For several years, access to evidence has been identified by potential claimants as one of the main difficulties in bringing damages actions for breach of competition rules in general, and class actions in this area in particular, in the European Union. As regards the former, Directive 2014/104/EU addressed the issue, but established a number of exceptions, in particular with regard to documents in the possession of competition authorities, with the result that, in practice, injured parties may have to wait for the public decision to become final before bringing a (follow-on) action (and even then they still have to prove causation and quantify damages). In the case of collective actions, in particular opt-in models, the problem may be even more acute, and Directive 2020/1828, which addresses this issue in the context of collective actions, does not cover competition law actions. In this paper, we will analyse this problem in the light of European Union law, in particular the Directives and the recent case law of the European Court of Justice, as well as some illustrative national examples, in order to determine whether the current disclosure of evidence procedure undermines the effectiveness of the collective redress for competition rules.
We develop a formal economic framework to analyze whether neural scaling laws in artificial intelligence will activate Jevons' Paradox in labor markets, potentially leading to increased AI adoption and human labor substitution. By using a time-varying elasticity of substitution (VES) approach, we establish analytical conditions under which AI systems transition from complementing to substituting for human labor. Our model formalizes four interconnected mechanisms: (1) exponential growth in computational capacity ($C(t) = C(0) \cdot e^{g \cdot t}$); (2) logarithmic scaling of AI capabilities with computation ($σ(t) = δ\cdot \ln(C(t)/C(0))$); (3) declining AI prices ($p_A(t) = p_A(0) \cdot e^{-d \cdot t}$); and (4) a resulting compound effect parameter ($φ= δ\cdot g$) that governs market transformation dynamics. We identify five distinct phases of AI market penetration, demonstrating that complete market transformation requires the elasticity of substitution to exceed unity ($σ> 1$), with the timing determined primarily by the compound parameter $φ$ rather than price competition alone. These findings provide an analytical framing for evaluating industry claims about AI substitution effects, especially on the role of quality versus price in the technological transition.
This paper examines gender stratification in the Latin American data annotation gig economy, with a particular focus on the "triple burden" shouldered by women: unpaid care responsibilities, economic precarity, and the volatility of platform-mediated labor. Data annotation, once lauded as a democratizing force within the global gig economy, has evolved into a segmented labor market characterized by low wages, limited protections, and unequal access to higher-skilled annotation tasks. Drawing on an exploratory survey of 30 Latin American data annotators, supplemented by qualitative accounts and comparative secondary literature, this study situates female annotators within broader debates in labor economics, including segmentation theory, monopsony power in platform labor, and the reserve army of labor. Findings indicate that women are disproportionately drawn into annotation due to caregiving obligations and political-economic instability in countries such as Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru. Respondents highlight low pay, irregular access to tasks, and lack of benefits as central challenges, while also expressing ambivalence about whether their work is valued relative to male counterparts. By framing annotation as both a gendered survival strategy and a critical input in the global artificial intelligence supply chain, this paper argues for the recognition of annotation as skilled labor and for regulatory interventions that address platform accountability, wage suppression, and regional inequalities.
We consider the problem of optimal annuitization with labour income, where an agent aims to maximize utility from consumption and labour income under age-dependent force of mortality. Using a dynamic programming approach, we derive closed-form solutions for the value function and the optimal consumption, portfolio, and labor supply strategies. Our results show that before retirement, investment behavior increases with wealth until a threshold set by labor supply. After retirement, agents tend to consume a larger portion of their wealth. Two main factors influence optimal annuitization decisions as people get older. First, the agent's perspective (demand side); the agent's personal discount rate rises with age, reducing their desire to annuitize. Second, the insurer's perspective (supply side); insurers offer higher payout rates (mortality credits). Our model demonstrates that beyond a certain age, sharply declining survival probabilities make annuitization substantially optimal, as the powerful incentive of mortality credits outweighs the agent's high personal discount rate. Finally, post-retirement labor income serves as a direct substitute for annuitization by providing an alternative stable income source. It enhances the financial security of retirees.
The Index of Dissimilarity (ID), widely utilized in economic literature as a measure of segregation, is inadequate for cross-country or time series studies due to its failure to account for structural variations across countries' labor markets or changes over time within a single country's labor market. Building on the works of Karmel and MacLachlan (1988) and Blackburn et al. (1993), we propose a new measure - the standardized ID - that isolates structural differences from true differences in segregation across space or time. A key advantage of our proposed measure lies in its ease of implementation and interpretation, even when working with datasets encompassing a large number of countries or time periods. Moreover, our measure can be consistently applied in the case of lumpy sectors or occupations that account for a large fraction of the workforce. We illustrate the new measure in an analysis of the cross-country relationship between economic development (as measured by GDP per capita) and occupational and sectoral gender segregation. Comparing the crude ID with the standardized ID, we show that the crude ID overestimates the positive correlation between income and segregation, especially between low- and middle-income countries. This suggests that analyses relying on the crude ID risk overestimating the importance of income differentials in explaining cross-country variation in gender segregation.
Purpose This critical reflection aims to initiate an engaging dialogue about the labor shortage challenge facing the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industry. This paper discusses RQ1. Will the worsening labor shortage challenge improve in the short term? RQ2. How can industry professionals and academic leaders/professors work together to address the labor shortage issue? RQ3. How can academic research help address such a challenge? Design/methodology/approach RQ1 was answered with three propositions in a critical reflection of relevant news updates, industrial/market reports and carefully selected relevant literature. Suggestions were made to respond to RQ2 and RQ3 in three areas of talent management: talent acquisition, learning and development and talent retention. Findings The worsening labor shortage challenge will likely continue for some years due to an imbalance in labor supply/demand. The H&T industry should work closely with the H&T programs (one key supplier of managerial talent) to find solutions to the ongoing problem. Research limitations/implications This reflection focuses only on preliminary suggestions but could inspire related research endeavors. Practical implications This paper suggests numerous industry–academia collaboration initiatives under talent management to address the worsening labor shortage. Social implications A strong industry–academia collaboration would address low enrollment in H&T programs, helping them recruit and retain top students. Eventually, a larger student candidate pool for managerial talent could help the industry meet the shifting labor demand. Originality/value This timely reflection addresses a critical, worsening labor shortage situation in the H&T industry by offering original ideas and calling for a broader and more in-depth discussion among all H&T stakeholders.
A síntese aqui apresentada é resultado da trajetória de pesquisa realizada no Doutorado em Tecnologia e Sociedade, na Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, sob orientação do professor Domingos Leite Lima Filho. O trabalho de investigação junto a um Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia nasce a partir da minha inserção como docente do ensino Básico, Técnico e Tecnológico, acompanhamento dos processos de desenvolvimento do Projeto Político Pedagógico, e das dinâmicas vivenciadas no espaço do campus, no qual fui inserida como docente.
Special aspects of education, Labor market. Labor supply. Labor demand
John Meluso, Amanda Casari, Katie McLaughlin
et al.
Invisible labor is work that is either not fully visible or not appropriately compensated. In open source software (OSS) ecosystems, essential tasks that do not involve code (like content moderation) often become invisible to the detriment of individuals and organizations. However, invisible labor is sufficiently difficult to measure that we do not know how much of OSS activities are invisible. Our study addresses this challenge, demonstrating that roughly half of OSS work is invisible. We do this by developing a cognitive anchoring survey technique that measures OSS developer self-assessments of labor visibility and attribution. Survey respondents (n=142) reported that their work is more likely to be invisible (2 in 3 tasks) than visible, and that half (50.1%) is uncompensated. Priming participants with the idea of visibility caused participants to think their work was more visible, and that visibility was less important, than those primed with invisibility. We also found evidence that tensions between attribution motivations probably increase how common invisible labor is. This suggests that advertising OSS activities as "open" may lead contributors to overestimate how visible their labor actually is. Our findings suggest benefits to working with varied stakeholders to make select, collectively valued activities visible, and increasing compensation in valued forms (like attribution, opportunities, or pay) when possible. This could improve fairness in software development while providing greater transparency into work designs that help organizations and communities achieve their goals.
Abstract In this paper, we report the results of a meta-analysis of 670 estimates extracted from 53 previous research works to estimate the gender wage gap in European emerging markets. A meta-synthesis of collected estimates exhibits that the gender differences have a statistically significant and economically meaningful impact on wage levels. Synthesis results also reveal that the gender wage gap in countries with EU membership is lower than that in non-EU member states and, nevertheless, the wage gap between men and women has a tendency to diminish over time in the region as a whole. The meta-regression analysis of literature heterogeneity and test for publication selection bias back up the findings obtained from the meta-synthesis.
The outflow of the rural labor force has a great impact on the location distribution of agricultural production, which has not attracted enough attention in existing studies. This article describes the mechanism of agricultural production location adjustment and further studies the influence of a regional difference in labor endowment on agricultural production location adjustment. Based on commodity and province-level panel data calculation, the results show that the agricultural production location in China has been adjusted from the East to the Central and then to the West with accelerating transfer speed. Furthermore, it is found that the regional differences in labor endowment are the main driving force for the shift of low alternative crop production. The more labor-intensive the crop varieties are, the more obvious the influence of the regional differences in labor endowment is on the crop production location adjustment. Moreover, regional differences in labor endowment have little effect on the location adjustment of vegetable production, as expanding the vegetable market demand may offset the effect of labor supply shortage on the adjustment of vegetable production location. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate a regional industrial development plan consistent with the trend of agricultural production location adjustment, as well as promote the construction of agricultural circulation facilities and socialized services in less developed areas.
This study investigates the impact of integrating gender equality into the Colombian constitution of 1991 on attitudes towards gender equality, experiences of gender-based discrimination, and labor market participation. Using a difference-in-discontinuities framework, we compare individuals exposed to mandatory high school courses on the Constitution with those who were not exposed. Our findings show a significant increase in labor market participation, primarily driven by women. Exposure to these courses also shapes attitudes towards gender equality, with men demonstrating greater support. Women report experiencing less gender-based discrimination. Importantly, our results suggest that women's increased labor market participation is unlikely due to reduced barriers from male partners. A disparity in opinions regarding traditional gender norms concerning household domains is observed between men and women, highlighting an ongoing power struggle within the home. However, the presence of a younger woman in the household appears to influence men's more positive view of gender equality, potentially indicating a desire to empower younger women in their future lives. These findings highlight the crucial role of cultural shocks and the constitutional inclusion of women's rights in shaping labor market dynamics.
Billur Aksoy, Christopher S. Carpenter, Dario Sansone
Using a US nationally representative sample and a double list experiment designed to elicit views free from social desirability bias, we find that anti-transgender labor market attitudes are significantly underreported. After correcting for this concealment, we report that 73 percent of people would be comfortable with a transgender manager and 74 percent support employment non-discrimination protection for transgender people. We also show that respondents severely underestimate the population level of support for transgender individuals in the workplace, and we find that labor market support for transgender people is significantly lower than support for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Our results provide timely evidence on workplace-related views toward transgender people and help us better understand employment discrimination against them.
We study how Chapter 11 bankruptcies affect local legal labor markets. We document that bankruptcy shocks increase county legal employment and corroborate this finding by exploiting a stipulation of the law known as Forum Shopping during the Court Competition Era (1991-1996). We quantify losses to local communities from firms forum shopping away from their local area as follows. First, we calculate the unrealized potential employment gains implied by our reduced-form results. Second, we structurally estimate a model of legal labor markets and quantify welfare losses. We uncover meaningful costs to local communities from lax bankruptcy venue laws.
The article provides an overview of the short-term dynamics of macroeconomic indicators for the Khabarovsk Territory during the COVID-19 pandemic after the introduction of temporary restrictive measures in April and May 2020. The impact of these measures extended both to the elements of regional aggregate demand and aggregate supply. From the point of view of the theory of short-run economic fluctuations, aggregate supply and demand shocks, such as those that occurred in the initial period of the pandemic, lead to a reduction in aggregate output followed by an increase in actual and natural rate of unemployment. Expectations have an additional negative impact since the growth of uncertainty gives rise to an increase in savings and an additional reduction in consumer activity. In the case of Khabarovsk Territory it is shown that the most affected industries of the economy were retail trade and services. Both industries experienced a negative shock in April, but while the former began recovery as early as May, the latter returned to the growth trajectory only in June. Residents changed their income usage patterns due to the restrictions on the consumer market, as well as to increased uncertainty about their future income. The share of net savings and cash balances increased with a corresponding decrease in the share of spending on goods and services. A negative supply shock contributed to a sharp rise in unemployment up to 24.5 thousand unemployed in the third quarter of 2020. Starting from the fourth quarter unemployment began to decline rapidly, but it had not reached pre-pandemic level of less than 7 thousand unemployed by the second quarter of 2021. It is shown that the permanent population outmigration, which increased in 2020, is a specific feature of the regional labor market. It has slowed down the return of the regional aggregate supply to its pre-pandemic positions after the restrictions were cancelled
A finalidade do texto é apresentar um esboço do que pode ser – reformulado, enriquecido e desenvolvido coletivamente – a base de um “projeto de investigação e elaboração políticas iluminado pelo objetivo de transformação socialista da sociedade”. Esse projeto seria levado adiante conjuntamente com aqueles que, dentro e fora de Carré Rouge, reconheçam sua necessidade e compartilhem (em linhas gerais, é claro) da problemática da partida. As revistas que desejarem colaborar no projeto poderiam contribuir no trabalho de publicação. O texto tenta dar elementos que também poderiam estimular a que militantes sindicais não-organizados politicamente se unam ao trabalho.
Special aspects of education, Labor market. Labor supply. Labor demand