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.

Movilidad Ocupacional de los Inmigrantes en Una Economía de Bajas Cualificaciones: El Caso de España (Occupational Mobility of Immigrants in a Low Skilled Economy: The Spanish Case)

Abstract: Esta investigacion analiza la movilidad ocupacional de los inmigrantes entre sus paises de origen y Espana, asi como sus principales determinantes. La misma se basa en los microdatos de la Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes y el uso de una escala de estatus ocupacional de caracter internacional (ISEI). La evidencia muestra que, por lo general, los inmigrantes sufren una fuerte degradacion ocupacional en Espana con respecto a sus paises de origen. Esta se explica en buena medida por la intensa degradacion que suelen experimentar al incorporarse al mercado de trabajo espanol, puesto que la mejora ocupacional asociada a su estancia en nuestro pais es limitada. La degradacion ocupacional al llegar es mayor para las mujeres, los inmigrantes de mayor nivel educativo y los procedentes de paises en desarrollo. La recuperacion posterior confirma la hipotesis de una movilidad ocupacional en forma de U profunda para los dos ultimos colectivos, mientras que las mujeres padecen mayores dificultades para progresar ocupacionalmente. Residir en Espana, convalidar estudios extranjeros, aprender castellano y regularizar la situacion documental mejoran el estatus ocupacional, pero, excepto en el ultimo caso, de forma lenta. Acceder al primer empleo en Espana a traves de redes informales tiene un efecto negativo sobre el logro ocupacional. Por ultimo, mayor tiempo buscando empleo y una busqueda de trabajo que incluya la movilidad geografica se traducen en una mejora ocupacional mayor, mientras que el desempleo tiene un efecto negativo.We analyze the occupational mobility of immigrants between their countries of origin and Spain and try to identify its determinants. With this aim we use microdata from the Spanish National Survey of Immigrants and transform the data using an international occupational status scale (ISEI). The obtained results show that, in general, immigrants experience a strong occupational downgrading in Spain with respect to their countries of origin. This downgrading is explained by the lost they experience when they enter the Spanish labour market but also to the limited upgrading they obtain during their stay in Spain. This downgrading is stronger for women, better educated immigrants and, also, those coming from developed countries. The results also confirm the hypothesis of a U-shaped occupational mobility, that is deeper for the two mentioned groups. Years of residence in Spain, the convalidation of studies, learning Spanish or acquiring residence and work permits clearly improve the occupational status of immigrants, but in a very slow manner. The access to the first occupation in Spain through informal networks also has a very negative effect on occupational progress. Last, having the choice of spending more time looking for the first job and a job search considering geographical mobility also improve the possibilities of occupational upgrading, while unemployment spells clearly have a negative effect.

Political Culture and Discrimination in Contests

Abstract: Many economic and political decisions are the outcome of strategic contests for a given prize. The nature of such contests can be determined by a designer who is driven by political considerations with a specific political culture. The main objective of this study is to analyze the effect of political culture and of valuation asymmetry on discrimination between the contestants. The weights assigned to the public well-being and the contestants' efforts represent the political culture while discrimination is an endogenous variable that characterizes the mechanism allocating the prize. We consider situations under which the optimal bias of the designer is in favor of the contestant with the larger or smaller prize valuation and examine the effect of changes in the political culture and in valuation asymmetry on the designer's preferred discrimination between the contestants. Focusing on the two most widely studied types of contest success functions (deterministic all-pay-auctions and logit CSFs), we show that an all-pay auction is always the preferred CSF from the point of view of the contest designer. This result provides a new political-economic micro foundation to some of the most commonly used models in the contest literature.

Foreign Direct Investment, Agglomerations and Demonstration Effects: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract: Many previous studies have shown that the localisation of firms can be an important factor in attracting new foreign direct investment into a host country. What has been missing in this literature thus far, however, is an investigation into the reasons why industry clusters attract firms. We distinguish between 'efficiency agglomerations' as firms locating close to each other because they can increase their efficiency by doing so, and 'demonstration effects', whereby existing firms send signals to new investors as to the reliability of the host country and newly entering firms follow previous firms. In this Paper we try to disentangle these two effects, by examining the location of US and UK firms in Ireland. We calculate proxies for 'efficiency agglomerations' and 'demonstration effects' and include these proxies in an empirical model of the location decision of firms. For US firms, we find that both efficiency agglomeration and demonstration effects are important determinants of entry. For UK firms, however, the evidence is not as clear-cut.

The Microeconometric Estimation of Treatment Effects - an Overview

Abstract: The need to evaluate the performance of active labour market policies is not questioned any longer. Even though OECD countries spend significant shares of national resources on these measures, unemployment rates remain high or even increase. We focus on microeconometric evaluation which has to solve the fundamental evaluation problem and overcome the possible occurrence of selection bias. When using non-experimental data, different evaluation approaches can be thought of. The aim of this paper is to review the most relevant estimators, discuss their identifying assumptions and their (dis-)advantages. Thereby we will present estimators based on some form of exogeneity (selection on observables) as well as estimators where selection might also occur on unobservable characteristics. Since the possible occurrence of effect heterogeneity has become a major topic in evaluation research in recent years, we will also assess the ability of each estimator to deal with it. Additionally, we will also discuss some recent extensions of the static evaluation framework to allow for dynamic treatment evaluation.

Does Education Improve Citizenship? Evidence from the U.S. And the U.K

Abstract: Many economists and educators of diverse political beliefs favor public support for education on the premise that a more educated electorate enhances the quality of democracy. While some earlier studies document an association between schooling and citizenship, little attempt has been made to address the possibility that unobservable characteristics of citizens underlie this relationship. This paper explores the effect of extra schooling induced through compulsory schooling laws on the likelihood of becoming politically involved in the US and the UK. We find that educational attainment is related to several measures of political interest and involvement in both countries. For voter turnout, we find a strong and robust relationship between education and voting for the US, but not for the UK. Using the information on validated voting, we find that misreporting of voter status can not explain our estimates. Our results suggest that the observed drop in voter turnout in the US from 1964 to 2000 would have been 10.4 to 12.3 percentage points greater if high school attainment had stayed at 1964 rates, holding all else constant. However, when we condition on registration, our US results approach the UK findings. This may indicate that registration rules present a barrier to low-educated citizens' participation.