ECOS3008 Semester 2, 2020 Sample Final Exam
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ECOS3008
Semester 2, 2020
Sample Final Exam
Question 1 (20 Marks)
Evidence suggests that women and teenagers have more frequent spells of unemployment than adult men, but that each spell is significantly shorter in duration.
(i) (5 marks) Explain what this suggests about the type of unemployment that women and teenagers experience.
(ii) (5 marks) What are the limitations of using the unemployment rate for women and teenagers as an indicator of the difficulties that they are facing in finding employment?
Since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, the unemployment rate in Australia has gradually increased.
(iii) (5 marks) What are the likely reasons for this? What type of unemployment lies behind this recent increase in joblessness?
(iv) (5 marks) Given the nature of unemployment generated by the Global Financial Crisis, what options would you recommend to policy makers for increasing employment levels?
Question 2 (20 marks):
One measure of wage discrimination between men and women is the proportion of the gender wage gap that is explained by differences in the payoffs (returns) to productive characteristics. Suppose that you analyze wage data using regression analysis and find the following results for men’s and women’s wages:
wagew = 4 + .4educ + .4expeT + .5tenuTe
wagem = 6 + .8educ + .6expeT + .5tenuTe
where w and m denote women and men respectively; wage = wages in dollars; educ = education in years; exper = experience in years; and tenure = job tenure in years. Furthermore, the average wage for women (
w-) = $18 per hour, while the average wage for men (
) = $33 per hour. Men on average have: 15 years of education; 20 years of experience; and 6 years of tenure. Women on average have: 15 years of education; 15 years of experience; and 4 years of tenure.
(i) (3 marks) What is the gender wage gap between men and women?
(ii) (5 marks) What is the predicted wage for woman with the same characteristics as the average man?
(iii) (6 marks) What fraction of the gender wage gap is explained by differences in the productive characteristics of men and women? What fraction of the gender wage gap is explained by differences in the payoffs (returns) to men’s and women’s productive characteristics?
(iv) (6 marks) Given the source of the gap that you identified in part (iii), briefly describe two policies that might be useful in reducing the gender wage gap.
Question 3:
Courts in Japan have recently begun to make awards to the families of workers who have been judged to have been “worked to death” . That is, firms have been increasingly required by courts to make large financial payments to the heirs of workers whose very long hours of work have been judged to have played a role in causing their death.
(i) (7 marks) Explain how the growth in these legal awards is likely to affect the compensating wage differentials in the occupations or industries that require long hours of work.
(ii) (7 marks) Are Japanese workers better off as a result of the courts’ decision to impose these penalties on firms? Why or why not?
(iii) (6 marks) What other labour market policies could be used to prevent Japanese workers from working such long hours? Would they be better? Why or why not?
2023-01-06