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Strobl, Eric
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Strobl, Eric
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Strobl, Eric
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Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
- PublicationThe Re-Building Effect of Hurricanes: Evidence from Employment in the US Construction IndustryWe examine the impact of hurricane strikes on the construction industry in US counties. To this end we use a measure of hurricane destruction derived from a wind field model and historical hurricane track data and employ this within a dynamic labour demand framework. Our results show that destruction due to hurricanes causes on average an increase in county level employment in construction of a little over 25 per cent.
202 - PublicationRecent Trends in Trade Union Membership in IrelandUsing micro data from the Quarterly National Household Survey we look at trends in Irish union membership from 2001-2006. There was a steep decline in union density. Decomposition analysis suggests that most of the decline is associated with a decline in the underlying probability of becoming a member for different groups of workers rather than a change in composition.
445 - PublicationThe formal sector wage premium and firm sizeWe show theoretically that when larger firms pay higher wages and are more likely to be caught defaulting on labor taxes, then large-high wage firms will be in the formal and small-low wage firms will be in the informal sector. The formal sector wage premium is thus just a firm size wage differential. Using data from Ecuador we illustrate that firm size is indeed the key variable determining whether a formal sector premium exists.
558Scopus© Citations 21 - PublicationWhy Do Foreign Firms Pay More: The Role of On-the-Job-TrainingWhile foreign-owned firms have consistently been found to pay higher wages than domestic firms to what appear to be equally productive workers, the causes of this remain unresolved. In a two-period bargaining framework we show that if training is more productive and specific in foreign firms, foreign firm workers will have a steeper wage profile and thus acquire a premium over time. Using a rich employer-employee matched data set we verify that the foreign wage premium is only acquired by workers over time spent in the firm and only by those that receive on the job training, thus providing empirical support for a firm specific human capital acquisition explanation.
247Scopus© Citations 36 - PublicationDealing with monopsony power: Employment subsidies vs. minimum wagesWe show in a monopsony model that accounting for changes in hours a minimum wage has ambiguous effects on employment and welfare. When all workers have the same preference ordering over leisure and consumption employment subsidies unambiguously improve welfare. Many countries have minimum wages and also tax minimum wage workers.
495Scopus© Citations 4 - PublicationMinimum Wages and compliance : the case of Trinidad and TobagoExplores compliance to the national minimum wage in Trinidad and Tobago. Potential costs associated with the national minimum wage; Actual incidence of compliance in terms of employment and wage distribution; Nature of labor market.
1308Scopus© Citations 42 - PublicationThe ambiguous effect of minimum wages on hoursIn a competitive model we ease the assumption that efficiency units of labour are the product of hours and workers. We show that a minimum wage may either increase or decrease hours per worker and the change will have the opposite sign to the slope of the equilibrium hours hourly wage locus. Similarly, total hours worked may rise or fall. We illustrate the results throughout with a Cobb-Douglas example.
413Scopus© Citations 8 - PublicationCreating jobs through public subsidies : an empirical analysisThis paper analyses the impact of government grants on labour demand using plant level data for manufacturing industry in Ireland. Our data consists of a large sample of plants and their complete grant history. We provide evidence that additional employment is created over and above the level that would have prevailed in the absence of grant payments. We also find differences in the employment response to subsidies between domestic and foreign-owned plants, with the former creating more additional jobs per euro of grant payment. Simple cost-benefit analysis reveals that a large part of the costs of grants appears to be recouped in additional wage streams under reasonable assumptions.
1035Scopus© Citations 37 - PublicationIs there an informal employment wage penalty? Evidence from South AfricaWe estimate the wage penalty associated with working in the South African informal sector. To this end we use a rich data set on non-self employed males that allows one to accurately distinguish workers employed in the informal sector from those employed in the formal sector and link individuals over time. Implementing various econometric approaches we find that there is a gross wage penalty of a little over 18 per cent for working in the informal sector. However, once we reduce our sample to a group for which we can reasonably calculate earnings net of taxes and control for time invariant unobservables the wage penalty disappears.
1023Scopus© Citations 39 - PublicationEstimating the shirking model with variable effortWe show in a theoretical efficiency wage model where firms differ in monitoring intensity that the impact of monitoring intensity on wages is ambiguous, a result that mirrors evidence from the empirical literature. We argue that to correctly specify the impact of monitoring on wages, the interaction between monitoring and effort needs to be modelled. Results using a worker, firm panel from Ghana which contains reasonable effort and monitoring proxies show that the return to effort is higher in poorly monitored sectors as the theory suggests.
605Scopus© Citations 7