IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/2001-381.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Discrimination During Post-Communist Transition: A Monopsony Approach to the Status of Latvia's Russian Minority

Author

Listed:
  • Robert S. Chase

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that during communism, tastes for discrimination were suppressed. In partial explanation for ethnic tensions observed following central planning, economic liberalization allows those tastes to be expressed. This paper explores the feasibility of monopsony as an economic structure supportive of discrimination during transition, using Latvia's ethnic Russians as a case study. Measuring employment concentration and earnings differentials across regions, monopsony appears prevalent in the country. A monopsony explanation requires Russians to have lower labor supply elasticity than Latvians, a condition which estimates for participation probability confirm. Earnings decompositions show that though Russians are paid more than Latvians on average, given their human capital characteristics, they suffer earnings discrimination of between 5.5 and 7.3 percent. In addition, compared with Latvians the likelihood that Russians will be unemployed is greater, though Russians are less likely to register for unemployment services. This evidence suggests that lack of integrated, flexible labor markets in Latvia, and the monopsony which results, have supported labor market discrimination against Russians during transition.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert S. Chase, 2001. "Labor Market Discrimination During Post-Communist Transition: A Monopsony Approach to the Status of Latvia's Russian Minority," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 381, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2001-381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39765/3/wp381.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John P. Haisken-DeNew & Christoph M. Schmidt, 2000. "Interindustry and Interregion Differentials: Mechanics and Interpretation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(3), pages 516-521, August.
    2. Marek GÕra & Christoph M. Schmidt, 1998. "Long-term unemployment, unemployment benefits and social assistance: The Polish experience," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1/2), pages 55-85.
    3. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162.
    4. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 1998. "Winners and Losers in Russia's Economic Transition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1094-1116, December.
    5. Ransom, Michael R, 1993. "Seniority and Monopsony in the Academic Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 221-233, March.
    6. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    7. Van Kolpin & Larry Singell Jr., 1997. "Asymmetric information, strategic behavior, and discrimination in the labor market," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 10(1), pages 175-184.
    8. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:693-785 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Price V. Fishback, 1998. "Operations of "Unfettered" Labor Markets: Exit and Voice in American Labor Markets at the Turn of the Century," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 722-765, June.
    10. Gottfries, Nils & McCormick, Barry, 1995. "Discrimination and open unemployment in a segmented labour market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-15, January.
    11. Tomasz Mickiewicz, 1998. "Dismantling the state sector in Eastern Europe: Implications for unemployment," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 47-62.
    12. Ham, John C & Svejnar, Jan & Terrell, Katherine, 1998. "Unemployment and the Social Safety Net during Transitions to a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1117-1142, December.
    13. Cotton, Jeremiah, 1988. "On the Decomposition of Wage Differentials," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(2), pages 236-243, May.
    14. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Charles Kroncke & Kenneth Smith, 1999. "The wage effects of ethnicity in Estonia," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 7(1), pages 179-199, March.
    16. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March.
    17. Robert S. Chase, 1998. "Markets for Communist Human Capital: Returns to Education and Experience in the Czech Republic and Slovakia," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(3), pages 401-423, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mihails Hazans, 2007. "Looking for the workforce: the elderly, discouraged workers, minorities, and students in the Baltic labour markets," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 319-349, September.
    2. Kenneth Smith, 2011. "Labor force participation in the Soviet and post-Soviet Baltic States," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 335-355, November.

    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. Ravi Srivastava, 2019. "Emerging Dynamics of Labour Market Inequality in India: Migration, Informality, Segmentation and Social Discrimination," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(2), pages 147-171, June.
    2. Amy Y.C. Liu, 2001. "Are women still holding up half of heaven in Vietnam? The gender wage gap," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec01-11, International and Development Economics.
    3. Michael Chletsos & Stelios Roupakias, 2017. "Native-immigrant wage differentials in Greece: discrimination and assimilation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(17), pages 1732-1736, April.
    4. Soumyajit Chakraborty & Alok K. Bohara, 2021. "The Cost of Being ‘Backward’ in India: Socio-religious Discrimination in the Labour Market," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 15(2), pages 252-274, August.
    5. Tilahun Temesgen, 2006. "Decomposing Gender Wage Differentials in Urban Ethiopia: Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee (LEE) Manufacturing Survey Data," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 43-66.
    6. Matuszewska-Janica Aleksandra, 2018. "Differences in Men’s and Women’s Wages in the Education Sector in the Baltic Sea Region States," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 18(1), pages 157-168, June.
    7. Filipe Almeida-Santos & Karen Mumford, 2006. "Employee Training, Wage Dispersion and Equality in Britain," Discussion Papers 06/14, Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Kenneth Smith, 2007. "Determinants of Soviet Household Income," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 4(1), pages 3-24, June.
    9. Johnes, Geraint, 2002. "A Tajik story: the labour market following war and transition," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-30, April.
    10. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    11. Filipe Almeida-Santos & Yekaterina Chzhen & Karen Mumford, 2010. "Employee training and wage dispersion: white- and blue-collar workers in Britain," Research in Labor Economics, in: Jobs, Training, and Worker Well-being, pages 35-60, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    12. Tushar Agrawal, 2014. "Gender and caste-based wage discrimination in India: some recent evidence [Geschlecht und Kaste-ansässige Lohndiskriminierung in Indien: Einige Neue Beweise]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(4), pages 329-340, December.
    13. Sarah Brown & John G. Sessions, 2003. "Earnings, Education, and Fixed‐Term Contracts," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(4), pages 492-506, September.
    14. Weni Lidya, Sukma & Kadir, Kadir, 2019. "Decomposition of the Gender Wage Gap in Indonesia: Analysis from Sakernas Data," MPRA Paper 94930, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Golder, Stefan M., 2000. "Endowment or Discrimination? An Analysis of Immigrant-Native Earnings Differentials in Switzerland," Kiel Working Papers 967, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Rassou R., 1993. "Statistical measurement of gender wage differentials," ILO Working Papers 992920693402676, International Labour Organization.
    17. Lauer, Charlotte, 2000. "Gender wage gap in West Germany: how far do gender differences in human capital matter?," ZEW Discussion Papers 00-07, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Dileni Gunewardena & Darshi Abeyrathna & Amalie Ellagala & Kamani Rajakaruna & Shobana Rajendran, 2008. "Glass Ceilings, Sticky Floors or Sticky Doors? A Quantile Regression Approach to Exploring Gender Wage Gaps in Sri Lanka," Working Papers PMMA 2008-04, PEP-PMMA.
    19. Simmons, Walter O., 2003. "The black earnings gap: discrimination or culture," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 647-655.
    20. Anne Busch & Elke Holst, 2009. "Glass Ceiling Effect and Earnings: The Gender Pay Gap in Managerial Positions in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 905, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    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:wdi:papers:2001-381. 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: WDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wdumius.html .

    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.