national industrial structure and the global system various forms of participation in the global system have been hypothesized to distort the structure of industrialization in developing countries influencing the relations between industrial capital labor and output we operationalize kuznets s 1965 theoretical definition of industrialization utilizing energy consumption per capita percent of the labor force employed in industry and percent of gdp accountedfor by industry to test several predictions about the effects of a country s involvement in the global system on the structure of its industrialization we first estimate a measurement model for 1970 that includes these three basic indicators as influenced by the latent variable of industrialization elaborations of the basic model allow us to measure the influence of the world system on the structure of industrialization types of goods imported and exported affect the structure of industrialization position in the world system and direct foreign investment have no net direct effects a marxist leninist regime has an independent influence on the structure of industrialization in some years we replicate the model using data from 196s 1980 and 1986

supply demand and uncertainty implications for prelisting conservation policy abstract the endangered species act esa faces a shortage of incentives to motivate the scale of conservation activities necessary to address and reverse the decline of at risk species a recent policy proposal attempts to change this by allowing landowners to generate credits for voluntary prelisting conservation activities we explore the proposed policy from the perspective of potential participants we find that uncertainty present in species listing processes complicates the decision to undertake conservation activities leading to less conservation being supplied than when a listing decision is certain while also delaying implementation until late in the listing determination process incentives created by the prelisting policy may likewise push species status closer to a listing threshold and thus exacerbate uncertainty in the listing process to counter this tendency and encourage a more efficient allocation of conservation activity early actor bonuses weighted credits or limited windows of eligibility could be used to target or place increased premiums on early conservation activity though these findings are most directly applicable to the specific prelisting policy considered here they are nonetheless relevant to a wider array of conservation policies that seek to encourage voluntary early action in advance of a regulatory alternative

the school to work transition a cross national perspective school to work patterns and issues are discussed for seven economies france germany japan the netherlands sweden the united kingdom and the united states the emphasis is placed on differences across countries in the current labor market position of young people and recent trends therein along with the institutions that regulate youth education training and employment the power of public policies including labor market deregulation labor market programs vocationalization of education and apprenticeship to improve youth outcomes is discussed drawing on national evaluation literatures evidence of extensive policy failure points up the need to develop nationally appropriate institutions to improve school to work transitions

using regional variation in wages to measure the effects of the federal minimum wage the imposition of a national minimum wage standard provides a natural experiment in which the treatment effect varies across states depending on the fraction of workers initially earning less than the new minimum the author exploits this fact to evaluate the effect of the april 1990 increase in the federal minimum wage on teenagers wages employment and school enrollment comparisons of grouped and individual state data confirm that the rise in the minimum wage increased teenagers wages there is no evidence of corresponding losses in teenage employment or changes in teenage school enrollment

employment effects of minimum and subminimum wages panel data on state minimum wage laws using panel data on state minimum wage laws and economic conditions for the years 1973 89 the authors reevaluate existing evidence on the effects of a minimum wage on employment their estimates indicate that a 10 increase in the minimum wage causes a decline of 1 2 in employment among teenagers and a decline of 1 5 2 in employment for young adults similar to the ranges suggested by earlier time series studies the authors also find evidence that youth subminimum wage provisions enacted by state legislatures moderate the disemployment effects of minimum wages on teenagers

hedonic wages and labor market search this article investigates the consequences of labor market search for the theory of hedonic wages we find that the introduction of search has surprising consequences for the theory of hedonic wages in particular we demonstrate that the equilibrium distribution of wage and nonwage amenity bundles generally bears little resemblance to workers underlying preferences a consequence of this analysis is that estimates of workers marginal willingness to pay derived from the conventional hedonic wage methodology are biased in addition we demonstrate that search generates differences between firm level and employee level data that can cause substantial deviations in the estimates of hedonic wage equations

do minimum wage hikes raise us long term unemployment evidence using state minimum wage rates partridge m d and partridge j s 1999 do minimum wage hikes raise us long term unemployment evidence using state minimum wage rates reg studies 33 713 726 several recent studies have challenged the conventional notion that raising the minimum wage reduces employment this study considers a related but relatively unexplored issue by examining the minimum wage s influence on long durations of unemployment by considering long term unemployment rates this study extends the previous minimum wage literature by examining the persistence of minimum wage effects the empirical analysis considers state data from the latter 1980s a unique period when many states raised their minimum wage above the federal level the results suggest that a greater minimum wage increases long term unemployment rates further evidence indicates that increased minimum wage coverage also raises long term unemployment rates subsequent analysis yielded similar patterns for other aggregate labour market measures thus state

determinants of dynamics in the world city network 2000 2004 this article presents an analysis of the determinants of connectivity change in the world city network wcn drawing on the theoretical research of saskia sassen and the subsequent empirical research of the globalization and world cities gawc group connectivity in the wcn is measured through the networked location strategies of globalised service firms based on a calculation of the total connectivity of 220 cities across the world for 2000 and 2004 a measurement of connectivity change is produced for this time period this measure of connectivity change is then used as the dependent variable in a linear regression model through which are tested a number of hypotheses concerning the determinants of connectivity change the study analyses wcn change both in general and in sectoral terms and also examines how the prior presence of service firms impacts connectivity change

full wages part time employment and the minimum wage the economic effects of the minimum wage have become increasingly ambiguous historically economists have asserted that increases in the minimum wage result in increases in unemployment this relationship has been challenged recently by card and krueger katz and krueger and card these authors have provided empirical evidence that seems to indicate that there is no relationship between various economic variables such as level of employment and product price among others and the minimum wage in addition these authors have not provided a cogent presentation of the effects of the minimum wage on part time employment this study examines from a theoretical standpoint the effects of the minimum wage on employment furthermore we emphasize the distinction between money wages and full wages and the role that part time employmentplays in the analysis after incorporating these factors into a theoretical presentation we provide empirical evidence by way of an ols regression we conclude that firms re

latin american cities and globalisation change and permanency in the context of development expectations some interesting changes have been taking place in the urbanisation processes of latin american countries in the past few decades some of which are definitely related to global processes the empirical evidence of this relation is hard to pin down due to the lack of data sources but in this paper it is suggested that the growth in volume and diversity of mobility relations between cities can be indicators of an overlapping of urban phenomena and global processes a diachronic analysis 1970 2008 of latin american air transport connectivity is used to evaluate the growth and the degree of cohesion of the internal relational systems and changes and continuities in the external relational systems even though air transport is an indicator to be complemented with other indicators when analysing global relations the results indicate a continuation of existing latin american structures centralism and polarisation and the emergence of new forms of dependence tourism and migration which should not be ove

rainwater harvesting and groundwater conservation when endogenous heterogeneity matters in this paper we focus on resource conservation in a model of decentralized management of groundwater and rainwater we show that a conservation policy may have opposite effects on the level of the resource depending on the outcome of the decentralized management more precisely we consider identical farmers who can use two water resources groundwater and or rainwater and we study the symmetric and asymmetric feedback stationary nash equilibria of the dynamic game we show that a subsidy on the use of rainwater may increase the level of the aquifer at the symmetric equilibrium whereas it decreases the level of the aquifer at the asymmetric equilibrium this suggests that the usual focus on interior symmetric equilibria in dynamic games may provide misleading policy implications

changes at the top a cross country examination over the 20th century of the rise and fall in rank of the top cities in national urban hierarchies the paper documents the evolution of rank orders for cities at the top of national urban hierarchies top 10 cities where possible ranks for the year 2000 are compared with 1950 for 74 nations and with 1900 for 52 nations covering 375 and 288 cities respectively rank correlations with the year 2000 are calculated for both years the rank order of cities in europe shows significantly less variation over time than those for the new world and developing nations consistent with the view that urban hierarchies harden as they mature changes in rank at the very top rank 1 are rare where they occur such changes can often be traced to political events that alter the direction of trade or the city s role as central place the results provide evidence both for and against locational fundamentals and cumulative causation arguments the entrenched advantages of the first big cities to emerge are undeniable but fundamentals can be undermined by political events and by technological change

the effect of the minimum wage on the fast food industry using a longitudinal survey of fast food restaurants in texas the authors examine the impact of recent increases in the federal minimum wage on a low wage labor market less than 5 of fast food restaurants were using the new youth subminimum wage in july august 1991 even though the vast majority paid a starting wage below the new hourly minimum wage immediately before it became effective although some restaurants increased wages beyond the level needed to comply with higher minimum wages in both 1990 and 1991 those federal minimum wage increases greatly compressed the distribution of starting wages in the texas fast food industry two findings at variance with conventional predictions are that 1 employment increased more in those firms likely to have been most affected by the 1991 minimum wage increase than in other firms and 2 price changes were unrelated to mandated wage changes

do minimum wages fight poverty i introduction one of the most compelling rationales for a national minimum wage floor is to raise the incomes of poor or near poor families with members in the workforce this general point however is often missed in the debates over the merits of a higher minimum wage in contrast to these oft stated distributional goals much of the focus in such debates has been on the employment effects of minimum wages especially among the teenage population in large part this focus is probably attributable to the extensive body of economic research on the effects of minimum wages on employment of low skilled workers however although negative employment effects represent a cost of minimum wages such costs do not necessarily imply that minimum wages constitute bad social policy in particular the employment losses associated with a higher minimum wage may be more than offset by positive effects on low income families especially if minimum wages are a significant factor in helping move families out of poverty 1 this is not to argue that research on employment effects of minimum wages is irrelevant but such research may be more important as a test of the theory of labor demand and as a method of learning how employers and individuals adjust to exogenous wage increases than as a method of assessing the wisdom of the policy in addition we do not mean to suggest that the short run effects of minimum wages on the incomes of poor families should be the sole criterion for evaluating such policies other studies have found evidence suggesting for example that minimum wage increases reduce school enrollment rates and training neumark and wascher 1996a hashimoto 1982 factors that may affect longer run earnings or earnings growth these deleterious longer run effects might offset the benefits of shorter run effects of minimum wages on family incomes nonetheless our perception is that potential increases in the incomes of poor families provide the main motivation for raising the minimum wage making it important to assess the evidence on whether minimum wage increases achieve this goal in this regard there are two questions that pertain to the influence of minimum wages on family incomes generally and on poverty in particular first there is the question of the effects of minimum wages on low wage workers that is do the wage gains received by employed workers more than offset the lost earnings suffered by those who lose or cannot find jobs 2 second there is the question of how minimum wages affect workers in different parts of the family income distribution because many roughly speaking a large minority of minimum wage workers are in relatively affluent families gramlich 1976 card and krueger 1995 burkhauser et al 1996 which workers gain and which lose will have an important influence on the effects of minimum wages on the distribution of family incomes in this article we present evidence on the effects of minimum wages on family incomes focusing in particular but not solely on the effectiveness of minimum wages in reducing poverty using matched march current population surveys cpss we estimate the effects of minimum wages on the probabilities of various transitions in the family income distribution such as transitions into and out of poverty given that federal changes in minimum wages may be confounded with other aggregate level shocks influencing family income we rely heavily on state level changes in minimum wages to identify minimum wage effects in a nutshell our empirical strategy is to compare rates of transition through the family income distribution in states in which minimum wages do and do not increase for example if poor families are more likely to escape from poverty when minimum wages increase in their states of residence we would infer that minimum wage hikes help families move out of poverty on the other hand if transitions in to poverty are more common when minimum wages increase we would infer that the disemployment effects of minimum wages play a dominant role among the low income population

ambiguous changes in product quality economic goods are frequently sold according to a price per unit quantity where the quantity characteristic does not measure all the economically important characteristics of the good milk is sold by the quart automobiles rented by the mile physicians services bought by the visit and tennis lessons by the hour in all cases heterogeneous units are available in the market and the price per unit quantity depends upon the amount of the unpriced characteristic contained in each unit the per quart price of milk depends upon the butterfat content the mileage costs of automobile rentals on the cars make and the price per unit time for personal services on the providers skill and training the common distinction made between these variants of the same good is that they differ in quality where quality refers to the amounts of the unpriced attributes contained in each unit of the priced attribute thus milk is packaged according to the attribute milk liquid and the quality of milk refers to the ratio of butterfat per unit of liquid 2 this paper considers some of the unique aspects of the economics of supply and demand under this situation where products contain at least two desired attributes only one of which is quantified and measured prior to purchase product quality is here defined by the ratio of the second quality attribute per unit of the measured quantity attribute 3 this simple specification of quality allows a direct link between standard economic models of related products and the economics of variable product quality previous analyses which treat quality simply as a shift parameter in the demand function are shown to obscure the actual subtleties of supply and demand with variable endogenous quality 4 the paper proceeds by first examining the efficient quality and quantity and the competitive equilibrium the market equilibrium under monopoly is then contrasted in the second section the general theme of the

do minimum wages affect non wage job attributes evidence on fringe benefits although many studies have tested neoclassical labor market theory s prediction that employers will react to binding minimum wages by reducing employment levels much less empirical research has explored the possibility that employers also respond to minimum wages by adjusting non wage components of the job such as fringe benefits job safety and access to training using current population survey data for 1979 2000 this study investigates the effect of minimum wage legislation on the provision of employer health insurance and employer pension coverage the authors examine effects of state and federal variation in minimum wages on groups likely to be affected by the minimum wage and compare these effects to estimates found for groups unlikely to be affected whether the analysis uses only state level variation or federal and state variation in minimum wages the results indicate no discernible effect of the minimum wage on fringe benefit generosity for low skill workers

training and union wages abstract this paper investigates whether unions through imposing wage floors that lead to wage compression increase on the job training our analysis focuses on germany based on a model of unions and firm financed training we derive empirical implications regarding apprenticeship training intensity layoffs wage cuts and wage compression in unionized and nonunionized firms we test these implications using firm panel data matched with administrative employee data we find support for the hypothesis that union recognition via imposing minimum wages and wage compression increases training in apprenticeship programs

voluntary conservation of endangered species when does no regulatory assurance mean no conservation abstract voluntary conservation agreements are becoming increasingly important in implementing the endangered species act on private land we analyze when such agreements arise and what level of conservation they generate in the presence of uncertainty about future conservation benefits and irreversibility of habitat loss and species extinction our results suggest that the likelihood of an agreement and the resulting conservation levels depend on the background threat of regulation the cost advantage offered by voluntary agreements and the availability of assurances regarding future regulation under conditions likely to hold in practice conservation agreements that offer assurances may generate higher levels of conservation and higher net social benefits than agreements that do not offer assurances however the resulting level of conservation will not be optimal and may be lower than that attainable under regulation

intercity relations and globalisation the evolution of the global urban hierarchy 1981 2007 how is the world city system changing in the context of globalisation this question is addressed using data on the headquarter and branch locations of the world s 500 largest multinationals the paper employs techniques developed for the analysis of networks to evaluate the more than 6300 cities that are linked together by such firms in terms of their point centrality and using blockmodelling techniques in terms of the positions they occupy and roles that they play in the system the analysis indicates that the world city system is in the midst of substantial restructuring and that it is changing in such a way as to concentrate power in a small number of cities however in contrast to some accounts support is not found for the idea that globalisation is generating a new geography of inequality at the level of intercity relations