Institute for the Study of Labor

About: Institute for the Study of Labor is a nonprofit organization based out in Bonn, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Wage & Unemployment. The organization has 2039 authors who have published 13475 publications receiving 439376 citations.

Are the Elderly a Threat to Educational Expenditures

Abstract: Empirical research has given cause to fear that the demographic ageing in industrialized countries is likely to exert a negative impact on educational spending. These papers have linked the share of the elderly with the per capita or per pupil spending on education at the local, state-wide or national level, trying to control for other exogenous effects. Although this line of research shows in many cases a negative correlation between the shares of elderly people and educational expenditures, a causal link is difficult to prove. This paper uses a unique and representative survey of Swiss voters of all age groups. The analysis shows that elderly people present a clear tendency to be less willing to spend money on education. They would rather prefer to spend public resources on health and social security than on education. Furthermore the paper shows that much of the negative correlation between the shares of elderly and educational spending is the result of the elderly being politically more conservative and in general less inclined to pay for expenditures in the public sector as a whole.

Employment and Wage Assimilation of Male First Generation Immigrants in Denmark

Abstract: Labour market assimilation of Danish first generation male immigrants is analysed based on two panel data sets covering the population of immigrants and 10% of the Danish population during 1984-1995. Wages and employment probabilities are estimated jointly in a random effects model which corrects for unobserved cohort and individual effects and panel selectivity due to missing wage information. The results show that immigrants assimilate partially to Danes, but the assimilation process differs between refugees and non-refugees.

Taste for Competition and the Gender Gap Among Young Business Professionals

Abstract: We study whether and why taste for competition (as measured by Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007) affects MBA salaries and whether this effect can explain the wage gender gap. At graduation, MBAs with higher taste for competition earn $15K (9.3%) more. Over time this effect is mitigated by overconfidence. Seven years after graduation, competitive MBAs with a low degree of overconfidence earn 26% more, while those who are highly overconfident earn 19% less. Taste for competition explains 10% of the gender gap at graduation and none seven years later.

Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: The Case of University Students in England and Wales

Abstract: This paper examines the determinants of gender differences in educational attainment using data for all university graduates. We find that, although women students perform better on average than their male counterparts, they are significantly less likely to obtain a first class degree. There is no evidence that this is because of differences in the types of subject male and female students study or in the institutions they attend, nor does it reflect differences in personal attributes, such as academic ability. Rather, it is differences in the way these factors affect academic achievement that give rise to gender differences in performance.

Herd Effects or Migration Networks? The Location Choice of Mexican Immigrants in the U.S.

Abstract: This Paper addresses the question: why and where do immigrants cluster? We examine the relative importance and interaction of two alternative explanations of immigrant clustering: (1) network externalities and (2) herd behavior. We advance the theory by presenting a framework encompassing both network and herd effects, and by delineating various types of network and herd effects in our empirical work. In order to distinguish between herd and network externalities, we use the Mexican Migration Project data. Our empirical results show that both network externalities and herds have significant effects on the migrant's decision of where to migrate. Moreover, the significance and size of the effects vary according to the legal status of the migrant and whether the migrant is a 'new' or a 'repeat' migrant. The network-externality effect has an inverse U shape, not simply a linear positive effect as often presented in the literature. Neglecting herds and/or networks, or the inverse U shape of network effects leads to faulty conclusions about migrant behavior.