German Cubas

Comparative Advantage and Risk Premia in Labor Markets

Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) we estimate quarterly labor earnings risk across 21 industries of the US economy. We document a significant and positive association between earnings risk (both permanent and transitory) and average log-earnings across industries. The Finance sector is 50% riskier than Government which implies a mean earnings premium of 20%. We develop an equilibrium framework to analyze the interplay between volatility in labor earnings and comparative advantage in determining the level of earnings across industries. We use the model to decompose how much of the empirical correlation represents compensation for risk and how much represents selection. The positive association between permanent risk and earnings is compensation for risk, but selection is responsible for the observed relationship between temporary risk and mean earnings.

Analysing Labour Productivity in Ecuador

We studied labour productivity growth in Ecuador from 1998 to 2006 by using firm-level data from the annual survey of manufacturing and mining. This period is characterised by the economic crisis in 1999 and important economic reforms. During the crisis, there was a two percent annual decrease in productivity in 1998–2000, but the recovery was strong with a five percent annual productivity growth in 2002–2004. Our productivity decomposition indicated that the main source of productivity growth came from firms with increasing productivity gaining market shares. Within-firm productivity decline was substantial during the crisis, but its growth was secondary in the post crisis recovery. Firm entry and exit only had minor impacts on labour productivity. Our distributional analysis further showed that labour productivity distribution increased in 2000–2002 and had remained at higher level for the rest of the sample period.