By What Measure? A Comparison of French and U.S. Labor Market Performance with New Indicators of Employment Adequacy

The unemployment rate is conventionally relied upon to measure national employment performance, and has been the main indicator justifying comprehensive labor market reforms, generally in the direction of deregulation and benefit reduction. The starting point of this working paper is that a well-functioning labor market should produce not just enough jobs, but enough “decent” jobs. We compare U.S. and French performance according to three indicators, calculated from each country’s main household survey for 1993-2005 by age, gender and education group. With low wages defined as less than 2/3 of the full-time median and inadequate hours defined as working involuntarily part-time, we calculate: 1) the low-wage share of employment; 2) the underemployed share of the labor force; and 3) the adequately employed share of the working age population. France performs well above the U.S. on all three indicators, particularly for less-educated workers, and the French advantage has grown substantially since the late 1990s. In 2005 the underemployed share of the male labor force with less than a high school degree was 64% in the U.S. and just 23% in France; for the female labor force, these figures were 84% in the U.S. and 41% in France. The adequately employed share of the prime-age (25-54) population with just a high school degree was 64% for U.S. men and 80% for French men; among women, these rates were 39% for the U.S. and 63% for France. These results indicate that accounting for adequate pay and hours of work has large effects on the measurement of labor market performance. The authors conclude by recommending that indicators such as these, and not just the unemployment rate, should have a central place in discussions of national labor market reform.This paper was revised in November 2008.labor supply, labor demand, wages, unemployment,

Neighbourhood Gangs, Crime Spillovers, and Teenage Motherhood

Using an identification strategy based on random assignment of refugees to different municipalities in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find strong evidence that gang crime rates in the neighbourhood at assignment increase the probability of boys to commit crimes before the age of 19, and that gang crime (but not other crime) increases the likelihood of teenage motherhood for girls. Higher levels of gang crime also have detrimental and long-lasting effects, with men experiencing significantly higher levels of inactivity and women experiencing lower earnings and higher levels of welfare benefit claims at ages 19 to 28

Neighbourhood Gangs, Crime Spillovers and Teenage Motherhood

Using an identification strategy based on random assignment of refugees to different municipalities in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find strong evidence that gang crime rates in the neighbourhood at assignment increase the probability of boys to commit crimes before the age of 19, and that gang crime (but not other crime) increases the likelihood of teenage motherhood for girls. Higher levels of gang crime also have detrimental and long-lasting effects, with men experiencing significantly higher levels of inactivity and women experiencing lower earnings and higher levels of welfare benefit claims at ages 19 to 28

By What Measure? A Comparison of French and U.S. Labor Market Performance with New Indicators of Employment Adequacy

This paper compares U.S. and French performance with three indicators of employment performance designed to account of job quality, measured by the incidence of low wages and involuntary part-time employment. From each country’s main household survey for 1993-2005 by age, gender and education group, we calculate: 1) the low-wage share of employment; 2) the underemployed (low-wage, unemployed and involuntary part-time) share of the labor force; and 3) the adequately employed (not low paid and not involuntary part-time) share of the working age population. France shows vastly superior performance on all three indicators, especially for less-educated workers, and the French advantage has grown substantially since the late 1990s. These results indicate that accounting for adequate pay and hours of work has large effects on the assessment of cross-country labor market performance. We recommend that indicators such as these, and not just the unemployment rate, should have a central place in discussions of national labor market reform

Out-migration, Wealth Constraints, and the Quality of Local Amenities

Using a simple theoretical model, we show that the level of migration costs relative to wealth determines the form of the relation between income and migration intentions, which can be monotonically decreasing, increasing, or inverse U-shaped. Using unique individual level data, covering three geographic regions - sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America - we show that migration intentions do indeed respond to individual wealth, and that the patterns differ across the country groups studied in a manner compatible with the predictions of our model. Further, contentment with various dimensions of local amenities plays an important role for migration decisions

Neighbourhood Gangs, Crime Spillovers, and Teenage Motherhood

Using an identification strategy based on random assignment of refugees to different municipalities in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find strong evidence that gang crime rates in the neighbourhood at assignment increase the probability of boys to commit crimes before the age of 19, and that gang crime (but not other crime) increases the likelihood of teenage motherhood for girls. Higher levels of gang crime also have detrimental and long-lasting effects, with men experiencing significantly higher levels of inactivity and women experiencing lower earnings and higher levels of welfare benefit claims at ages 19 to 28

Neighbourhood Gangs, Crime Spillovers, and Teenage Motherhood

Using an identification strategy based on random assignment of refugees to different municipalities in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find strong evidence that gang crime rates in the neighbourhood at assignment increase the probability of boys to commit crimes before the age of 19, and that gang crime (but not other crime) increases the likelihood of teenage motherhood for girls. Higher levels of gang crime also have detrimental and long-lasting effects, with men experiencing significantly higher levels of inactivity and women experiencing lower earnings and higher levels of welfare benefit claims at ages 19 to 28

Job Search with Bayes Priors

Preliminary and incomplete This paper estimates a version of the partial equilibrium structural job search model with the market wage distribution unknown to unemployed workers. Instead, workers have prior beliefs about it that they revise at the arrival of job offers according to Bayes learning rule. Using French data on unemployed people registered at the National Agency for Employment, the paper assesses the unemployed workers’ beliefs about the market wage distribution that they form at the beginning of the unemployment spell, as well as gives estimates of the labour market parameters (the market wage distribution and the offer arrival rate)

Neighbourhood Gangs, Crime Spillovers and Teenage Motherhood

Abstract Using an identification strategy based on random assignment of refugees to different municipalities in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find strong evidence that gang crime rates in the neighbourhood at assignment increase the probability of boys to commit crimes before the age of 19, and that gang crime (but not other crime) increases the likelihood of teenage motherhood for girls. Higher levels of gang crime also have detrimental and long-lasting effects, with men experiencing significantly higher levels of inactivity and women experiencing lower earnings and higher levels of welfare benefit claims at ages 19 to 28.</jats:p