Designing Inclusion
Tools to Raise Low-end Pay and Employment in Private Enterprise

High level comparative analysis of economics of low wages and underemployment.

Edmund S. Phelps (Edited by)

9780521816953, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 November 2003

178 pages, 24 tables
23.6 x 16.1 x 1.8 cm, 0.435 kg

An inclusion failure has become highly visible in the advanced economies of the West. Too many able-bodied people are subject to chronic joblessness and, when employed, cannot earn a living remotely like that in the mainstream of the population. One policy response has been to give such workers a range of goods and services without charge, another has been to single out some groups for tax credits tied to their earnings. However, many of the welfare programs actually weaken people's incentive to participate in the labour force and wage-income tax credits appear to have made hardly a dent in joblessness. This volume brings together leading economists to present four studies of methods to rebuild self-sufficiency and boosting employment: a graduated employment subsidy, a hiring subsidy and subsidies for training and education. It is of interest to anyone with a serious interest in the economics of subsidies to raise inclusion.

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Introduction Edmund S. Phelps
1. Low-wage employment subsidies in a labour-turnover model of the 'natural rate' Hian Teck Hoon and Edmund S. Phelps
2. Taxes, subsidies and equilibrium labour market outcomes Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides
3. Learning-by-doing versus on-the-job training: using variation induced by the EITC to distinguish between models of skill formation James J. Heckman, Lance Lochner and Ricardo Cossa
4. Unemployment vouchers versus low-wage subsidies J. Michael Orszag and Dennis J. Snower
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Labour economics [KCF]