Terry Gregory - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Terry Gregory

OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 2016

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Die wirtschaftliche Prosperität von Regio­nen hängt unter anderem davon ab, ob sie ein attraktive... more Die wirtschaftliche Prosperität von Regio­nen hängt unter anderem davon ab, ob sie ein attraktiver Standort für (Hoch-)Qualifizierte sind. Für die Gestaltung politischer Maßnahmen, die Brain-Drain-Phänomenen entgegenwirken sollen, ist es wichtig zu wissen, was die Wanderung von Arbeitskräften bestimmt. In diesem Beitrag wird deshalb untersucht, wie sich regionale Unterschiede in der Lohn und Beschäftigungsverteilung auf die Bildungs­struktur in den Arbeitskräftebewegungen auswirken.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Journal for Labour Market Research, 2012

Der seit 1997 im Dachdeckerhandwerk eingeführte und seit 2003 bundeseinheitlich geregelte, allgem... more Der seit 1997 im Dachdeckerhandwerk eingeführte und seit 2003 bundeseinheitlich geregelte, allgemeinverbindliche Mindestlohn führt vor allem in Ostdeutschland auch im internationalen Vergleich zu einer starken Betroffenheit der Branche vom Mindestlohn. Die damit einhergehende effektive Kostenbelastung fällt dennoch begrenzt aus. Auf der Basis von Differenz-von-Differenzen-Schätzungen sowohl im Vergleich zu einer nicht von einem Mindestlohn betroffenen Baunebenbranche als auch auf Basis eines Vergleichs von unterschiedlich stark durch den Mindestlohn betroffenen Beschäftigten des Dachdeckerhandwerks, werden die kausalen Wirkungen im Hinblick auf Beschäftigung, Arbeitnehmerschutz und Wettbewerb untersucht. Dabei zeigt sich, dass sich die mit dem Mindestlohn einhergehenden Lohnzuwächse nur teilweise in Einkommenszuwächse übersetzen. Zudem lassen sich trotz einiger negativer Beschäftigungsergebnisse für die von einem bindenden Mindestlohn betroffenen Beschäftigten keine Veränderung der Gesamtbeschäftigung feststellen. Dies liegt möglicherweise daran, dass mindestlohnbedingte Kostensteigerungen zumindest teilweise über höhere Preise an die Kunden weitergegeben wurden. Eindeutige Effekte auf die Wettbewerbssituation im Dachdeckerhandwerk konnten hingegen nicht nachgewiesen werden, wenngleich sich für Ostdeutschland eine gewisse Verschiebung der Gründungstätigkeit und des Unternehmensbestands in Richtung Ein-Personen-Unternehmen zeigt.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

This paper examines the determinants of internal migration in a context where wages tend to be ra... more This paper examines the determinants of internal migration in a context where wages tend to be rather inflexible at a regional scale so that regional labor demand shocks have a prolonged impact on employment rates. Regional income differentials, then, reflect both regional pay and employment differentials. In such a context, migrants tend to move to regions that best reward their skills in terms of both of these dimensions. As an extension to the Borjas framework, the paper thus hypothesizes that regions with a low employment inequality attract more unskilled workers compared to regions with unequal employment chances. By estimating a migration model for the average skill level of gross labor flows between 27 German regions, we find evidence in favor of this hypothesis. While rising employment inequality in a region raises the average skill level of an in-migrant, higher pay inequality in a region does not have a significant impact on the average skill level of its in-migrants. A higher employment inequality in Eastern as compared to Western Germany may, thus, be the missing link to explain the fact that East-West migrants tend to be rather unskilled.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Concerns have been raised that demographic ageing may weaken the competitiveness of knowledge-bas... more Concerns have been raised that demographic ageing may weaken the competitiveness of knowledge-based economies and increase regional disparities. The age-creativity link is however far from clear at the aggregate level. Contributing to this debate, we estimate the causal effect of the workforce age structure on patenting activities for local labour markets in Germany using a flexible knowledge production function and accounting for potential endogeneity of the regional workforce structure. Overall, our results suggest that younger workers boost regional innovations, but this effect partly hinges on the presence of older workers as younger and older workers turn out to be complements in the production of knowledge. With demographic aging mainly increasing the older workforce and shrinking the younger one, our results imply that innovation levels in ageing societies may drop in the future. Moreover, differences in the regional age structure currently explain around a sixth of the innovation gap across German regions.

Regional Studies, 2014

This paper examines the forces driving skill selectivity of regional migration in a context where... more This paper examines the forces driving skill selectivity of regional migration in a context where modelling the migration decision as a wage-maximising process may be insufficient due to persistent employment disparities. The paper thus extends a Borjas type framework on the selectivity of internal migrants to allow migrants to move to regions that best reward their skills in terms of both wages and employment. This framework predicts that high-skilled workers are disproportionately attracted to regions with higher mean wages and employment chances as well as higher regional wage and employment inequalities. Estimates from a labour flow fixed effects model and a GMM estimator show that these predictions hold, but only employment disparities induce a robust and significant skill sorting. The paper thus establishes a missing link why employment disparities may actually be self-reinforcing.

German Economic Review, 2013

This paper contributes to the sparse literature on employment spillovers on minimum wages. We exp... more This paper contributes to the sparse literature on employment spillovers on minimum wages. We exploit the minimum wage introduction and subsequent increases in the German roofing sector that gave rise to an internationally unprecedented hard bite of a minimum wage. We look at the chances of remaining employed in the roofing sector for workers with and without a binding minimum wage and use the plumbing sector that is not subject to a minimum wage as a suitable benchmark sector. By estimating the counterfactual wage that plumbers would receive in the roofing sector given their characteristics, we are able to identify employment effects along the entire wage distribution. The results indicate that the chances for roofers to remain employed in the sector in eastern Germany deteriorated along the entire wage distribution. Such employment spillovers to workers without a binding minimum wage may result from scale effects and/or capital-labour substitution.

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2015

Demographic change is expected to affect labour markets in very different ways on a regional scal... more Demographic change is expected to affect labour markets in very different ways on a regional scale. The objective of this paper is to explore the spatio-temporal patterns of recent distributional changes in the workers age structure, innovation output and skill composition for German regions by conducting an Exploratory Space-Time Data Analysis (ESTDA). Beside commonly used tools, we apply newly developed approaches which allow investigating the space-time dynamics of the spatial distributions. We include an analysis of the joint distributional dynamics of the patenting variable with the remaining interest variables. Overall, we find strong clustering tendencies for the demographic variables and innovation that constitute a great divide across German regions. The detected clusters partly evolve over time and suggest a demographic polarization trend among regions that may further reinforce the observed innovation divide in the future.

OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 2016

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Die wirtschaftliche Prosperität von Regio­nen hängt unter anderem davon ab, ob sie ein attraktive... more Die wirtschaftliche Prosperität von Regio­nen hängt unter anderem davon ab, ob sie ein attraktiver Standort für (Hoch-)Qualifizierte sind. Für die Gestaltung politischer Maßnahmen, die Brain-Drain-Phänomenen entgegenwirken sollen, ist es wichtig zu wissen, was die Wanderung von Arbeitskräften bestimmt. In diesem Beitrag wird deshalb untersucht, wie sich regionale Unterschiede in der Lohn und Beschäftigungsverteilung auf die Bildungs­struktur in den Arbeitskräftebewegungen auswirken.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Journal for Labour Market Research, 2012

Der seit 1997 im Dachdeckerhandwerk eingeführte und seit 2003 bundeseinheitlich geregelte, allgem... more Der seit 1997 im Dachdeckerhandwerk eingeführte und seit 2003 bundeseinheitlich geregelte, allgemeinverbindliche Mindestlohn führt vor allem in Ostdeutschland auch im internationalen Vergleich zu einer starken Betroffenheit der Branche vom Mindestlohn. Die damit einhergehende effektive Kostenbelastung fällt dennoch begrenzt aus. Auf der Basis von Differenz-von-Differenzen-Schätzungen sowohl im Vergleich zu einer nicht von einem Mindestlohn betroffenen Baunebenbranche als auch auf Basis eines Vergleichs von unterschiedlich stark durch den Mindestlohn betroffenen Beschäftigten des Dachdeckerhandwerks, werden die kausalen Wirkungen im Hinblick auf Beschäftigung, Arbeitnehmerschutz und Wettbewerb untersucht. Dabei zeigt sich, dass sich die mit dem Mindestlohn einhergehenden Lohnzuwächse nur teilweise in Einkommenszuwächse übersetzen. Zudem lassen sich trotz einiger negativer Beschäftigungsergebnisse für die von einem bindenden Mindestlohn betroffenen Beschäftigten keine Veränderung der Gesamtbeschäftigung feststellen. Dies liegt möglicherweise daran, dass mindestlohnbedingte Kostensteigerungen zumindest teilweise über höhere Preise an die Kunden weitergegeben wurden. Eindeutige Effekte auf die Wettbewerbssituation im Dachdeckerhandwerk konnten hingegen nicht nachgewiesen werden, wenngleich sich für Ostdeutschland eine gewisse Verschiebung der Gründungstätigkeit und des Unternehmensbestands in Richtung Ein-Personen-Unternehmen zeigt.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

This paper examines the determinants of internal migration in a context where wages tend to be ra... more This paper examines the determinants of internal migration in a context where wages tend to be rather inflexible at a regional scale so that regional labor demand shocks have a prolonged impact on employment rates. Regional income differentials, then, reflect both regional pay and employment differentials. In such a context, migrants tend to move to regions that best reward their skills in terms of both of these dimensions. As an extension to the Borjas framework, the paper thus hypothesizes that regions with a low employment inequality attract more unskilled workers compared to regions with unequal employment chances. By estimating a migration model for the average skill level of gross labor flows between 27 German regions, we find evidence in favor of this hypothesis. While rising employment inequality in a region raises the average skill level of an in-migrant, higher pay inequality in a region does not have a significant impact on the average skill level of its in-migrants. A higher employment inequality in Eastern as compared to Western Germany may, thus, be the missing link to explain the fact that East-West migrants tend to be rather unskilled.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Concerns have been raised that demographic ageing may weaken the competitiveness of knowledge-bas... more Concerns have been raised that demographic ageing may weaken the competitiveness of knowledge-based economies and increase regional disparities. The age-creativity link is however far from clear at the aggregate level. Contributing to this debate, we estimate the causal effect of the workforce age structure on patenting activities for local labour markets in Germany using a flexible knowledge production function and accounting for potential endogeneity of the regional workforce structure. Overall, our results suggest that younger workers boost regional innovations, but this effect partly hinges on the presence of older workers as younger and older workers turn out to be complements in the production of knowledge. With demographic aging mainly increasing the older workforce and shrinking the younger one, our results imply that innovation levels in ageing societies may drop in the future. Moreover, differences in the regional age structure currently explain around a sixth of the innovation gap across German regions.

Regional Studies, 2014

This paper examines the forces driving skill selectivity of regional migration in a context where... more This paper examines the forces driving skill selectivity of regional migration in a context where modelling the migration decision as a wage-maximising process may be insufficient due to persistent employment disparities. The paper thus extends a Borjas type framework on the selectivity of internal migrants to allow migrants to move to regions that best reward their skills in terms of both wages and employment. This framework predicts that high-skilled workers are disproportionately attracted to regions with higher mean wages and employment chances as well as higher regional wage and employment inequalities. Estimates from a labour flow fixed effects model and a GMM estimator show that these predictions hold, but only employment disparities induce a robust and significant skill sorting. The paper thus establishes a missing link why employment disparities may actually be self-reinforcing.

German Economic Review, 2013

This paper contributes to the sparse literature on employment spillovers on minimum wages. We exp... more This paper contributes to the sparse literature on employment spillovers on minimum wages. We exploit the minimum wage introduction and subsequent increases in the German roofing sector that gave rise to an internationally unprecedented hard bite of a minimum wage. We look at the chances of remaining employed in the roofing sector for workers with and without a binding minimum wage and use the plumbing sector that is not subject to a minimum wage as a suitable benchmark sector. By estimating the counterfactual wage that plumbers would receive in the roofing sector given their characteristics, we are able to identify employment effects along the entire wage distribution. The results indicate that the chances for roofers to remain employed in the sector in eastern Germany deteriorated along the entire wage distribution. Such employment spillovers to workers without a binding minimum wage may result from scale effects and/or capital-labour substitution.

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2015

Demographic change is expected to affect labour markets in very different ways on a regional scal... more Demographic change is expected to affect labour markets in very different ways on a regional scale. The objective of this paper is to explore the spatio-temporal patterns of recent distributional changes in the workers age structure, innovation output and skill composition for German regions by conducting an Exploratory Space-Time Data Analysis (ESTDA). Beside commonly used tools, we apply newly developed approaches which allow investigating the space-time dynamics of the spatial distributions. We include an analysis of the joint distributional dynamics of the patenting variable with the remaining interest variables. Overall, we find strong clustering tendencies for the demographic variables and innovation that constitute a great divide across German regions. The detected clusters partly evolve over time and suggest a demographic polarization trend among regions that may further reinforce the observed innovation divide in the future.