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Market Institutions (market + institution)
Kinds of Market Institutions Selected AbstractsMarket Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Theory and Evidence.ECONOMICA, Issue 291 2006By MARCEL FAFCHAMPS No abstract is available for this article. [source] Carceral Chicago: Making the Ex-offender Employability CrisisINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2008JAMIE PECK Abstract This article explores the urban labor market consequences of large-scale incarceration, a policy with massively detrimental implications for communities of color. Case study evidence from Chicago suggests that the prison system has come to assume the role of a significant (urban) labor market institution, the regulatory outcomes of which are revealed in the social production of systemic unemployability across a criminalized class of African,American males, the hypertrophied economic and social decline of those ,receiving communities' to which thousands of ex-convicts return, and the remorseless rise of recidivism rates. Notwithstanding the significant social costs, the churning of the prison population through the lower reaches of the labor market is associated with the further degradation of contingent and informal-economy jobs, the hardening of patterns of radical segregation, and the long-term erosion of employment prospects within the growing ex-offender population, for whom social stigma, institutional marginalization and economic disenfranchisement assume the status of an extended form of incarceration. Résumé La politique publique d'incarcération massive, aux implications largement préjudiciables aux communautés de couleur, affecte également le marché du travail des villes. Une étude de cas sur Chicago indique que le système pénitentiaire a fini par devenir une institution importante du marché du travail (urbain) dont les réglementations se traduisent à la fois par la production sociale d'une inemployabilité systémique pour une classe criminalisée de males afro-américains, par le déclin économique et social hypertrophié des ,communautés d'accueil' vers lesquelles retournent des milliers d'ex-prisonniers, et par l'accroissement impitoyable des taux de récidive. Malgré de forts coûts sociaux, le brassage de la population carcérale dans les niveaux inférieurs du marché du travail se combine à la dégradation accrue des postes occasionnels et offerts par l'économie parallèle, mais aussi au durcissement des types de ségrégation radicale et à une érosion durable des perspectives d'emploi au sein de la population grandissante des ex-délinquants pour lesquels stigmatisation sociale, marginalisation institutionnelle et non-reconnaissance économique revêtent une forme d'incarcération prolongée. [source] The Politics of Disciplining Water RightsDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2009Rutgerd Boelens ABSTRACT This article examines how the legal systems of Andean countries have dealt with the region's huge plurality of local water rights, and how official policies to ,recognize' local rights and identities harbour increasingly subtle politics of codification, confinement and disciplining. The autonomy and diversity of local water rights are a major hindrance for water companies, elites and formal rule-enforcers, since State and market institutions require a predictable, uniform playing field. Complex local rights orders are seen as irrational, ill-defined and disordered. Officialdom cannot simply ignore or oppress the ,unruliness and disobedience' of local rights systems: rather it ,incorporates' local normative orders that have the capacity to adequately respond to context-based needs. This article examines a number of evolving, overlapping legal domination strategies, such as the ,marrying' of local and official legal systems in ways that do not challenge the legal and power hierarchy; and reviews the ways in which official regulation and legal strategies deny or take into consideration local water rights repertoires, and the politics of recognition that these entail. Post-colonial recognition policies are not simply responses to demands by subjugated groups for greater autonomy. Rather, they facilitate the water bureaucracy's political control and help neoliberal sectors to incorporate local water users' rights and organizations into the market system , even though many communities refuse to accept these policies of recognition and politics of containment. [source] Labour market institutions and income inequalityECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 56 2008Daniele Checchi SUMMARY Institutions and inequality Labour market institutions are a crucial determinant of wage inequality, the wage share in aggregate income, and the unemployment rate. Since these variables affect, in turn, the distribution of income across households, the question arises of whether stronger labour market institutions have an impact on income inequality. Institutions can in principle have conflicting effects. For example, a higher unemployment benefit tends to increase the wage share, which in turn reduces inequality, but it also increases the unemployment rate thus making the distribution of income more unequal. This paper examines what is the overall impact of labour market institutions on household income inequality. The evidence indicates that stronger institutions are associated with lower income inequality, but in some cases also with higher rates of unemployment. We explore the magnitude of this trade-off, and quantify the changes in inequality and unemployment that we would observe if a common labour standard were imposed on members of the European Union. , Daniele Checchi and Cecilia García-Peñalosa [source] Capital deepening and wage differentials: Germany versus USECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 49 2007Winfried Koeniger SUMMARY Wage inequality, investment and skills In flexible labour markets, capital increases the productivity of skilled workers more than that of unskilled workers, and in the US faster investment is associated with wider wage inequality. But labour market institutions that keep unskilled workers' wages high also imply that firms may find it profitable to invest so as to boost those workers' productivity. Our empirical analysis based on industry-level data confirms that a higher capital intensity in Germany is associated with smaller wage differentials and with a larger share of unskilled workers in the labour costs. Changes in capital,labour ratios during the 1980s reduced wage differentials by 5,8% in German industries, while in the US capital deepening in such industries as machinery and retail was accompanied by an increase of wage differentials larger than 7%. , Winfried Koeniger and Marco Leonardi [source] EMU and the Shift in the European Labour Law Agenda: From ,Social Policy' to ,Employment Policy'EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 3 2001Diamond Ashiagbor This article examines the interaction between EMU and the European Union (EU) employment strategy and its implications for law. It focuses on the importance of EMU as a catalyst in the development of the EU's social and employment policy in the years following the Treaty on European Union in 1992, up to the inauguration of a new employment policy in the Treaty of Amsterdam. In analysing the EU's discourse on labour market regulation, it is arguable that a shift has occurred in the EU's position on the ,labour market flexibility' debate: that the EU institutions are more readily accepting of the orthodoxy that labour market regulation and labour market institutions are a major cause of unemployment within EU countries and that a deregulatory approach, which emphasises greater ,flexibility' in labour markets, is the key to solving Europe's unemployment ills, along with macroeconomic stability, restrictive fiscal policy and wage restraint. As the EU's employment strategy has matured, this increased emphasis on employment policy has come to displace discourses around social policy. This change in emphasis has important implications for EMU since it signals a re-orientation from an approach to labour market regulation which had as its core a strong concept of employment protection and high labour standards, to an approach which prioritises employment creation, and minimises the role of social policy, since social policy is seen as potentially increasing the regulatory burden. [source] The Changing Distribution of Income: Evidence and ExplanationsGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2000Anthony B. Atkinson This article is concerned with the economics of the distribution of income, emphasizing aspects which have been missing from the recent literature. It begins with factor shares and the rise in real interest rates. These are important in their own right and in relation to the determination of wage differentials. The paper questions the conventional wisdom which locates rising inequality and unemployment solely in a shift in demand away from unskilled workers. This explanation is too partial in its approach, is hard to reconcile with the empirical evidence, and ignores labour market institutions and the role of social norms. In seeking to explain the experience of different countries, we need to look not just at wages but also at the capital market, and should not be limited to a simple competitive supply-and-demand story. [source] Geography and the Future of Stock Exchanges: Between Real and Virtual SpaceGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2007DARIUSZ WÓJCIK ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the future of stock exchanges and financial centres by focusing on two questions. First, whether, how, why, and which stock exchange activities are prone to concentration in financial centres? Second, are they prone to concentration in national or international financial centres? Through a detail-rich analysis of stock exchange activities, including trading system, as well as relationships with members, issuers, and investors, the paper suggests a framework for the geography of stock exchange activities based on two dimensions,proneness to concentration in a financial centre and proneness to international consolidation. With this framework, predictions are made about the future geography of stock exchange activities led by the argument that while significant geographical reconfigurations are likely to unfold, driven primarily by the development of international networks of stock market institutions, stock exchanges, and financial centres will remain crucially important for each other. [source] The Impact of Training Intensity on Establishment ProductivityINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2006Article first published online: 23 DEC 200, THOMAS ZWICK The empirical literature on productivity effects of continuing training is constantly increasing. However, the results on this subject differ widely. Explanations for this worrying diversity seem to lie in differences between countries, labor market institutions, and data generation on one hand, and in differences between the underlying estimation techniques on the other (Bartel, 2000). This paper concentrates on the latter problem and shows how results vary with different estimation techniques. [source] Will only an earthquake shake up economics?INTERNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW, Issue 2 2010Ronald SCHETTKAT Abstract. "Natural rate theory", the Efficient Market Hypothesis and its labour market application dominated interpretations of economic trends and policy prescriptions from the 1970s onwards, with their views of public policy and regulation as distorting otherwise well-functioning free markets. The upheaval of the current crisis is shaking these theories to the core. In this context, Schettkat examines European experience from the 1990s onwards and shows the theories to be unsubstantiated: high unemployment persisted post-recession despite structural reforms to labour market institutions, and the resumption of economic growth was hindered by then-dominant deflationary monetary and fiscal policies inspired by these theories. [source] The cost of "doing business" and labour regulation: The case of South AfricaINTERNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Paul BENJAMIN Abstract. The "Employing Workers" indices compiled from the World Bank's Doing Business (DB) survey for 2006 presented mixed results as to the nature and extent of labour regulation in South Africa. Arguing that these measures , with their narrow focus on legislation , provide only a partial picture, the authors suggest and investigate three possible extensions to the DB framework with the aim of achieving a more realistic representation of labour regulation in practice, namely: "micro-legislation", labour market institutions and judicial interpretation. They conclude with a plea for taking account of the crucial importance of these features in the assessment of labour regulation frameworks. [source] Economic behaviour and the norms of capitalismINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 185 2005Pierre Demeulenaere The idea of moralising the capitalist economy presupposes an idea of morality or justice. If we confine ourselves intuitively to the principle of freedom or non-domination , often connected with a defence of market institutions as well as broader moral justifications , two questions must be asked. Firstly, can profit-oriented economic behaviour secure principles of non-domination? The answer is no, for there is a structural interest in cheating in a prisoner's dilemma situation. Additional normative considerations must be introduced in order to ensure that market norms are respected. The second question is, then, whether moral regard for the principle of non-domination can in itself justify free-trade institutions. Here again the answer is no, inasmuch as various typical features of social existence prevent us from thinking that respect for the pure norms of free trade can be consonant with direct application of this non-domination principle. In fact, actual social existence introduces other norms reflecting other social objectives that may also be derived from a non-domination principle. [source] Rate of return guarantees for mandatory defined contribution plansINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 4 2001John A. Turner Many mandatory defined contribution systems provide a rate of return guarantee. The guarantees provided have generally been backed by a sequential combination of two or more of six different financing sources. Those sources are (1) reserve funds established within the pension fund, using investment earnings on the fund; (2) reserve funds established using funds provided by the owners of the pension fund management companies; (3) a defined benefit plan associated with the defined contribution plan; (4) central guarantee funds financed by contributions from pension funds; (5) funds provided by employers; and (6) the government. Nearly all the guarantees are first backed by a limited liability guarantee derived from investment earnings that would otherwise accrue to workers. In some instances, the guarantee may be funded by employers. Then they are backed by a guarantee financed by capital market institutions , pension fund managers directly or a central guarantee fund. Lastly, they are backed by an unfunded governmental guarantee with unlimited liability that is contingent on the insufficiency of private sector guarantees. [source] Labour market institutions and employment in FranceJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 1 2002Guy Laroque The purpose of this paper is to use individual data to study how the minimum wage and the welfare system combine to affect employment in France. Using the 1997 Labour Force Survey, we decompose non-employment of married women into three components: voluntary, classical (due to the minimum wage) and ,other' (a residual category). We find that the minimum wage explains close to 15% of non-employment for these women and that the disincentive effects of some welfare policy measures may be large. Our approach also allows us to evaluate various labour and welfare policy experiments in their effects on participation and employment. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Wage Commitment, Signalling, and Entry Deterrence or AccommodationLABOUR, Issue 4 2006Rupayan Pal The wage carries information about market demand, which is crucial to an uninformed entrant, and in addition affects the entrant's post-entry cost through labour market institutions. The union may wish to deter or accommodate entry depending on whether the entrant will hire from a different source or from the union. Equilibrium wage is distorted downwardly (upwardly) for deterrence (accommodation); but because of wage correlation a low (high) wage can also turn entry profitable (unprofitable). Therefore, separating equilibrium may not always exist, and entry outcomes may be inefficient. [source] Constructing Reform Coalitions: The Politics of Compensations in Argentina's Economic LiberalizationLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2001Sebastián Etchemendy ABSTRACT It is frequently argued that the key to "successful" economic liberalization is to marginalize interest groups that profit from existing regulatory regimes. This paper contends that some established interests can craft public policies to protect their rents in the new market setting. The state may shape the interests of social actors and create proreform constituencies out of old populist and interventionist groups. In Argentina, this coalition building was achieved by constructing reform policies that granted rents in new markets to business and organized labor and by deliberately avoiding unilateral deregulation in sectors where reform would hurt traditionally powerful actors. This argument is developed through a comparative analysis of policy reform in the labor market institutions and protected industrial sectors, areas where the costs of deregulation are said to be unavoidable for the established actors. [source] Warum haben wir rigide Arbeitsmärkte?PERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 4 2001Rent-seeking versus Soziale Sicherung This article argues that unions, job protection, and egalitarian pay structures may have as much to do with social insurance of otherwise uninsurable risks as with rent sharing and vested interests. In support of this more benign complementary hypothesis I discuss a range of historical, theoretical, and empirical evidence. The social insurance perspective changes substantially the assessment of often-proposed reforms of European labour market institutions. The benefits from eliminating labour market rigidities have to be set against the costs of reduced cover of human capital related risk. I also argue that it is unclear whether the forces of globalisation, and the new economy, will force countries to deregulate their labour markets. [source] The Role of Shocks and Institutions in the Rise of European Unemployment: the Aggregate EvidenceTHE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 462 2000Olivier Blanchard Two key facts about European unemployment must be explained: the rise in unemployment since the 1960s, and the heterogeneity of individual country experiences. While adverse shocks can potentially explain much of the rise in unemployment, there is insufficient heterogeneity in these shocks to explain cross-country differences. Alternatively, while explanations focusing on labour market institutions explain current heterogeneity well, many of these institutions pre-date the rise in unemployment. Based on a panel of institutions and shocks for 20 OECD nations since 1960 we find that the interaction between shocks and institutions is crucial to explaining both stylised facts. [source] Law and Finance in Transition EconomiesTHE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 2 2000Katharina Pistor This paper offers the first comprehensive analysis of legal change in the protection of shareholder and creditor rights in transition economies and its impact on the propensity of firms to raise external finance. Following La Porta et al. (1998), the paper constructs an expanded set of legal indices to capture a range of potential conflicts between different stakeholders of the firm. It supplements the analysis of the law on the books with an analysis of the effectiveness of legal institutions. Our main finding is that the effectiveness of legal institutions has a much stronger impact on external finance than does the law on the books, despite legal change that has substantially improved shareholder and creditor rights. This finding supports the proposition that legal transplants and extensive legal reforms are not sufficient for the evolution of effective legal and market institutions. [source] Changes in the Relative Economic Performance of Immigrants to Great Britain and the United States, 1980,2000BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2007John Schmitt We compare the relative labour market performance of immigrants in the USA and in Britain over the period 1980,2000, when the stocks of immigrants were rising in both countries alongside differential shifts in demand and changes to labour market institutions. We find that the average relative employment prospects of immigrants are generally better in the USA than in Britain, particularly for non-white immigrants, while the average relative wage prospects for immigrants are generally better in Britain, particularly for men. Over time, relative wage and employment prospects for immigrants to the USA appear to have deteriorated, particularly among women, in a way that is not as apparent in Britain. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||