Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper analyzes the labor markets in the states of Pernambuco, Bahia, Ceara, and the Northeast region of Brazil. The findings show a rather heterogeneous impact pattern of individual characteristics on monthly wages across the wage distribution. That is, the magnitude of the affect of a wage determinant is different depending on whether the worker is placed in the lower, median or top of the wage distribution. The findings reveal that education is key. Basic schooling matters for all four geographical areas and across the income distribution. However, poor workers are awarded lower returns than their richer peers and in Bahia and Ceara, the poor do not obtain any returns to basic schooling. Furthermore, the impact of 5-8 or 9-11 years of education is larger than that of 1-4 years of completed education. The returns obtained by a median worker are higher in Ceara and Pernambuco than in Bahia. Finally, completed tertiary education offers thelargest returns of all levels of education; the median worker receives a premium of 105, 249, and 216 percent in Ceara, Pernambuco, and Bahia, respectively. Hence, one direct policy implication is to increase the quality of education, in particular in poorer neighborhoods. Experience impacts positively on wages and it is increasing with age until workers reach 50 years of age. However, returns to experience are falling significantly across the wage distribution. For the poor and younger generations, experience contributes more to wages than education. The occupation of workers is important for wage determination; all workers in the included occupational groups are paid more than workers engaged in agricultural activities. Workers employed as technicians or administrators obtain the highest returns. The white/non-white wage disparity reveals that white workers are paid 17 percent more than their non-white co-workers, taking into account other characteristics. Gender disparities are large in the Northeast and heterogeneous across the wage distribution. The time spent in the current state impacts adversely on wages. That is, those that have stayed earn, on average, less than the newcomers. There are no considerable differences between male and female workers. Union membership has a positive impact on workers' wages.

Access and Equity in Basic Education --- Education --- Employment --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human Resources --- Income Distribution --- Informal Sector --- Job --- Jobs --- Labor --- Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Occupation --- Open Unemployment --- Paid Workers --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Real Wages --- Social Protections and Labor --- Unemployment --- Union Membership --- Wage Determination --- Wage Distribution --- Worker --- Workers

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper uses 16 waves of panel data from the British Household Panel Survey to evaluate the role of subjective well-being in determining labor market transitions. It confirms a previous finding in the literature: individuals report a fall in their happiness when they lose a job, but they report a smaller fall when they are surrounded by unemployed peers, an effect called the "social norm". The main results of interest are that job search effort and unemployment duration are affected by the utility differential between having a job and being unemployed. Since this differential is also affected by the social norm, it implies that when unemployment increases, the unemployed are happier and they reduce their search effort. These results indicate that unemployment hysteresis has labor supply causes.

Aggregate unemployment --- Economic Theory & Research --- Employment status --- Governance --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- High unemployment --- Household survey --- Household surveys --- Job search --- Labor demand --- Labor market --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Labor supply --- Labour --- Labour force --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Population Policies --- Probit regression --- Regional unemployment --- Social Protections and Labor --- Unemployed --- Unemployed persons --- Unemployment --- Unemployment benefits --- Unemployment duration --- Wage distribution --- Workers --- Youth and Governance

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper analyzes the labor markets in the states of Pernambuco, Bahia, Ceara, and the Northeast region of Brazil. The findings show a rather heterogeneous impact pattern of individual characteristics on monthly wages across the wage distribution. That is, the magnitude of the affect of a wage determinant is different depending on whether the worker is placed in the lower, median or top of the wage distribution. The findings reveal that education is key. Basic schooling matters for all four geographical areas and across the income distribution. However, poor workers are awarded lower returns than their richer peers and in Bahia and Ceara, the poor do not obtain any returns to basic schooling. Furthermore, the impact of 5-8 or 9-11 years of education is larger than that of 1-4 years of completed education. The returns obtained by a median worker are higher in Ceara and Pernambuco than in Bahia. Finally, completed tertiary education offers thelargest returns of all levels of education; the median worker receives a premium of 105, 249, and 216 percent in Ceara, Pernambuco, and Bahia, respectively. Hence, one direct policy implication is to increase the quality of education, in particular in poorer neighborhoods. Experience impacts positively on wages and it is increasing with age until workers reach 50 years of age. However, returns to experience are falling significantly across the wage distribution. For the poor and younger generations, experience contributes more to wages than education. The occupation of workers is important for wage determination; all workers in the included occupational groups are paid more than workers engaged in agricultural activities. Workers employed as technicians or administrators obtain the highest returns. The white/non-white wage disparity reveals that white workers are paid 17 percent more than their non-white co-workers, taking into account other characteristics. Gender disparities are large in the Northeast and heterogeneous across the wage distribution. The time spent in the current state impacts adversely on wages. That is, those that have stayed earn, on average, less than the newcomers. There are no considerable differences between male and female workers. Union membership has a positive impact on workers' wages.

Access and Equity in Basic Education --- Education --- Employment --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human Resources --- Income Distribution --- Informal Sector --- Job --- Jobs --- Labor --- Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Occupation --- Open Unemployment --- Paid Workers --- Population Policies --- Primary Education --- Real Wages --- Social Protections and Labor --- Unemployment --- Union Membership --- Wage Determination --- Wage Distribution --- Worker --- Workers

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

There are several possible explanations for the observed changes in inequality, the returns to education, and the gap between the wages of informal and formal salaried workers in Argentina over the period 1980-2002. Largely due to the lack of evidence for competing explanations, skill-biased technical change is the most likely explanation for the increases in the returns to education that occurred in the 1990s. Using a semi-parametric re-weighting variance decomposition technique and data from the Permanent Household Survey, the authors show that during the same period there was an increase in the returns to unobserved skill. This finding lends support to the hypothesis that skill-biased technical change has been a main driver of increases in inequality in Argentina. The pattern of changes suggests that the growth in returns to unobserved skill may have been partly responsible for the relative deterioration of informal salaried wages during the 1990s.

Access and Equity in Basic Education --- Debt Markets --- Earnings Inequality --- Education --- Education for All --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Household Survey --- Labor Markets --- Minimum wage --- Primary Education --- Salaried employment --- Salaried workers --- Skilled workers --- Social Protections and Labor --- Union membership --- Wage distribution --- Wage employment --- Wage inequality