Essays on overtime policy (Taiwan, China).

详细信息   

• 作者：Wang ; Wei-Chung.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2005
• 导师：Brownstone, David
• 毕业院校：University of California
• 专业：Economics, Labor.;Economics, General.
• ISBN：0542078864
• CBH：3171247
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：29826602
• Pages：139

文摘

This dissertation examines the effects of an overtime policy on Taiwanese labor markets. Economic theories provide little help in predicting the change in employment levels and compensation after the standard workweek decreases. Past empirical studies have analyzed changes in overtime policies in many countries, but this dissertation is the first to study Taiwan.;The Taiwanese Labor Standards Law regulated the standard workweek to be 48 hours per week since 1984. The LSL also stated the overtime premium should be paid. Two amendments in the LSL are empirically examined in this dissertation. Before 1996, the LSL only covered less than 50% of the industries. In 2001, the government passed a bill that reduced the standard workweek from 48 hours weekly to 84 hours biweekly. In Chapter 2, I examine the effect after the government decreased the standard workweek from 48 hours per week to 84 hours biweekly in 2001. I compare employees with long working hours to those with shorter hours. My results show that the employment of long-working-hour employees and their monthly earnings both decreased by a small amount. The weekly actual hours worked by long-working-hour employees decreased about 38 minutes after the law change.;In Chapter 3, I develop a model of the optimal enforcement rate of act-based sanctions. While overtime policy is an act-based sanction, I use speeding (act-based sanction) to motivate and discuss the generalized optimal enforcement effort in act-based sanctions. The model shows that the optimal enforcement effort level will decrease when the cross elasticity of average speed (or average hours worked) and the level of enforcement effort goes up. There is also a negative relationship between the level of enforcement effort and the average speed (or average hours worked). The optimal level of enforcement effort will automatically adjust to a lower level when the marginal social benefit increases.;In Chapter 4, I study the policy effect after the coverage was extended to every employer-employee relationship in 1996. I compare workers that are covered by the law with those who were exempt, since the coverage was not general before 1996. Surprisingly, I find the coverage extension created no effect on those industries that were not covered in 1984 but got covered in 1996 when the government amended the law.