More concentration, less dynamism may dampen US growth

Subject Impact of greater market concentration. Significance US business concentration has risen since the 1990s, accompanied by higher profit margins, weaker investment and labour accounting for a lower share of income. Research finds that having fewer new firms entering industry is reducing business dynamism and workers’ geographic and sectoral mobility, as well as making it easier for less productive firms to stay in business. In Europe, competition policy is more vigorous and business concentration is lower -- but neither business dynamism nor productivity is notably higher than in the United States. Impacts The benefits that the largest tech firms have produced, such as job creation and tech innovations, have muted criticism of their practices. The giant tech firms that have branched out into other sectors will be targets for breakup and other anti-monopoly actions. The EU is pressing for digital firms’ sales to be taxed in the country of sale; this could help EU firms compete with larger US ones.

Jobless growth through the lens of structural transformation

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the observed “jobless growth” between 1993-1994 and 2011-2012 based on structural transformation to explain why the elasticity of employment generation to gross domestic product growth has declined during this period. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses the job generation and growth decomposition tool to quantify the effects of inter-sectoral mobility of workers, intra-sectoral productivity changes and demographic changes on per capita value added growth. Alternative scenarios are generated to simulate the effect of higher female labour participation rates. Findings Structural transformation in India between 1993-1994 and 2011-2012 was characterised by increasing labour productivity in most sectors, inter-sectoral mobility of workers and a decline in the employment rate. About 81 per cent of the increase in per capita value added was because of a rise in labour productivity; about 24 per cent was because of inter-sectoral shifts of labour; and about 9 per cent because of demographic changes. The decline in the employment rate had a negative effect of −14.20 per cent. The process of transformation was unconventional. First, labour productivity growth was the highest in the service sector and second, the bulk of the movement of labour was to the construction sector. Research limitations/implications This paper focusses only on the quantitative dimensions of employment and offers no new explanations why female labour force participation declined. Originality/value This paper offers a new perspective on the debate of jobless growth focussing on structural transformation.

Mobility as homelessness

This article discusses three kinds of mobility among early stage researchers: geographical mobility, mobility between disciplines – or interdisciplinarity – and cross-sectoral mobility. It focuses on how PhD fellows engage with and negotiate experiences of mobility. These types of mobility have largely been presented as inherently beneficial in mainstream policy discourse, but this article presents a more nuanced picture of mobility, showing the challenges of mobility, as experienced and articulated by PhD fellows and some of their supervisors. The research is based on twenty-six interviews with PhD fellows and principal investigators involved in two types of flagship doctoral programmes: the ITN in Europe, and the IGERT in the United States. The main finding is that PhD fellows associated all three types of mobility with feelings of homelessness.

Do you get what you ask? The gender gap in desired and realised wages

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study gender differences in wage bargaining by comparing the unexplained wage gap in desired, realised and reservation wages. Design/methodology/approach The notion of desired wages is applied, which shows workers’ first bet to potential employers during the job-search process. A large job-search data set is drawn from the main Estonian electronic job-search site CV Keskus. Findings It is found that the unexplained gender wage gap is around 20 per cent in desired wages and in realised wages, which supports the view that the gender income gap in expectations compares well with the realised income gap. The unexplained gender wage gap is larger in desired wages than in reservation wages for unemployed individuals, and this suggests that women ask for wages that are closer to their reservation wages men do. Occupational and sectoral mobility is unable to explain a significant additional part of the gender wage gap. Originality/value The paper adds to the scarce empirical evidence on the role of the non-experimental wage negotiation process in the gender wage gap. In addition, the authors seek to explain one of the largest unexplained gender wage gaps in Europe, the one in Estonia, by introducing a novel set of variables for occupational and sectoral mobility from a lengthy retrospective panel.

EXPERT SYSTEMS IN THE MODERNIZATION OF PERSONNEL POLICY IN THE REGION

The article discusses the modernization of personnel policy at the regional level. The article analyzes areas of personnel policy, which are grouped according to their object of concentration. The author lists the constituent elements of the state policy and regional staff policy, justifies their substantial party. It is proposed to use as a resource for the modernization of regional personnel policy expert systems. Dynamics of scientific approaches to expert systems is studied; their role in the management process is justified. Markers of modernization processes are selected, sociological methods to track the dynamics of modernization in the regional personnel policy are given, based on local expert systems. Directions for use of expert systems in the regional modernization practices are considered. The areas are: the creation of expert communities; the development of a technological platform to ensure the operation of expert systems; establishment of mechanisms a qualitative analysis of the needs of the labor market in specialists of different professional orientation; creation of the maps of the professional and sectoral mobility; development of methods of information support of subjects of labour relations (employers, employees, Federal and municipal authorities).