Experience-earnings profile and earnings fluctuation: a missing piece in some labour market puzzles?

Drawing on data from 11 successive waves of yearly wage surveys carried out by the Public Employment Service in Hungary from 1992 to 2003, the paper examines, with the use of elementary statistical tools, whether or not earnings fluctuations differ in size across groups of employees with different degrees of schooling and labour market experience, and if they do, whether the observed differentials might be related to differences in the experienceearnings profiles of those groups. Although preliminary, our findings suggest that earnings fluctuations do differ in magnitude across those groups, and that, moreover, their magnitudes vary in positive association with group-specific global and local slopes of the relevant experience-earnings profiles. Assuming that (1) differences in the observed magnitudes of earnings fluctuations are at least partly due to differences in the flexibility/rigidity of the market rates of earnings, and that (2) flexibility/rigidity of those rates is a determinant of unemployment, it seems reasonable to expect that long-discovered systemic differences in unemployment across groups of employees with different degrees of schooling and experience (and, perhaps, across countries as well) might also be related in part to differences in experience-earnings profiles.experience-earnings profile, earnings fluctuation, wage flexibility/rigidity, unemployment

On the Peculiar Relevance of a Fundamental Dilemma of Minimum-Wage Regulation in Post-Socialism - Apropos of an International Investigation

To the extent minimum-wage regulation is effective in fighting against excessive earnings handicaps of those at the bottom of earnings distribution, it may have the side-effect of worsening their employment prospects. A demand-and-supply interpretation of data on the relative employment rate and earnings position of the least educated in the EU27 suggests that the resulting dilemma might be particularly relevant for minimum-wage policies in post-socialist countries.minimum wage, employment, earnings dispersion, demand and supply of labour, wage and employment discrimination

Internal vs. Occupational Labour Market - A Neglected Dimension of Hungary's Post-Socialist Transformation

As a result of the economic transformation that followed the systemic change of the political order, the formerly prominent role of internal labour markets of large enterprises has been largely discontinued in Hungary and taken over by occupational type labour markets. At the same time the Hungarian labour market has become conspicuously closed and inflexible. Looking for the causes of this paradoxical situation the author calls attention to the fact that parallel to the dissolution of the earlier internal labour markets a new institutional infrastructure fitting the logic of operation of occupational type labour markets has as yet failed to evolve.

Capitalist firm vis-a-vis trade union, versus producer cooperative

By way of presenting an ahistorical fictitious story, this paper is ment to illustrate that: - in contrast to conventional wisdom, trade unions, in their symbiosis with capitalist firms, may further rather than impede price-mediated self-regulation in the labour market via their involvement in wagesetting, - whereas producer co-operatives, although they might seem to represent a close collateral of fully unionized capitalist firms, are fundamentally at variance with the logic of market self-regulation, in that they tend to respond to an increase in demand by restraining rather than extending supply, - with the consequence that they cannot even in principle be an alternative to capitalist firms, at least on a mass scale, unless combined with the adoption of some kind of bureaucratic price control.

Capitalist firm vis-a-vis trade union, versus producer cooperative

By way of presenting an ahistorical fictitious story, this paper is ment to illustrate that: - in contrast to conventional wisdom, trade unions, in their symbiosis with capitalist firms, may further rather than impede price-mediated self-regulation in the labour market via their involvement in wagesetting, - whereas producer co-operatives, although they might seem to represent a close collateral of fully unionized capitalist firms, are fundamentally at variance with the logic of market self-regulation, in that they tend to respond to an increase in demand by restraining rather than extending supply, - with the consequence that they cannot even in principle be an alternative to capitalist firms, at least on a mass scale, unless combined with the adoption of some kind of bureaucratic price control

Internal vs. Occupational Labour Market - A Neglected Dimension of Hungary's Post-Socialist Transformation

As a result of the economic transformation that followed the systemic change of the political order, the formerly prominent role of internal labour markets of large enterprises has been largely discontinued in Hungary and taken over by occupational type labour markets. At the same time the Hungarian labour market has become conspicuously closed and inflexible. Looking for the causes of this paradoxical situation the author calls attention to the fact that parallel to the dissolution of the earlier internal labour markets a new institutional infrastructure fitting the logic of operation of occupational type labour markets has as yet failed to evolve

Mean shear flows generated by nonlinear resonant Alfven waves

In the context of resonant absorption, nonlinearity has two different manifestations. The first is the reduction in amplitude of perturbations around the resonant point (wave energy absorption). The second is the generation of mean shear flows outside the dissipative layer surrounding the resonant point. Ruderman et al. [Phys. Plasmas 4, 75 (1997)] studied both these effects at the slow resonance in isotropic plasmas. Clack et al. [Astron. Astrophys. 494}, 317 (2009)] investigated nonlinearity at the Alfven resonance, however, they did not include the generation of mean shear flow. In this present paper, we investigate the mean shear flow, analytically, and study its properties. We find that the flow generated is parallel to the magnetic surfaces and has a characteristic velocity proportional to $\epsilon^{1/2}$, where $\epsilon$ is the dimensionless amplitude of perturbations far away from the resonance. This is, qualitatively, similar to the flow generated at the slow resonance. The jumps in the derivatives of the parallel and perpendicular components of mean shear flow across the dissipative layer are derived. We estimate the generated mean shear flow to be of the order of $10{\rm kms}^{-1}$ in both the solar upper chromosphere and solar corona, however, this value strongly depends on the choice of boundary conditions. It is proposed that the generated mean shear flow can produce a Kelvin--Helmholtz instability at the dissipative layer which can create turbulent motions. This instability would be an additional effect, as a Kelvin--Helmholtz instability may already exist due to the velocity field of the resonant Alfven waves. This flow can also be superimposed onto existing large scale motions in the solar upper atmosphere.Comment: 11 page

The size distribution of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

abridged: We use a complete sample of about 140,000 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study the size distribution of galaxies and its dependence on their luminosity, stellar mass, and morphological type. The large SDSS database provides statistics of unprecedented accuracy. For each type of galaxy, the size distribution at given luminosity (or stellar mass) is well described by a log-normal function, characterized by its median $\bar{R}$ and dispersion $\sigma_{\ln R}$. For late-type galaxies, there is a characteristic luminosity at $M_{r,0}\sim -20.5$ (assuming $h=0.7$) corresponding to a stellar mass M_0\sim 10^{10.6}\Msun. Galaxies more massive than $M_0$ have $\bar{R}\propto M^{0.4}$ and $\sigma_{\ln R}\sim 0.3$, while less massive galaxies have $\bar{R}\propto M^{0.15}$ and $\sigma_{\ln R}\sim 0.5$. For early-type galaxies, the $\bar{R}$ - $M$ relation is significantly steeper, $\bar{R}\propto M^{0.55}$, but the $\sigma_{\ln R}$ - $M$ relation is similar to that of late-type galaxies. Faint red galaxies have sizes quite independent of their luminosities.Comment: 42 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables; replaced with the version accepted by MNRA

Method of making an airfoil

An improved method of making an airfoil includes stacking plies in two groups. A separator ply is positioned between the two groups of plies. The groups of plies and the separator ply are interconnected to form an airfoil blank. The airfoil blank is shaped, by forging or other methods, to have a desired configuration. The material of the separator ply is then dissolved or otherwise removed from between the two sections of the airfoil blank to provide access to the interior of the airfoil blank. Material is removed from inner sides of the two separated sections to form core receiving cavities. After cores have been placed in the cavities, the two sections of the airfoil blank are interconnected and the shaping of the airfoil is completed. The cores are subsequently removed from the completed airfoil