Person:
Gindling, Thomas H.

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Labor, Minimum wages, Poverty, Income inequality, Central America, China
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Tim Gindling is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and has been a Fulbright scholar and visiting faculty member at the University of Costa Rica and the National Autonomous University of Costa Rica. He has also served as a consultant to Central American governments and international development institutions such as the World Bank.  His primary research interests are studies of labor markets, social policy, poverty, and income inequality in Central America.  Professor Gindling ‘s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as World Development, Economic Development and  Cultural Change, Journal of Development Studies, Economics of Education Review, Latin American Research Review,  CEPAL Review, Mesoamerican, IIZA Journal of Labor Studies, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Labour Economics.  Recent peer-reviewed publications include “The Distribution of Income in Central America,”  “South-South Migration: the Impact of Nicaraguan Immigrants on Earnings, Inequality and Poverty in Costa Rica,”  “Self Employment in the Developing World,” “The Consequences of Increased Enforcement of Legal Minimum Wages in a Costa Rica” and six other articles on the impact of legal minimum wages on employment, earnings, poverty and income inequality in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.  Mr. Gindling holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.  He has been a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) since 2007.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Are Public Sector Workers in Developing Countries Overpaid? Evidence from a New Global Data Set
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02) Newhouse, David; Gindling, T. H.; Shi, Rong; Hasnain, Zahid
    This paper examines the public sector wage premium using nationally representative household surveys from 91 countries. The public sector generally pays a wage premium compared to all private sector salaried employees, but the size of the premium is sensitive to the choice of the private sector comparator and varies considerably by worker characteristics. For most countries, the average premium disappears when the public sector is compared to only formal sector private employees, especially when controlling for occupation. The public sector wage premium is higher for women and low-skilled workers. In contrast, high-skilled public sector employees are most often paid the same as their private sector counterparts or may even pay a penalty for working in the public sector. Consistent with this, the public sector premium is greater for employees with less education, those working in lower paid occupations, and those whose earnings fall in the lower part of the conditional earnings distribution. Across countries, the wage premium is only weakly associated with countries’ level of development. These findings nuance the existing consensus that public sector workers tend to enjoy a significant wage premium over their private sector counterparts, and that this premium is especially large in low-income countries.
  • Publication
    Toward More Efficient and Effective Public Social Spending in Central America
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-05-18) Acosta, Pablo A.; Almeida, Rita; Gindling, Thomas; Lao Pena, Christine
    Central America has come a long way both in terms of economic and political stability. Increasingly the region is focusing on implementing productivity-enhancing reforms as well as supporting reductions in poverty and inequality. This report analyzes recent trends in public social spending in Central America from 2007 to 2014, conducts international benchmarking, examines measures of the effectiveness and efficiency of social spending, and discusses the quality of selected institutions influencing this spending. We examine total social spending, as well as detailing its four components: public spending on the education, health, and social protection and labor (SPL) sectors. In analyzing public social spending, the report addresses three crucial policy issues: (a) how to improve the coverage and redistributional incidence of public social spending; (b) how to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public social spending; and (c) how to strengthen the institutions governing public spending in the social sector. While based heavily on a series of recent analytical social spending studies in six countries in the subregion—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama—this report also takes a broader regional perspective and includes some comparisons to countries in other regions.
  • Publication
    Earnings Premiums and Penalties for Self-Employment and Informal Employees around the World
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01) Mossaad, Nadwa; Gindling, T. H.; Newhouse, David
    This paper examines the earnings premiums associated with different types of employment in 73 countries. Workers are divided into four categories: non-professional own-account workers, employers and own-account professionals, informal wage employees, and formal wage employees. Approximately half of the workers in low-income countries are non-professional own-account workers and the majority of the rest are informal employees. Fewer than 10 percent are formal employees, and only 2 percent of workers in low-income countries are employers or own-account professionals. As per capita gross domestic product increases, there are large net shifts from non-professional own-account work into formal wage employment. Across all regions and income levels, non-professional own-account workers and informal wage employees face an earnings penalty compared with formal wage employees. But in low-income countries this earnings penalty is small, and non-professional own-account workers earn a positive premium relative to all wage employees. Earnings penalties for non-professional own-account workers tend to increase with gross domestic product and are largest for female workers in high-income countries. Men earn greater premiums than women for being employers or own-account professionals. These results are consistent with compensating wage differentials and firm quasi-rents playing important roles in explaining cross-country variation in earnings penalties, and raise questions about the extent to which the unskilled self-employed are rationed out of formal wage work in low-income countries.
  • Publication
    Self-Employment in the Developing World
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09) Newhouse, David; Gindling, T. H.
    This paper analyzes heterogeneity among the self-employed in 74 developing countries, representing two-thirds of the population of the developing world. After profiling how worker characteristics vary by employment status, it classifies self-employed workers outside agriculture as "successful" or "unsuccessful" entrepreneurs, based on two measures of success: whether the worker is an employer, and whether the worker resides in a non-poor household. Four main findings emerge. First, jobs exhibit a clear pecking order, with household welfare and worker education highest for employers, followed by wage and salaried employees, non-agricultural own-account workers, non-agricultural unpaid family workers, and finally agricultural workers. Second, a substantial minority of own-account workers reside in non-poor households, suggesting that their profits are often a secondary source of household income. Third, as per capita income increases, the structure of employment shifts rapidly, first out of agriculture into unsuccessful non-agricultural self-employment, and then mainly into non-agricultural wage employment. Finally, roughly one-third of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs share similar characteristics with their successful counterparts, suggesting they have the potential to be successful but face constraints to growth. The authors conclude that although interventions such as access to credit can benefit a substantial portion of the self-employed, effectively targeting the minority of self-employed with higher growth potential is important, particularly in low-income contexts. The results also highlight the potential benefits of policies that facilitate shifts in the nature of work, first from agricultural labor into non-agricultural self-employment, and then into wage and salaried jobs.
  • Publication
    Self-Employment in the Developing World
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-10) Gindling, T. H.
    This paper analyzes heterogeneity among the self-employed in 74 developing countries, representing two thirds of the population of the developing world. After profiling how worker characteristics vary by employment status, we classify self-employed workers outside of agriculture as “successful” or “unsuccessful” entrepreneurs, based on two measures of success: Whether the worker is an employer, and whether they reside in a non-poor household. Four main findings emerge. First, jobs exhibit a clear pecking order, with household welfare and worker education highest for employers, followed by wage and salaried employees, non-agricultural own-account workers, non-agricultural unpaid family workers, and finally agricultural workers. Second, a substantial minority of own-account workers reside in non-poor households, suggesting that their profits are often a secondary source of household income. Third, as per capita income increases, the structure of employment shifts rapidly, first out of agriculture into unsuccessful non-agricultural self-employment, and then mainly into non-agricultural wage employment. Finally, roughly one third of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs share similar characteristics with their successful counterparts, suggesting they have the potential to be successful but face constraints to growth. We conclude that although interventions such as access to credit can benefit a substantial portion of the self-employed, effectively targeting the minority of self-employed with higher growth potential is important, particularly in low-income contexts. The results also highlight the potential benefits of policies that facilitate shifts in the nature of work, first from agricultural labor into non-agricultural self-employment, and then into wage and salaried jobs.