Publisher Summary The chapter presents a survey on the economics of labor market discrimination, motivated by two fundamental problems associated with income and wage differences among groups classified by sex, race, ethnicity, and other characteristics. The first is the inequity of long-lasting differences in economic well-being among the groups; in particular, differences in household or family income. The second is the inequity of long-lasting differences in the average wage rates among groups of workers classified by these demographic traits, when the groups may be presumed to be either equally productive or to have equal productive capacity. The second problem also raises the question of whether a labor market that pays unequal wages to equally productive workers is inefficient. Economic discrimination is defined in terms of income differences among families and wage differences among workers. The chapter discusses these definitions and presents data from the United States on the income and earnings differences of blacks, Hispanics, whites, women, and men. The chapter surveys theories of economic discrimination in the labor market. The theories are classified into competitive and monopolistic neoclassical models with (essentially) complete information, competitive neoclassical models with imperfect information-leading to “statistical discrimination,” and institutional theories. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the economic research on discrimination.

Chapter 13 The economic analysis of labor market discrimination: A survey

Internal migration in developed countries

This survey article aims at critically discussing the recent literature on firm formation and survival and the growth of new-born firms. The basic purpose is to single out the microeconomic entrepreneurial foundations of industrial dynamics (entry and exit) and to characterise the founder’s ex-ante features in terms of likely ex-post business performance. The main conclusion is that entry of new firms is heterogeneous with innovative entrepreneurs being found together with passive followers, over-optimist gamblers and even escapees from unemployment. Since founders are heterogeneous and may make “entry mistakes,” policy incentives should be highly selective, favouring nascent entrepreneurs endowed with progressive motivation and promising predictors of better business performance. This would lead to the least distortion in the post-entry market selection of efficient entrepreneurs.

/pdf/entrepreneurship-and-the-process-of-firms-entry-survival-and-2riyn34i46.pdf

Entrepreneurship and the process of firms’ entry, survival and growth

The diffusion of Temporary Work Agency (TWA) jobs originated a harsh policy debate and ambiguous empirical evidence. Results for the US, based on quasi-experimental evidence, suggest that a TWA assignment decreases the probability of finding a stable job, while results for Europe, based on the Conditional Independence Assumption (CIA), typically reach opposite conclusions. Using data for two Italian regions, we use a matching estimator to show that TWA assignments can be an effective springboard to permanent employment. We also propose a simulation-based sensitivity analysis, which highlights that only for one of these two regions our results are robust to specific failures of the CIA. We conclude that European studies based on the CIA should not be automatically discarded, but should be put under the scrutiny of a sensitivity analysis like the one we propose.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=905551

From Temporary Help Jobs to Permanent Employment: What Can We Learn from Matching Estimators and their Sensitivity?

To estimate the causal effect of refugee migration on voting outcomes in parliamentary and municipal elections in Denmark, our study is the first that addresses the key problem of immigrant sorting by exploiting a policy that assigned refugee immigrants to municipalities on a quasi-random basis. We find that in all but the most urban municipalities, allocation of larger refugee shares between electoral cycles leads to an increase in the vote share for right-leaning parties with an anti-immigration agenda, and we show large differences in voters’ responses to refugee allocation according to pre-policy municipal characteristics. However, in the largest and urban municipalities, refugee allocation has—if anything—the opposite effect on vote shares for anti-immigration parties. This coincides with a sharp divide in attitudes to refugees between urban and rural populations, which may be partly explained by distinctive interactions between natives and those with different background in cities and rural areas. Refugee allocation also has a large impact on the anti-immigration parties’ choice of where to stand for municipal election, and we provide some evidence that it influences voter turnout.

/pdf/refugee-migration-and-electoral-outcomes-31oevx8cw3.pdf

Refugee Migration and Electoral Outcomes

In this paper we analyse the incomes of self-employed in Denmark and Sweden and ask if there exist income differences between natives and immigrants. The OLS-estimates show that non-western immigrants have significantly lower annual incomes than their native counterparts. We then estimate quantile regressions and find that the difference between natives and non-Western immigrants is significantly smaller among those with high incomes (90th percentile) compared to those with low incomes (10th percentile). One explanation for this result may be that immigrants charge a lower price for their goods and services due to discriminatory behaviour among customers. Another explanation may be that non-Western immigrants have a lower reservation wage and hence accept to stay in business receiving a lower profit.

The low incomes of self-employed immigrants in Denmark and Sweden

Antalet ensamkommande barn som soker i asyl i Sverige ar storre an det antal som soker asyl i nagot annat EU-land. Det ar en viktig fraga hur det gar for dem att etablera sig i Sverige. Vi redovisar vad som gar att finna vad galler hur det gar inom utbildning och sysselsattning for de ensamkommande flyktingbarn som folkbokforts mellan 2003 och 2012. Ett resultat ar att ensamkommande flyktingbarn nagot oftare ar sysselsatta an andra flyktingbarn fran samma lander givet olika demografiska uppgifter. Ett annat resultat ar att pojkar betydligt oftare an flickor ar sysselsatta.

/pdf/hur-har-de-ensamkommande-barnen-det-i-sverige-4ylnxysttp.pdf

Hur har de ensamkommande barnen det i Sverige

We recently finished a position paper on Swedish working life research for the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (1). An obvious question was the definition of "working life research". Searching the literature, we found a plethora of terms used to describe this area and lack of a generally accepted definition. It also became clear that the primary goals of such research varied widely between international organizations and governments. In this paper, our aim is to discuss the definition and goals of working life research.

Perspectives of working life research.

/pdf/immigration-and-the-welfare-state-2ioqska87q.pdf

Immigration and the Welfare State

Sweden’s immigration policy has changed drastically on several occasions over time. Immigration policy was very liberal from the 1860s until WW1, with no requirements regarding passports, visas or work permits, although international migration mainly involved emigration during this period in the context of Sweden, with wages lower than in neighboring countries. The policy changed in 1914 after the start of WW1, and the controls became gradually more stringent during the war, with a work permit compulsory and difficult to attain for those who wanted to move to Sweden for work. While the immigration regulation remained after the war, the requirements for those coming from other Nordic countries were made slightly less stringent. The work permit requirement in the interwar-period was motivated by the high unemployment rate, based upon the notion that jobs should be reserved for natives.

Eskil Wadensjö

Papers

The low incomes of self-employed immigrants in Denmark and Sweden

Hur har de ensamkommande barnen det i Sverige

Perspectives of working life research.

Immigration and the Welfare State

Post-enlargement Migration and Adjustment in a Receiving Country: The Case of Sweden