAT-40 median. Results indicate that Dance, Dietetic, Physical Education, and Communications would merit additional resources to prevent eating disorders at the college level.

本研究使用台灣的營利事業所得稅資料並且以托賓自我選擇模型來檢視租稅逃漏、稅務選查與會計師稅務簽證三者的關聯性。實證結果顯示台灣的稅務機關在查核預算的限制之下會進行有系統的稅務選查程序；進一步來說，使用會計師稅務簽證的企業組織較不易被稅務機關選查。此外，企業組織的重要特徵如規模、財務狀況、獲利能力以及會計師稅務簽證的使用與否將會影響企業組織的租稅逃漏額。最後，我們發現會計師稅務簽證的使用對於租稅逃漏的影響會隨著公司的規模大小而改變，營收大於一億的企業組織若使用會計師稅務簽證將會比未使用會計師稅務簽證的企業組織有更高的逃漏稅額。因此，我們認為與會計師稅務簽證相關的政策法規可能需要重新評估是否適切。 / This study uses the business income tax dada in Taiwan to empirically examine the relationships between audit selection, tax evasion, and the usage of CPA-attestation. Tobit model with self-selection is used in this study. Empirical results provide evidence that tax agencies in Taiwan employ a systematic audit selection process, subject to the constraints of audit budgets. Additionally, firms using CPA-attestation are less likely to be selected for audit. The results also provide evidence that some important characteristics of firms, such as size, financial position, profitability, and the usage of CPA-attestation, may influence the amount of tax evasion. Finally, we find that the effect of CPA-attestation on tax evasion may vary with different sizes of firms using CPA-attestation. Hence, the policy and tax regulations associated with the usage of CPA-attestation may need to be re-evaluated.

本文考慮當資訊不對稱下的逆向選擇問題存在時,如何遵循Myerson(1979)提出的揭露原則 (the revelation principle)來設計一套具備誘因相容性 (incentive compatibility)的存款保險契約,契約中的自有資本比率為要保機構的自我選擇變數 (self-selection variable),而保險費則為存保公司用來控制要保機構決策行為的控制變數(control var iable),依此可以建立一套自我選擇機能(self-selection mechanism),來促使要保機構誠實揭其風險類型的私有訊息(private information),進而將要保機構依風險高低正確分類,徹底解決訊息不對稱下的逆向選擇問題。