Wages In Cities Research Articles

Do City Exports Increase City Wages? Empirical Evidence from 286 Chinese Cities

The optimization of income distribution is an important index to achieve high-quality economic development in the process of urbanization. Using matched data from the China Statistical Yearbook and Customs Statistical Database, this paper examines the impact of city exports on city wages based on panel data from 286 Chinese cities at or above the prefecture level. The paper finds that city exports increase city wages through technology-upgrading mechanisms and profit-sharing mechanisms. This conclusion is found to be robust after a series of tests. The paper further analyses the impact of city exports on city wages by classifying the location and scale of cities. The results show that city exports increase the wages of large cities, eastern cities and central cities but have no effect on medium cities, small cities and western cities. In the process of urbanization, it is essential to further improve the quality and efficiency of exports, increase investment in R&D and education, optimise income distribution and promote regional coordinated development.

On the Possibility of Using Geoinformation Technologies to Study Economic Inequality (Based on the Materials of the Siberian Region of 1926-1927)

The article discusses the possibilities of using geoinformation technologies to study economic inequality. The methodology and technique of applying geospatial analysis in the study of wage inequality of employees of district cities of the Siberian Territory in 1926-1927 are shown. Statistical bulletins published in 1926-1929 in Novosibirsk were used as sources. Data were selected that characterize the salaries of employees of the district cities of Siberia for 8 quarters, covering almost 2 years – 1926 and 1927. During the development of GIS, a 1:3000000 scale map of the Siberian Region was digitized, on which there is a coordinate grid, the situation (hydrographic network and relief displayed by washing) and administrative division were plotted according to the zoning data of 1929. A series of maps was built reflecting the average salary level of employees in district cities, as well as the dynamics of wages based on quarterly statistics. The highest salary of employees is observed in Novosibirsk. It is noticeable that cities with low wages are concentrated in the south of Western Siberia. The growth rates of wages in cities show a greater variation than the average salary. The largest increase in wages is demonstrated by those cities in which its level was low or average. It can be stated that there are certain prospects in the use of geoinformation technologies to study economic inequality.

DOES MIGRATION AFFECT WAGES IN RUSSIAN CITIES? EMPIRICAL MICRODATA ANALYSIS

The article explores the impact of migration on wages in Russian cities. The research was carried out on the basis of the data collected by the authors in September–October 2017 in the administrative centres of the subjects of the Ural Federal District, Russia. The aim of the study was to find out whether migrant workers are complements or substitutes to local workers in the local labour markets of the Russian cities. Econometric models were estimated using OLS and GLS methodology. The OLS results showed that migration does not affect wages in the cities. The GLS estimations were also statistically insignificant for the local employees with higher education, but for those with primary and secondary education, migration demonstrates a positive and statistically significant impact on an individual’s wages. It gives us reason to suggest that migrant workers are complementary to the local workers with primary and secondary education.

Valuing Cultural Diversity of Cities

This paper revisits whether cultural diversity is a source of local production and/or consumption amenities. We adapt the analytical framework of Roback (1982, 1988) and Chen & Rosenthal (2008) to estimate the impact of cultural diversity on city wage and rent premiums from hedonic regressions. We focus on New Zealand which – with high residential mobility and ease of setting up business – is particularly suited to this framework. Additionally, our estimates are based on a very large data set: complete unit record census data on individuals and dwellings in 110 urban areas spanning 32 years. Controlling for observed and unobserved city characteristics, and for the potential endogeneity of diversity, we find that cultural diversity serves as a local positive production amenity and a weakly negative consumption amenity. The results are mostly robust to measuring cultural diversity by birthplace, ethnicity or religion; and to using a range of measures of diversity. We conclude that the presence of people from different cultural backgrounds enhances the profitability of urban firms. In contrast, a city’s population has a weak preference for living near others who are culturally similar to them. The effects are stronger in larger cities.

Spatial convergence of real wages in Russian cities

This paper provides an empirical test of spatial wage convergence in Russian cities. Using geo-coded data covering 997 Russian cities and towns from 1996 to 2013, I show that real city wages (i) converge over time and (ii) are significantly affected by the initial levels of real wages in neighboring cities. I also find that cities of the Far North, where a special wage policy is implemented, were converging more slowly than the rest of the country. I find a significant negative impact of regional subsidies on real wages in cities outside the Far North and that the effect of extractive industries on real wage has become weaker. These results are robust to the radius of spatial interaction, and my conclusions hold if remote settlements are not taken into account.

Proses Perumusankebijakan Upah Minimum Kota Semarang 2016

Labor is waging a problem that continues to happen every year, including in the city of Semarang, where frequent disagreements between workers and employers in formulatating wage mainly in 2016. The city's minimum wage is a standard party entrepreneurs provide retribution to workers or labor against his work. The process of formulation of the minimum wage of waging the Council conducted a survey rating the necessities of life are worthy (KHL) during the months of January to September, while October to December as value predictions. The survey is conducted in some traditional markets in the city of Semarang. The results of the surveys discussed inwaging Town Council meeting comprising the Government, employers and trade unions. Then after the results of the meeting of the city's wages granted by the Mayor to further the results submitted to the Governor of Central Java. Model Formulationused in this study is a model of the process while a cornerstone of the theory is the theory used of stages of policy formulation by Budi Winarno theory consists of the formulation of the plobem , the policy agenda, the selection of an alternative policy,as well as the setting of the policy. The research method is qualitative diskriptifmethod. While data collection technique of using observation, interviews, and documentation. Results of the study says the minimum wage policy formulation process Semarang city conducted by wiging councils went well which follows from the regulatations. As for the actors involved in the process of formulation of the Semarang city minimum wage policy consists of three elements i.e. the Government, employersand labor unions are joining in a non sctuctural named waging waging Semarang City Council.

Neoliberal Governance and Uneven Development in Jersey City

In 2015, Jersey City was once again in midst of a round of economic development creating more jobs and housing. A news release from mayor's office described construction of 6,000 housing units along with 18,000 underway as, the greatest construction activity in City's history. It also noted that city added 9,000 jobs in construction, small businesses and corporations resulting in a decline in unemployment rate from 10.6%to 6.5%. Also highlighted was creation of 150 small businesses including 50 restaurants. At same time, it was noted that: While growing jobs and attracting businesses, Jersey City has also enacted ordinances such as earned paid sick leave, prevailing wage, stricter [tax] abatement compliance, and project labor agreements to ensure that all Jersey City shares in benefit (Jersey City 2015).In citing steps it has taken to spread benefits of growth more broadly, mayor's office was emphasizing that this stage of redevelopment would be more inclusive than those in past. For decades redevelopment has divided city with most investment going to its waterfront creating corporate jobs and housing for newly arrived professional workers. A tale of two emerged as a common refrain in public discourse by those feeling excluded from benefits of growth (Donohue 1999; Jacobs 2001; Frasca 2007; McDonald 2014; Morgan 2015).However, while current administration may be doing more than previous ones to spread gains of growth more broadly, its overall topdown approach to redevelopment is similar in perpetuating major inequities. Most of new jobs are corporate jobs being relocated to Jersey City while most of housing is market rate luxury housing unaffordable for most residents. Subsidized with tax breaks, they are main drivers of economic development following a pattern of uneven and unequal development over three decades. This is result of a neoliberal approach to governing in which elected officials continue to give major corporations and developers a free hand in deciding what gets built, where, how and for whom. This paper is an attempt to document some of ways in which neoliberal policies have been implemented and contested in Jersey City.UNEVEN DEVELOPMENTThe concept of uneven development derives from Marxist theories of capitalist development and is used today by urban geographers and other social scientists to describe disparate impact of investment and disinvestment on cities. Some neighborhoods prosper while others decline as capital flows into those that promise highest rate of return for investors. The uneven development that results affects well-being and life chances of residents as those in more affluent areas have greater access to better jobs, housing schools and safe streets than those in poorer sections of city (Gottdiener and Hutchinson 2011). You don't have to walk or drive very far in most cities to see examples of this.The uneven impact of redevelopment in Jersey City, which has waxed and waned for more than three decades, can be seen in current Census figures. Almost a quarter of households have incomes under $25,000 a year while nearly a third have less than $35,000 and over 40 percent have incomes under $50,000 a year. On other hand, over 40 percent of households earn at least $75,000 annually while 30 percent earn at least $100,000. The top fifth of Jersey City's wage earners receive over half of city's income while bottom fifth gets less than 3 percent. The median household income for whites is $72,000; blacks $45,000; Latinos $38,000; Asians $91,000. The per capita income for whites is $49,000 and for Asians $43,000, more than twice that of blacks and Latinos.The same is true for unemployment and poverty rates. The unemployment rate for whites and Asians is 6%: while for blacks it is 14% and for Latinos, 10%. The poverty rate for whites and Asians is 13%; blacks 24%; Latinos 27%. …

Geographic Inequality of Economic Well-being among U.S. Cities: Evidence from Micro Panel Data

We analyze the geographic inequality of economic well-being among U.S. cities by utilizing a novel measure of quantity based product-level economic well-being, i.e., the number of goods and services that can be purchased by consumers with an average city wage. We find a considerable cross-city dispersion in the economic well-being and the geographic dispersion has been on the steady rise since the mid-1990s for most goods and services under study. Strong geographic correlations exist in the local economic well-being and our empirical analysis based on a Global VAR (GVAR) model suggests that national shocks are an important source behind it. On average, about 30-35% of the variance of local well-being is explained by common national shocks, but the impact of common national shocks varies considerably across products, albeit to a lesser extent across cities. Nationwide unemployment shock, for example, has a stronger effect in the products whose prices are adjusted more frequently and in the cities that have a larger fraction of high-skill workers. Taken together, our results indicate that the geographic inequality of economic well-being observed in the U.S. has proceeded over time mainly through the products with more flexible price adjustments and in the cities with higher concentration of skilled workers.

Education, experience, and urban wage premium

Cities have higher wages and more college-educated workers than less populated areas. We investigate the heterogeneity of the agglomeration effect and sorting with respect to education. The magnitude of static and dynamic agglomeration effects on wages in Norway is estimated for different educational categories. Using rich administrative data for the period 2003–2010 with experience data back to 1993, we find that college-educated workers have higher return to labor market experience accumulated in cities. The city wage premium of less educated workers is increasing in job tenure, while the college educated gain more from shifting jobs between firms. We address sorting by comparing distributions of worker fixed effects by level of education. The distribution of unobserved abilities is similar in cities and the rest of the country for workers with only primary and secondary education, while the distribution for workers with college education is shifted to the right in cities. Sorting with respect to unobserved abilities matters for college-educated workers, even when taking dynamic learning effects into account. Distinguishing between young and old workers, we find that differences in unobserved abilities are more important early in a worker's career.

How Space Channels Wage Convergence: The Case of Russian Cities

Existing empirical work on the growth of Russian regions mostly covers a short time period and considers only regional-level data, while city-level spatial data of the post-reform era remain largely ignored. Using city-level geo-coded data covering 997 cities and towns from 1996 until 2013, I and sigma- and beta-convergence across Russian cities in wages. City wages during the period under consideration display significant and positive spatial autocorrelation. Spatial Durbin models of the Barro regression are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo methodology. Estimates of the spatial models for different weight matrices indicate that the city wage growth is significantly affected by wage growth rates in neighboring cities, after conditioning on initial wages.

Wage inequality between financial hubs and periphery

The observation that large cities pay higher wages for the same skilled work has caught the attention of scholars recently. The urban wage premium thesis suggests that urban sorting, skill matching and learning externalities in large cities result in a spatial wage gap between large and small cities. In this paper, a different spatial lens of wage premium is examined. Specifically, we hypothesize that the wage premium phenomenon may be more prominent between networked and less networked cities than between large and small cities. We test this hypothesis on skilled financial workers and their human capital networks. The results indicate that the financial human capital network is structured spatially around hubs and peripheral cities. Wage inequality is significant between centrally located hubs and peripherally located cities compared to large and small cities. The findings provide evidence for a networked city wage premium, suggesting that information and resource connections structured by skilled individuals contribute to wage differences between cities.

Urban Wages: Does City Size Matter?

The literature on the relationship between city size and urban wages argues that productivity and wages are higher in larger cities. Indeed, a doubling of city size is associated with a 4—8 per cent increase in wages. The human capital externalities literature finds evidence of higher wages in cities with an abundant supply of human capital where knowledge spillovers are plentiful. Interestingly, cities with a large supply of human capital are not themselves large. They have a population of fewer than 1.5 million inhabitants. In view of this evidence, this paper questions whether city size has lost its importance as a determinant of high wages. In other words, is city size necessary to explain wage variations, after controlling for knowledge spillovers? Using a large sample from the 5 per cent PUMS of the 2000 US Census, this paper presents econometric evidence for city size and learning spillover effects on productivity. According to the estimates presented, every additional 100 000 inhabitants in the local labour market raises individual hourly wages by 0.12 per cent. Moreover, a doubling of the human capital density in a metropolitan area results in approximately a 2 per cent increase in average individual hourly wages.

The employment effects of a central city's source-based wage tax or hybrid wage tax

This paper considers the employment effects of a central city's wage tax. The tax will normally decrease employment in the central city and increase employment in the suburbs. The magnitude of the effects depends on the exact type of wage tax that the central city imposes (the tax rates on central-city residents who work in the central city, on central-city residents who work in the suburbs, and on suburbanites who work in the central city), on a production function, on a commuting cost parameter, and on a multinomial-logit-choice parameter.

Cities, Workers, and Wages: A Structural Analysis of the Urban Wage Premium

Workers earn higher wages in cities vs. rural areas. This gap could arise because cities make workers more productive, or it could be the result of a non-random selection of workers into cities based on their ability and their endogenous history of career choices. To untangle these issues, this paper estimates a dynamic programming model, which embeds the choice of residing in a city or rural area within a model of career choices over time. After controlling for all the sources of selection and endogeneity, the estimates indicate that a given worker does earn more in the city for white-collar work, but not for blue-collar work. In addition, city work experience is found to be worth more than rural work experience in the rural area for white-collar work, but not for blue-collar work. These results support the interpretation that cities make white-collar workers more productive and suggest that workers may consider moving to the city not only in terms of locational choice, but also as a form of human capital investment. Copyright 2007, Wiley-Blackwell.

Spatial evolution of the US urban system

We test implications of economic geography models for location, size and growth of cities with US Census data for 1900 u 1990. Our tests involve non-parametric estimations of stochastic kernels for the distributions of city sizes and growth rates, conditional on various measures of market potential and on features sizes of neighbors. We show that while these relationships change during the twentieth century, by 1990 they stabilize such that the size distribution of cities conditional on a range of spatial variables are all roughly independent of these conditioning variables. In contrast, similar results suggest that there is a spatial element to the city wage distribution. Our parametric estimations for growth rates against market potential, entry of neighbors, and own lagged population imply a negative effect of market potential on growth rates, unless own lagged population is also included, in which case market potential has a positive effect and own lagged population a negative one. Cities grow faster when they are small relative to their market potential. In total, our results support some theoretical predictions, but also provide a number of interesting puzzles.

Union Effects on Nonunion Wages: Evidence from Panel Data on Industries and Cities

The authors test for threat and crowding effects of unions on non-union wages at the industry and city levels, using panel data on the percent organized and nonunion industry and city wage differentials constructed from Current Population Surveys over the period 1973–89. At the industry level, increases in the percent organized were associated with decreases in the nonunion industry wage differential, suggesting that crowding effects were the predominant union effect on nonunion industry wage differentials. In contrast, at the city level increases in the percent organized were associated with increases in the nonunion city wage differential, suggesting that threat effects predominated. The authors also find evidence of negative cross-occupation union effects on nonunion industry wage differentials, supporting their hypothesis that the industry-level results were partly driven by complementarity between union and nonunion labor.

A review of the economic and ecological constraints on animal draft cultivation in sub-Saharan Africa

With a limited number of cash cropping areas, sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest level of mechanization including animal-driven implements and use of tractors. In this paper previous research is reviewed to evaluate the economic and ecological constraints to animal draft cultivation. Results of past studies have shown that the animal-drawn plow is only profitable at higher intensities of farming induced by population growth and better market access. Utilization and use of animal-driven implements will, however, be low in areas characterized by light soils (arid zones) or areas prone to erosion, or with a short growing season. Other constraints on the profitable use of animal draft are farmers' characteristics and policy factors. Farm and family size, the farmer's experience and types of equipment are shown to play important roles. One factor often ignored is the opportunity cost of labor and capital during off-farm activities. Utilization of animal traction implies tending costs. If, however, the cost of maintaining the animal outside the peak season reduces off-farm income opportunities, farmers are not likely to make a profitable use of the plow. Other opportunities available to the farmer (e.g. beef production when beef prices are high) are likely to have a negative impact on utilization of oxen cultivation. Rural-urban dualism which characterizes African agriculture owing to low agricultural productivity and high wages in cities, is likely to be an important constraint.

What Explains Wage Gaps between Farm and City? Exploring the Todaro Model with American Evidence, 1890-1941

Nominal wage gaps between farm and city employment are one of the most pervasive aspects of modern economic growth-so much so that they have become a key stylized fact of development economics. Indeed, a good portion of the literature on the Third World has focused on this problem at length, both in terms of labor market behavior and in terms of policy formation in the face of factor market distortions. Yet, wage gaps are not simply an institutional peculiarity of newly industrializing Third World countries, since they seem to have been even greater among nineteenthand twentieth-century western nations. While unskilled full-time nominal city wages are about 41% higher than farm wages in the contemporary Third World, they were about 51% higher among late nineteenth-century industrializers.' They were even higher in England in the 1830s, about 73%.2 Furthermore, the evidence suggests that these wage gaps vary substantially over time: they rose from 29% to 41% in the American North between the antebellum and postbellum periods, and were about 50% by the mid-1890s in the United States as a whole-a figure that reached an all-time U.S. high of about 65% by the late 1930s.3 There are three questions that these wage gaps raise, not just one. First, Would these nominal full-time wage gaps disappear if they were properly measured? Proper measurement would include the fact that cities are more costly places to live, that cities may have greater disamenities, that farmers also make in-kind payments to their workers, and that farm laborers suffer seasonal underemployment. Elsewhere,

Wage gaps between farm and city: Michigan in the 1890s

In the 1890s, nominal farm wages in Michigan were only about 50% of unskilled city wages. Before we can conclude that such gaps were manifestations of labor market segmentation, they must be adjusted by the fact that in the cities living costs were higher, unemployment may have been higher, city workers may have been older, and farm laborers received perquisites. Using some Michigan Bureau of Labor surveys, we show that the 50% nominal wage gap collapses to a real earnings gap of 9 to 13%. On the basis of this evidence, much of the gaps between farm and city are an illusion.

The Impact of Fire Fighter Unionization on Wages and Working Hours in American Cities

O ne of the single most important developments in the public sector during the last two decades has been the growth of public employee unions. The policy implications of the proliferation of these organizations are varied and complicated, especially in the area of governmental expenditures, where personnel expenses comprise a greater proportion of total service/activity costs than in the private sector. While arguments for and against public unionism have been discussed extensively in recent years,2 two of the principal negative arguments remain quite potent. These are that unions will increase the costs of government above the usual incremental increases that we expect and can afford to pay, and that other groups competing for scarce municipal resources will be put at a competitive disadvantage because of employee groups' favored legal status. The argument, then, is that unions will exercise undue over the cities, to the detriment of the general public. A number of researchers have attempted to assess the relationship between unionization and public sector wages and expenditures.3 At single points in time we now know that the wage differential for and non-union government employees is not great-the average union on salary increases is only about 5 percent. This is not only smaller than is popularly supposed, but the likelihood that public employee unions have contributed to the greatly escalated cots of government in recent years is thus placed in doubt.4 As a result of the cross-sectional nature of this research, however, we cannot conclusively say whether public wage demands and associated activities have contributed to the spiral of governmental expenditures. The lack of longitudinal evidence makes it impossible to determine whether wages in unionized governmental units have increased at a rate greater than in non-unionized governments. Simply put, unionized cities may have paid higher wages to begin with. The forces that led to unionization may, in themselves, be responsible for the higher wages in cities. This article will examine the impact of unionization upon municipal employee wages and working hours. For our test, we look at the relationship between changes in firefighter wages and working hours and changes in firefighter unionization from 1960 to 1970. Firefighters constitute an excellent occupational group for use in testing the union power thesis.5 Not only is the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) the third largest all-public employee union, but with little competition from other national organizations for membership, it is an unusually cohesive l A number of studies have been made in recent years on the impact of public employee unions on wages and working hours of employees. These analyses have been cross-sectional in design, however, thus placing the validity of their findings in doubt. The question of whether wages and hours have increased/decreased at a greater rate in unionized cities than in non-unionized cities is still unanswered. This article examines the impact of fire fighter unionization on wages and working hours during the 1960 to 1970 time period. Critical variables assessed are the formation of a local and changes in contracts and dues check-off systems-both indicators of 'strength.' Unlike previous analyses of fire fighter unionization, this article finds that unionization has a moderate impact upon wages and working hours.