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- Ekberg, John, 1970-
(författare)
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Essays in Empirical Labor Economics
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays in the field of empirical labor economics.The first essay, Nominal Wage Rigidity in the Swedish Labor Market, presents an empirical investigation of the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity on the Swedish labor market. The analysis shows that cuts in nominal basic wages are rare and the skewness of wage change distributions is negatively correlated with the median change, corroborating the existence of downward rigidity. The second essay, Nominal Wage Rigidity and Real Implications for the Swedish Labor Market, is based on a model of proportional downward wage rigidity. Real implications of the estimates are examined, in order to analyze the effects of downward nominal wage rigidity on the NAIRU under different inflation policies. The potential cost of downward rigidity on the long-run unemployment rate is found to be relatively moderate.The third essay, Firm Size -Wage Effect: Fact or Artifact?, investigates the employer size-wage premium. The inclusion of controls for specific occupations and hierarchies has a profound effect on the estimated effect. The control for hierarchies conditional on occupation results in an effect of size on wage that is not necessarily positive.The fourth essay, Sharing Responsibility? Short- and Long-term Effects of Sweden's "Daddy-Month" Reform. In 1995, the Swedish government reformed the parental leave system. The reform constitutes a natural experiment. Comparing two cohorts of newborns, their mothers and fathers over a period of eight years, we look at the number of days mothers and fathers take for parental leave and the number of days for care of sick children. We find that the reform had a strong short-term effect on parental leave by fathers, but that there are no long-run effects on fathers' willingness to increase their part in care for sick children.
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| 2. |
- Johansson, Åsa, 1969-
(författare)
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Essays on macroeconomic fluctuations and nominal wage rigidity
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays on labor market and monetary policy.The essay ”The Interaction Between Labor Market Policy and Monetary Policy: An Analysis of Time Inconsistency Problems” studies the interaction between time inconsistency problems in labor market policy and monetary policy. When both policies are discretionary, there is a positive inflation bias, whereas the bias in labor market programs may be either positive or negative. A commitment of labor market programs to zero increases inflation, as compared to the case when both labor market policy and monetary policy are discretionary. Delegation of labor market policy to a liberal labor market board may improve the discretionary outcome, even if labor market programs crowd out regular employment. A conservative central bank always reduces the social loss.The essay ”Nominal Wage Flexibility, Wage Indexation and Monetary Union” argues that membership in a monetary union (EMU) is likely to imply stronger incentives for nominal wage flexibility in the form of wage indexation or shorter contract length than non-membership. For example, EMU entry may cause a move from a non-indexation to an indexation equilibrium. But more wage flexibility is only an imperfect substitute for an independent monetary policy for each country. It is possible that an increase in wage flexibility is welfare-decreasing, because of the accompanying rise in price variability. If indexation occurs outside the EMU, there may be multiple equilibria.The essay ”Bargaining Structure and Nominal Wage Flexibility” shows in a model with heterogenous agents, wage setting by monopoly unions and monetary policy conducted by a central bank, that the duration of nominal wage contracts is u-shaped in the degree of centralization, with intermediate bargaining systems yielding contracts of shorter duration and thus, more flexible nominal wages than both decentralized and centralized systems. The essay also finds the optimal degree of centralization of wage bargaining to be negatively related to the degree of heterogeneity in the economy. The theoretical predictions of the model are tested on OECD data, and there is empirical support for the main results regarding contract length.The essay on ”Unemployment Benefits, Contract Length and Nominal Wage Flexibility” shows in a union-bargaining model that a decrease in the unemployment benefit level does not only increase equilibrium employment, but also nominal wage flexibility, and thus, reduces employment variations in the case of nominal shocks. Long-term wage contracts lead to higher expected real wages and hence, higher expected unemployment than short-term contracts.Therefore, lower benefits reduce the expected utility gross of contract costs of a union member more with long-term than with short-term contracts and thus create an incentive for shorter contracts. Incentives for employers work in the same direction. Lower taxes associated with lower benefits also tend to make short-term contracts more attractive.
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