Using the accurate and extensive data available in the UK New Earnings Survey, this paper investigates the extent to which nominal wages are downwardly rigid and whether such rigidity interferes with necessary real wage adjustments when inflation is low. Despite the substantial numbers of individuals whose nominal wages fall from one year to the next, we find that if long-run inflation is one percent higher, the number of individuals with negative real pay growth increases by around 1.4 percent. This is controlling for the median and dispersion of the real wage change distribution.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in The Changing Nature of the School-to-Work Transition Process in OECD CountriesGlenda Quintini John P. Martin Sébastien Martin The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit company supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. ABSTRACTThe Changing Nature of the School-to-Work Transition Process in OECD Countries * Despite the fact that today's young cohorts are smaller in number and better educated than their older counterparts, high youth unemployment remains a serious problem in many OECD countries. This reflects a variety of factors, including the relatively high proportion of young people leaving school without a basic education qualification, the fact that skills acquired in initial education are not always well adapted to labour market requirements, as well as general labour market conditions and problems in the functioning of labour markets. The paper highlights the contrasting trends in youth labour market performance over the past decade using a wide range of indicators. It also presents new evidence on i) the length of transitions from school to work; and ii) the degree to which temporary jobs serve as either traps for young people or stepping-stones to good careers. In addition, the paper reviews some recent policy innovations to improve youth employment prospects.JEL Classification: J13, J21, J24

This paper is concerned with the relationship between wages and unemployment. Using UK regions and individuals as the basis for our analysis, the following questions are investigated. First, is the wage equation a relationship between unemployment and wages or wage changes? Second, can we identify the relationship completely by looking at regional wages and regional unemployment or do regional wages depend on aggregate unemployment as well? Third, are wages influenced only by the current state of the labour market or do contracts lead to wages depending on labour market conditions in the last boom or upon entry into the job? Finally is the wage-unemployment relationship influenced by inflation, competition or the housing market?

This paper considers three aspects of the job insecurity facing British men in the last two decades. The probability of becoming unemployed, the costs of unemployment in terms of real wages losses and the probability that the continuously employed will experience substantial real wage losses. The first of these has not risen in the last two decades, the second has risen by around 50 percent and the third has risen, particularly for the top skill groups.

Following the fall in overall net public investment, the relative pay of most public sector workers in the United Kingdom declined sharply after the mid-1970s. For example, the relative pay of male teachers fell by over 10 percentage points from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. So has this generated a fall in quality? Using age 10/11 test score percentile positions as an indicator, we ®nd that men entering non-manual public sector occupations in the early 1990s had a signi®cantly lower test score position than those entering in the late 1970s. No such falls were exhibited by women.A casual glance at the newspapers reveals that it is becoming increasingly dif®-cult to recruit certain types of public sector workers. For example, shortages of teachers and nurses are currently receiving a great deal of press attention. One of the reasons for this is the signi®cant decline in the relative pay of most occupational groups in the public sector which we document in what follows. We also present a small piece of evidence on a further and more contentious question, namely have these signi®cant reductions in relative pay in the public sector generated similar signi®cant reductions in relative quality? The evidence we have is consistent with an af®rmative answer to this question for men but not for women.