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IZA World of Labor Panel discussion on inequality, unemployment, wage setting and inflation

IZA World of Labor Panel discussion on inequality, unemployment, wage setting and inflation with Richard Rogerson, Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Josef Zweimüller, Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich

Discussion questions:
- What do your findings about differences in inequality of earnings within occupations imply about such macroeconomic outcomes as unemployment and inflation?
- We know that it becomes more difficult for workers to leave unemployment the longer they have been unemployed. Is this because the very fact of having been unemployed longer signals employers that the worker is lazy or is it just that longer-term unemployed workers reduce their efforts to find work?
- What is this distinction between dynamic selection and negative duration dependence? Tell us about the role of subsidies for unemployed people to either be hired or to get off the roles faster – a number of countries do things like this. Does the answer depend upon which of these two phenomenon is going on?
- The world is currently facing fairly rapid inflation along with rapidly dropping unemployment rates. Is this a standard cyclical phenomenon, or is this something new? Are there any historical precedents for this?

Read related IZA World of Labor content:
- Todd Sorensen’s article Do firms’ wage-setting powers increase during recessions?
- Edward P. Lazear’s article Structural or cyclic? Labor markets in recessions

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IZA World of Labor Panel Discussion on Women in Leadership

IZA World of Labor Panel Discussion on Women in Leadership with Astrid Kunze from the Norwegian School of Economics, Joanne Tan from the Singapore Management University and Zoe B. Cullen from the Harvard Business School

Discussion questions:
- What are your predictions: By the year 2050, will there be equality in the corporate leadership in Western countries and perhaps in Asian countries?
- In Norway, Germany, and to a much lesser extent the US, have substantial parental leave policies. If we expanded that further – made it longer-term, increased the pay – would that solve the glass ceiling problem? Or to what extent would it reduce it? Astrid Kunze has looked at parental leave from short to long-term. What are the efficiency effects of this on the bottom line for corporations? What argument is there for extending parental leave?

- Would changing corporate culture help? Does transparency in knowing how much female’s managers earn encourage women to ask for a raise?
- Is it a good side of the Covid-19 crisis that people are not going into the office since male managers are more likely to spend more with male colleagues relative to female colleagues? How does one intervene to disrupt such a dynamic?
- Would quotas on boards of directors solve the problem? What are the efficiency effects of this on the bottom line for corporations?

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Nina Smith on the gender pay gap: An interview with with Daniel S. Hamermesh

Nina Smith on the gender pay gap: An interview with with Daniel S. Hamermesh

Some of the questions include:

What causes the gender pay gap in Europe?

In most Western countries, looking at time-use data, men are doing more household work, women are doing somewhat less. There should have been some change because of the changing nature of the intra-household bargain but you are saying there isn’t?

To what extent is it the fact that the woman, rightly or wrongly, is viewed as the manager of the household?

So, if the child is sick, it is assumed that the woman disrupts her day to take care of the child? Even if it is not a long time, the uncertainty about time at the workplace has an overwhelming effect on an employer’s interest in paying and employing women, is that true?

What is your opinion on gender quotas and corporate quotas?

Is it possible that gender quotas are a way to help better-off women to do better?

What can we do to reduce the gender-wage gap? Do any countries require that the father takes at least a third of the parenting quota?

In 2050, will the gender pay gap be reduced? Will there be more equality, in your opinion, in household behaviour – e.g. taking care of children?

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Interview with Antti Kauhanen on gender differences in corporate hierarchies

Interview with Antti Kauhanen on gender differences in corporate hierarchies

Some of the questions asked by IZA World of Labor Editor-in-Chief Daniel S. Hamermesh include: 

- Why is there a pay gap between men and women?
- You mention human capital differences and yet in most rich countries women are now more educated than men. So, why should that matter anymore?
- Very few people outright discriminate against women anymore, it is rather unconscious. Can you give me examples of that and what can be done about it?
- I know you can do blind auditions for orchestras but how can we formalize hiring for office jobs?
- Could you also look at women who have been single all their lives compared to men who have been single all their lives – is there a difference there too?
- What does “make workplaces more family-friendly”? What does that entail, can we achieve that?
- In the last year with Covid-19, looking at the data, it seems that working from home has not had a positive effect on women’s careers. Why is that?
- Covid-19 on the impact on the gender pay gap: is it here to stay or just a passing phenomenon?

Read Antti Kauhanen's article Gender differences in corporate hierarchies.

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