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

applied general equilibrium models of taxation and international trade an introduction and survey we wish to acknowledge the help of three referees and of john pencavel on several earlier drafts as well as the assistance of the modelers whose work is referred to in the paper they corrected our lack of understanding of their work and provided many other helpful comments excellent research and bibliographical assistance have been provided by debbie fretz radwan shaban and janet stotsky helpful comments have been made by charles ballard michael boskin lans bovenberg sylvester damus harvey galper glenn harrison gordon lenjosek jack mutti serena ng t n srinivasan charles stuart and eric toder the authors also acknowledgefinancial support from the national bureau of economic research the national science foundation international business machines and the social sciences and humanities research council ottawa canada

the effect of advance notification of plant closings on unemployment using data from the 1984 displaced worker survey the authors model the determinants of time without work following job displacement for a large sample of workers laid off because of plant shutdowns between 1979 and 1984 the major focus of the paper is on the role of advance notification in mitigating unemployment the estimating procedure accommodates right censored observations stemming from continuing or open ended spells of unemployment advance notification is found to have significantly reduced the duration of unemployment of those notified workers who did not draw unemployment insurance benefits and in particular of those who left the plant prior to termination advance notice had much less effect on the time without work of notified workers whose spell length of unemployment was long enough for them to collect unemployment insurance benefits

the impossibility of a progressive tax structure abstract when households are identical in all respects other than income a non decreasing average tax rate is both necessary and sufficient for post tax incomes to be always at least as equal as pre tax incomes this paper investigates whether this well known result can be extended to households with different needs a tax structure which never increases inequality in the lorenz sense is shown to be unable to discriminate between household types if in addition the tax structure never reduces the relative income of the poorest member of the neediest group of households then the same proportional tax must be applied to all households and redistribution is impossible either within or between groups of households with differing needs a similar conclusion is reached using conventional equivalence scale arguments and also applies when the parameters of the tax schedules are determined endogenously we discuss the significance of this impossibility result and its implications for tax design

the true index of cost of living under general equilibrium the numeraire matters abstract the evaluation of welfare effects should be unambiguous we show that the konus true index of cost of living is numeraire dependent in general equilibrium this may lead to ambiguous even contradictory interpretations of welfare results to correct this problematic interpretational situation we propose a normalization of the standard konus index using an endogenously determined price index we also provide a simplified expression of the index for the special case of homothetic utilities which is especially relevant given their widespread use in numerical general equilibrium

poverty and household size the widely held view that larger families tend to be poorer in developing countries has influenced research and policy the scope for size economies in consumption cautions against this view we find that the correlation between poverty and size vanishes in pakistan when the size elasticity of the cost of living is about 0 6 this turns out to be the elasticity implied by a modified version of the food share method of setting scales by contrast some measures of child nutritional status indicate an elasticity of unity consideration of the weight attached to child versus adult welfare may help resolve the non robustness of demographic profiles of poverty excerpt

examining managerial displacement the research reported used a longitudinal analysis to compare the displacement experience of managers with that of other employees and to examine the factors associated with managerial job loss jo

homothetic utility roy s lemma and consumer s surplus abstract i provide a short proof that consumer s surplus normalized by income is the correct welfare measure when utility is homothetic

equivalence scale relativities and the extent of inequality and poverty most inequality and poverty theory analyzes equivalent income distributions for homogeneous populations incomes are assumed to be deflated by an equivalence scale that accounts for differences in needs between households yet in practice there is no consensus about what the appropriate equivalence scale is the authors analyze how the choice of equivalence scale affects inequality and poverty measures and show that there is a systematic relationship between equivalence scale generosity and the extent of inequality and poverty they consider most of the measures in common use and provide some empirical illustrations copyright 1992 by royal economic society

on testing the scale sensitivity of poverty measures past tests of the sensitivity of aggregate poverty measures to changes in equivalence scales can be very sensitive to the arbitrary choice of the pivotal reference demographics it is recommended that future tests should use demographics typical of people living near the poverty line as their reference

did lower unionization in the united states result in more flexible industries do unions really impede manufacturers output flexibility if so in what ways the authors propose a methodology for quantifying george stigler s concept of output flexibility and for decomposing the effects of unionization on average cost differences between union and non union plants using a recently compiled data set on u s three digit manufacturing industries from 1973 to 1996 they adapt this methodology to simulate the effects of unionization on flexibility and average costs for average size plants simulation results indicate that higher unionization was associated with higher average costs and lower flexibility than low unionization higher average costs appear to have been primarily due to higher fixed costs such as higher benefits

the numeraire matters in cost benefit analysis abstract the choice of numeraire is shown to be important in cost benefit analysis when a public good is involved individual consumers marginal rates of substitution will generally differ thus the less valuable the numeraire is to a person the higher the number required to express his net benefit and the more will his interest weigh in the total sum the choice of money as numeraire is systemetically favourable to those who value money the least relative to alternative numeraires

revenge of the managers labor cost cutting and the paradoxical resurgence of managerialism in the shareholder value era 1984 to 2001 institutional changes associated with the rise of shareholder value capitalism have had seemingly contradictory effects on managers and managerialism in the united states economy financial critiqu

inequality among the kibbutzim using a new longitudinal data set we examine the distribution of well being and changes in the distribution of well being among the israeli kibbutzim in 1989 and 1990 we examine the theoretical and practical implications of a variety of definitions of consumption income and wealth of each kibbutz although in many cases the mean value of the relevant income or wealth concept is negative we show that inequality change is ambiguous and welfare is decreasing moreover those kibbutzim with the lowest net worth experienced the greatest deterioration of their net worth recipients although it is quite common to find income distribution studies that deal with the problem of comparing the income and wealth of economic units containing several individuals such as families and households we focus here upon the economic status of a much larger economic unit the israeli kibbutz this topic is of special interest to income distribution analysts since from its inception the kibbutz movement has been associated with an explicitly egalit arian ethic and it presents particularly interesting problems from the point of view of interpretation in terms of applied welfare economics a further reason for special interest in inequality among the kibbutzim is to be found in the considerable economic and social changes that they have recently undergone although the kibbutzim used to be considered one of the economic successes of israel it is no longer clear that this is so and it is possible that the changed economic and social circumstances have impacted unfavourably on the distribu tion of income among the kibbutzim we present a preliminary view of the distribution of economic status among the kibbutzim in the years 1989 and 1990 using a unique consistent data source that enables us to estimate measures of consumption income and wealth for each kibbutz we show that although the picture of inequality change is ambiguous over 1989 90 the gini coefficient rose for consumption and fell for income inequality of wealth fell there is a consistent picture of deteriorating economic status according to standard economic welfare criteria that take into account distributional issues the generalized lorenz curve we are able to offer some insight as to whether success breeds success within the kibbutz movement the data set that has permitted this analysis is an immediate by product of the recent economic and social changes experienced by the kib butzim and it is important to understand the nature of these changes the economic factors behind the recent crisis are primarily associated with accumulated debt the implicit trust placed in the kibbutz movements2 by

poverty in america 1970 1990 who did gain ground an application of stochastic dominance criteria employing simultaneous inequality tests in a partial panel atkinson 1987 proposed stochastic dominance criteria for analysing poverty which under certain conditions establish orderings of states for any poverty line and any poverty measure within given class refocusing debate on the nature of the income distribution of the poor employing new empirical techniques these criteria are implemented for the united states from 1970 to 1990 using the panel study of income dynamics results highlight the pivotal role of family size scale economies in consumption indicate different experiences for white versus non white groups and suggest that optimism over the progress of the poor is not warranted copyright 2003 john wiley sons ltd

parametric equivalence scales and scale relativities we respond to banks and johnson s 1994 comment on coulter et al 1992 drawing on a more general discussion of parametric equivalence scale and scale relativity issues and new empirical results we show that criticisms of our earlier work are unfounded when the mcclements scale is properly characterised the scale does indeed provide lower estimates of poverty and inequality levels than most other scales we reiterate our conclusion that relationships between scale relativities and inequality and poverty indices may be index specific moreover the picture about distributional trends may differ from that about levels

measuring poverty and differences in family composition the equivalence scales used to adjust for differences in family composition when measuring poverty exhibit considerable variation this paper suggests an alternative approach that allows for differences in social judgements regarding the treatment of different types of family and examines the relation with the choice of poverty measure the resulting dominance criteria cannot provide a complete ranking but allow the extent of disagreement to be identified their application is illustrated by the example of changes in child benefits copyright 1992 by the london school of economics and political science

inequality measurement an axiomatic approach the theory of inequality measurement is examined using some basic axioms which extend the pigou dalton principle of transfers from these basic axioms various inequality indices may be derived as an alternative to ad hoc methods or to methods involving prior specification of a social welfare function the key idea is the concept of distance between two income shares conventional inequality indices are analysed in terms of their implied distance functions

disability in italian households income poverty and labour market participation this article studies the economic effects of disabled members on italian households with the aim of identifying a suitable target group for welfare policies survey of households income and wealth data for the year 2000 is used preliminary results show significant differences in levels of income and poverty diffusion to the detriment of households with disabled members we propose an exogenous explanation the replacement ratio between disability benefits and expected labour income shows that disability benefits do not compensate the potential incomes of the disabled person and of the possible carer except in households with severe socioeconomic disadvantages we also propose an endogenous explanation applying a logit model we show that the labour market participation of the possible carer is reduced in households with disabled persons in order to increase the income of the households with disabled members policy recommendations include the provision of care services and structural policies to impro

how you downsize is who you downsize biased formalization accountability and managerial diversity scholars and pundits argue that women and minorities are more likely to lose their jobs in downsizing because of segregation or outright discrimination in contrast this article explores how the f

calm after the storms after rising during most but not all ofthe 1960 85 period inequality in chile seems to have stabilized since around 1987 following the stormy period of economic and political reforms of the 197

consumption and poverty how effective are in kind transfers the ability of in kind transfers to alleviate poverty depends on accurate targeting as well as recipients valuations of the benefits using data from the consumer expenditure surveys the efficiency of in kind transfers is examined in a microsimulation framework in which recipients are identified as those who have the lowest consumption in this framework in kind transfers of food capital services which includes housing and consumer services are an effective means of providing support to the poor even at high levels of subsidization the multiple good transfers that are considered are essentially equivalent to cash grants copyright 1996 by royal economic society