Politicians, the media, and the public express concern that immigrants depress wages by competing with native workers, but 30 years of empirical research provide little supporting evidence to this claim. Most studies for industrialized countries have found no effect on wages, on average, and...

The occupational skill structure depends on the business cycle if employers respond to shortages of applicants during upturns by lowering their hiring standards. Devereux uses this implication to construct empirical tests for the notion of hiring standards adjustment (the so-called Reder...

The authors provide evidence on the impact of foreign ownership on labor market outcomes analyzing pay differences between foreign-acquired and domestically owned firms. For this purpose, they use firm-level data from 16 European countries over the time period 19992006. Combing propensity score...

Over the last three decades, Spanish female labor force participation (LFP) has tremendously increased, particularly, that of married women. At the same time, the income tax structure, the fiscal treatment of families, policies to reconcile family and work, and the education distribution of...

Applicants for any given job are more or less suited to fill it, and the firm will select the best among them. Increasing the wage offer attracts more applicants and makes it possible to raise the hiring standard, thereby improving the productivity of the staff. Wages that optimize on the...

Studies from countries with laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation suggest that gay and lesbian employees report more incidents of harassment and are more likely to report experiencing unfair treatment in the labor market than are heterosexual employees. Gay men are found...

Women consistently work less in the labor market and earn lower wages than men. While economic empowerment of women is an important objective in itself, women's economic activity also matters as a condition for sustained economic growth. The political debate on the labor market impacts of...

Direct wage comparisons show that public-sector employees earn around 15% more than private-sector employees. But should these differences be interpreted as a "public-sector premium"? Two points need to be considered. First, the public and private sectors differ in the jobs they offer and the...

There are large international differences in the gender pay gap. In some developed countries in 2010-2012, women were close to earnings parity with men, while in others large gaps remained. Since women and men have different average levels of education and experience and commonly work in...