Returns to Mobility in the Transition to a Market Economy

Tito Boeri and Christopher Flinn

No 217, William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series from William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Abstract: In spite of ongoing dramatic changes in labor market structure, transitional economies display rather low worker flows across sectors and occupations. Such low mobility can be explained by low returns to job changes as well as by market segmentation in the allocation of job offers. We develop an econometric model which enables us to characterize intertemporal changes in probabilities of dismissal, remuneration, and offer arrival rates on the basis of information on observed transitions and wage payments. The model is estimated using data from the Polish Labor Force Survey. Our results indicate a significant degree of segmentation in the allocation of job offers and more stability in public sector versus private sector jobs. Our model can also be used for policy experiments. In particular, we infer that reductions of 10 per cent in the generosity of unemployment benefits will not significantly boost outflows from the unemployment state. These findings support explanations for low mobility in transitional economies, which are based on informational failures, and high costs of moving from public to private enterprises for those with high levels of job tenure and labor market experience in the public sector.

Keywords: worker flows; returns to mobility; market segmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J62 J63 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: pages
Date: 1999-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ifn, nep-lab and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.wdi.umich.edu/files/Publications/WorkingPapers/wp217.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.wdi.umich.edu/files/Publications/WorkingPapers/wp217.pdf [302 Found]--> https://wdi.umich.edu/files/Publications/WorkingPapers/wp217.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Returns to Mobility in the Transition to a Market Economy (1999)
Working Paper: Returns to Mobility in the Transition to a Market Economy (1999)
Working Paper: Returns to Mobility in the Transition to a Market Economy (1997)
Working Paper: Returns to Mobility in the transition to a Market Economy (1997)
Working Paper: Returns to Mobility in the Transition to a Market Economy
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wdi:papers:1999-217

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series from William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan 724 E. University Ave, Wyly Hall 1st Flr, Ann Arbor MI 48109. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by WDI ().