Questions tagged [labor-economics]
Labor economics is the branch of microeconomics that studies labor markets and its peculiarities. Labor economists usually study topics such as career choice, returns to schooling, determinants of labor productivity, wages, gender and racial gaps.
434
questions
1
vote
1
answer
57
views
Why Is Having a Strong Manufacturing Base Important to a Country's Economy?
I was living in Pittsburgh in my teens and twenties during the collapse of the steel industry and remember how profoundly it impacted Pittsburgh. Some say that due to the large percentage of the ...
- 46
0
votes
1
answer
27
views
For my bachelors, would it make sense to use C+G (as Consumption + Government Expenditure) as an indicator for the prosperity of the economy?
Because G is also really just consumed by the people, wouldn´t it make sense to measure all the things that people consume to measure the prosperity of an economy?
At the end of the day, people in an ...
- 54.4k
0
votes
1
answer
21
views
Stable Outcomes and Matching Models for the Labor Market
I am reading a paper that discusses mathcing of workers to firms in the labor market (see the excerpt below). Here an outcome $(\mu,\pi,w)$ consists of a matching function pairing workers to firms, a ...
CommunityBot
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
34
views
Modelling the optimal mix of labour
I am trying to model the profit maximization decision of a firm that uses two types of labor, workers A and workers B. I started by drawing the marginal product and marginal cost curves (lines, for ...
- 1
8
votes
1
answer
133
views
Lab experiments of labour markets
I have been searching for papers that conduct lab experiments simulating a labour market, that means for a minimum there are both participants taking the role of firms, and participants taking the ...
CommunityBot
- 1
0
votes
1
answer
195
views
What value does a worker whose job could be automated provide to society?
Has anyone calculated the global benefit of non-workers on government assistance and found their contribution to be less than the assistance they were provided? I'm looking for scientific studies ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
92
views
extensive vs intensive labor in US in recent decades
Total Hours worked is a mix of extensive (to work or not, the usual standard working week) and intensive (how many hours to work).
I'm interested in how this balance of extensive and intensive ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
54
views
Why is the 'marginal productivity of a factor' of any relevance in the Cobb-Douglas production function?
I don't understand its importance in this production function.
I know that the productivity parameter is A in the function:
F(K;L)=AK^α L^(1-α)
So what could it be?
Thank you!
CommunityBot
- 1
3
votes
2
answers
185
views
Strikes: why so often?
It is clear that the possibility to go on strike is an effective power asset for employees. However, it is also clear that every strike that is carried out is a lose-lose: the employer loses money ...
- 33.3k
0
votes
0
answers
15
views
Why do shareholders allow CEOs and other executives to have extraordinarily high salaries compared to regular managers and non-managerial employees?
The wage gap between CEOs and employees varies from country to country. A 2021 article from CNBC discussed how CEOs in the US on average earned 351 times more than the average US employee. The ...
0
votes
2
answers
60
views
Does labor mobility create a certain type of market failure?
Oxford professor Ewart Keep writes in a paper titled Market Failure in Skills (p. 3) that
For firms there is the
problem of investment in
staff who may leave taking
their skills with them.
...
- 109
3
votes
3
answers
180
views
Does the government have a role to play in certifying people's abilities for the labor market?
The nature of information often makes it look like a public good. Is this the case for certification of peoples abilities? Is there a role the government could play in certifying people's abilities? ...
- 587
2
votes
1
answer
41
views
Taxation and Labour Supply in the short-term
Can someone help me to explain this graph and who has tax incidence more?? In which, the vertical axis means wage per hour and the horizontal axis means the number of labor hours supplied per year. ...
CommunityBot
- 1
2
votes
2
answers
49
views
labor leisure model, quasilinear preferences
There is a quasilinear utility function $u= (1-t)wl - p(l)$, where $l$ is labor supply. I don't quite understand what happens, if the budget changes (due to $w$ or $t$) since it is quasilinear. Does ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
39
views
Looking for any research/theory on "shadow work"
Not in the Jungian sense, but rather the hidden costs of distributed labor. For example, let's say a large company licenses expense management software for employees to scan and record their own ...
- 915
3
votes
1
answer
182
views
How to test if the effect of one regressor entirely comes from other regressors?
I have a regression model that includes IQ test scores as the dependent variable; my own education, my father's education and my mother's education as independent variables. Suppose I want to know ...
CommunityBot
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
37
views
Finding data on high paying jobs
This is a pretty beginner question. My background is in pure mathematics, and I know statistics and R, but no economics.
It might be a bit much tagging this as a data request question since I'm trying ...
CommunityBot
- 1
0
votes
1
answer
19
views
How do labor literature measure productivity of the worker?
When a firm hires a worker, they have incomplete information on the workers' productivity. Firm's goal is to hire the most productive workers, and they estimate productivity of the workers given the ...
- 54.4k
3
votes
0
answers
33
views
Is there a labor vs leisure model with work experience?
I find the labor-leisure model with utility functions interesting, but I find it lacks the factor of work experience, which is very important in the real life labor market.
This is a reason people why ...
- 2,196
5
votes
2
answers
152
views
Why is sugar cane still harvested manually in Brazil?
I read that up to 70% of Brazil's sugar cane in the Sao Paulo area is still harvested manually. Some workers are paid $1.50 per tonne. Why is it still being cut manually? Some possibilities:
(1) farm ...
- 11
4
votes
1
answer
565
views
What is meant by "marginal disutility of labor" in Keynes General Theory
Sorry for the newby question, started reading Keynes general theory (1936) and am confused by this paragraph in Chapter 2:
The traditional theory maintains, in short, that the wage bargains between ...
- 54.4k
2
votes
2
answers
53
views
Minimum wages in France
Does somebody know where I can find historical data on minimum wages in France for different worker groups?
- 3,144
-1
votes
1
answer
91
views
How Does Economics Address Society's Major Existential Threats?
Given our societal emphasis on the pace of 'progress', often overlooking its direction, we face a multitude of existential challenges [1]. These range from the looming threat of nuclear warfare and ...
CommunityBot
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
28
views
wage dynamic in search and matching model
I would like to know if we can track agents' behavior in the model with search and matching framework. Then we can know the wage dynamic of the agents. Thank you.
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
17
views
The correct classification of system costs: maintenance, excess consumption, necessary consumption, development?
Yesterday I saw in one of the videos on YouTube a classification of the expenses of the system consisting of:
maintaining the system
necessary consumption
excess consumption
development
Please tell ...
- 1
1
vote
2
answers
190
views
Did online learning affect the returns to education?
I am interested to know if online learning during the pandemic affected the returns to university education. Anecdotally, education quality suffered from online learning, I wonder if this harmed ...
- 121
1
vote
1
answer
81
views
Income and Substition Effect: Assumptions: Normality vs. Inferiority of Goods
A question concerning the income and substitution effect when the wage changes
Let us assume that the substitution effect leads to more less leisure as the relative price of leasure increases, and ...
CommunityBot
- 1
3
votes
1
answer
361
views
How is potential experience usually measured in the Mincer equation?
Wikipedia specifies the Mincer equation like this:
$$\ln w = \ln w_0 + \rho s + \beta_1 x + \beta_2 x^2$$
and states that $w$ is wage, $s$ is years of schooling and $x$ is potential experience.
...
CommunityBot
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
50
views
Are There Studies Estimating the Prevalence of 'Bullshit Jobs' Across Countries?
Have there been any studies conducted to estimate the proportion of 'Bullshit Jobs,' as defined by David Graeber, across different countries? Are there any known efforts to visualize this data in a ...
- 28.6k
1
vote
0
answers
17
views
Where's the current research at the intersection of labor market and macroeconomics?
I am into monetary economics and DSGE modeling, so I'm not very up-to-date when it comes to research on labor markets. Can anyone give me an overview of the current research trends on labor markets (...
- 121
3
votes
2
answers
183
views
Utility maximization for a household consisting of a woman and a man, with gender discrimination
Consider a household consisting of a woman and a man, with preferences over leisure and consumption given by:
$U(\overrightarrow{c},\overrightarrow{l}) = \ln{c} + \ln{l^F} + \ln{l^M}$
where $\...
- 2,196
1
vote
2
answers
132
views
Derivation of Labor Function
I want to know if I'm taking the right steps to derive a labor equation from a utility function. Suppose $U(x,L)=x^{0.5}+l^{0.5}$ where $L$ is labor, $x$ is our one good of interest, and $l$ is ...
- 8,208
0
votes
0
answers
21
views
How to interpret employee turnover rates?
Whenever I look at employee turnover statistics, I encounter values of 30%, 40%, 50% per year. Of course, the annual turnover rate varies in different industries, but it is never below some 12%. The ...
- 161
3
votes
0
answers
36
views
Dispersion of housing prices in Hsieh And Moretti (2018)
I have been reading 'Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation', by Moretti and Hsieh, AEJ Macro 2018, https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388
In their equation (7), they derive a ...
- 31
3
votes
1
answer
65
views
Universal Basic Income (UBI) policy proposals optimal hours worked and consumption
can someone please help me check my work for this question? I want to make sure I did it correctly.
Question:
Work:
- 6,540
1
vote
0
answers
18
views
Is the porportion of manual labor increasing?
Broadly speaking, manual labor is producing a physical good or service. A plumber cannot write an algorithm to fix clogged pipes and sell it to desperate homeowners. Manual labor varies widely in ...
- 109
4
votes
1
answer
78
views
Are people less likely to apply to jobs in which they will be a minority?
Hypothesis: People are less likely to apply for a job in which they will be under-represented relative to the wider population. More technically, the distribution of job applicants is the same as, or ...
- 6,885
2
votes
0
answers
16
views
How to derive (mathematically and intuitively) the relationship between expected price level and natural rate of employment?
We know that
$ W = \mathbb{E}(P)f(u, z) $
, so that nominal wage $ W / P = (\mathbb{E}(P) / P)f(u, z) $
From Blanchard.
Furthermore,
$ W / P = 1/(1+m) $ (where m is defined as the markup on wages to ...
- 69
0
votes
0
answers
17
views
Can you explain the poisiton of gk and c? How can c be higher than the w? c=consumption/worker,gk=growth of capital stock,x =output/worker, v=profit
Why are gk and c located where they are on this production schedule graph? How can consumption per worker be higher than the wage rate?
Can you explain the position of c and gk in this production ...
- 117
-1
votes
1
answer
79
views
Do freeloaders have a detrimental impact on an economic system?
As far as I can tell, proponents of different systems of governance and taxation agree that freeloading is bad, even if they disagree on where the lines are (or ought to be) drawn. I'm not sure I ...
- 33.3k
3
votes
0
answers
70
views
How can there be a "lack" of workers? The Vanishing American Worker
I don't understand the current economic situation. The savings rate is at a long-time low. Something like 30% of Americans failed to pay mortgage or rent in June, inflation is signficantly increasing ...
- 1,728
1
vote
2
answers
358
views
What should I gain out of second year classes?
I'm in my second year. Most of my classes are just introduction to a bunch of papers and models. I'm not sure what I should be gaining out of these papers. What are the skills I should be picking up?
...
- 28.6k
4
votes
1
answer
99
views
Burdett and Mortensen (1998), Equation (22), Integral by parts question
Suppose $F(x)$ and $H(x)$ are both cumulative prob dist functions on the support of $[b_0,b_1]$ and we know followings:
$$u(x|F)=\int_{b_0}^{x}\frac{m}{1+k[1-F(b)]} dH(b)$$
and from this
$$[1+k(1-...
- 1
4
votes
1
answer
307
views
What is being meant by "cohort-specific fixed effect for each state of birth" in Card&Krueger(1992)? What does the following equation mean?
I am referring to this paper on school quality and returns to schooling. The econometric specification has been described by eqn (1) on page 4.
The authors have taken "cohort specific fixed ...
CommunityBot
- 1
7
votes
5
answers
1k
views
Has the natural rate of unemployment decreased with modern travel and the Internet?
The natural rate of unemployment is a combination of structural unemployment and frictional unemployment.
Structural unemployment is caused by a surplus of labor at a given wage in a given area.
...
- 311
-1
votes
1
answer
34
views
Why does the government spending increase by the "same" amount as the demand?
I know that governments can increase demand by increasing employment, transfer payments, and capital for the private sector.
Why does government spending increase by the ""same"" ...
- 3,312
0
votes
2
answers
77
views
Why is it Y=F(K,L), and not Y=F(K,L, Economic profit)?
Initially, we have the distribution of income:
Y = MPLxL + MPLxK.
But, when the economic profit = 0, we have constant returns to scale. And since, input=output, if I am not mistaken, there is just ...
- 3,312
0
votes
1
answer
142
views
In the Cobb-Douglas production function, why do K and L have these effects?
Why does an increase in K lead to an increase of MPL, and to a decrease of MPK?
Likewise, why does an increase in L lead to a decrease of MPL, and to an increase of MPK?
Thank you.
- 171
2
votes
1
answer
139
views
Why doesn't the consumption function include savings?
Why doesn't the consumption function C=C(Y-T) include transfer payments?
If we assume that C=MPC(Y-T), and that the MPC assumes that one part of the increase of income goes to savings. But what about ...
- 54.4k
0
votes
1
answer
29
views
Why is a donation of cash preferred over an equivalent donation of labor?
Suppose you went down to your local animal shelter or homeless shelter and asked:
I would be happy to volunteer 10 hours every weekend. I will perform general-purpose labor, meaning I will do any ...
- 54.4k