employment discrimination an empirical test of forward versus reverse regression using data on faculty salaries at a large university we follow a methodology suggested by goldberger to conduct an empirical test of the conway roberts proposition that reverse and not forward regression is the proper way to detect salary discrimination we obtained 11 different estimates of the amount of salary discrimination not only are these estimates statistically inconsistent but they are also at variance with the estimate derived from the composite reverse regression therefore we conclude that in light of the econometric modeling used reverse regression does not yield an unbiased estimate of salary discrimination

the earnings and human capital of american jews this paper analyzes the earnings and returns from human capital investments of second generation american jews compared with non jews jewish men have 16 percent higher earnings other things the same a 20 percent higher rate of return from schooling and a steeper experience earnings profile these patterns persist even after controlling for occupation self employment status and geographic concentration in the new york area there are no systematic differences among jews by parents country of birth the findings suggest that american jews are more productive in creating and using human capital and that this has encouraged greater investments in human capital

the role of market forces in assuring contractual performance the conditions under which transactors can use the market repeat purchase mechanism of contract enforcement are examined increased price is shown to be a means of assuring contractual performance a necessary and sufficient condition for performance is the existence of price sufficiently above salvageable production costs so that the nonperforming firm loses a discounted steam of rents on future sales which is greater than the wealth increase from nonperformance this will generally imply a market price greater than the perfectly competitive price and rationalize investments in firm specific assets advertising investments thereby become a positive indicator of likely performance

affirmative action and opportunity a study of female quit rates t he effectiveness of affirmative action efforts has been a topic of some controversy and the literature is unclear about whether women and or minorities benefit one source of confusion is that in some models the economywide effect can be in a different direction than the effect upon regulated or covered individuals and firms in a sense this is much like the minimum wage in that while some individuals benefit there is considerable controversy about the gains for target groups as a whole what is more surprising however is that the affirmative action literature is unclear about whether the programs achieve their goals for firms which are covered again in part this confusion is theoretical for wage and hiring directives may provide conflicting incentives beller 1978 another difficulty is methodological in that measures of affirmative action activity tend to be indirect 1 this last point as we shall see is especially true for studies of the federal contract compliance program this paper assesses the effectiveness of the federal contract compliance program which is administered by the office of federal contract compliance ofcc in improving opportunities for women rather than focusing on wage growth or the sex composition of occupations or firms as have all the previous studies we examine quit rates quits are a useful measure of people s perceptions about their opportunities and effective affirmative action programs may improve intra firm opportunities for advancement as a result subject to some caveats discussed below we expect that program effectiveness is captured by a reduction in quit rates from previous levels in addition this paper employs a more defensible measure of ofcc activities than is typical in most studies part i of the paper develops the model part ii introduces the data and the specifications the basic results are presented in part iii two major conometric difficulties whether the ofcc variables are actually proxies for other industry effects and the possible endogeneity of ofcc activity are addressed in part iv and the results are summarized in the final section

are those paid more really more productive the case of experience this study uses computerized personnel microdata on the white male managerial and professional employees at a major u s corporation to address the following question can the additional earnings which are associated with more labor market experience at a point in time really be explained by higher productivity at the same point in time our answer to this question based on both cross sectional and longitudinal information is that performance plays a substantially smaller role in explaining cross sectional experience earnings differentials and earnings growth than is claimed by those who have adopted the human capital explanation of the experience earnings profile this response depends critically on our assumption that the performance ratings which supervisors give to their white male managerial and professional subordinates adequately reflect the subordinates relative productivity in the year of assessment we present a great deal of evidence which strongly supports this assumption

competition between private and public schools vouchers and peer group effects a theoretical and computational model with tax financed tuition free public schools and competitive tuition financed private schools is developed students differ by ability and income achievement depends on own ability and on peers abilities equilibrium has a strict hierarchy of school qualities and two dimensional student sorting with stratification by ability and income in private schools high ability low income students receive tuition discounts while low ability high income students pay tuition premia tuition vouchers increase the relative size of the private sector and the extent of student sorting and benefit high ability students relative to low ability students

on decomposing the wage gap a critical comment on blinder s method many studies have found that the impact of schooling on earnings is greater for females than for males despite the fact that females tend to earn less both absolutely and controlling for personal characteristics this study investigates possible

estimating wage discrimination in the labor market if labor supply curves are not perfectly inelastic wage discrimination induces some minority workers to leave the labor force studies of discrimination that focus only on wage differentials overlook these disincentive effects on minority employment

detecting and removing discrimination under equal opportunities policies abstract this paper surveys part of the recent voluminous literature on the economics of discrimination focusing on two key questions first how should discrimination be measured and can in fact unambiguous estimates be derived as the basis for detecting where discrimination is present and setting in train measures to eliminate it second to what extent has the implementation of equal opportunities legislation improved the relative standing of women and minority workers in the labour force this section includes a discussion of the likely effects of recent changes in the law such as the equal value amendment in the uk or the introduction of comparable worth in the usa the survey concludes that our ability to detect discrimination at all precisely is still rudimentary and consequently policy measures are likely to be inefficient for this reason

a new look at the causes of the improved economic status of black workers the wage differential between black and white men fell from 40 percent in 1960 to 25 percent in 1980 it has been argued that this convergence reflects improvements in the relative quality of black schools to test this hypothesis we assembled data on

selectivity bias and earnings differences by gender and race abstract the effect of selectivity bias on earnings differences due to labor force participation decisions is investigated using current population survey and census data the magnitudes of observed earnings differences by both race and gender are clearly influenced by the presence of selectivity bias

dynamic linkages among transport energy consumption income and co2 emission in malaysia this paper examines the dynamic relationship between income energy use and carbon dioxide co2 emissions in malaysia using time series data during 1975 to 2011 this study also attempts to validate the environmental kuznet curve ekc hypothesis applying a multivariate model of income energy consumption in the transportation sector carbon emissions structural change in the economy and renewable energy use the empirical evidence confirmed that there is a long run relationship between the variables as shown by the result of co integration analysis the results indicate that the inverted u shape ekc hypothesis does not fully agree with the theory the coefficient of squared gdp is not statistically different from zero the time duration and the annual data used for the present study do not seem to strongly validate the existence of ekc hypothesis in the case of malaysia causality test shows that the relationship between gdp and co2 is unidirectional the granger causality test results reveal that emissions granger cause income energy consumption and renewable energy use moreover we find that income granger causes energy consumption and renewable energy use and both structural change and renewable energy use granger cause energy consumption in road transportation

the effect of britain s anti discriminatory legislation on relative pay and employment pressive increase in the number of women in the labour force during the i970s between i970 and i980 female relative employment increased by i8 3 and female relative hours by i 7 6 in this paper we attempt an evaluation of the possible effects of anti discriminatory legislation by considering the labour market as a whole taking into account not only relative employment but also other factors that through their influence on demand and supply may have affected relative pay the prima facie evidence in favour of the effectiveness of this legislation is very strong and we want to see if this evidence is maintained after considering all these additional factors and their interaction within the context of the labour market in the first section we present the main facts under analysis the analytical framework to consider the joint effect of the legislation on pay and employment and the

labor force participation work experience and the pay gap between men and women previous research on the relationship between women s educational attainment and the timing of entry into parenthood has produced conflicting results although studies have consistently found that educational attainment has a delaying effect on entry

executive compensation female executives and networking the phrase it s who you know not what you know that counts is often heard in conversations about people who get ahead in economic terms this phrase translates into it s your connections not your human capital investments that count this study attempts to determine the influence of networking in addition to human capital investments by examining a sample of top female executives in the united states we conclude that networking is as important as performance variables in helping women climb the corporate ladder

black white life cycle earnings differences and the vintage hypothesis a longitudinal analysis a common finding of virtually all previous studies of black white earnings differences is that the earnings of white males appear to rise at a more rapid rate with each additional year of work experience or with age than do the earnings of black workers this finding has been noted by economists since at least the mid 1950 s when morton zeman called

monopoly a game economists love to play badly giving this presidential address to the southern economics association is more of a privilege than a duty of office i suspect that i am more honored to give this talk than most past presidents of the association given my current academic post in california i may be far removed from my southern heritage in space but not in orientation my heart remains tied to the south i am very pleased that the sea board and members did not consider my current california connection as a disqualification for president of the association

errors in variables and reverse regression in the measurement of wage discrimination abstract several recent articles have proposed reverse regression as a solution to errors in variables problems in wage discrimination regressions this note demonstrates that the reverse regression approach is biased against finding evidence of discrimination

how the client effect moderates price competition why is unregulated competition supposed to drive price down to ruinous levels in some high fixed cost low marginal cost industries e g railroads but not in others e g hotels we argue that price competition is moderated in high fixed cost low marginal cost industries when the value one consumer realizes from the service is affected by the characterics of other consumers we develop a simple model of this client effect using the example of the demand for hotels and then generalize the implications of our model to other industries