Suchergebnisse

Current research studies in cellular manufacturing have considered environments constrained only by the machine resource, when in fact the flexibility of manufacturing cells is derived mainly from its allocation of the labor resource. This research specifically examines the labor resource in cellular manufacturing, also known as group technology (GT), through a series of simulation experiments on a hypothetical GT shop and recommends conditions under which different labor allocation strategies may be appropriate. The effects of various product routings and scheduling policies on labor allocation are also examined.

Many poor rural households exploit natural resources, and losses in natural capital may affect their participation in outside employment. The analysis of this article confirms that both mangrove area and the type of mangrove-dependent activity pursued by coastal households in Thailand have significant influences on the participation decision of adult males and females, the wages that they receive for outside employment, and the number of hours worked. Controlling mangrove deforestation could reduce the negative impacts on household labor allocation, but it will require a new institutional framework for coastal mangrove management inducing cooperation between government and coastal households. Investments in female education and training could improve their outside employment prospects and wage rates.

We study the effects of a positive export shock on labor allocation between the informal, microenterprise sector and the formal firm sector in a low-income country. The United States-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement led to large reductions in US tariffs on Vietnamese exports. We find that the share of manufacturing workers in Vietnam in the formal sector increased by 5 percentage points in response to the US tariff reductions. The reallocation was greater for workers in more internationally integrated provinces and for younger cohorts. We estimate the gap in labor productivity within manufacturing across the informal and formal sectors. This gap and the aggregate labor productivity gain from the export-induced reallocation of workers across the two sectors are reduced when we account for worker heterogeneity, measurement error, and differences in labor intensity of production. (JEL F16, J24, O14, O17, O19, P23, P33)