Trade-Offs? The Impact of WTO Accession on Intimate Partner Violence in Cambodia

We study the impact of trade-induced changes in labor market conditions on violence within the household. We exploit the local labor demand shocks generated by Cambodia's WTO accession to assess howchanges in the employment ofwomen relative to men affected the risk of intimate partner violence. We document that men in districts facing larger tariff reductions experienced a significant decline in paid employment, whereas women in harder-hit districts increased their entry into the labor force. These changes in employment patterns triggered backlash effects by increasing intimate partner violence, without changes in marriage, fertility, psychological distress, or household consumption.

The effect of gender-specific labor market conditions on children’s weight

Background Macroeconomic conditions are widely known to influence health outcomes through direct behavioral change or indirect mental effects of individuals. However, they have not received much attention in relation to childhood obesity. Methods Using gender-specific predicted employment growth rates as an index for labor market conditions, we analyze how economic shocks affect children’s weight status in Arkansas. To understand the underlying mechanisms behind these results, we use data on individual time use to examine how economic shocks are related to activities related to children’s weight. Results Improvement in the female labor market is associated with an increase in body mass index (BMI) and the probability that a child is overweight or obese, while an improvement in the male labor market has no significant effects on children’s weight. This impact is particularly evident among female children, older children, and African-American children. We also find a negative effect of improvements in the female labor market on time spent on preparation for foods at home. Conclusions These results suggest that a decrease in time spent preparing home-cooked foods might be a plausible explanation for the pro-cyclical relationship between children’s weight and improvement in the labor market conditions. Thus, the policy implications of our paper should be aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of women’s labor participation.

The Contraction of European Economic Distances through Sustainable Tourism in the Pre-Pandemic Period

The current importance of tourism leads us to analyze the extent to which the receipts from international tourism, and tourism in general, influence the capacity of European countries to reduce the development gaps of this sector in the European context and the extent to which the economic growth is sensitive to changes in tourist arrivals, tourism receipts and expenditures. Studying the GDP per capita and the receipts from international tourism for the period 1995-2017, we find that the European tourism has an important role in economy but secondary to capital stock and exports. The methodology used is a sensitivity analysis and a multiple linear regression with two models. The results show that, on short term, the gap in the European tourism sector is explained by the ability to attract income from the international tourism. The European growth of the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the amount of expenditures that tourists are making, on tourism receipts and, to a lesser extent, on tourist arrivals, but in all cases, the connection is a direct and positive one but, even so, the capital stock and the exports continue to play a very important role for the European economy. The analysis suggests that tourism is not a panacea for growth. On the contrary, it is one of the activities that stimulate growth along with investments, technology, or any other form of capital, together with exports and labor market conditions.

The extent of applying transparency standard as one of the standards of governance in the human resources recruitment process: – A practical study on the Development Authority of Makkah Al-Mukarramah Region –: مدى تطبيق معيار الشفافية كأحد معايير الحوكمة في عملية توظيف الموارد البشرية – دراسة ميدانية على هيئة تطوير منطقة مكة المكرمة –

This study came with several objectives, most notably to discuss the impact of transparency as one of the standards of governance on the human resources recruitment process. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher followed the descriptive analytical approach, to conduct this study. The questionnaire was used as a main for collecting data from members of the study population. The study population consists of the employees of the Development Authority of Makkah Al-Mukarramah Region, whose number is 177 employees. The study found several results, the most prominent of which is the existence of a statistically significant correlation between transparency as one of the governance criteria and the human resources recruitment process in its various stages (recruitment, selection, appointment) in the Development Authority of Makkah Al-Mukarramah Region, where the correlation coefficient between transparency and the human resources recruitment process in its various stages reached a value of (0.910), Which is a very strong correlation coefficient. In light of the results of the study, the researcher recommends the need to announce in advance in all the advertising and media outlets available in the best possible way all the criteria and the criteria used to select applicants for jobs. It is also necessary to increase attention to the process of stimulating the external recruitment process to attract the best human competencies by examining the different labor market conditions.

Leadership Styles and Labor Market Conditions

Why do some leaders use praise as a means to motivate workers, whereas other leaders use social punishment? This paper develops a simple economic model to examine how leadership styles depend on the prevailing labor market conditions for workers. We show that the existence of a binding wage floor for workers (e.g., due to trade union wage bargaining, minimum wage legislation, or limited-liability protection) can make it attractive for firms to hire a leader who makes use of social punishment. Although the use of social punishments generally is socially inefficient, it lessens the need for high bonus pay, which allows the firm to extract rents from the worker. In contrast, firms hire leaders who provide praise to workers only if it is socially efficient to do so. Credible use of leadership styles requires either repeated interaction or a leader with the right social preferences. In a single-period setting, only moderately altruistic leaders use praise as a motivation tool, whereas only moderately spiteful leaders use social punishment. Lastly, we show that when the leaders’ and workers’ reservation utilities give rise to a bigger income gap between leaders and workers, attracting spiteful leaders becomes relatively less costly and unfriendly leadership becomes more prevalent. This paper was accepted by Axel Ockenfels, behavioral economics and decision analysis.

The Opioid Epidemic Was Not Caused by Economic Distress but by Factors That Could Be More Rapidly Addressed

Without the opioid epidemic, American life expectancy would not have declined prior to 2020. The epidemic was sparked by the development and marketing of a new generation of prescription opioids, and the behavior of opioid providers is still helping to drive it. Little relationship exists between the opioid crisis and contemporaneous measures of labor market opportunity: cohorts and areas that experienced poor labor market conditions do show lagged increases in opioid mortality, but the effect is modest relative to the scale of the epidemic. We argue that specific policies and features of the U.S. health care market, especially liberal prescribing of opioids, led to the current crisis. It will not be possible to quickly reverse depressed economic conditions, but it is possible to implement policies that would reduce the number of new opioid addicts and save the lives of many who are already addicted.

Wages in Global Supply Chains

This chapter assesses progress on wages in global supply chains, using AUDCO data. The data include hourly wage rates, the gap between actual wages and minimum wages, the gap between actual wages and take-home pay, and finally the gap between these paid wages and a number of different living wage estimates drawn from 14,315 reliable audits done during the period 2011–2017 in ten countries and seven industries. These data show that wages in all countries have increased and are above the minimum wage (with a few exceptions in a small number of audits). Of course, it is difficult to credit private regulation programs with these increases, given the numerous other influences on wage levels — not the least being local labor market conditions as well as prices paid to suppliers for their product. But the fact that wages paid are above the minimum in most countries is at least consistent with code of conduct commitments. The evidence also shows that wages have been increasing every year — some codes require annual year-on-year increases. Moreover, it demonstrates that wage levels are nowhere near the living wage required by many codes of conduct. The gaps are large, and wages would need to increase considerably to reach the living wage commitments made by global firms in different countries and industries.

Youth Underemployment in Sulawesi

Underemployment provides a picture of the imperfection of the labor market which causes the capacity of the workforce to be unable to be optimally utilized. Many studies state that young workers are very vulnerable to being underemployed. Youth is the driving force of a country's economic development, so the labor problems inherent in youth must be resolved properly. This study aims to analyze the factors affecting underemployment among young people in Sulawesi Island. The data used in this research is SAKERNAS August 2019 data. The method of analysis used is multinomial logistic regression analysis, where the independent variables of this study are variables related to the individual and occupational characteristics of the young population. This research shows that there are differences in the factors that affect underemployment of young men and women, especially in education and business. The weakness of this research is the unavailability of micro data that can describe labor market conditions.