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This article investigates the characteristics of industrial wage determination in Brazil using time series data for 22 manufacturing sectors for 1985-93. The idea is to verify whether changes in sectoral productivity are relevant to explain changes in sectoral nominal wages. First, the results of a statistical investigation of the data are presented. A second, more encompassing purpose of the article, is to interpret the results by means of a more elaborate econometric analysis. The evidence suggests that rent-sharing is indeed a pervasive feature of the Brazilian industrial labour market. (DSE/DÜI)

Our original note on the effects of the imposition of Selective Employment Tax (SET) was published as a background to the judgement expressed in the same number of the National Institute Economic Review that the reduction and removal of the tax would not have significant adverse effects upon productivity in distribution. Professor Reddaway's subsequent Reply gives general support to this judgement, which we are pleased to have. The difference between him and ourselves is solely concerned with the effects of the original imposition and subsequent increase of SET, which, we had argued, were smaller than appeared to be implied by the Reddaway Report.

Drawing on recent incentive theory and the growing use of multiple incentives by firms, this article examines the effects of combining incentives on workplace labour productivity. Utilizing data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey, the article explores whether multiple incentives are more effective than single incentives. It is found that the productivity effects of individualized incentives are enhanced by profit sharing though not by collective payment by result schemes (PBR). Profit sharing also enhances the effect of collective PBR, and it is found that two group incentives are more effective than a single individual incentive. However there are limits on the number of incentive schemes that can be combined effectively. The effects of mixed incentives tend to be greater in workplaces with worker discretion and task variety, thereby providing support for a contingency perspective.

This article contains a number of comments on the one which appeared under the same title in the May 1971 issue of the National Institute Economic Review, which was prepared by J. D. Whitley and G. D. N. Worswick. It will be obvious to readers that some of the comments made in that article and in this reply are of the detailed kind which might with advantage have been cleared up by correspondence before publication. In fact, such an exchange of papers between the National Institute and the Department of Applied Economics was begun last year. However, the halving of SET announced in the budget obliged the National Institute to take a view on its probable effect, and they felt that this entailed explaining to their readers why they had not been wholly convinced by the analysis of the Reddaway Report. This left no time for any further attempts to reconcile, where possible, the differentpoints of view.

AbstractThis paper analyses the effect of environmental standards on aggregate employment in the presence of a productivity effect in a multi-sector general equilibrium framework of an open economy. The productivity effect is generated among the skilled and unskilled workers as an improvement in the environmental quality improves their health, leading to an increase in their productivity. Though the productivity effect initially lowers labour demand as labour requirement per unit of production falls, a standard may raise employment depending on the parametric configurations. In this paper, we identify the role of this productivity effect on the change in employment and show that it may actually improve the chances of an employment expansion.

Using a vector-error-correction model (VECM) with total factor productivity (TFP), domestic and foreign research and development investment (R&D) as well as GDP, we find that for the Netherlands for the period 1968-2014, extra investment in public and private R&D has a clear positive effect on TFP growth and GDP. Taking into account the costs of these extra investments, we find that the rate of return to such a policy is positive and high. We also find dynamic complementarity of public and private stocks of R&D for a long period after the initial shock. However, our results also show that the productivity effects on the Dutch economy are weaker when they are part of an internationally concerted policy effort, i.e. when other OECD countries implement policies with the same effects on R&D stocks in their countries. While complements in the long run equations of the model, in the adjustment process Dutch domestic private R&D appears to consider foreign public R&D as a substitute, i.e. when foreign public R&D rises, Dutch private R&D tends to shrink.