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The purpose of this paper is to study the spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing industries.

The authors show theoretically with a model of spillover that if foreign firms (receiving FDI) have a negative spillover effect on domestic firms (not receiving FDI), then the level of capital and skilled workers in the domestic firms falls down. Consequently, the authors conduct an empirical analysis by using system GMM estimation technique on the firm-level data of the Indian organised manufacturing sector.

The authors show that wage inequality worsens when there is negative spillover effects like competition spillover or skill spillover effect of FDI in India.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to measure the various spillover effects of FDI on the wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing industries by using firm-level data.

The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have engendered heterogeneous effects on individuals’ labour market prospects. This paper focuses on two possible sources of a heterogeneous exposition to labour market risks associated with the pandemic outbreak: the routine task content of the job and the teleworkability. To evaluate whether these dimensions played a crucial role in amplifying employment and wage gaps among workers, we focus on the case of Italy, the first EU country hit by Covid-19.

Investigating the actual effect of the pandemic on workers employed in jobs with a different degree of teleworkability and routinization, using real microdata, is currently unfeasible. This is because longitudinal datasets collecting annual earnings and the detailed information about occupations needed to capture a job’s routine task content and teleworkability are not presently available. To simulate changes in the wage distribution for the year 2020, we have employed a static microsimulation model. This model is built on data from the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (IT-SILC) survey, which has been enriched with administrative data and aligned with monthly observed labour market dynamics by industries and regions.

We measure the degree of job teleworkability and routinization with the teleworkability index (TWA) built by Sostero et al. (2020) and the routine-task-intensity index (RTI) developed by Cirillo et al. (2021), respectively. We find that RTI and TWA are negatively and positively associated with wages, respectively, and they are correlated with higher (respectively lower) risks of a large labour income drop due to the pandemic. Our evidence suggests that labour market risks related to the pandemic – and the associated new types of earnings inequality that may derive – are shaped by various factors (including TWA and RTI) instead of by a single dimension. However, differences in income drop risks for workers in jobs with varying degrees of teleworkability and routinization largely reduce when income support measures are considered, thus suggesting that the redistributive effect of the emergency measures implemented by the Italian government was rather effective.

No studies have so far investigated the effect of the pandemic on workers employed in jobs with a different degree of routinization and teleworkability in Italy. We thus investigate whether income drop risks in Italy in 2020 – before and after income support measures – differed among workers whose jobs are characterized by a different degree of RTI and TWA.

The polarisation of employment is a specific structural change in the labour market when the share of high and low-skilled workers increases and, simultaneously, the share of middle-skilled workers decreases. The chapter analyses the effect of polarisation in Czechia and other Central European countries and describes how employment has changed from the perspective of skills regarding gender. The analysis is based on observing the changes in the share of high, middle and low-skilled workers evaluated on the basis of occupational classification over time. Results imply (with a few exceptions) polarisation of employment across all countries during the period between 1998 and 2021, even if we consider the distinction between males and females. Results confirm that employment polarisation has also become a prevalent phenomenon in Central European countries during the last two decades. Finally, this chapter also summarises the economic motivation for studying polarisation phenomenon.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the gender wage gap (GWG) in Spain adopting a labour market segmentation approach. Once we obtain the different labour segments (or idiosyncratic labour markets), we are able to decompose the GWG into its observed and unobserved heterogeneity components.

We use the data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives for the year 2021 (matched employer–employee [EE] data). Contingency tables and clustering techniques are applied to employment data to identify idiosyncratic labour markets where men and/or women of different ages tend to match/associate with different sectors of activity and occupation groups. Once this “heatmap” of labour associations is known, we can analyse its hottest areas (the idiosyncratic labour markets) from the perspective of wage discrimination by gender (Oaxaca-Blinder model).

In Spain, in general, men are paid more than women, and this is not always justified by their respective attributes. Among our results, the fact stands out that women tend to move to those idiosyncratic markets (biclusters) where the GWG (in favour of men) is smaller.

It has not been possible to obtain remuneration data by job-placement, but an annual EE relationship is used. Future research should attempt to analyse the GWG across the wage distribution in the different idiosyncratic markets.

Our combination of methodologies can be adapted to other economies and variables and provides detailed information on the labour-matching process and gender wage discrimination in segmented labour markets.

Our contribution is very important for labour market policies, trying to reduce unfair inequalities.

The study of the GWG from a novel labour segmentation perspective can be interesting for other researchers, institutions and policy makers.

Homelessness has many causes and also is stigmatized in the United States, leading to much misunderstanding of its causes and what policy solutions may ameliorate the problem. The problem is of course getting worse and impacting many communities far removed from the West Coast cities the authors examine in this study. This analysis examines the socioeconomic variables influencing homelessness on the West Coast in recent years. The authors utilize a panel fixed effects model that explicitly includes measures of healthcare access and availability to account for the additional health risks faced by individuals who lack shelter. The authors estimate a spatial error model (SEM) in order to better understand the impacts that systemic shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have on a variety of factors that directly influence productivity and other measures of welfare such as income inequality, housing supply, healthcare investment, and homelessness.

The concept of the “global production network” (GPN) has emerged as a framework for analyzing the intricate connections between a dominant or pivotal firm and its suppliers across various countries. ¹ The expansion of GPNs signifies that trade encompasses not only the final products but also the parts and components (P&C) involved in their production. The reduction of tariff barriers and advancements in transportation and communication technology have facilitated the fragmentation of production processes across different countries. This has led to a significant transformation in the nature and structure of global trade. This chapter aims to synthesize and present this literature. By identifying the key drivers, determinants, and consequences of fragmentation trade through a literature-based approach, this study aids in assessing the opportunities and challenges those lagging countries, like India, encounter in terms of increased participation in GPNs.

Since smartphones became ubiquitous, online grocery and food purchases through take-away delivery platforms have steadily increased in China. Nevertheless, whether the development of take-away delivery can ameliorate urban–rural wage inequality still requires further analysis. The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether this positive effect exists.

This paper makes estimations based on city and individual levels combining the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) 2008, CHIP 2013, CHIP2018 survey data and the take-away delivery site data. At the city level, the Oaxaca-Blinder (O-B) decomposition method is employed to construct wage inequality index of urban and rural labors. At the individual level, this paper analyzes urban–rural wage differentials with high or low formal education level.

The rapid establishment of take-away delivery sites has resulted in an increase of 52.425 yuan on average in the annual wage of rural labors with low formal education level. When the cumulative number of sites increases by 1 unit, the annual wage inequality index decreases by 0.007 on average. Labors with the characteristics of rural household registration and low education can enjoy more dividends. Through inter-/within-industry decomposition, this paper elaborates formal education, age and cross-industry transfer as the main factors for the improvement of urban–rural wage inequality. Narrowing effect of wage differences between different groups in multiple sample slices also contributes to the mechanism analyses.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze the impact of take-away delivery development on the urban–rural wage inequality from the perspective of the establishment of take-away delivery sites. This empirical study will enrich the existing theoretical perspectives on urban–rural divide under the emergence of new forms of employment. The results indicate that new forms of employment represented by take-away delivery can not only promote economic growth, but also eliminate urban–rural inequality.

The aim of the paper is to explore within-firm vertical pay inequality and its relation to firm size and firm performance.

Using firm-level microdata for Kazakhstan, the authors measure within-firm pay inequality as the wage differential between the top- and the bottom-level job occupations. The authors carry out their analysis based on panel regression models.

The authors find that within-firm pay inequality increases as firms grow. Further, they identify that this trend is mainly driven by top-occupation workers receiving more significant wage increases compared to lower-level workers as firms expand. Once the authors address concerns about endogeneity, they find that pay inequality is negatively associated with firm performance.

Developing strategies and policies that prioritize fairness and transparency in compensation practices is crucial during the expansion process of firms. By actively discouraging rent-seeking behavior, firms can create a work environment that promotes productivity and sustainability, ultimately leading to improved firm performance. The research findings highlight the importance of implementing context-specific interventions, recognizing that different environments may require tailored approaches to address pay inequality effectively.

This study contributes to the study of within-firm pay inequality, firm size and performance in an emerging economy, an area that has been largely overlooked in previous empirical research. The contrasting findings show the importance of the structural and industrial characteristics of emerging markets that contribute to broader and deeper impact of pay inequality compared to developed economies.

Increasing trade liberalization and financial integration with rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have an intense impact on the labor market of both the developed as well as the developing world. The restructuring of economic activity has resulted in destruction of jobs in some parts of the economy and start-ups of new firms in the other part, growing import competition with foreign firms displacing local firms, relocation of jobs from high wage to low wage nations. It is claimed that rapid globalization has also the outcome of “race to the bottom” in terms of wages and the quality of employment. As per the latest International Labor Organization (ILO) Global Employment Trends, 2022, total global number of unemployed youths is estimated to reach 73 million in 2022 but still six million above the prepandemic level of 2019. The latest press release October 2022 points out that trade growth is likely to experience a slowdown in 2023 due to multiple shocks on global economy. High energy prices due to the Russia–Ukraine war is expected to contract household expenditure and raise the cost of manufacturing. The present chapter seeks to analyze the impact of trade flows on the labor market – job creation or job loss, wage inequality, movement toward informal economy, gender inequalities, and other related issues. The data are based on various reports available from the ILO, the World Development Indicators (WDI) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and World Trade Oorganization (WTO) Trade Reports. The empirical analysis also confirms that there is a unidirectional causality from trade to employment generation.

Scholarship on America’s K-12 economics curriculum reveals an inattention to many harmful economic realities, specifically wealth inequality. Critics of the present curriculum posit that its emphasis on out-dated concepts and models ignores crucial elements of reality that impact economic interaction and identities. In response to the dominant economic paradigm and methods, this practitioner-focused paper discusses an economically pluralist, pedagogically critical approach to interrogating destructive economic realities. It details how three social studies classroom simulations based on the board game Monopoly may be integrated with certain informational texts to explore economic factors that contribute to America’s unique form of wealth inequality.

This paper describes wealth inequality in America and rationalizes the need to make this social problem a focus of study in the secondary social studies classroom. First, I survey the present curricular apparatus of K-12 economics education and then argue for a pluralist approach that expands the curriculum’s dominant neoclassical paradigm. Connecting economic pluralism to critical citizen education, I draw upon emerging critical economic citizen education scholarship to explain attendant pedagogical and instructional approaches. The described lesson builds upon a tradition of Monopoly simulations, is rooted in critical citizen education pedagogy and aligns with Soroko’s (2023) critical economic literacy framework.

This paper progresses the curricular movement of economic pluralism through its critique of America’s current K-12 economics curriculum that does not focus on immediate, lived social problems. It further defines critical economics, citizenship and pedagogy, then details an instructional practice that employs critical disciplinary tools to investigate contributing factors of American wealth inequality.

This paper contributes to the growing field of pluralist economic perspectives and pedagogies. Specifically, it enriches understanding of critical economics citizenship education by further defining attendant pedagogy and explaining Monopoly as an instructional tool for critical economics citizen education. Previous works have discussed Monopoly’s utility for teaching various concepts within the social studies disciplines. This simulation lesson is unique in its instructional approach that merges simulation experiences with certain informational texts to cultivate critical economic knowledge of American wealth inequality and critical economic skills for critiquing and transforming oppressive economic realities.