Documents Vandenberghe, Vincent 13 results

"Are employers willing to employ more older individuals, in particular older women? Higher employment among the older segments of the population will only materialize if firms are willing to employ them. Although several economists have started considering the demand side of the labour market for older individuals, few have considered its gender dimension properly; despite evidence that lifting the overall senior employment rate in the EU requires significantly raising that of women older than 50. In this paper, we posit that labour demand and employability depend to a large extent on how the age/gender composition of the workforce affects firm's profits. Using unique firm-level panel data we produce robust evidence on the causal effect of age/gender on productivity (value added per worker), total labour costs and gross profits. We take advantage of the panel structure of data and resort to first differences to deal with a potential time-invariant heterogeneity bias. Moreover, inspired by recent developments in the production function estimation literature, we also address the risk of simultaneity bias (endogeneity of firm's age-gender mix choices in the short run) by combining first differences with i) the structural approach suggested by Ackerberg, Caves and Frazer (2006), ii) alongside more traditional IV-GMM methods (Blundell and Bond, 1998) where lagged values of labour inputs are used as instruments. Results suggest no negative impact of rising shares of older men on firm's gross profits, but a large negative effect of larger shares of older women. Another interesting result is that the vast and highly feminized services industry does not seem to offer working conditions that mitigate older women's productivity and employability disadvantage, on the contrary. This is not good news for older women's employability and calls for policy interventions in the Belgian private economy aimed at combating women's decline of productivity with age and/or better adapting labour costs to age-gender productivity profiles."

"Le modèle général de financement de l'Université garantie la quasi- gratuité durant les études en contrepartie de taux d'imposition relativement élevée dès l'entrée sur le marché du travail. Si ce système a fait ses preuves, il faut s'interroger sur sa pérennité. Il doit en particulier répondre à deux défis. Le premier concerne la concurrence grandissante des secteurs dépendant d'un financement public. Le deuxième est la mobilité croissante des étudiants se soldant par un prêt implicite financé par la fiscalité locale. Des systèmes de financement alternatifs doivent être envisagés comme, par exemple, celui d'un système de prêts étudiants généralisé mis en place et supervisé par les pouvoirs publics."

"Cette introduction présente les cinq articles sélectionnés dans ce numéro spécial. Elle montre dans un premier temps comment chaque contribution a un lien avec la théorie de l'échange social,qui sert de fondement à l'ensemble du numéro spécial. Ce faisant, l'apport des cinq articles est souligné et les principaux résultats sont mis en perspective avec les travaux antérieurs sur l'échange social. La deuxième partie de l'introduction présente diverses perspectives de recherche sur la relation d'emploi. Les auteures suggèrent des pistes liées aux emplois atypiques, à l'étude de la relation d'emploi dans une perspective temporelle, et à l'approche multi-cibles et multi-niveaux de la relation d'emploi. Le recours aux méthodes de recherche longitudinales et quantitatives y est suggéré."

"In this paper we explore a matched employer–employee data set to investigate the presence of gender wage discrimination in the Belgian private economy labour market. Contrary to many existing papers, we analyse gender wage discrimination using an independent productivity measure. Using firm-level data, we are able to compare direct estimates of a gender productivity differential with those of a gender wage differential. We take advantage of the panel structure to identify gender-related differences from within-firm variation. Moreover, inspired by recent developments in the production function estimation literature, we address the problem of endogeneity of the gender mix using a structural production function estimator alongside instrumental variable-general method of moments (IV-GMM) methods where lagged value of labour inputs are used as instruments. Our results suggest that there is no gender wage discrimination inside private firms located in Belgium, on the contrary."

"A highly educated and skilled workforce has been an important driver of productivity performance and prosperity in Belgium. This paper examines skills policies that could help improve productivity and inclusiveness. An increased focus on lifelong learning, improved and more flexible working conditions for older workers, and a more efficient allocation of students and skills would benefit productivity growth. Improving inclusiveness requires increasing access and participation in tertiary education, especially for students with disadvantaged backgrounds. Digitalisation holds the promise of large gains in labour productivity, but is disrupting the nature of employment relationships. It calls for measures that encourage information and communication technology (ICT) upskilling and for adapting tax and benefit systems to the rise of on-demand jobs linked to the use of e-platforms."

"From the point of view of a profit-maximizing firm, the optimal number of working hours depends not only on the marginal productivity of hours but also on the marginal labour cost. This paper develops and assesses empirically a simple model of firms' decision making where productivity varies with hours and where the firm faces labour costs per worker that are invariant to the number of hours worked: i.e. quasi-fixed labour costs. Using Belgian firm-level data on production, labour costs, workers and hours, and focusing of the estimation of workers/hours elasticities of isoquant and isocost, we find evidence of the declining productivity of hours, but also of quasi-fixed labour costs in the range of 20% of total labour costs. We also show that industries with larger estimated quasi-fixed labour costs display higher annual working hours and make less use of part-time contracts. The tentative conclusion is that firms facing large quasi-fixed labour costs are enticed to raise working hours (or oppose their reduction), even if this results in lower labour productivity."

"This paper develops and assesses empirically a simple model of firms' optimal decision regarding working hours, where productivity varies with hours and where the firm faces quasi‐fixed labour costs. Using Belgian firm‐level data on production, labour costs, workers, and hours, and focusing on the estimation of elasticities along the isoquant and the isocost, we find evidence of not only declining productivity of hours but also of quasi‐fixed labour costs in the range of 20 per cent of total labour costs. The tentative conclusion is that firms facing such costs are enticed to raise working hours, even if this results in lower productivity."