unionization and input flexibility in u s manufacturing 1973 1996 input flexibility as measured by the ability of firms to vary input demand in the face of changes in input prices is an important dimension of labor market flexibility using a new dataset the authors analyze the impact of unionization on input flexibility in u s manufacturing from 1973 to 1996 a period in which production was arguably becoming more flexible due to deep changes in the u s industrial relations system and in the broad macroeconomic environment the authors quantify the effects of unionization on input flexibility by estimating elasticities of substitution between a broad range of labor and non labor inputs controlling for unionization the pattern that emerges is more complex than that suggested by other research in particular low unionization apparently is associated with greater flexibility in the use of labor inputs but less flexibility in the use of non labor inputs

does medical malpractice law improve health care quality we assess the potential for medical liability forces to deter medical errors and improve health care treatment quality identifying liability s influence by drawing on variations in the manner by which states formulate the negligence standard facing physicians using hospital discharge records from the national hospital discharge survey and clinically validated quality metrics inspired by the agency for health care research and quality we find evidence suggesting that treatment quality may improve upon reforms that expect physicians to adhere to higher quality clinical standards we do not find evidence however suggesting that treatment quality may deteriorate following reforms to liability standards that arguably condone the delivery of lower quality care similarly we do not find evidence of deterioration in health care quality following remedy focused liability reforms such as caps on non economic damages awards

the effects of human resource management practices on productivity a study of steel finishing lines the authors investigate the productivity effects of innovative employment practices using data from a sample of thirty six homogeneous steel production lines owned by seventeen companies the productivity regressions demonstrate that lines using a set of innovative work practices which include incentive pay teams flexible job assignments employment security and training achieve substantially higher levels of productivity than do lines with the more traditional approach which includes narrow job definitions strict work rules and hourly pay with close supervision their results are consistent with recent theoretical models which stress the importance of complementarities among work practices

the temporary help industry a response to the dual internal labor market this study of the rapidly growing temporary help industry draws on commerce department data and the results of the authors national mail survey of employers the authors also conducted interviews in the san francisco area with employers of temporary help and with representatives of temporary help agencies and labor unions they provide a taxonomy of employer responses to temporary increases in work loads ranging from the more intensive use of full time employees to a variety of arrangements with part time temporary and casual employees the authors show how these employer responses vary by industry occupation size of the firm stability of product demand and the level of fringe benefits

centralized bargaining and reorganized work are they compatible the paper examines the implications for wage bargaining of an important aspect of the ongoing reorganization of work the move from occupational specialization toward multi tasking the analysis shows how on account of such reorganization centralized bargaining becomes increasingly ine cient and detrimental to rms pro t opportunities since it prevents rms from o ering their employees adequate incentives to perform the appropriate mix of tasks the paper also shows how centralized bargaining inhibits rms from using wages to induce workers to learn how to use their experience from one set of tasks to enhance their performance at other tasks in this way the paper may also help explain the increasing resistance to centralized bargaining in various advanced market economies 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the effect of unions on the structure of wages a longitudinal analysis this paper studies the effects of unions on the structure of wages using an estimation technique that explicitly accounts for misclassification errors in reported union status and potential correlations between union status and unobserved productivity the econometric model is estimated separately for five skill groups using a large panel data set formed from the u s current population survey the results suggest that unions raise wages more for workers with lower levels of observed skills in addition the patterns of selection bias differ by skill group among workers with lower levels of observed skill unionized workers are positively selected whereas union workers are negatively selected from among those with higher levels of observed skill despite a large and sophisticated literature there is still substantial disagreement over the extent to which differences in the structure of wages between union and nonunion workers represent an effect of trade unions rather than a consequence of the nonrandom selection of unionized workers over the past decade several alternative approaches have been developed to control for unobserved heterogeneity between union and nonunion workers 2 one method that has been successfully applied in other areas of applied microeconometrics is the use of longitudinal data to measure the wage gains or losses of workers who change union status unfortunately longitudinal estimators are highly sensitive to measurement error even a small fraction of misclassified union status changes can lead to significant biases if the true rate of mobility between union and nonunion jobs is low this sensitivity led lewis 1986 to essentially dismiss the longitudinal evidence in his landmark survey of union wage effects in this paper i present some new evidence on the union wage effect based on a longitudinal estimator that explicitly accounts for misclassification errors in reported union status the estimator uses external information on union status misclassification rates along with the reduced form coefficients from a multi variate regression of wages on the observed sequence of union status indicators to isolate the causal effect of unions from any selection biases introduced by a correlation between union status and the permanent component of unobserved wage heterogeneity recognizing that unions may raise wages more or less for

technological change and retirement decisions of older workers according to human capital theory technological change will influence the retirement decisions of older workers in two ways first workers in industries with high rates of technological change will retire later if there is a net positive correlation between technological change and on the job training second an unexpected change in the rate of technological change will induce older workers to retire sooner because the required amount of retraining will be an unattractive investment we matched industry data on productivity growth and occupational data on required training with data from the national longitudinal surveys of older men to test these hypotheses our results support both hypotheses

the effect of the union wage differential on management opposition and union organizing success that large union wage differentials increase organization is incorrect for the united states today it is incorrect because organization is the joint decision of workers and management not a worker s decision while potential wage increases are a plus to workers they reduce profits and thus are a minus to management in an institutional setting in which management allocates significant resources to convince workers to vote against unions it is erroneous to analyze the effect of the union wage differential on organizing solely from the workers side just as it is erroneous to analyze any economic outcome solely in terms of one blade of the market scissors my claim is threefold

an analysis of the correlates of discrimination facing young hispanic job seekers this study examines the extent and correlates of discrimination faced by young accented hispanic males in chicago and san diego using the outcomes of job applications by matched pairs of anglo and hispanic job seekers this is one of the first examples of audits being used in the labormarket area the audit methodology provides a powerful basis for examining discriminatory hiring practices because it permits direct comparison of hiring outcomes for pairs of anglo and hispanic jobseekers with similar labor market qualifications in this paper we first present differences in anglo hispanic success rates in filing applications obtaining interviews and obtaining jobs this builds on the descriptive analysis presented in harry cross et al 1990 we then focus on the correlates of differential success in obtaining interviews and in subsequent job acquisition i the audit methodology

effects of the tax treatment of fringe benefits on labor market segmentation current federal tax law requires that all workers having the same experience with a firm must receive essentially the same package of fringe benefits in order for those benefits to qualify for preferential tax treatment the authors argue that this nondiscriminatory provision of fringe benefits promotes labor market segmentation by inducing workers to sort themselves across the economy according to their demand for fringe benefits several empirical tests using 1968 78 data confirm the existence of sorting and suggest that labor market segmentation increased over time as workers responded to changes in incomes and marginal tax rates

outsourcing and unionization a tale of misallocated resistance resources while many believe the growth in outsourcing contributed to the decline in u s unionization up to the 1990s this argument has never been investigated systematically in this article we analyze the effect of outsourcing on unionization between 1973 and 1993 instrumental variables estimation shows outsourcing contributes to higher quasirents and industry productivity we find the union wage premium increases with the extent of outsourcing both for workers that are substitutable by outsourcing services and workers in jobs that are not substitutes of the tasks being outsourced finally we find no support for the claim that outsourcing reduces unionization jel j5 l2 l6

why do part time workers earn less the role of worker and job skills part time workers receive considerably lower hourly earnings than do full time workers using current population survey earnings files for september 1995 through december 2002 the author finds that measurable worker and job characteristics including occupational skill requirements account for much of the part time penalty longitudinal analysis of the data indicates that much of the remaining gap reflects worker heterogeneity evidenced by small wage gains and losses among workers switching between part time and full time jobs the lower skills of part time than full time workers result primarily from limited work experience and accumulation of human capital little evidence can be found of a large wage gap between part time and full time women a part time wage penalty is found for men but men account for less than one third of total part time employment

unpacking the meaning of market access evidence from rural kenya summary this paper critically examines the dimensions of market access using farm panel survey data from kenya we investigate changes in ten indicators of market access during the 1997 2010 post liberalization period we find major improvements in certain market access conditions and little change in others there is generally low correlation between alternative indicators of market access all purpose indicators may not accurately reflect specific market access conditions of interest distances to physical infrastructure are often not representative of farmers access to markets changes in specific market access conditions may have more to do with the behaviors of marketing agents we consider the implications of these findings for agricultural marketing policies and for research methods

atypical work and pay author affiliation john t addison department of economics moore school of business university of south carolina 1705 college street columbia sc 29208 usa ecceaddi moore sc edu corresponding authorchristopher j surfield department of economics college of business and management saginaw valley state university 7400 bay road university center mi 48710 usa csurfiel svsu edu acknowledgment the authors are more than usually indebted to two referees for their particularly helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and to our co editor for her perseverance 1 introductioneven as the economy continues to recover the u s is increasingly becoming a nation of part timers and free lancers of temps and independent contractors this disposable labor force is the most important trend in business today and it is fundamentally changing the relationship between americans and their jobs for companies large and small the phenomenon provides a way to remain globally competitive while avoiding the vagaries of market cycles but for workers it can mean an end to security and sense of significance that come from being a loyal employee one by one the tangible bonds that once defined work in america are giving way castro 1993 p 43 the frequency of alternative work arrangements such as temporary employment on call work and independent contracting nonstandard forms of employment commonly referred to as atypical work has steadily increased in recent decades see for example segal and sullivan 1997 research on atypical work alternative work arrangements we shall use the two terms interchangeably has tended to focus on the nature and extent of these arrangements and their impact on a worker s employment history e g addison and surfield 2006 although compensation levels have been accorded less attention the thrust of much of the earnings literature is pessimistic compared with regular or open ended employment alternative work arrangements often appear to offer inferior remuneration the public perception remains that workers in these alternative work arrangements constitute a disposable workforce characterized by low paying and precarious or unstable jobs abstracting for the moment from the complications introduced by the diversity of alternative work arrangements there are a number of reasons why their incumbents might earn less than regular workers for example wage differentials between atypical workers and those in open ended employment can arise from supply side differences among heterogeneous workers and employer preferences on the supply side a subset of workers may favor nonstandard work forms over regular employment and be prepared to accept lower pay one example would be adults who are heavily involved in household production and another is older workers who have moved out of career jobs but supply side differences alone are insufficient to sustain a permanent ceteris paribus differential in favor of regular workers in addition atypical workers and regular workers must not be fully fungible and employers must not be indifferent between them negative wage gaps for atypical work are not the only possibility admitted by the competitive model atypical workers may earn higher wages than their counterparts in regular employment if the aggregate demand for these nonstandard arrangements is greater than the number of individuals seeking such employment thus to adapt hirsch s 2005 p 527 argument in respect of part timers if firms use atypical work as low cost means of adjusting to variable and uncertain demand the relatively large supply of atypical workers required may run up against mobility or substitution constraints across labor markets delineated by geography occupation and industry and give rise to positive equilibrium wage gaps for atypical workers negative wage gaps may of course also be more apparent than real

agroindustrialization through institutional innovation transaction costs cooperatives and milk market development in the east african highlands abstract some small holders are able to generate reliable and substantial income flows through small scale dairy production for the local market for others a set of unique transaction costs hinders participation cooperative selling institutions are potential catalysts for mitigating these costs stimulating entry into the market and promoting growth in rural communities trends in cooperative organization in east african dairy are evaluated empirical work focuses on alternative techniques for effecting participation among a representative sample of peri urban milk producers in the ethiopian highlands the variables considered are a modern production practice cross bred cow use a traditional production practice indigenous cow use three intellectual capital forming variables experience education and extension and the provision of infrastructure as measured by time to transport milk to market a tobit analysis of marketable surplus generates precise estimates of non participants distances to market and their reservation levels of the covariates measures of the inputs necessary to sustain and enhance the market policy implications focus on the availability of cross bred stock and the level of market infrastructure both of which have marked effects on participation the velocity of transactions in the local community and inevitably the social returns to agroindustrialization

a theory of signalling during job search employment efficiency and stigmatised jobs this paper discusses why redundant skilled workers may be reluctant to accept interim unskilled jobs if skilled work is more satisfying or less arduous for highly productive workers then such workers invest more in moving quickly between skilled jobs thus high productivity workers tend to search on the job and if unemployed will specialise in job search rather than take an interim position if individual differences in productivity are known to the worker but not the potential employer then search strategy may be used as a productivity signal with more than the efficient proportion of workers searching on the job and too few accepting interim unskilled jobs optimal policy requires a subsidy on interim unskilled jobs

physician financial incentives and cesarean delivery new conclusions from the healthcare cost and utilization project this paper replicates gruber et al s gruber j kim j mayzlin d 1999 physician fees and procedure intensity the case of cesarean delivery journal of health economics 18 4 473 490 analysis of the effect of physician financial incentives on cesarean delivery rates using their data sample selection criteria and specification coincident trends explain much of their estimated positive relation between fees and cesarean utilization which also falls somewhat upon the inclusion of several childbirth observations that had been inadvertently excluded from their estimation sample the data ultimately indicate that a 1000 increase in current dollars in the reimbursement for a cesarean section increases cesarean delivery rates by about one percentage point one quarter of the effect estimated originally

why the gender gap in wages narrowed in the 1980s since 1976 the gender gap in wages on average declined by about 1 per year this article focuses on identifying the factors underlying this trend three data sets are analyzed the current population survey the panel study of income dynamics and the national longitudinal survey we find that convergence in measurable work related characteristics schooling and work experience explains one third to one half the narrowing the remainder is attributable to a relative increase in women s returns to experience as well as to declining wages in blue collar work and other factors

inventories as factors of production and economic fluctuations this paper presents a theory of inventory investment by stage of processing and uses it to examine the role of inventory investment in economic fluctuations the model in which inventories are treated as factors of production is estimated for four durable goods industries three conclusions emerge from the estimation first the estimates generally satisfy the theoretical restrictions second the elasticity of inventory demand with respect to output is high indicating an important accelerator effect finally the estimates suggest that shifts in the demand for inventories are an important source of economic fluctuations copyright 1989 by american economic association

risk of labor displacement and cross industry labor mobility a well supported conclusion of previous research is that displacement entails large and persistent costs for workers it therefore seems reasonable to expect workers to try to anticipate and respond to the risk of displacement using 1983 93 data from the panel survey of income dynamics and the displaced workers supplement to the current population survey the author investigates whether industry specific measures of job loss risk are correlated with workers propensity to cross industry lines for new jobs she finds that a one standard deviation increase in the risk of job loss an 86 increase from the mean level increased the probability of inter sectoral mobility by 10 5 in a sample of white men three factors that appreciably increased the likelihood of inter sectoral mobility in response to job insecurity were voluntary separation from the previous job high educational attainment and being currently employed as opposed to temporarily laid off

the wage curve a review in the wage qurve david g blancflower and andrew j oswald argue that there is a fundamental negative relation between wages and the unemployment rate in a worker s local labor market blancflower and oswald use large scale micro data sets to estimate this relation for the united states britain and 10 other countries i review their empirical methods and findings and provide some further evidence on the nature of the wage curve relationship in the united states i conclude that there is a strong statistical correlation between rates of pay and local unemployment although the interpretation of this correlation remains unresolved this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

feature flexible forms of employment boon and bane in recent decades economic policy makers across europe have sought to increase labour market flexibility by promoting the use of temporary employment the articles in this feature provide new results on how fixed term and agency work contracts affect firm productivity and how the segments of two tier labour markets interact this article points to a possible trade off between efficiency and equity when deregulating labour markets taken together the evidence presented in this feature suggests that flexible forms of employment can be both a boon and a bane for labour markets and for society as a whole

malpractice law and health care reform optimal liability policy in an era of managed care abstract because fee for service health insurance insulates providers from the costs of treatment decisions it may lead to defensive medicine precautionary treatment with minimal expected medical benefit administered out of fear of legal liability by giving providers higher powered incentives managed care may affect optimal liability policy among elderly medicare beneficiaries with heart disease in 1984 1994 we find that liability reducing tort reforms reduce defensive practices in areas with high and low managed care enrollment but that managed care and liability reform are substitutes we consider some implications of these results for the current debate over the appropriateness of extending malpractice liability to managed care organizations

why do contractors contract the experience of highly skilled technical professionals in a contingent labor market this study examines 52 highly skilled technical contractors explanations in 1998 of why they entered the contingent labor force and how their subsequent experiences altered their viewpoint the authors report three general implications of their examination of the little studied high skill side of contingent labor first current depictions of contingent work are inaccurate for example contrary to the pessimistic employment relations perspective most of these interviewees found contracting better paying than permanent employment and contrary to optimistic free agent views many reported feeling anxiety and estrangement second occupational networks arose to satisfy needs such as training and wage setting that employing organizations satisfy for non contingent workers third regarding their place in the labor market high skilled and well paid technical contractors cannot be called as contingent workers usually are secondary sector workers and their market is not dyadic with individuals s

compensating differentials and unmeasured ability in the labor market for nurses why do hospitals pay more nurses employed in hospitals realize a large wage advantage relative to nurses employed elsewhere this paper examines alternative sources of the hospital premium a topic of some interest given the current shifting of medical care out of hospitals whereas cross sectional estimates indicate a hospital rn wage advantage of roughly 20 percent longitudinal analysis suggests that a third to a half of the advantage is due to unmeasured worker ability the remainder is likely to reflect compensating differentials for hospital disamenities we further probe possible sources of the rn hospital premium by examining the receipt of fringe benefits differences in cognitive ability as measured by afqt test scores differences in the quality of experience the role of labor unions and rents earnings on second jobs and the magnitude of wage differentials associated with work shift

transactions costs and agricultural household supply response we develop and estimate a model of supply response when transactions costs create a situation where some producers buy others sell and others do not participate in markets we present two rationales for why producing households may have different relationships to the market proportional and fixed transactions costs using data on mexican corn producers we estimate an empirical model that allows for separate tests of the significance of both types of transactions costs revealing that both fixed and proportional transactions costs matter for the estimation the results provide consistent estimates of supply elasticity and measures of the relative importance of factors determining both proportional and fixed transactions costs

firm sponsored general education and mobility frictions evidence from hospital sponsorship of nursing schools and faculty this study asks why hospitals provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty this support is striking because nursing education is clearly general clearly paid by the firm and information asymmetries appear minimal using aha and survey data i find hospitals employing a greater share of their msa s registered nurses are more likely to provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty net of size and other institutional controls given the institutional context i interpret this result as unusually specific evidence that technologically general skill training may be made de facto specific by imperfect and costly mobility

policy options promoting market participation among smallholder livestock producers a case study from the phillipines we investigate the factors precipitating market entry where smallholders make decisions about participation a discrete choice about whether to sell quantities of products and supply a continuous valued choice about how much quantity to sell in a cross section of smallholders in northern luzon philippines in a model that combines basic probit and tobit ideas is implemented using bayesian methods and generates precise estimates of the inputs required in order to effect entry among the non participants we estimate the total amounts of cattle buffalo pig and chicken livestock input required to effect entry and compare and contrast the alternative input requirements to the extent that our smallholder sample may be representative of a wide and broader set of circumstances our findings shed light on offsetting impacts of conflicting factors that complicate the roles for policy in the context of expanding the density of participation

employers in the boom how did the hiring of less skilled workers change during the 1990s abstract employers became more willing to hire a range of disadvantaged workers during the 1990s boom including minorities workers with certain stigmas such as welfare recipients and those without recent experience or high school diplomas the wages paid to newly hired less skilled workers also increased on the other hand employers demand for specific skill certification rose over time as did their use of certain screens the results suggest that the tight labor markets of the late 1990s in conjunction with other secular changes raised hiring costs and induced employers to shift toward screens that seemed more cost effective

looking beyond the bridge the effect of temporary agency employment on labor market outcomes abstract we perform a comprehensive analysis of the stepping stone effect of temporary agency employment on unemployed workers using the timing of events approach we investigate not only whether agency employment is a bridge into regular employment but also its effect on post unemployment wages and job stability for unemployed danish workers we find evidence of large positive treatment effects particularly for immigrants and for individuals considered less employable our results show that agency employment is in tendency effective in tight labor markets where firms use agency employment primarily to screen potential candidates for regular posts finally our results suggest that agency employment may improve subsequent match quality in terms of wages

a model of regional contraction and unemployment a two region economy is studied in which one region has a competitive labor market whereas the other has a congested labor market in which locating a job uses resources workers loosing jobs in the congested region choose between migration followed by an immediate job offer and searching in the congested region steady state decline of the labor force in the congested region is characterized together with equilibrium unemployment rates higher unemployment benefits may increase the rate of contraction of the congested market if the consequence for job matching outweighs that for migration conditional upon a given level of unemployment copyright 1992 by royal economic society

the expansion of temporary help employment in the us 1982 1992 a test of alternative economic explanations employment in the temporary help supply ths industry more than tripled in the us between 1982 and 1992 during that period the variability and cyclical sensitivity of ths jobs their average weekly hours and real hourly earnings were extraordinarily high in addition changes in temporary employment levels disproportionately affect aggregate employment flows over this period one possible explanation of the dramatic rise and variability in ths jobs is demographic changes in the composition of the labour force towards groups believed to prefer impermanent job commitment or temporal flexibility in supplying labour services a contrasting view considers it part of an explicit human resource strategy increasingly adopted by firms seeking greater numerical or cost flexibility this strategy may reflect an employer response to greater volatility in demand intensifying price competition pressures in product markets and rising quasi fixed costs incurred for permanent employees such as nonwage benefits a tw

monopsony power and relative wages in the labor market for nurses this paper examines the thesis that monopsony power is an important determinant of wages in nursing labor markets using data from the 1985 93 current population surveys measures of relative nurse non nurse wage rates for 252 labor markets are constructed contrary to predictions from the monopsony model no positive relationship exists between relative nursing wages and hospital density or market size nor is support found for the presence of monopsony power based on evidence on union wage premiums slopes of experience profiles or the mix of rn to total hospital employment

the role of temporary agency employment in tight labor markets the authors use case study evidence from hospitals and auto parts manufacturers to investigate why employers used and even increased their use of temporary help agencies during a period of tight labor markets in the 1990s in high skill occupations the evidence suggests employers paid substantially more to agency help than to regular employees in large part to gain additional time to recruit employees for permanent positions and thereby avoid raising wages for new hires and existing employees in low skill occupations temporary help agencies appear to have facilitated the use of more risky workers by lowering their wages and benefits and the costs associated with turnover as in high skill occupations the use of agency temporaries in low skill occupations relieved pressure on companies facing tight labor markets to raise employees wages and may have contributed to the stagnant wage growth and low unemployment observed in the 1990s

do part time full time compensation differentials for nurses vary between the private and public sector this study examines whether compared to their private sector counterparts public sector health care employers are at a disadvantage using part time pt nurses to lower labour costs findings reveal a lack of a pt wage differential public and private sector pt nurses are less likely to receive health care and pension coverage compared with full time ft nurses yet these pt ft nonwage compensation coverage differentials do not vary across sectors the nonwage findings are interpreted as suggesting that public sector health care employers are just as likely as private sector health care employers to benefit from cost savings associated with lower nonwage coverage for pt nurses

capturing knowledge within and across firm boundaries evidence from clinical development how do firm boundaries influence employees acquisition of information using detailed project level data and qualitative evidence i document that pharmaceutical firms are more likely to outsource the coordination of data intensive clinical trials while they are more likely to assign knowledge intensive trials to internal teams managers do not choose between market and hierarchy but between the hierarchy of the firm in which subjective performance evaluations are combined with flat explicit incentives and the hierarchy of its subcontractor whose virtue stems precisely from the ability to provide high powered incentives on a narrow set

the impact of medical liability standards on regional variations in physician behavior evidence from the adoption of national standard rules i explore the association between regional variations in physician behavior and the geographical scope of malpractice standards of care i estimate a 30 50 percent reduction in the gap between state and national utilization rates of various treatments and diagnostic procedures following the adoption of a rule requiring physicians to follow national as opposed to local standards these findings suggest that standardization in malpractice law may lead to greater standardization in practices and more generally that physicians may indeed adhere to specific liability standards in connection with the estimated convergence in practices i observe no associated changes in patient health jel i11 i18 j44 k13 a large literature in health economics and medicine has explored the regional practice patterns of physicians and other medical providers and has endeavored to understand i why some regions spend so much in the care of patients relative to other regions and ii whether high spending regions generate superior health outcomes in this paper i explore a potential contribution to the observed disparities in care that has been suggested by leading theoretical scholars in the area variations literature phelps 1992 but that has yet to be explored empirically laws respecting the geographical nature of the standards of care employed in medical malpractice actions in addition to shedding potentially valuable light on each of the above puzzles this investigation may at the same time offer novel insight into the fundamental question of whether physicians are responsive to the specific standards expected of them under the law a common thread that emerges throughout those studies that have endeavored to explore the causes behind the regional variations phenomenon is the inability

why do temporary help firms provide free general skills training the majority of u s temporary help supply ths firms offer nominally free unrestricted computer skills training a practice inconsistent with the competitive model of training i propose and test a model in which firms offer general training to induce self selection and perform screening of worker ability the model implies and the data confirm that firms providing training attract higher ability workers yet pay them lower wages after training thus beyond providing spot market labor ths firms sell information about worker quality to their clients the rapid growth of ths employment suggests that demand for worker screening is rising

an analysis of the determinants of job satisfaction when individuals baseline satisfaction levels may differ a growing literature seeks to explain differences in individuals self reported satisfaction with their jobs the evidence so far has mainly been based on cross sectional data and when panel data have been used individual unobserved heterogeneity has been modelled as an ordered probit model with random effects this article makes use of longitudinal data for denmark taken from the waves 1995 1999 of the european community household panel and estimates fixed effects ordered logit models using the estimation methods proposed by ferrer i carbonel and frijters 2004 and das and van soest 1999 for comparison and testing purposes a random effects ordered probit is also estimated estimations are carried out separately on the samples of men and women for individuals overall satisfaction with the jobs they hold we find that using the fixed effects approach that clearly rejects the random effects specification considerably reduces the number of key explanatory variables the impact of central economic factors is the same as in previous studies though moreover the determinants of job satisfaction differ considerably between the genders in particular once individual fixed effects are allowed for

are employment and managerial control equivalent evidence from an electronics producer abstract transaction cost economics recognizes two alternative forms of governing production and exchange market coordination and managerial control when examining the contractual relationship between firms and workers researchers generally consider employment to represent managerial control this paper tests the assumption that employment is characterized by managerial control using evidence from an electronics producer this paper tests whether factors affecting the employment status of workers such as asset specificity task interdependence and high knowledge requirements also affect the degree to which workers are managerially controlled this research helps explain a number of market organizational and managerial innovations such as employee self management and the use of temporary workers

uncovering and explaining variance in the features and outcomes of contingent work existing research tends to depict contingent work either as having similar implications for firms and workers in all settings or as varying in its implications depending only on contingent workers

the rise and fall of customary wage differentials among nursing personnel in us hospitals 1956 1985 between 1956 and 1985 the employment of registered nurses rns relative to other nursing personnel rose despite constant relative wages among rns licensed practical nurses and nurses aides over this thirty year period hospital management proclaimed chronic shortages of rns economists have used monopsonistic models to explain the persistence of these shortages as an alternative to the monopsonistic model this paper presents an institutional argument for why hospital management sought to maintain relative wages among classes of nursing personnel while at the same time successfully raising the relative use of rns through a variety of nonwage inducements and manipulations of rn supply c 1995 academic press inc copyright 1995 by oxford university press

the decline of unionization in the united states what can be learned from recent experience the dramatic decline in unionization over the last decade is investigated in the context of a supply demand model of union status determination using data from surveys of workers conducted in 1977 and 1984 along with data from the national labor relations board on representation elections it is concluded that the decline in unionization since 1977 is accounted for largely by 1 an increase in employer resistance to unionization probably due to increased product market competitiveness and 2 a decrease in demand for union representation by nonunion workers due to an increase in the satisfaction of nonunion workers with their jobs and a decline in nonunion workers beliefs that unions are able to improve wages and working conditions

malpractice risk and medical treatment selection abstract we study how legal and financial incentives affect medical decisions using patient level data from italy we identify the effect of a change in medical liability pressure by exploiting the geographical distribution of hospitals across court districts where some districts increase the predictability of expected damages per injury while others do not using a difference in differences identification strategy we show that as certainty of compensation increases c sections increase by 6 5 percentage points there is no statistically significant effect on secondary health outcomes of either mothers or newborns but the increase is higher for low risk than high risk mothers the increase is driven by hospitals that have lower quality are governed by inefficient court districts face lower expected damages and are paid more per c section

malpractice law physicians financial incentives and medical treatment how do they interact abstractthe effects of malpractice law and financial incentives on physicians are typically studied independently this paper shows that to make both positive and normative statements about medical malpractice liability one must consider physicians legal and financial incentives jointly i develop a simple model to show that when treatment is unprofitable at the margin mitigation of liability lowers treatment levels conversely when treatment is profitable mitigation of liability raises them motivated by this simple theoretical framework i analyze the impact of a tort reform in texas that mitigated malpractice liability consistent with the theory the rate of cesarean sections among commercially insured mothers for whom the procedure is considered profitable increased by 2 percentage points relative to the rate of cesarean sections among mothers covered by medicaid for whom the procedure is thought to be unprofitable

search method use by unemployed youth this article presents a search model which shows that search method choices should be related to their costs and expected productivities as well as to nonwage income and wage offer distributions the empirical evidence then shows that the most frequently used search methods i e friends and relatives and direct applications without referral are also the most productive in generating offers and acceptances the number of methods used is affected by factors that presumably reflect opportunities as well as income sources and needs specific methods are chosen in a manner that generates positive average effects on outcomes for those using them

the growth of temporary services work the temporary help services industry which provides client firms with workers on an as needed basis has expanded at a phenomenal rate over the last 20 years since 1972 the industry s employment has grown at an annual rate of over 11 percent and its share of total u s employment has risen from under 0 3 percent in 1972 to more than 1 8 percent in 1995 the growth of the temporary services industry has fueled controversy some analysts fear that temporary workers may become locked into a labor market underclass with low wages no benefits negligible job security little training and no possibility for advancement others challenge such claims and point to efficiencies created by temporary employment relationships this article will examine the growth of the temporary services industry and discuss the quality of temporary services jobs how such jobs fit into workers careers and some of the forces that may be driving the growth of temporary services work

welfare to temporary work implications for labor market outcomes we explore the effects of temporary help employment on welfare recipients subsequent employment and welfare dynamics we find that any employment in temporary help services or other sectors yields substantial benefits compared to no employment although welfare recipients who go to work for temporary help service firms have lower initial wages than those with jobs in other sectors they experience faster subsequent wage growth two years later they are no less likely to be employed their wages are close to those of other workers and they are only slightly more likely to remain on welfare

internet job search and unemployment durations after decades of stability the technologies used by workers to locate new jobs began to change rapidly with the diffusion of internet access in the late 1990 s which types of persons incorporated the internet into their job search strategy and did searching for work on line help these workers find new jobs faster we address these questions using measures of internet job search derived from the december 1998 and august 2000 cps computer and internet supplements matched with job search outcomes from subsequent cps files we find that internet searchers are positively selected on observables but negatively selected on unobservables a beneficial unemployment duration reducing causal effect of internet job search is consistent with our estimates only if negative selection on unobservables is especially strong in other words only if the population of on line resumes is strongly adversely selected

the ability of unions to adapt to innovative workplace arrangements the 1980s have witnessed considerable experimentation in compensation practices worker participation labor management cooperation and the organization of production collectively such practices at the local or plant level have become known as workplace innovations one concern that has been raised repeatedly both within the academic community and within the labor movement is how and in fact whether such innovations can coexist with unions and collective bargaining as currently constituted see for example charles heckscher 1988 thomas kochan harry katz and robert mckersie 1986 profit sharing gainsharing and other compensation changes pose certain issues for unions how to define profits or gains to protect workers and minimize management finagling for instance but these probably require mainly increased access to financial information and the technical sophistication to deal with that information labor management cooperation programs that involve union leaders or activists in joint problem solving with management could create the perception that the union is cozying up with management and is unwilling to push worker demands or grievances but as with profit sharing and gainsharing the union sector has long experience with cooperation committees and can presumably make the necessary political adaptations innovations that establish a second channel of communication between workers and managers are more problematic according to some observers insofar as they possibly could lead to less worker interest in unionism some could preempt the union s expansion into new areas of collective bargaining or might threaten to supplant bargaining over traditional issues and they might exacerbate existing divisions within the workforce or the union donald wells 1987 further issues arise with the more extensive innovations like team production systems that combine the radical reduction of separate production job classifications team decision making in work or overtime assignments and pay by knowledge experience in some auto plants indicates teams can lead to fundamental changes in the operation of the grievance system and the union s day to day role in the plant katz 1985 indeed it has been argued that team production systems require a modification of the system of job control unionism management manages and the union grieves kochan et al p 161 which has predominated in the united states since world war ii the concerns discussed above do not mean that these programs offer no benefits to workers and unions benefits such as increased job security enhanced job satisfaction reduced alienation and greater control over the work environment may result from many of these programs in fact it is the differential weighting of these potential benefits and costs that has in part led to the variety of union responses to workplace innovations

the earnings and employment of nurses in an era of cost containment previous research has shown that from the 1980s through the early 1990s nurses enjoyed substantial wage and employment gains that stemmed to some extent from increased labor demand using individual data for 1988 98 to compare nurses fortunes with those of college educated women and other workers in the health care industry the author documents that nurses experienced a decline in real wages beginning in the early 1990s at the same time that the skill premium for rns as reflected by the return to education and experience was increasing changes in measured characteristics and their returns explain very little of the decline consistent with the theory that the relative wage decrease was driven by a decline in the demand for rns and increased cost constraints the effects of hmo penetration are found to explain only a small part of the variation in wages across metropolitan statistical areas and across time

first do no harm tort reform and birth outcomes in the 1980s and 1990s many states adopted tort reforms it has been argued that these reforms have reduced the practice of defensive medicine arising from excess tort liability we find that this does not appear to be true for a large and important class of cases childbirth in the united states using data from national vital statistics natality files on millions of individual births from 1989 to 2001 we ask whether specific tort reforms affect the types of procedures that are performed and the health outcomes of mothers and their infants we find that reform of the joint and several liability rule or the deep pockets rule reduces complications of labor and procedure use whereas caps on noneconomic damages increase them we show that these results are consistent with a model of tort reform that explicitly allows for variations in patient condition

the effect of wage bargains on the stock market value of the firm the author estimates the change in the value of common stock resulting from an unexpected change in collectively bargained labor costs using bargaining unit wage data and nyse stock returns he estimates a dollar for dollar trade off between these variables this result is consistent with stock valuations based on present value maximizing managerial decisions that is the results are consistent with hotelling s lemma the author also finds support for the hypothesis that collective bargains maximize the sum of shareholder and union member wealth that is the results are consistent with strong efficiency in the contracting environment copyright 1989 by american economic association

match bias in wage gap estimates due to earnings imputation about 30 of workers in the current population survey have earnings imputed wage gap estimates are biased toward zero when the attribute being studied e g union status is not a criterion used to match donors to nonrespondents an expression for match bias is derived in which attenuation equals the sum of match error rates attenuation can be approximated by the proportion with imputed earnings union wage gap estimates with match bias removed are presented for 1973 2001 estimates for recent years are biased downward 5 percentage points bias in gap estimates accompanying other non match criteria public sector industry etc is examined

costes de contratacion y empresas de trabajo temporal una explicacion de la disparidad regional en espana the temporary work agencies twa industry experienced continuous growth throughout the 90s and now represents around 15 of temporary hiring in spain more interestingly are markable regional disparity in this sector exists across spanish provinces by developing a simple theoretical model and using panel data methodology this article examines the spanish caseand suggests that the costs of recruiting training and screening could explain a large part of the regional disparity this result is supported by the empirical fact that the twa firms have greater success in markets with low unemployment rates where the average duration of unemploymen tis longer and in provinces with higher concentrations of urban population respectively

flexible recession the temporary staffing industry and mediated work in the united states the evolution of the temporary staffing industry tsi in the us is examined with particular reference to the structural functions of temporary work during the boom of the 1990s the flexible recession of 2001 and the subsequent jobless recovery it is argued that the tsi is increasingly playing a systemic macroregulatory role in the us labour market where it now accounts for a disproportionate share of the costs of labour market adjustment the development path of the tsi is closely intertwined with the wider restructuring of the us economy where it has assumed a significant presence as a purveyor of low cost flexibly mediated labour copyright 2007 oxford university press

welfare the earned income tax credit and the labor supply of single mothers during 1984 1996 welfare and tax policy were changed to encourage work by single mothers the earned income tax credit was expanded welfare benets were cut welfare time limits were added and welfare cases were terminated medicaid for the working poor was expanded as were training programs and child care during this same time period there were unprecedented increases in the employment and hours of single mothers we show that a large share of the increase in work by single mothers can be attributed to the eitc and other tax changes with smaller shares for welfare benet cuts welfare waivers training programs and child care programs