public employment and the welfare state in sweden this is a nontechnical summary of a much longer study which will appear with the same title in richard freeman birgitta swedenborg and robert topel eds forthcoming i am especially indebted to henry ohlsson and birgitta swedenborg and to stan engerman vic fuchs assar lindbeck stephen lundgren and agnar sandmo for comments on initial drafts i alone am responsible for the views expressed here

control and performance of international joint ventures control is a critical concept for successful management and performance of international joint ventures ijvs this paper reviews and synthesizes prior studies addressing the conceptualization and operationalization of control within ijvs as well as the ijv control performance relationship the paper also presents a new conceptualization of ijv control as well as a conceptual frame work for studying control of ijvs

the gender gap fertility and growth changes in fertility have long been recognized as important correlates of economic growth with the relationship between the level of fertility and the level of income per capita being one of the strongest observable correlations in cross country data this paper examines the linkages between fertility and growth theory the structure of the model is presented in sections on production couples decision making system dynamics and steady state equilibria the first component of the model is that increases in capital per worker raise womens relative wages since capital is more complementary to womens labor input than to mens the second component is that increasing womens relative wages reduces fertility by raising the cost of children more than household income finally lower fertility raises the level of capital per worker a positive feedback loop generates demographic transition a rapid decline in fertility accompanied by accelerated output growth

women prefer larger governments female labor supply and public spending the increase in income per capita is accompanied in virtually all countries by two changes in the structure of the economy an increase in the share of government spending in gdp and an increase in female labor force participation this paper suggests that these two changes are not just overlapping in time they are causally related this paper develops a growth model with endogenous fertility labor force participation and government size that illustrates this causal link economic development is accompanied by an increase in the female market wage thus increasing the opportunity cost of staying at home if government spending decreases the time cost of performing household chores including but not limited to child rearing and child care it makes sense for women to enter the labor market and demand higher government spending financed by increased taxation as women make the decision to work outside the home they increase their demand for services typically provided by the government such as education and health care which in turn decrease the cost of home and family activities that are overwhelmingly performed by women using a wide cross section of data for developed and developing countries we show that higher rates of female participation in the labor market are indeed positively associated with larger governments furthermore we investigate the causal link between the two variables using as instrumental variables for female labor force participation newly collected data on the relative price of home appliances as well as the fertility rate we find evidence of a causal link between female labor force participation and government size a 10 percent rise in female participation in the labor market leads to a 7 to 8 percent rise in government size this effect is robust to the country sample time period and a set of controls in the spirit of rodrik 1998

corporate control of investments and management styles this article describes how corporate managers of major swedish groups in different industries exert control over investment requests and the direction of the investments of their groups the study

the effect of the expansion of the voting franchise on the size of government this paper examines the claim that expansion of the voting franchise has been an important factor in the growth of government state government spending and state and local spending are explained using a panel of 46 states for 1950 88 elimination of poll taxes and literacy tests led to higher turnout particularly among the poor and a poorer pivotal voter as predicted we find that these changes a fall in the income of voters relative to state income and the ouster of republicans from state government led to a sharp rise in welfare spending but no change in other spending

the global integration of business functions a study of multinational businesses in integrated global industries the way that multinational businesses in integrated global industries coordinate and control r d manufacturing and marketing functions across borders has significant implications for performance we propose that in such global industries certain integrating modes will be more effective than others in integrating a function globally we show that each function has a different combination of effective integrating modes for global r d integration people based and information based modes are more effective than formalization based and centralization based modes for manufacturing people information and formalization are more effective than centralization with respect to marketing information and centralization are more effective than people and formalization we also demonstrate that the co alignment between actual and ideal profiles configurations or patterns of integrating modes results in superior performance our results reveal that people based and information based modes are generally more effective than formalization based and centralization based modes in coordinating and controlling business functions worldwide

the baby boom and baby bust what caused the baby boom and can it be explained within the context of the secular decline in fertility that has occurred over the last 200 years the hypothesis is that a the secular decline in fertility is due to the relentless rise in real wages that increased the opportunity cost of having children b the baby boom is explained by an atypical burst of technological progress in the household sector that occurred in the middle of the last century this lowered the cost of having children a model is developed in an attempt to account quantitatively for both the baby boom and bust

employment dynamics and the structure of labor adjustment costs in this article we document the patterns of employment adjustment at the micro level we find clear evidence of lumpy adjustment consistent with the presence of nonconvexities in the adjustment technology inaction is pervasive action spells are short lived and extreme adjustment episodes are responsible for a nontrivial share of employment adjustment we also find that the probability of employment adjustment increases with the duration of inaction the skill structure of the workforce the type of employment contract and the proportion of low tenure workers which we interpret as proxies for the magnitude of adjustment costs all influence the probability of adjustment

the perverse effects of partial labour market reform fixed term contracts in france we argue that the effects of a partial reform of employment protection by allowing firms to hire workers on fixed term contracts may be perverse the main effect may be high turnover in entry level jobs leading to higher not lower unemployment even if unemployment falls workers may be worse off going through many spells of unemployment and entry level jobs before obtaining a regular job considering french data for young workers since the early 1980s we conclude that the reforms have substantially increased turnover without a substantial reduction in unemployment duration if anything the effect on their welfare appears to have been negative

the transfer of organizational culture overseas an approach to control in the multinational corporation organizational control has traditionally been described within the framework of the ideal type of weberian bureaucracy in which rules and regulations specify desired behavior and rewards are based on explicit performance measures this paper describes an alternative organizational ideal type that relies on an organizational culture for control in this type of system behavior is specified by the organizational culture and performance is maintained via mechanisms of social pressure an example of this letter type of control is found in the type z organization an american organizational form similar in many ways to the japanese form particularly interesting is the way in which a type z organization manages overseas subsidiaries by establishing the organizational culture in the subsidiary the process by which this is accomplished and by which control is maintained are described in a comparative empirical study of the headquarters and subsidiary of a firm representative of each control type the implications of this approach for management of the multinational firm and for the host country are also discussed

asymmetric labor market reforms effects on wage growth and conversion probability of fixed term contracts the authors investigate the impact of a change in employment protection laws in portugal that increased the maximum legal duration of fixed term contracts they find that this reform led to a reduction in the probability that a worker on a fixed term contract would be converted to a permanent contract in addition those workers who had their contracts converted experienced a significantly higher hourly wage growth at the time of conversion and faced a lower reduction in wage growth during the years in which the changed legislation was in force consequently the implementation of this law led to a 27 increase in the wage growth differential between the two contracts the findings are based on an endogenous regime switching model using rich administrative linked employer employee data

implementing global strategy characteristics of global subsidiary mandates implementing a global strategy requires coordinating subsidiary activities across country locations the assumption often made is that such coordination must be managed at headquarters however an alternate approach is decentralized centralized responsibilities in which different subsidiaries within the multinational are given worldwide mandates to manage specific products or products lines this study identifies subsidiary characteristics that are associated with receiving a global mandate by examining foreign subsidiaries located in france germany japan u k u s and canada

multinational corporations control systems and delegation issues the paper has 2 major objectives first to identify control and delegation issues confronting multinational corporation managers second to develop a conceptual model to assist multinational corporation managers in selecting appropriate control systems and determining the extent of delegation to be provided to subsidiary managers finally the paper suggests directions for future research

a test of dual labor market theory despite substantial differences in their views of the appropriate policy response to the existence of poverty neither the proponents of dual market theory nor its critics have proposed potentially conclusive tests of the dual market hypothesis this paper presents a test of the two central propositions of dual market theory 1 the existence of two distinct labor markets with different wage setting mechanisms and 2 the existence of barriers to mobility between the labor markets we find considerable support for both hypothesis estimation of a switching model of wage determination with unknown regimes yields two distinct wage equations the one which most workers are associated with closely resembles the standard human capital regression with significant returns to education and experience the other equation is flat with no returns to human capital these two equations resemble the predictions of dual market theory for the primary and secondary markets respectively further we present evidence that at least some non white workers are involuntarily confined to the secondary market this crowding of minority workers into the low wage labor market accounts for a substantial portion of white non white wage differences we interpret these results as providing empirical support for the dual market hypothesis and for recent theoretical work on efficiency wagemodels in addition combining the efficiency wage argument with the observation that much of the white non white wage difference is explained by the exclusion of non whites from the primary sector suggests an explanation for the persistance of wage differences this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

patterns of strategic control within multinational corporations the management of multinational operations is often required to balance conflicting priorities between responsiveness at the national subsidiary level and central coordination for global competitiveness such balancing requires that relevant data be brought to bear on decisions that consensus be created among key managers and that relative power among them be carefully balanced in large complex mncs the balancing process can be institutionalized through the structuring of relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries

the effects of child bearing on married women s labor supply and earnings using twin births as a natural experiment we use exogenous variations in fertility due to twin births to measure the impact of an unplanned child on married women s labor supply and earnings although the overall effects of an unplanned birth on labor supply are small we find significant effects in the years immediately following the unplanned birth especially in 1970 we estimate that declining fertility explains between 6 and 13 percent of the increase in married women s labor supply between 1970 and 1980 twin births are also associated with a substantial short run loss in earnings this effect persists longer than the labor supply effects though it does eventually disappear

matching turnover and unemployment this paper develops the view that workers move into and out of the labor market because of changes in the perceived value of their market opportunities a search model is combined with a matching model to yield movement of workers from job to job and into and out of employment

labor market discrimination against hispanic and black men h ispanic american men have lower average wage rates than white non hispanics in 1975 the average white non hispanic male wage earner in the united states earned 5 97 an hour mexican men earned 4 31 72 as much as white non hispanics puerto rican men earned 4 52 76 as much and cuban men earned 5 33 89 as much as white non hispanics by way of comparison black men s average wages in 1975 were 4 65 78 of the white male wage several possible reasons for the hispanics lower wages come to mind among them are age and education geographic location immigration language difficulties and discrimination for example as shown in table 1 mexicans and puerto ricans are younger on average than the white non hispanic population and earnings tend to rise with age hispanics have lower average levels of education than white non hispanics and wages are positively associated with education many mexican americans live in the southwest where prices are relatively low moreover hispanics are more likely to be recent immigrants and to lack fluency in english than white non hispanics and so to be at a disadvantage in the labor market in addition there is a widespread belief that hispanics suffer from employment discrimination and cannot obtain the wages that their human capital would command if they were non hispanic whites how much of the wage differentials described above are due to each of these factors and to other inter group differences in wage related characteristics in particular how much impact does labor market discrimination have on the average hispanic man s wage and how does this compare with discrimination against blacks this paper provides answers to these questions a few other efforts have been made to analyze the relative earnings of hispanic and white nonhispanic men using 1960 and 1970 census data fogel 1966 poston and alvirez 1973 poston alvirez and tienda 1976 long 1977 and gwartney and long 1978 we use more recent data from the 1976 survey of income and education this data set enables us to measure wage rates more accurately and to specify the wage function more completely than does the census unlike previous analysts in estimating the wage function we take account of possible selectivity bias due to the distinction between average wage offers and average observed wages thus we hope to obtain a more accurate and up to date measure of labor market discrimination against hispanic men section ii explains the method used to separate the minority white non hispanic wage differential into the portions due to differences in average characteristics and the portion due to differences in unobserved factors and discrimination taking into account the possibility of selectivity bias in the observed wage sample section iii describes the data used in the study and the specification of the wage equation the breakdown of the observed wage differentials into components due to differences in participation in the wage and salary sector local price levels average characteristics and discrimination are presented in section iv section v summarizes our findings and discusses their implications for efforts to improve the economic situation of hispanics in the united states

the evolution of research on coordination mechanisms in multinational corporations the mechanisms of coordination used by multinational corporations mncs are studied through an exhaustive literature review a pattern of evolution is found as time has passed researchers have concentrated more on subtler and informal mechanisms abandoning their unidimensional focus on structural issues it is suggested that the increase in the study of those mechanisms may be due among other reasons to the fact that mncs are indeed making more use of them that could be explained by changes in the international competitive environment which force firms to adjust their strategies requiring ever more multidimensional coordination

population technology and growth from malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond this paper develops a unied growth model that captures the historical evolution of population technology and output it encompasses theendogenous transitionbetween three regimes that have characterized economic development the economy evolves from amalthusianregime wheretechnologicalprogressis slow andpopulationgrowthprevents anysustainedriseinincomepercapita intoapost malthusianregime wheretechnological progress rises and population growth absorbs only part of output growth ultimately a demographic transition reverses the positive relationship between income and population growth andtheeconomyentersamoderngrowthregimewithreducedpopulationgrowth

trends in the well being of american women 1970 1995 this paper examines the trends in the well being of american women over the last 25 years a time of significant changes in the relative economic status of women and in the labor market as a whole a broad range of indicators are considered to capture changes in women s well being in the family as well as in the labor market for virtually all age and education groups substantial evidence is obtained of rising gender equality in labor market outcomes notably labor force participation wages and occupational distributions broad evidence is also found of greater gender parity within married couple families as the housework time of husbands increased relative to wives and the relative wages of wives rose compared to their husbands however parallel to the recent evidence of the declining labor market position of lower skilled men there has been a similar deterioration in the economic status of less educated women especially high school dropouts their labor force participation rates and wages have risen at a much slower pace than those of more highly educated women while their incidence of single headship has increased much more rapidly these findings for less educated women serve to underscore the widening gap between more and less skilled americans of both sexes as well as to emphasize its broad dimensions

the economic efficiency of backward vertical integration in the international petroleum refining industry a benefit of backward vertical integration in the petroleum refining industry is reduced uncertainly in the supply of crude oil for refining however there is no a priori reason to believe that refiners are more skilful in managing combined refining and crude oil production operations than are specialists in these functions using the concept of frontier production functions efficiency differences between firms with differing degrees of backward vertical integration are estimated backward vertical integration improves scale efficieny and reduces business risk significantly but it reduces both technical and overall economic efficiency this is the first comprehensive empirical test of the efficiency of vertical integration in the literature

public schooling for young children and maternal labor supply as policy makers have sought to reduce the welfare rolls by increasing labor supply among single mothers much attention has been given to the possible role of expanded child care subsidies including direct provision of public preschool at the same time public interest in child care subsidies for two parent households is high for example former vice president gore not long ago proposed to make high quality pre school fully available to every family for every child in every community in america albert gore 1999 in this paper i use 1980 census data to estimate the effect of public school enrollment for a woman s five year old on measures of labor supply and public assistance receipt this approach has two advantages first i am able to estimate the effect of a large implicit child care subsidy 1 second because public kindergarten is universally available to all age eligible children where it is provided selection problems related to means testing do not arise a difficulty with public school enrollment arises because parents may choose to hold their children back a year or enroll them in private school i deal with this issue by using five yearold s quarter of birth qob variables as instruments for public school enrollment status this strategy works because parents ability to enroll a child in public kindergarten in the academic year when the child turns five typically depends on the calendar date of the child s birth 2 in most states children born in the second quarter april 1 june 30 of 1974 will have been eligible to start kindergarten in the fall of 1979 while children born in the first quarter january 1march 31 of 1975 generally will not eligibility for children born between july 1 and december 31 1974 depends on the rules where they live 3

why have women become left wing the political gender gap and the decline in marriage the last three decades have witnessed the rise of a pohtical gender gap in the united states wherein more women than men favor the democratic party we trace this development to the decline in marriage which we posit has made men richer and women poorer data for the united states support this argument first there is a strong positive correlation between state divorce prevalence and the political gender gap higher divorce prevalence reduces support for the democrats among men but not women second longitudinal data show that following marriage divorce women are less more likely to support the democratic party