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.

Pensions as Severance Pay

Abstract: Earlier claims that pensions serve as severance pay are corroborated by a new data set drawn from the 1980 Banker's Trust corporate pension plan study. A model is developed that shows how pension values which vary with the age of retirement make both workers and firms better off by moving the equilibrium in the direction of a perfect-information, first-best optimum. This requires that pension values decline with the age of retirement beyond a certain point. Evidence from the 1975 and 1980 data sets supports this claim. To the extent that any significant change has occurred between 1975 and 1980, most important is that the ratio of early retirement pension value to normal retirement pension value has increased.

Understanding Barter in Russia

Abstract: This paper analyses the incidence and growth of non-monetary transactions - barter, veksels, debt offsets, tax offsets and other monetary surrogates - in Russia. The empirical backbone of the paper is a survey of 350 - predominantly industrial - firms, carried out in October and November 1998. The paper provides an analytical framework for understanding both firm-level incentives for using barter and the reasons for its phenomenal growth since 1993. Having examined some of the costs of Russia's non-monetary economy, the paper discusses a number of policy options.

Recent advances in the economics of individual subjective well-being

Abstract: Over the last decades, empirical research on subjective well-being in the social sciences has provided a major new stimulation of the discourse on individual happiness. Recently this research has also been linked to economics where reported subjective well-being is often taken as a proxy measure for individual welfare. In our review, we intend to provide an evaluation of where the economic research on happiness stands and of three directions it might develop. First, it offers new ways for testing the basic assumptions of the economic approach and for going about a new understanding of utility. Second, it provides a new possibility for the complementary testing of theories across fields in economics. Third, we inquire how the insights gained from the study of individual happiness in economics affect public policy.

Price and wage setting in an integrating Europe : firm level evidence.

Abstract: Europe has witnessed the last decade an accelerated process of economic integration Trade barriers were removed, the euro was introduced and ten new member states entered the European Union Economic integration is likely to have an impact on both labor and product markets Unlike most other papers, that focus on product and labor markets separately, we look at the link between globalization and product and labor market imperfections simultaneously To this end, we rely on a rich panel of manufacturing firms in Belgium, a small open economy We find that union bargaining power is higher in sectors characterized by high price cost margins Moreover, ignoring imperfections on the labor market, leads to an underestimation of product market power Concerning the influence of globalization, our main findings are that both price cost margins and union bargaining power are typically lower in sectors that are subject higher international competition This result is especially true for competition from low wage countries

Total work, gender and social norms

Abstract: Using time-diary data from 25 countries, we demonstrate that there is a negative relationship between real GDP per capita and the female-male difference in total work time per day -- the sum of work for pay and work at home. In rich northern countries on four continents, including the United States, there is no difference -- men and women do the same amount of total work. This latter fact has been presented before by several sociologists for a few rich countries; but our survey results show that labor economists, macroeconomists, the general public and sociologists are unaware of it and instead believe that women perform more total work. The facts do not arise from gender differences in the price of time (as measured by market wages), as women's total work is further below men's where their relative wages are lower. Additional tests using U.S. and German data show that they do not arise from differences in marital bargaining, as gender equality is not associated with marital status; nor do they stem from family norms, since most of the variance in the gender total work difference is due to within-couple differences. We offer a theory of social norms to explain the facts. The social-norm explanation is better able to account for within-education group and within-region gender differences in total work being smaller than inter-group differences. It is consistent with evidence using the World Values Surveys that female total work is relatively greater than men's where both men and women believe that scarce jobs should be offered to men first.