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.
342
questions
3
votes
2answers
98 views
Does migration exacerbate (albeit delay) the problem of aging, economically-inactive populations in Western societies?
As a layman, I've always understood that there is a general consensus amongst economists that "immigration is economically beneficial" to rich Western countries (like Britain) who have aging ...
3
votes
0answers
39 views
Asymmetric Nash Bargaining
The Nash bargaining solution selects the unique solution to the maximization problem $\max_{s_1, s_2 } (s_1 - d_1) (s_2 - d_2)$ such that the solution satisfy the following axioms :
Invariance
...
1
vote
1answer
27 views
How exactly does removing labor market rigidities reduce structural unemployment and increase potential output in an economy?
Here I want to focus primarily on the potential benefits of labor market reforms such as a reduction in job security and trade union power and not their controversies. I wish to learn a few thoroughly ...
0
votes
1answer
580 views
Maximization problem FOC and Euler equation
Can someone please help me with the Lagragian and the derivation of the following objective function ? Beneath I provide the objective function, the constraint and the Euler equation that results from ...
-3
votes
1answer
38 views
Looking for help with Solow Model Question [closed]
The question is this:
Suppose there is a production function of $Q=F(K, L)=\sqrt{K}\sqrt{L}$. Suppose that MPC=0.8 and the labor force is growing at a rate of 0.05 per year. Also labor force ...
3
votes
1answer
86 views
Search and matching model: effect of hiring cost on wage curve
What effect does the hiring cost have on the wage bargaining outcome (wage curve)?
In Cahuc, Carcillo, and Zylberberg: Labor Economics, they derive the following wage curve:
$$w = z + (y-z) \frac{\...
1
vote
0answers
10 views
Have any economics papers used unified cure models?
Does anyone know if there are unified cure models (aka split population models) in time-until-employment studies that combine the mixture cure approach with the promotion time approach as described in ...
1
vote
1answer
45 views
DMP Search Model - Terminology
In the most basic Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) model we have the variable $V$ which represents the present discounted value of expected profits from a vacant job. The corresponding Bellman ...
1
vote
1answer
27 views
How to account income from the informal sector?
Some context here.
I'm from India and over here around 80% of the public work in the informal unaccounted sector.
Yesterday, the main opposition party said that if they're elected, they'd compensate ...
3
votes
1answer
97 views
Does brain drain really affect a nation's growth trajectory?
Take India as an example. India has been losing most of its bright minds to the west. India also ranks low in development. I would like to get a definitive answer to this cause-effect type question.
...
3
votes
3answers
449 views
Cobb-Douglas production function, given $w$ get $r$ regardless of input levels. Why?
There is a market economy with technology given by:
$$Y = K^\alpha L^{1-\alpha} \tag{1}$$
Firms behave competitively and input prices are:
$$r = \alpha K^{\alpha-1}L^{1-\alpha} = \alpha(\frac{L}{K})...
1
vote
1answer
70 views
Factor-augmenting technologies (Acemoglu and Restrepo 2018c)
In that paper, they consider the following production function:
$Y = F(A_KK,A_LL)$.
Where:
K denotes capital, L is labor, and $A_K$ and $A_L$ denote capital-augmenting
and labor-augmenting ...
1
vote
0answers
20 views
How is labor demand measured?
For instance, in the introduction of this paper (first paragraph), talking about Figure 1, they say that labor demand is measured as the real wage bill normalized by population.
Is it common to ...
-1
votes
1answer
105 views
What is the relation between the trade deficit and the outsourcing of jobs?
To make it easier, let's imagine USA exports nothing and imports nothing (or the exports have the same value with the imports = 0 trade deficit = the country exports the same amount of jobs as it is ...
0
votes
1answer
79 views
Elasticity of substitution between leisure in two periods
This is a basic question, but I am new to macro models. The question is from Romer's text.
Assume a household only has one member and has no initial wealth, and the household lives for two periods. ...
0
votes
1answer
38 views
Is there any reliable data on what % of the UK population currently earn less than £17,300 annually?
According to the Living Wage Foundation the "real living wage" in the UK is £9 an hour
Which assuming a 37 hour week & rounding to the nearest whole GBP amounts to £17,375
Formula used ((9*37)/...
3
votes
3answers
166 views
Reference request: Gender wage gap / Minority wage gap
Disclaimer: I am neither a social scientist nor an economist. I hope the ESE is the right place to ask this question.
Disclaimer 2: I do not intend to spark an ideologically driven discussion here. ...
2
votes
0answers
80 views
What predictions do economic models make for an economy where 50% of the population earn less than the cost of living? [closed]
These are the admittedly somewhat disparate pieces of information gleaned from separate sources that the question arose from.
According to The living wage foundation the real cost of living in the UK ...
2
votes
1answer
69 views
reference request: models of how racism or sexism affects decision making
My background is more in statistics and applied math, so I am not familiar with the breadth of decision making models from economics. However, I am working on a project that involves decision making ...
1
vote
0answers
24 views
Best financial model to proportionally distribute the company's income to all employees?
I'm planning to start a project of something "innovative". And among some of the parts of the project that I'm thinking about, it's in the term of how money (profits) should be distributed.
The truth ...
0
votes
1answer
35 views
Macroeconomic models with labor-replacing capital?
I am reading article http://public.gettysburg.edu/~tlin/research/robots-main.pdf "A New Keynesian Model with Robots: Implications for Business Cycles and Monetary Policy" and I wonder how actual this ...
1
vote
3answers
58 views
Why do stricter emission limits cost jobs?
I live in Germany and as most people know the car industry is very important in our country. Currently, there is a discussion about stricter emission limits for cars in the European Union. The car ...
1
vote
1answer
62 views
Hours worked increases with wage
So I have been given a utility function = $ 48 R + Ry -R^2$ where $R$ represents leisure hours and $y$ represents labour income. $y=rl$, $r$ is wage rate and $l$ is labour hours. Find hours worked ...
2
votes
0answers
48 views
How can the number of hairdressers in the UK be up 50% since 2010?
In this recent article, The Economist argues that one of the reasons behind the anaemic recent wage growth in Britain is that the recent job growth has been concentrated in lower-productivity jobs and ...
4
votes
2answers
131 views
How do Marxists account for fiat money?
LTV predicts that fiat currency, which requires zero labor to produce, should have zero value. Empirically, fiat currency does not have zero value. How do Marxists account for this. The to responses I ...
4
votes
2answers
263 views
Empirical explanation on divergence between productivity and wages since the 70s
There is a well know graph, that shows a tight link between productivity and wages, until the 70s, and a break of the link since:
There's a lot of possible explanations for this, I keep hearing more ...
1
vote
2answers
55 views
Does it make economic sense for only some universities in a certain area to pay their sports scholars?
Apparently
‘Athletic scholarships are common in the United States, but in many countries they are rare or non-existent.’
But are there countries where there are some universities that offer sports ...
1
vote
0answers
59 views
labor share and growth
Is there a link between the level of the labor share and growth?
In standard models growth is the rate of (labor augmenting) technical progress and labor force. So does that mean if the labor share ...
2
votes
0answers
47 views
Has any research found that automation will decrease inequality?
A paper by IMF researchers (but not an official position of the IMF) has found that automation will lead to higher inequality under all scenarios they considered.
Even in the scenario where robots ...
2
votes
1answer
163 views
Articles about the economics of non-compete contracts
Today I read in a non-scientific article that Amazon requires some physical workers to sign non-compete agreements. I used to think that the idea behind allowing non-compete clauses in contracts is to ...
1
vote
1answer
19 views
Unemployment Rate Volatility
Is there a statistic that describes the “churn” in the unemployment rate i.e. how many became unemployed compared to how many found work?
I’ve heard of unemployment volatility (https://www....
2
votes
1answer
56 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-...
8
votes
5answers
617 views
Lack of skilled IT workforce, but they do not raise wages
In my country, Portugal, many IT companies are always complaining in media regarding the lack of skilled IT workforce, but they do not raise wages. We have statistical data from the government that ...
3
votes
2answers
50 views
Ad-driven skills gap?
In a Business Insider piece I read that:
Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Center for American Progress, says he is "unusually unsympathetic to the evergreen skills gap critique."
"...
0
votes
1answer
48 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.
...
4
votes
1answer
115 views
Labour Market: simple macroeconomic modeling
I just started reviewing macroeconomic modeling for an upcoming entry exam, and I'm not sure about my answers in this application:
Suppose that the economy of a country has a representative firm ...
1
vote
0answers
23 views
Why doesn't the concept of employee engagement work in practice? [closed]
The concept of employee engagement looks like an overwhelming obvious way of improving business performance, yet since the mid-nineties, and after spending billions on engagement improvement systems, ...
0
votes
1answer
191 views
Expectation augmented Phillips Curve
Currently studying Intro to Macroeconomics, and faced Expectations augmented PC. In my textbook it is not clear how expected inflation affects unemployment. My view so far, is that expected inflation ...
0
votes
1answer
26 views
Does a fall in the wage rate always reduce hours worked?
In the Neoclassical Labor-Leisure model, does a fall in the wage rate always reduce hours worked?
Or does it depend on whether the substitution or income effect dominates?
1
vote
1answer
161 views
Profit maximization question
Two firms are in a market together. They produce a product.
Total revenue from sales is $y=K+L$
K is the amount of capital
L is the amount of labor
These two firms each specialized in supplying ...
2
votes
2answers
166 views
How did we arrive to 40 hr work week?
I am interested in a (reasonably) quantified explanation of why the work week in most of the world is 40 hrs and not for example 20? How did we arrive to the number 40.
Another question is, and here ...
6
votes
2answers
182 views
Instrumental Variable Paper for Minimum Wage
I am trying to write a paper dealing with minimum wages and employment. I understand there is simultaneity bias between these two variables so I must come up with an instrument. Does anyone have any ...
1
vote
2answers
44 views
How to set a minimum wage
How does a country set an optimum minimum wage, i have went through loads of website but none of them give me a satisfied answer. For example, median of a country's income, percentage of GDP and such ...
0
votes
1answer
106 views
How is it economically responsible to destroy proprty which has value? [closed]
precursor: bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/1851
How can it be economically responsible to destroy property which has value?
If a property is destroyed (which is the right of the property holder in most ...
-1
votes
1answer
44 views
Economic impacts of Migration on the Labour Market
Many natives don't prefer foreigners taking their jobs, is it actually a bad thing for the countries economy?
2
votes
1answer
116 views
Real Business Cycle Theory
Which academic paper does this diagram come from? Need to know for citation purposes. Apparently its King and Rebelo (2005) but doesn't seem to be the case.
0
votes
1answer
47 views
Incomes of different professions [duplicate]
Doctors average salary is around \$110,000 a year, whereas NBA stars salary may well cross \$5,000,000 a season.
Why do sports players and television stars make more than doctors and politicians?
-1
votes
1answer
40 views
Productivity issue
Could someone help with the following?
Company produces products of daily demand. It employs workers In number of 12 people (HER) Wages of workers. The costs of hiring and firing are 25 per employee, ...
1
vote
2answers
104 views
Productivity and wages in a task-based model
In a task-based model like the one developed in Acemoglu&Autor 2011 with two types of worker, can the low type have a higher wage with respect to the high type?
More specifically: if the ...
5
votes
1answer
292 views
The Shapiro-Stiglitz model. Why under full employment do unemployed workers find jobs instantly?
Under the Shapiro-Stiglitz model the No-Shirking Condition is:
$$w=\bar{e}+\left( \rho +\frac{\bar{L}}{\bar{L}-NL}b \right)\frac{\bar{e}}{q}$$
Where:
$\bar{e}=$ exerted effort by employees
$\rho=$ ...
