1,721,298 research outputs found
The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on the Wage Distribution in a Low-Wage Sector
Full text linkThe National Minimum Wage (NMW) that was introduced in April 1999 is sometimes paraded as evidence of the Blair government s commitment to reversing the rise in inequality that was characteristic of the last 25 years.
Where Minimum Wage Bites Hard: The Introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage to a Low Wage Sector
Full text linkBetween 1993 and April 1999 there was no minimum wage in the UK (except in agriculture). In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 on one heavily affected sector, the residential care homes industry. This sector contains a large number of low paid workers and as such can be viewed as being very vulnerable to minimum wage legislation. We look at the impact on both wages and mployment. Our results suggest that the minimum wage raised the wages of a large number of care homes workers, causing a very big wage compression of the lower end of the wage distribution, thereby strongly reducing wage inequality. There is some evidence of employment and hours reductions after the minimum wage introduction, though the estimated effects are not that sizable given how heavily the wage structure was affected.
The letters page
Full text linkAlan Manning questions the value of researchers conducting debates about economic policy through the pages of newspapers.
Big ideas: The UK's National Minimum Wage
Full text linkAlan Manning describes CEP's role in providing the intellectual context for the policy, advising on its implementation and evaluating its impact.
The Plant Size-Place Effect: Agglomeration and Monopsony in Labour Markets
Full text linkThis paper shows, using data from both the US and the UK, that average plant size is larger in denser markets. However, many popular theories of agglomeration - spillovers, cost advantages and improved match quality - predict that establishments should be smaller in cities. The paper proposes a theory based on monopsony in labour markets that can explain the stylized fact - that firms in all labour markets have some market power but that they have less market power in cities. It also presents evidence that the labour supply curve to individual firms is more elastic in larger markets.Agglomeration, Labour Markets, Monopsony
The Dynamics of the Debate About Gay Rights: Evidence from US Newspapers
Full text linkChanging attitudes are the result of a battle for hearts and minds in which agents for and against change try to persuade others. We know very little about this process. We develop a methodology for measuring the intensity and the contents of media coverage for and against an idea which we apply to attitudes to gay rights. We uncover several stylized facts: First, the diffusion process of both pro- and anti-gay rights language in the US newspapers follow an S-shaped pattern, characteristic of diffusion processes. Anti-gay rights coverage starts its diffusion process later but then catches up. Second, in the year gay marriages are introduced, we observe a dramatic increase in coverage of both pro- and anti-gay rights language; the increase in the latter is larger. The rise in coverage is still present in the 3 years after the institutional change. Third, there is substantial spatial autocorrelation in media coverag
New Approaches to Measuring Management and Firm Organization
Full text linkWe detail the methodology that we have been using to quantify managerial and organizational practices across firms and countries in recent years. This has been used in many pieces of research at the Centre for Economic Performance. We discuss the pros and cons of such survey tools, describing how our methods lie between the traditional surveys used by economists and the case studies more common in other parts of social science.surveys, data, organization, management
Unions and Procedural Justice: An Alternative to the Common Rule
Full text linkCan unions substitute a procedural justice role for their traditional reliance on establishing a¿common rule¿? The decline of ¿bureaucratic¿ models of employee management and the riseof performance pay and performance management conflicts with the common rule asmanagement seek to tie rewards more closely to individual and organisational performance.CEP studies of performance pay in the British public services illustrate the potential for aprocedural justice role to ensure that such pay systems are operated fairly, otherwise they riskdemotivating staff. Evidence is presented to show that employees regard unions as effectivevehicles for procedural justice. In this way, management can achieve better operation of theirincentive schemes, and employees may experience less unfairness and poisoned workrelations.performance-related pay, public services, procedural justice, management
We Can Work It Out: the Impact of Technological Change on the Demand for Low Skill Workers
Full text linkThere is little doubt that technology has had the most profound effect on altering the tasks that wehumans do in our jobs. Economists have long speculated on how technical change affects boththe absolute demand for labour as a whole and the relative demands for different types of labour.In recent years, the idea of skill-biased technical change has become the consensus view aboutthe current impact of technology on labour demand, namely that technical change leads to anincrease in the demand for skilled relative to unskilled labour painting a bleak future for theemployment prospects of less-skilled workers. But, drawing on a recent paper by Autor, Levyand Murnane (2003) about the impact of technology on the demand for different types of skills,this paper argues that the demand in the least-skilled jobs may be growing. But, it is argued thatemployment of the less-skilled is increasingly dependent on physical proximity to the moreskilledand may also be vulnerable in the long-run to further technological developments.Labor Demand and Technology, Inequality
Explaining Job Polarization in Europe: The Roles of Technology, Globalization and Institutions
Full text linkThis paper shows the employment structure of 16 European countries has been polarizing in recent years with the employment shares of managers, professionals and low-paid personal services workers increasing at the expense of the employment shares of middling manufacturing and routine office workers. To explain this job polarization, the paper develops and estimates a simple model to capture the effects of technology, globalization, institutions and product demand effects on the demand for different occupations. The results suggest that the routinization hypothesis of Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) is the single most important factor behind the observed shifts in employment structure. We find some evidence for offshoring to explain job polarization although its impact is much smaller. We also find that shifts in product demand are acting to attenuate the polarizing impact of routinization and that differences or changes in wage-setting institutions play little role in explaining job polarization in Europe.Labor Demand, Technology, Globalization, Institutions
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