Barry Reilly

The Gender Pay Gap in the Transition from Communism: Some Empirical Evidence

This short paper investigates the gender pay gap in a number of former communist countries of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The main findings are that, in general, the gender pay gap has not exhibited an upward tendency over the transitional period to which available data relate. Most of the gender pay gap is ascribed to the ‘unexplained’ component using conventional decompositions and this may partly be attributable to the proxy measure for labour force experience used in this study. Quantile regression analysis indicates that in all but one country, the ceteris paribus gender pay gap rises as we move up the wage distribution.

The gender wage gap in Russia: Some empirical evidence

Abstract This paper presents estimates for wage equations and the gender wage gap for Russia using data drawn from the first sweep of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) carried out between July and November of 1992. The results reported provide a set of estimates that reflect the legacy of the Soviet planning system. In addition, given they are at a point in time just subsequent to the introduction of the liberalisation reforms, they provide an important benchmark against which the effects of the transition process on certain aspects of the labour market can be evaluated. In contrast to its relative success in capitalist economies, basic Mincerian functions provide poor fits to the 1992 Russian data, and suggest relatively modest returns to education. This latter finding is in comport with the empirical evidence from other socialist economies. The gender wage gap for employed workers in Russia was computed at 30%, and most of this was found to be attributable to gender differences in the returns to characteristics rather than to differences in the levels of characteristics. Although horizontal occupational segregation very broadly defined was found to be high in Russia, this was not found to be an important determinant of the differences in gender wages.

Rates of Return to Educational Qualifications in the Transitional Economies

This paper presents a set of cross-country estimates on rates of return within a broadly comparable framwork for a set of transitional economies that span Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Former Soviet Union countries of Central Asia. Our estimates reveal some tendency for rates to rise in most transitional economies over the period consideed. The variability in the rates of return to higher education is seen to provide some explanation for the variability in wage inequality experienced across the set of transitional economies.

The Employer Size-Wage Gap: Evidence for Britain

This paper presents estimates for the employer plant size-wage gap for Britain. Using an ordered probit model, selectivity-corrected wage equations are estimated for three plant size categories. In a comparison between plants with more than 500 workers and those with less than 100, a wage gap estimate of over 17 percent is detected. The wage effects of unionization in plants with more than 500 workers is reported as insignificant. In contrast to evidence provided by T. L. Idson and D. J. Feaster (1990) for the United States, no evidence of nonrandom sorting of workers across plant size is detected. Copyright 1993 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Income transfers of Chinese rural migrants: some empirical evidence from Jinan

This paper explores the determinants of migrant remittances to rural households using data on male migrant workers drawn from the Jinan Municipality in Shandong province in the summer of 1995. The majority of migrants are found to retain close links with their rural households with 85% remitting some income in the 12 months preceding the survey date. The transfers accounted for over a third of urban labour earnings. A number of models are used to undertake the estimation of remittance functions. No evidence of altruistic behaviour is uncovered and evidence for exchange and coinsurance theories is mixed. Labour earnings proved the most robust determinant of the level of remittance and the remittance/wage elasticity calculated is found to be at the top end of the range of estimates obtained in the literature.

The determinants of undergraduate degree performance: how important is gender?

This study uses data drawn from three recent cohorts of undergraduates at the University of Sussex to investigate the key determinants of degree performance. The primary theme of the study is an examination of the gender dimension to degree performance. The average ‘good’ degree rate for female students was found to be superior to the male rate. The modest raw gender differential in first class degree rates favoured women but was found to be attributable to their better endowments, particularly pre-entry qualifications. The largest differential favouring women was in the II:i classification, where almost all of the difference was attributable to differentials in coefficient treatment rather than endowments (or characteristics). The analysis undertaken also allowed the investigation of a number of sub-themes relating to the effects on degree performance of, inter alia, pre-entry qualifications, ethnicity, socio-economic background and health disability. The largest effects were reserved for the role of pre-entry qualifications with more modest effects detected for ethnicity and socio-economic background.

Urban and rural differences in primary school attendance: an empirical study for Tanzania

There is evidence of growing disparities in primary schooling rates between urban and rural areas in Tanzania. This paper presents empirical estimates for the determinants of primary school attendance in Tanzania for the early 1990s, and provides a comparison of attendance rates between the urban and rural areas for a number of different age groups. All the estimated models provide adequate fits to the data and many of the estimated coefficients are consistent with prior expectations. A statistically significant differential in primary school attendance rates between urban and rural areas is detected for the age groups examined. On the basis of our estimates, a large part of the differential is attributable to differences in observed characteristics with an important role exerted by urban-rural differences in the measure used to proxy household income.

English league transfer prices: is there a racial dimension?

Carmichael and Thomas (1993) recently examined the transfer market for association football within a Nash bargaining framework, and explored empirically some of the determinants of association football transfer prices for the 1990-91 English league season. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role exerted by race in the determination of association football transfer prices. Using data from the 1991-92 English league season, transfer price equations are estimated to establish if black players encounter unequal treatment in the transfer market.

A Comparison of A-level Performance in Economics and Business Studies: How Much More Difficult is Economics?

This paper uses A‐Level Information System data to compare academic performance in two subjects often viewed as relatively close substitutes for one another at A‐level. The important role of GCSE achievement is confirmed for both subjects. There is evidence of strong gender effects and variation in outcomes across Examination Boards. A counterfactual exercise suggests that if the sample of Business Studies candidates had studied Economics nearly 40% of those who obtained a grade C or better in the former subject would not have done so in the latter. The opposite exercise suggests that 12% more Economics candidates would have achieved a grade C or better if they had taken Business Studies. In order to render a Business Studies A‐level grade comparable with an Economics one in terms of relative difficulty, we estimate that a downward adjustment of 1.5 UCAS points should be applied to the former subject. This adjustment is lower than that suggested by correction factors based on conventional subject pair analysis for these two subjects

Decomposing the Ethnic Gap in Rural Vietnam, 1993–2004

This paper examines and decomposes the gap in per capita expenditures between majority and minority ethnic groups in rural Vietnam between 1993 and 2004. Over this period, the real expenditure gap between rural Kinh and Chinese-headed households and those headed by ethnic minorities increased by 14.6%. Approximately two-fifths of the mean gap is found to be due to differences in household endowments (in particular demographic structure and education), and at least half due to differences in returns to these endowments. Geographic variables explain less than one-fifth of the gap. Over half of the increase in the mean gap is linked to temporal changes in unobservable factors, and less than a quarter to the majoritys endowments improving more rapidly than those of the minorities. Broadly similar findings are detected using quantile regression analysis. These findings raise important questions concerning the drivers of the disadvantage faced by Vietnams ethnic minorities.