Essays on labor markets and empirical finance
Abstract
Do traders herd in the South Korean stock market? This paper analyzes herd behavior among stock market investors in South Korea by constructing an empirical test that utilizes the departure of market returns from the rational asset pricing relationship based on the CAPM. Test results indicate that a large proportion of Korean stocks have return patterns that are consistent with the herding hypothesis. The main empirical finding of this study is that investors in the South Korean stock market herd in equities that have CAPM-based betas at both ends of the sensitivity spectrum--either significantly below or above the market beta. Labor market impact of the minimum wage in Estonia: An empirical analysis (co-authored with Marit Hinnosaar ). In Estonia, as in several other EU candidate countries, the minimum wage has been on an upward trend. This paper analyzes the impact of the minimum wage on the Estonian labor market. We estimate the effect of the minimum wage on employment and wages in Estonia for the period 1995-2000. Our results indicate that a minimum wage increase leads to employment reduction for the group of workers who are directly affected by this change. An additional negative effect of raising the minimum wage is that the rate of compliance with this regulation diminishes as a result, thereby enlarging the share of workers whose salaries remain below the legally set minimum. Differences in search activity and the gender wage gap in Estonia . Differences in search behavior have long been recognized in theoretical literature as a potential source of wage differentials. The aim of this paper is to estimate whether there exists a systematic difference in search activity between genders and whether this can explain a part of the gender wage gap in Estonia. These hypotheses are tested using micro-level data for the years 1998-2000. The empirical model yields a result that unemployed men search more actively for new jobs than women. Controlling for the difference in search intensity significantly reduces the residual gender wage differential.
Recommended Citation
Tairi Room,
"Essays on labor markets and empirical finance"
(January 1, 2004).
Boston College Dissertations and Theses.
Paper AAI3122136.
http://escholarship.bc.edu/dissertations/AAI3122136
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