Internal Labor Markets, Firm-Specific Human Capital, and Heterogeneity Antecedents of Employee Idiosyncratic Deal Requests

Human capital investments are not independent of the aggregate state of labor markets: frictions and slackness of the labor market raise the returns to specific human capital investments relative to general investments. We build a macroeconomic model with two pure strategy regimes. In the pure G-regime, workers invest in general skills. This occurs when they face high turnover labor markets and in the absence of employment protection. The pure 5-regime in which workers invest in skills specific to their job appears when employment protection is high enough. Implications for a characterization of Europe-United States differences are provided in conclusion.

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Nonstandard Employment and Indigenous Earnings Inequality in Canada

Journal of Industrial Relations ◽

10.1177/00221856211021128 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002218562110211

Author(s):

Danielle Lamb ◽

Anil Verma

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Labor Markets ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Earnings Inequality ◽

Human Capital Accumulation ◽

Internal Labor Markets ◽

Nonstandard Employment ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Nonstandard Work ◽

Limited Efficacy

The study investigates the extent to which the type of employment, specifically nonstandard work, may contribute to a better understanding of Indigenous earnings disparities. We find that Indigenous workers are overrepresented in nonstandard jobs and that such forms of work are associated with sizable earnings penalties. Although Indigenous earnings disparities are smaller in nonstandard work than in standard employment, the relatively low earnings of many nonstandard jobs are an important factor contributing to the overall economic inequalities experienced by many Indigenous Canadians. Policy responses aimed at improved human capital accumulation are likely to have limited efficacy unless additional barriers that prevent many Indigenous workers from accessing better quality employment and internal labor markets are identified and removed.

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A “U-Shaped” Pattern of Immigrants’ Occupational Careers? A Comparative Analysis of Italy, Spain, and France

International Migration Review ◽

10.1177/0197918318767931 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 53 (1) ◽

pp. 26-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Ivana Fellini ◽

Raffaele Guetto

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Labor Market ◽

Comparative Analysis ◽

Labor Markets ◽

Individual Characteristics ◽

International Literature ◽

Anglo Saxon ◽

Specific Human Capital ◽

Shaped Pattern ◽

Country Specific

The international literature hypothesized a “U-shaped” pattern of immigrants’ occupational trajectories from origin to destination countries due to the imperfect transferability of human capital. However, empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is available only in single-country studies and for “old,” Anglo-Saxon migration countries with deregulated labor markets. This article compares Italy, Spain, and France, providing evidence that the more segmented the labor market, the higher immigrants’ occupational downgrade on arrival, independently from skills transferability and other individual characteristics. Paradoxically, the more segmented the labor market, the more important the acquisition of host-country specific human capital for subsequent upward mobility.

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Post-Layoff Earnings among Semiconductor Workers

ILR Review ◽

10.1177/001979399204500212 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 45 (2) ◽

pp. 366-379 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Paul M. Ong ◽

Don Mar

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Unemployment Insurance ◽

Semiconductor Industry ◽

High Technology ◽

Displaced Workers ◽

Internal Labor Markets ◽

Technology Sector ◽

Insurance Program ◽

Specific Human Capital ◽

High Technology Sector

This study uses administrative data from California's unemployment insurance program to analyze the post-layoff earnings of displaced and recalled workers in Silicon Valley's semiconductor industry between 1984 and 1987. The authors find losses from inter-sectoral displacement that are consistent with losses found in other studies of job dislocation. The results show, however, that displaced workers who found work within the high-technology sector had earnings similar to those of recalled workers, a finding at odds with theories that emphasize either firm-specific human capital or internal labor markets. These results are instead consistent with the presence of both industry-specific human capital and efficiency wages in the high-technology sector.

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“Using recruitment source timing and diagnosticity to enhance applicants’ occupation-specific human capital": Correction to Campion, Ployhart, and Campion (2017).

Journal of Applied Psychology ◽

10.1037/apl0000227 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 102 (5) ◽

pp. 752-752

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Specific Human Capital

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Change in occupational tasks and its implications: evidence from a task panel from 1973 to 2011 for Western Germany

Quality & Quantity ◽

10.1007/s11135-021-01158-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tobias Maier

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Institutional Economics ◽

Labor Demand ◽

Sociological Research ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Data Set ◽

Capital Theory ◽

Task Change ◽

Western Germany ◽

Specific Human Capital

AbstractThe change of tasks in occupations is of interest to economic and sociological research from three perspectives. The task-based technological change approach describes tasks as the link between capital input and labor demand. In human capital theory, tasks are used to distinguish between general and specific human capital. Moreover, in institutional economics or sociology, it is argued that the specificity of occupations influences the marketability of the corresponding skills and tasks. However, data sources that illustrate task change within occupations are rare. The objective of this paper is therefore to introduce a task panel, which is created based on 16 cross-sectional surveys from between 1973 and 2011 of the German microcensus (Labor-Force-Survey), as an additional source to monitor task change. I present and discuss the harmonization method for eleven main activities that are exercised by the incumbents of the occupation within 176 occupational groups. To demonstrate the research potential of this novel data source, I develop an alternative theoretical view on the task-technology framework and classify the harmonized tasks according to their relationship to technological inventions in the third industrial (micro-electronic) revolution (technologically replaceable, technology-accompanying, technology-complementary and technologically neutral). Matching the task panel to an already existing Occupational Panel (OccPan) for Western Germany from 1976 to 2010, I can use fixed-effect regressions to show that changes of tasks within occupations correspond with theoretical expectations regarding the median wage growth of an occupation. The task panel can be matched to any data set containing a German classification of occupations from 1975, 1988 or 1992 to investigate further effects of task change on individual labor market success.

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