Workers Gain Research Articles

The Labor Market and Growth Implications of Skill Distribution: A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model with Skill Heterogeneity

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model which explicitly incorporates the skill distribution of heterogeneous workers. Workers are distributed heterogeneously in their individual skill level and can be endogenously sorted into different tasks using different technologies. In doing so, we study in depth the labor market and growth implications of the changes in skill distribution. Specifically, we consider two changes in the skill distribution in a given population, (i) the increased density in the upper tail (skill upgrading), and (ii) the increased density both in the lower and upper tails (skill polarization). It is shown that, though the labor market implications for individual workers are likely to be largely different and complex (skill polarization even leads to nonlinear labor market changes), both changes in the skill distribution may increase steady-state real investment and enhance growth so that all workers gain with time.

Temporal geographies of premature death: Caste, law, and infrastructure in Swachh Bharat

Why do sewage and manual cleaning workers, who mostly belong to Dalit communities, die prematurely? In answering this question, I argue that the mutually reinforcing relationship between law and infrastructure enables their premature deaths. The gaps in law and those in urban sanitation infrastructure in India, combined with deeply entrenched Caste ethos, and the commodification of cleanliness, create conditions where the deaths of sewage workers are a regular occurrence. I situate deaths of sewage workers within the Clean India Campaign, a government program for clean public infrastructure and managing fecal matter to posit that the relentless pursuit of cleanliness results in its commodification, which in turn exacerbates the exploitation of the sewage cleaning workers.Using a theoretical lens drawn from Black studies and Dalit-Bahujan scholarship, I demonstrate that the temporality of law and infrastructure makes the cleaning workers invisible to the planners and implementers of the Clean India Campaign. Under such conditions, the cleaning workers gain recognition from law only when they die. Their appalling working conditions and the near absence of workplace protections hardly get any attention. It is only when they die that the law recognizes their personhood. I draw attention to how law and infrastructure influence each other and contribute to Black Studies and Dalit Studies by framing caste as racializing assemblages—contextualizing the temporal geographies of premature death and the role of infrastructures as an assemblage.

Friend or Foe? Teaming Between Artificial Intelligence and Workers with Variation in Experience

As artificial intelligence (AI) applications become more pervasive, it is critical to understand how knowledge workers with different levels and types of experience can team with AI for productivity gains. We focus on the influence of two major types of human work experience (narrow experience based on the specific task volume and broad experience based on seniority) on the human-AI team dynamics. We developed an AI solution for medical chart coding in a publicly traded company and conducted a field study among the knowledge workers. Based on a detailed analysis performed at the medical chart level, we find evidence that AI benefits workers with greater task-based experience, but senior workers gain less from AI than their junior colleagues. Further investigation reveals that the relatively lower productivity lift from AI is not a result of seniority per se but lower trust in AI, likely triggered by the senior workers’ broader job responsibilities. This study provides new empirical insights into the differential roles of worker experience in the collaborative dynamics between AI and knowledge workers, which have important societal and business implications. This paper was accepted by Kartik Hosanagar, information systems. Funding: This work was supported by Inovalon [Sponsor of the Health Insights AI Laboratory]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.00588 .

JUE insight: The role of establishment size in the city-size earnings premium

Both large establishments and large cities are known to offer workers an earnings premium. In this paper, we show that these two premia are closely linked by documenting a new fact: when workers move to a large city, they also move to larger establishments. We then ask how much of the city-size earnings premium can be attributed to transitions to larger and better-paying establishments. Using administrative data from Spain, we find that 38 percent of the city-size earnings premium can be explained by establishment-size composition. Most of the gains from the transition to larger establishments realize in the short-term upon moving to the large city. Establishment size explains 29 percent of the short-term gains, but only 5 percent of the medium-term gains that accrue as workers gain experience in the large city. The small contribution to the medium-term gains is due to two facts: first, within large cities workers transition to large establishments only slightly faster than in smaller cities; second, the relationship between earnings and establishment size is weaker in large cities.

Remote vigilance: The roles of cyber awareness and cybersecurity policies among remote workers

The convergence of increased remote working and rising cybersecurity threats have created a severe challenge for organizations. As firms continue to embrace remote working, the challenges of cybersecurity threats and risks remain unresolved. This study draws upon the Peltzman Effect and the complacency framework to explore how remote working may trigger a moral hazard regarding employee cybersecurity awareness and security-based precaution-taking.Data collected from 203 remote workers across the US provide strong support for the research model. Contrary to widely held beliefs about remote working, the results indicate that remote working is positively associated with cybersecurity awareness and security-based precaution-taking. The findings further show that information security policy compliance moderates the effect of remote working on cybersecurity awareness. In addition, the study reveals that as remote workers gain cybersecurity awareness, they are more likely to apply security-based precaution measures. The study complements current theoretical frameworks on security-precaution behaviors and provides insights to managers grappling with remote working in the face of burgeoning cybersecurity threats.

Labour Standards in Global Production Networks: Assessing Transnational Private Regulation and Workers’ Capacity to Act

ABSTRACTDespite decades of growing engagement, there are still questions about the effectiveness of transnational private regulation in labour standards to improve employee welfare in global production networks. The literature shows that some improvement may be expected in outcome standards, such as benefits, working time, health and safety issues, but not necessarily in process rights, such as freedom of association, collective bargaining and employment dialogue. Yet, workers need such rights if they are to have a voice and to participate in the organizational processes by which standards may be improved and compliance monitored. The authors of this article contend that the effectiveness of transnational private regulation in labour standards ultimately rests on workers’ capacity to act. The article is based on analysis of a cross‐country and cross‐sectoral data set from site‐level surveys of 139 suppliers from Brazil and Kenya in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors. The analysis provides no evidence that either the presence of standards at a supplier's site, or the awareness of such standards by workers employed at that site, have an impact on workers’ capacity to act. Moreover, the results provide only weak evidence that standards help workers gain influence over matters of relatively minor importance on the agenda of workplace cooperation.

Who benefits from tax incentives? The heterogeneous wage incidence of a tax credit

Do workers gain from lower business taxes, and why? We estimate how a large corporate income tax credit in France is passed on to wages and explore the firm- and employee-level underlying mechanisms. The amount of tax credit firms get depends on their payroll share of workers paid less than a wage threshold. Exposure to the policy thus varies both across workers depending on their wage and across firms depending on their wage structure. Using exhaustive employer-employee data, we find that half of the surplus generated by the reform falls onto workers. Wage gains load on incumbents in high-skill occupations. The wage earnings of low-skill workers—nearly all individually eligible—do not change. This heterogeneous wage incidence is unlikely to be driven by scale effects or skill complementarities. We find that the groups of workers benefiting from wage gains are also more likely to continue working for the same firm. Further, we show that firms do not change their wage-setting behavior in response to the individual eligibility status of workers. Overall, our results suggest that the wage incidence of the tax credit operated collectively through rent-sharing and benefited workers most costly to replace.

Activity and voice of people with sensory dysfunctions on social media. Report on netnographic research

Social media are becoming an essential communication tool for people with disabilities and can become a good resource of knowledge for social workers. As a critical area of contemporary visual culture, social media can enhance the empowerment and social inclusion of people with visual and hearing impairments. The aim of the presented online research conducted between March and July 2021 was to answer the main research question: what self-expression content people with sensory disorders present on social media. Additionally, specific research questions were posed: how the content address topics relates to social inclusion; what benefits can social workers gain from observing social media accounts run by people with visual and hearing impairments? To analyse the presence of people with visual and hearing impairment on social media, I used three qualitative research methods: desk research, netnography, and case study. The analysis of the collected material allowed me to distinguish nine main thematic categories of content published by people with sensory dysfunctions on social media: everyday life, medical information, modern technologies, forms of support, taboos, humour, social activity, relationships, leisure. The categories were generated through coding and categorization in an emic perspective. The analysis also indicated that much of the content discussed relates to the idea of social inclusion for people with sensory dysfunctions. The article also shows a series of benefits of observing social media for social workers in their professional practice.

Women in the boardroom: a bottom–up approach to the trickle-down effect

This paper argues that role modeling can explain the impact of boardroom gender diversity on corporate performance. It theorizes that female workers are boosted by female leadership, gain increased motivation, and achieve greater productivity, thereby making their female directors more effective. We test this bottom–up approach to the trickle-down hypothesis on data hand-collected among local cooperatives providing microcredit in Senegal. All the organizations surveyed are similar and small, which allows us to use a homogenous performance metric. All of them outsource their human resource management to the same third party, which mitigates the risk of endogeneity. The data cover over 100,000 triads composed of gender dominance on the board, gender of CEO, and gender of credit officer. A better financial performance is achieved when the triad is gender-uniform—be it male or female—confirming the importance of role modeling and suggesting that the performance of female board members depends on the gender composition of the workforce.Plain English summary Women’s leadership styles differ from men’s. But we still ignore whether the styles adopted by male and female directors make any difference in terms of financial performance. Scholars hold controversial views about whether and how the financial performance of firms depends on gender diversity in the boardroom. This article speculates that female directors act as role models on their subordinates (“trickle-down effect”) and their impact is “bottom–up” in the sense that female workers gain increased motivation when working under female leadership. We hand-collected data from financial cooperatives in Senegal. These organizations enabled us to observe the unlikely situation of boards including over 50% of women. We measured financial performance with loan repayment. Our results confirm that female-dominated boards achieve a better financial performance when they work with female CEOs and female subordinates. The principal implication is that the performance of female board members depends on the gender composition of the workforce.

A novel bi-objective model for a job shop scheduling problem with consideration of Fuzzy parameters, modified learning effects and multiple preventive maintenance activities

This paper aims at introducing a novel bi-objective model for a Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) in order to minimize makespan and maximum tardiness simultaneously. Some realistic assumptions, i.e. Fuzzy processing times and due dates involving triangular possibility distributions, transportation times, availability constraints, modified position-based learning effects on processing times, and sum-of-processing-time based learning effects on duration of maintenance activities have been considered, to provide a more general and practical model for the JSSP. Based on the learning effects, Processing times decrease as a machine performs an operation frequently, and workers gain working skills and experiences. In this paper based on DeJong’s learning effect a novel and modified formulation has been proposed for this effect. According to the above-mentioned assumptions, a novel mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for the JSSP is suggested. The proposed model is first converted to an auxiliary crisp model, given that model is a possibilistic programming, it is then solved by the TH and ε-constraint methods for small instances, and the results are compared. For medium and large instances, five metaheuristic algorithms, including NSGA-ΙΙΙ, PESA-ΙΙ, SPEA-ΙΙ, NSGA-ΙΙ, and MOEA/D are utilized, and the results are finally compared on the basis of three performance metrics.

Who Benefits from Tax Incentives? The Heterogeneous Wage Incidence of a Tax Credit

Do workers gain from lower business taxes, and why? We estimate how a large French corporate income tax credit is passed on to wages and explore the firm- and employee-level underlying mechanisms. The amount of tax credit firms get depends on their payroll share of workers paid less than a wage threshold. Exposure to the policy thus varies both across workers depending on their wage and across firms depending on their wage structure. Using exhaustive employer-employee data, we find that half of the surplus generated by the reform falls onto workers. Wage gains load on incumbents in high-skill occupations. The wage earnings of low-skill workers -- nearly all individually eligible -- do not change. This heterogeneous wage incidence is unlikely to be driven by scale effects or skill complementarities. We find that the groups of workers benefiting from wage gains are also more likely to continue working for the same firm. Further, we show that firms do not change their wage-setting behavior in response to the individual eligibility status of workers as there is no bunching in the distribution of entrants' wages. Overall, our results suggest that the wage incidence of firm taxation operates collectively through rent-sharing and benefits workers most costly to replace.

What If Working from Home Will Stick? Distributional and Climate Impacts for Germany

The COVID-19 pandemic created the largest experiment in working from home. We study how persistent telework may change energy and transport consumption and costs in Germany to assess the distributional and environmental implications when working from home will stick. Based on data from the German Microcensus and available classifications of working-from-home feasibility for different occupations, we calculate the change in energy consumption and travel to work when 15% of employees work full time from home. Our findings suggest that telework translates into an annual increase in heating energy expenditure of 110 euros per worker and a decrease in transport expenditure of 840 euros per worker. All income groups would gain from telework but high-income workers gain twice as much as low-income workers. The value of time saving is between 1.3 and 6 times greater than the savings from reduced travel costs and almost 9 times higher for high-income workers than low-income workers. The direct effects on CO2 emissions due to reduced car commuting amount to 4.5 millions tons of CO2, representing around 3 percent of carbon emissions in the transport sector.

Training Module Development for Industrial Employees in TQM

TQM gives the general idea that encourages constant improvement in an association. The TQM theory focuses on an orderly, incorporated, steady, association-wide viewpoint, including everybody and everything. It centers basically around complete fulfillment of both inward and outer clients inside an administration climate that looks for continued improvement, everything being equal, and cycles. TQM is a need. It is an excursion that never closes. It is the best approach to endure and succeed. It is the wholly incorporated exertion for increasing the upper hand by continually improving each feature of an association's exercises. In this Phase – II, the investigation goals are a) to know the adequacy of Training identified with TQM. b) To know representatives' assessment of the Training procedure. c) To analyze representatives' information about TQM among Pre and Post assessment. For the above destinations, the analyst chose 50 representatives arbitrarily. The poll technique is utilized to gather information. The poll is used to quantify the worker's information about TQM in the wake of preparing. Furthermore, the scientist finds a way to know the representative's demeanor about the Training Program (counting philosophy). In light of the above need, stage II is directed. Essential information is utilized and it is gathered by using surveys and meeting techniques. Optional information was collected from the business records, books, magazines, and sites. The reactions were scored according to the scoring key of the separate survey. At that point, the outcomes were arranged, dissected, and examined. The gathered information was investigated utilizing proper factual strategies. The exact measurements, for example, mean and S.D, SEM, t-proportion, were registered. The result shows that after going to the preparation program, workers gain information about TQM. Furthermore, they have an inspirational demeanor about the association, and they are fulfilled about the preparation philosophy.

Protecting Our Own: Equity for Employees as Hospitals Battle COVID-19.

As medical providers garner praise during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, “nonclinical” health care workers remain largely overlooked. Although these essential workers face similar, if not greater, risks of contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) as others on the frontlines, many hospitals have fallen short in providing this vulnerable population with needed protections. Instead, hospitals should implement policies that guarantee all staff receive the information, equipment, and support necessary for battling the current crisis. This is critical not only for promoting the safety of these workers and their families, but also for ensuring the well-being of the community as a whole.

Globalization, the jobs ladder and economic mobility

Globalization affects the mix of jobs available in an economy and the rate at which workers gain skills. We develop a model in which firms differ in terms of productivity and workers differ in skills, and use the model to examine how globalization affects the wage distribution and the career path of workers as they move up the jobs ladder. We calibrate the model using many of the same parameters and targeting the same moments of the US economy as Melitz and Redding (2015) and then investigate the impact of globalization. Our results indicate that although falling trade costs results in greater wage inequality, it also leads to a wider path up the jobs ladder and less time spent in entry level jobs.

Productivity Improvement through the Systematic Application of Facility Layout Planning in a Small Scale Woodcraft Manufacturing Industry

the study’s goal is to help increase the productivity of the company by introducing a systematic layout plan in production department of VENRON Wood Home Craft Manufacturing Industry. Systematic Layout Planning application is the focus of the study to help improve productivity in the company an evaluation and workflow analysis to the current layout was used to identify the problems the company is experiencing using a fishbone diagram to represent it. A conceptual framework using IPO model was divided into several inputs and processes needed in proposing alternative layout. Process time study and layout planning tools such as from-to chart, activity relationship diagram, space requirement and block diagram will be used to develop and achieve alternative layouts The study resulted to a decrease in travel time and distance improving the productivity resulting to more production in a given time. A basic workplace safety manual for the company has been made to help the company and the workers gain knowledge and how, when and why should safety be in their practice. Costbenefit analysis using comparative analysis will be calculated in the company’s result to production per day to determine on how does the proposed layout could affect and have benefit to the company. The result of the study is that proposing a new layout could really improve the production of the company producing more units per day compared to the current one

Inefficient sorting under output sharing

I study sorting in a frictional market. Asset owners post their terms, then workers direct their search. When the owners switch from prices to shares, the competition between workers is handicapped. The unique equilibrium features inefficient positive assortative matching. The queue lengths are distorted, even though the Hosios efficiency condition holds for every pair of types. For any distribution of types, all workers pair up with better assets. The best workers suffer while the weakest workers gain; the opposite occurs on the asset side. Competition drives the asset owners to post flatter contracts. It leads to constrained efficiency whenever prices are feasible. Otherwise, handicapped competition results in inefficient sorting.

Unemployment and Endogenous Reallocation Over the Business Cycle

We build an analytically and computationally tractable stochastic equilibrium model of unemployment in heterogeneous labor markets. Facing search frictions within markets and reallocation frictions between markets, workers endogenously separate from employment and endogenously reallocate between markets, in response to changing aggregate and local conditions. Empirically, using the 1986-2008 SIPP panels, we document the occupational mobility patterns of the unemployed, finding notably that occupational change of unemployed workers is procyclical. The heterogeneous-market model yields highly volatile countercyclical unemployment, and is simultaneously consistent with procyclical reallocation, countercyclical separations and a negatively-sloped Beveridge curve. Moreover, the model exhibits unemployment duration dependence, which (when calibrated to long-term averages) responds realistically to the business cycle, creating substantial longer-term unemployment in downturns. Finally, the model is also consistent with different employment and reallocation outcomes as workers gain experience in the labor market, on average and over the business cycle.

Nepali Domestic Workers in New Delhi: Strategies and Agency

Scholars have noted deplorable conditions of female migrant workers who suffer several types of citizenship disabilities as most countries do not extend equal citizenship rights and protections to migrant workers. In addition to this, they are unable to take full advantage of the rights available to them in the host countries because of low cultural and social capital. Further, studies have emphasized how the breakdown of the traditional economy and the penetration of the market in developing societies have forced people, especially from rural areas, to seek low-paying dead-end jobs in the global labor market. Examining Nepali domestic workers in New Delhi, while this research agrees with the existing studies, we also bring to notice the fact that migrant female workers are not always passive victims and that they exercise considerable choice and agency. The case of Nepali domestic workers in New Delhi offers fresh insight into the ways in which migrant women attempt to actively influence and control the work conditions and immediate labour market outcomes. This paper also shows that even if Nepali migrant workers gain in a limited way, they actively collude with their employers to marginalize native domestic workers. In the end, traditional power relations and inequality are reproduced unchallenged.

Attempts at Empowering Rural Communities through Vocational Skills: Some Guiding Theories

The high unemployment rates in the rural areas call for the empowerment of both the young and old on survival skills. This will help them to participate in the informal economy for their livelihoods. Informal jobs offer valuable opportunities for young unskilled workers in terms of skill acquisition and career advancement. To be specific, they serve as a stepping stone to formal jobs, which offer better conditions in terms of pay, insurance, job security, and other amenities at work. Although the existence of a large informal sector may distort tax collection and reduce productivity, informal job opportunities may in fact be welfare enhancing for the young and unskilled workers in developing countries, because these jobs help workers gain expertise and build professional networks for improving their career prospects. Integrated Skills Outreach Programme is one TVET way of equipping rural populations with skills to fend for themselves.