IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucy/cypeua/03-2015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A backward-bending and forward-falling semi-log model of labour supply

Author

Listed:
  • Panos Pashardes
  • Alexandros Polycarpou

Abstract

This paper proposes a labour supply function that allows not only for backward-bending behaviour at high but also for forward-falling behaviour at low wage rates. The proposed model adheres to the fundamentals of consumer theory and encompasses all well-known and widely used semi-log labour supply models in the literature. It is applied to UK data to investigate female labour supply and, in particular, to demonstrate the importance of including a forward-falling segment in the empirical specification for accurate estimation of labour supply behaviour at the low end of the wage distribution. The policy implications of our empirical findings are considered in the context of a hypothesised minimum wage reform.

Suggested Citation

  • Panos Pashardes & Alexandros Polycarpou, 2015. "A backward-bending and forward-falling semi-log model of labour supply," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 03-2015, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucy:cypeua:03-2015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.econ.ucy.ac.cy/RePEc/papers/03-15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444606.
    2. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    3. Gronau, Reuben, 1974. "Wage Comparisons-A Selectivity Bias," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1119-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    4. Yatchew, A., 1997. "An elementary estimator of the partial linear model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 135-143, December.
    5. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444590.
    6. R. Aaberge & U. Colombino & T. Wennemo, 2009. "Evaluating Alternative Representations Of The Choice Sets In Models Of Labor Supply," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 586-612, July.
    7. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Itay Saporta-Eksten, 2016. "Consumption Inequality and Family Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 387-435, February.
    8. Richard Blundell & Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Thierry Magnac & Costas Meghir, 2007. "Collective Labour Supply: Heterogeneity and Non-Participation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 417-445.
    9. Blundell, Richard & MaCurdy, Thomas & Meghir, Costas, 2007. "Labor Supply Models: Unobserved Heterogeneity, Nonparticipation and Dynamics," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 69, Elsevier.
    10. Blundell, Richard & Duncan, Alan & Meghir, Costas, 1992. "Taxation in Empirical Labour Supply Models: Lone Mothers in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(411), pages 265-278, March.
    11. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Life Cycle Consumption and Labor Supply: An Explanation of the Relationship Between Income and Consumption Over the Life Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(1), pages 188-194, March.
    12. Beffy, Magali & Blundell, Richard & Bozio, Antoine & Laroque, Guy & Tô, Maxime, 2019. "Labour supply and taxation with restricted choices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(1), pages 16-46.
    13. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    14. Thomas MaCurdy & David Green & Harry Paarsch, 1990. "Assessing Empirical Approaches for Analyzing Taxes and Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(3), pages 415-490.
    15. Orazio Attanasio & Hamish Low & Virginia Sánchez-Marcos, 2008. "Explaining Changes in Female Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1517-1552, September.
    16. James J. Heckman & Thomas E. Macurdy, 1980. "A Life Cycle Model of Female Labour Supply," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 47-74.
    17. Anders Frederiksen & Ebbe Krogh Graversen & Nina Smith, 2008. "Overtime work, dual job holding, and taxation," Research in Labor Economics, in: Work, Earnings and Other Aspects of the Employment Relation, pages 25-55, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. MaCurdy, Thomas E, 1981. "An Empirical Model of Labor Supply in a Life-Cycle Setting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1059-1085, December.
    19. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    20. Jerry A. Hausman, 1980. "The Effect of Wages, Taxes, and Fixed Costs on Women's Labor Force Participation," NBER Chapters, in: Econometric Studies in Public Finance, pages 161-194, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-90-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Ashenfelter, Orley & Heckman, James J, 1974. "The Estimation of Income and Substitution Effects in a Model of Family Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(1), pages 73-85, January.
    23. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-467, June.
    24. Hamish Low, 2005. "Self-Insurance in a Life-Cycle Model of Labor Supply and Savings," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 945-975, October.
    25. Richard W. Blundell, 1995. "The Impact of Taxation on Labour Force Participation and Labour Supply," OECD Jobs Study Working Papers 8, OECD Publishing.
    26. Brewer, Mike & Duncan, Alan & Shephard, Andrew & Suarez, Maria Jose, 2006. "Did working families' tax credit work? The impact of in-work support on labour supply in Great Britain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 699-720, December.
    27. Soren Blomquist & Whitney Newey, 2002. "Nonparametric Estimation with Nonlinear Budget Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2455-2480, November.
    28. Jacob Mincer, 1962. "Labor Force Participation of Married Women: A Study of Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: Aspects of Labor Economics, pages 63-105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Yatchew,Adonis, 2003. "Semiparametric Regression for the Applied Econometrician," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521812832.
    30. Burtless, Gary & Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "The Effect of Taxation on Labor Supply: Evaluating the Gary Negative Income Tax Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 1103-1130, December.
    31. Blomquist, Sören & Newey, Whitney, 1997. "Nonparametric Estimation of Labor Supply Functions Generated by Piece Wise Linear Budget Constraints," Working Paper Series 1997:24, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    32. Moffitt, Robert, 1990. "The Econometrics of Kinked Budget Constraints," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 119-139, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    2. Anil Kumar, 2016. "Lifecycle-consistent female labor supply with nonlinear taxes: evidence from unobserved effects panel data models with censoring, selection and endogeneity," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 207-229, March.
    3. James J. Heckman, 2005. "Micro Data, Heterogeneity and the Evaluation of Public Policy Part 2," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 49(1), pages 16-44, March.
    4. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2016. "Own-wage labor supply elasticities: variation across time and estimation methods," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, December.
    5. Michiel Evers & Ruud Mooij & Daniel Vuuren, 2008. "The Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply: A Synthesis of Empirical Estimates," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 25-43, March.
    6. Bargain, Olivier & Peichl, Andreas, 2013. "Steady-state labor supply elasticities: A survey," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-084, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Anil Kumar, 2012. "Nonparametric estimation of the impact of taxes on female labor supply," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 415-439, April.
    8. Michiel Evers & Ruud A. De Mooij & Daniel J. Van Vuuren, 2005. "What Explains the Variation in Estimates of Labour Supply Elasticities?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1633, CESifo.
    9. Beffy, Magali & Blundell, Richard & Bozio, Antoine & Laroque, Guy & Tô, Maxime, 2019. "Labour supply and taxation with restricted choices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(1), pages 16-46.
    10. Kumar, Anil, 2008. "Labor supply, deadweight loss and tax reform act of 1986: A nonparametric evaluation using panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 236-253, February.
    11. Olivier Bargain, 2004. "On modeling household labor supply with taxation," DELTA Working Papers 2004-14, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
    12. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. Bessho, Shun-ichiro & Hayashi, Masayoshi, 2011. "Labor supply response and preferences specification: Estimates for prime-age males in Japan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 398-411, October.
    14. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2013. "Steady-State Labor Supply Elasticities: An International Comparison," AMSE Working Papers 1322, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    15. van Soest, A.H.O. & Das, J.W.M., 2000. "Family Labor Supply and Proposed Tax Reforms in the Netherlands," Discussion Paper 2000-20, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    16. Juan M. Contreras & Sven H. Sinclair, 2008. "The Labor Supply Response in Macroeconomic Models: Working Paper 2008-07," Working Papers 20141, Congressional Budget Office.
    17. Orazio Attanasio & Peter Levell & Hamish Low & Virginia Sánchez-Marcos, 2015. "Aggregating Elasticities: Intensive and Extensive Margins of Female Labour Supply," NBER Working Papers 21315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Gary V. Engelhardt & Anil Kumar, 2007. "Employer Matching and 401(k) Saving: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," NBER Chapters, in: Public Policy and Retirement, Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar (TAPES), pages 1920-1943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Robin Jessen & Davud Rostam-Afschar & Sebastian Schmitz, 2018. "How important is precautionary labour supply?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 868-891.
    20. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir & Jonathan Shaw, 2016. "Female Labor Supply, Human Capital, and Welfare Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1705-1753, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    female labour supply; low-wage work behaviour; s-shaped labour supply; minimum wage reform.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucy:cypeua:03-2015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ucy.ac.cy/econ/?lang=en .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.