bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Measuring the Effect of Arbitration on Wage Levels: The Case of Police Officers
Authors: Ashenfelter Orley , Hyslop Dean
Published: June 2015

The authors empirically evaluate how the provision of an arbitration statute affects police officers' wages by comparing wage levels across political jurisdictions and over time using a sample of states. Two complementary data sources are used: panel data for the years 1961–92 on state-level wages of police officers, and individual-level data on police officers from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Decennial Censuses. The empirical results from both data sets are remarkably consistent and provide no robust evidence that the presence of arbitration statutes systematically affected overall wage levels. On average, the effect of arbitration was approximately zero, although the authors find substantial heterogeneity in the estimated effects across states.
Union Success in Representation Elections: Why Does Unit Size Matter?
Authors: Farber Henrys
Published: June 2015

The author documents four facts regarding NLRB-supervised representation election activity over the period 1952–98: (1) election activity fell sharply and discontinuously beginning in the mid-1970s, after a two-decade rise; (2) unions' election win rate declined less sharply, though continuously, over the entire period; (3) a “size gap” characterized unions' win rates throughout the period, with a lower win rate in larger units; and (4) the size gap widened substantially after 1952. A simple optimizing model of the union decision to hold a representation election can explain (1)–(3). The author describes two possible explanations for (4), one based on differing behavior by employers in different size classes, and one purely probabilistic. Results of empirical tests using NLRB election data for 1952–98 suggest that the optimizing model of the union decision to hold an election combined with the purely probabilistic explanation can largely account for the observed patterns.
Explaining Wage Inequality in Telecommunications Services: Customer Segmentation, Human Resource Practices, and Union Decline
Authors: Batt Rosemary
Published: June 2015

This study examines factors related to within-occupation wage inequality among service and sales workers in the telecommunications industry. The author draws on a 1998 survey of a nationally representative sample of 354 service and sales centers in the industry to examine the importance of management practices and union institutions in shaping wage variation. The results strongly indicate that business strategies of customer segmentation and human resource practices explain variation in wages over and above that explained by the human capital of the work force. In addition, despite extensive deregulation and de-unionization of the industry, the union wage premium is 22%.
Earnings Losses and Unemployment of Displaced Workers in Germany
Authors: Couch Kenneth A.
Published: June 2015

Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel are used to examine the experiences of German workers following job displacement due to plant closure. In the year of displacement, annual earnings declined by about 13.5%, and the typical worker experienced between 6 and 10 additional days of annual unemployment. Two years later, annual earnings were only 6.5% less than before displacement, and the largest estimated increase in annual unemployment was 4 days. These estimated effects lie near the lower end of the range of similar estimates for U.S. workers.
The Cyclicality of Real Wages within Employer-Employee Matches
Authors: Devereux Paul J.
Published: June 2015

Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the author examines the cyclicality of wages within employer-employee matches for the years 1970–91. Recent research on wage cyclicality has suggested that wages are very procyclical (tending to rise and fall with economic upturns and downturns), even for workers who remain with the same employer. The author finds, however, that the evidence for wage procyclicality within the matches he examines is rather weak except for the small group of workers who were paid by piece rate or commissions. Despite having acyclical wage rates, men who were paid hourly had earnings movements that were very procyclical. Salaries exhibited little cyclicality, but salaried workers who had income sources from bonuses, commissions, or overtime had procyclical earnings. The results suggest that the increasing prevalence of incentive-based pay will increase the procyclicality of wages within matches.
Union Organizing under Neutrality and Card Check Agreements
Authors: Eaton Adrienne E. , Kriesky Jill
Published: June 2015

Collectively bargained language concerning union organizing has become increasingly common. Typically included in such language is the employer's agreement to remain neutral in the organizing process, or to recognize unions based on card checks by neutral third parties (as an alternative to NLRB elections), or both. The authors examine the content of and organizing experience under 118 separate written agreements of this kind. They find strong evidence that card check agreements reduced management campaigning, as well as the use of illegal tactics such as discharges and promises of benefits, and also substantially increased the union recognition rate. Neutrality alone apparently had much less effect, but agreements containing only neutrality provisions have sometimes led to card check agreements. Two less common provisions of organizing agreements that appear to have increased organizing success were campaign time limits and requirements that employers provide unions with employee lists.
How Industrial Relations Affects Plant Performance: The Case of Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing
Authors: Kleiner Morris M. , Leonard Jonathan S. , Pilarski Adam M.
Published: June 2015

This analysis examines how changes in major industrial relations policies affected productivity over the years 1974–91 at one of the most important manufacturing plants in the United States. The authors find that productivity fell greatly, both in percentage terms and in absolute dollars, during strikes and a slowdown and during the terms of office of tough union leaders. In contrast with much of the firm performance literature, they find only small initial productivity effects of a movement from adversarial labor-management relations, which is the norm in this industry, to total quality management (TQM) and back again. How and why TQM is adopted, the authors suggest, may be as important as whether it is adopted. Finally, major industrial relations events like strikes, a slowdown, and the TQM program did not have long-term productivity effects; the firm returned to pre-event levels of productivity within one to four months.
Adolescent Workers in Third World Export Industries: Attitudes of Young Brazilian Shoemakers
Authors: French J. Lawrence
Published: June 2015

Child labor is widely condemned, but recently there have been calls to distinguish between acceptable and harmful work for adolescents. This study, based on data gathered in 1998 in Brazil's export-oriented shoe industry and in the local commercial sector, focuses on adolescents' attitudes toward work in global industries, family businesses, and self-directed jobs. Among young workers employed in firms, those in the shoe industry viewed their work less favorably than those in commerce; however, no differences were found between shoe and commercial workers employed by their families. A second finding is that within the shoe industry, which was contracting, family workers had more positive attitudes than did firm employees, but within the expanding commercial sector the opposite was true. Finally, there is evidence that self-directed jobs, in which employees themselves largely determine how to perform their specific tasks, were associated with positive attitudes.
Logics of Action, Globalization, and Changing Employment Relations in China, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines
Authors: Frenkel Stephen , Kuruvilla Sarosh
Published: June 2015

The authors develop a logics of action framework to conceptualize the impact of globalization on employment relations (ER) and to predict the trajectory of ER. They argue that the interplay among three different logics of action—the logic of competition, the logic of industrial peace, and the logic of employment-income protection—determines the ER patterns in any given nation. The strengths of the logics themselves are influenced by five often related factors: economic development strategy, globalization intensity, union strength, labor market features, and government responsiveness to workers. The authors' extensive field research on national policies and workplace practices in four Asian countries supports this framework. ER patterns apparently reflect different combinations of logic strengths, and globalization's impact on ER is both complex and contingent. Militating against long-term convergence in ER are national variations in the combinations of logic strengths, and changes in logic strengths over time.
What Makes Teams Take? Employee Reactions to Work Reforms
Authors: Hunter Larry W. , MacDuffie John Paul , Doucet Lorna
Published: June 2015

This paper examines employee reactions to the introduction of work teams, reduced job classifications, and skill-based pay as established through the Modern Operating Agreement (MOA) between Chrysler Corporation and the United Auto Workers. Survey data suggest that workers responded favorably to the MOA across six diverse manufacturing plants, despite variation in founding conditions. The authors draw on field research to assess differences in effects across individual plants. Individual attitudes were more negative in plants facing the threat of sell-off, although individuals in those plants also reported engaging in more of the team-based behaviors required by the MOA. Individual responses to the MOA also varied by demographic characteristics, and by perceptions of the MOA's impact on various individual, group, and organization-level outcomes.
Can Public Schools Buy Better-Qualified Teachers?
Authors: Figlio David N.
Published: June 2015

Since the early 1980s, real teacher salaries in U.S. public schools have increased considerably faster than salaries of other Americans with similar levels of education and training. Providing an important impetus for this development were claims that increased salaries would allow the recruitment of better-qualified teachers. This analysis, which uses panel data on new teachers in 188 public school districts that changed their salaries between 1987–88 and 1993–94, investigates whether a school district can, by unilaterally increasing teacher salaries, improve the quality of the teachers it hires, as indicated by their having graduated from selective colleges and majored in the specific subject matter they teach. For nonunion school districts, the author finds a positive, statistically significant relationship between a given district's teacher salaries and that district's probability of hiring well-qualified teachers. Several tests indicate that this relationship is not found in unionized school districts.
Payment Schemes and Gender in Germany
Authors: Heywood John S. , Jirjahn Uwe
Published: June 2015

The authors estimate the determinants of five types of variable payment schemes using panel data on German establishments in 1994 and 1996. Women were disproportionately included in schemes based on individual productivity and on profit-sharing, but not in those based on work group productivity. This pattern seems inconsistent with the claim that women are sorted due to their shorter expected tenure. Instead, the authors argue, the critical issue may be that women have a greater need for flexibility between work and home than men do. Collective bargaining coverage and other industrial relations variables are shown to be influential determinants interacting with gender.
Labor Market Consequences of State Health Insurance Regulation
Authors: Kaestner Robert , Simon Kosali Ilayperuma
Published: June 2015

This study, based mainly on the 1989–98 March Current Population surveys, finds that state-mandated health insurance benefits and small-group health insurance reform had no statistically significant effects on labor market outcomes such as the quantity of work, wages, and whether an employee worked for a small or large firm. The number and type of state-mandated health insurance benefits were unrelated to weeks of work, wages, and the prevalence of private insurance coverage, but positively associated with weekly work hours. Extensive small-group health insurance reform was associated with a slight decline in the prevalence of private insurance coverage in small firms, and this reform affected both full- and part-time employees. Less extensive reforms were not generally related to the prevalence of private insurance coverage. Overall, the authors do not find strong evidence that insurance regulations affected labor market outcomes, although they appear to cause a small decrease in private coverage.
The Labor Market Impact of State-Level Anti-Discrimination Laws, 1940–1960
Authors: Collins William J.
Published: June 2015

By the time Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 98% of non-southern blacks (40% of all blacks) already resided in states with “fair employment” laws prohibiting labor market discrimination. Using census data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, the author assesses the impact of fair employment legislation on black workers' relative income, unemployment, labor force participation, migration, and occupational and industrial distributions. In general, the fair employment laws adopted in the 1940s appear to have had larger effects than those adopted in the 1950s, and the laws had considerably smaller effects on the labor market outcomes of black men than on those of black women.
Unemployment Durations and Extended Unemployment Benefits in Local Labor Markets
Authors: Jurajda Štěpán , Tannery Frederick J.
Published: June 2015

Many empirical studies have confirmed the theoretical prediction that longer-term Unemployment Insurance (UI) entitlement leads to longer unemployment duration. Most of those studies have examined special programs that provide extra weeks of unemployment benefits when unemployment rates in the region are higher. Hence, they must distinguish if the longer unemployment duration among UI claimants observed in these cases is due to the extended benefits or to the adverse labor market conditions that trigger those extensions. In contrast, this paper measures the effect of identical entitlement extensions across two labor markets facing very different demand conditions—Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, over the years 1980–85. The results confirm findings of the existing literature and indicate that the adverse effect of longer entitlement changes relatively little in response to variation in demand conditions.
The Effect of Implicit Contracts on the Movement of Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Surveys
Authors: Grant Darren
Published: June 2015

A 1991 study by Paul Beaudry and John DiNardo found evidence of internal labor markets that augment incumbent workers' wages when the external labor market is tight (when unemployment is low) and shield their wages when it is slack. Current wages, they found, depend on the tightest labor market conditions observed since a worker was hired, not current labor market tightness or labor market tightness at the time of hiring. This paper replicates and extends that research using data from six cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys that together span more than three decades, as well as an estimation framework more robust than that in the original study. The author finds strong support for Beaudry and DiNardo's key prediction. Supplementary regressions confirm other implications of the theory as well. Recently, at least, the effect of implicit contracting on wages has been similar for men and women.
The Revitalization of the CWA: Integrating Collective Bargaining, Political Action, and Organizing
Authors: Katz Harry C. , Batt Rosemary , Keefe Jeffrey H.
Published: June 2015

This case study of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) demonstrates the value of resource dependence and contingency organizational theories—two branches of organization theory, which has most commonly been used to interpret firm behavior—for analyzing union revitalization. Consistent with predictions of those theories, the CWA responded to a changed environment by abandoning strategies that no longer achieved organizational objectives, but retaining and bolstering strategies that continued to be effective. Furthermore, like the organizations analyzed in Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik's classic exposition of resource dependency theory, in the face of heightened environmental complexity and uncertainty the CWA used political action, growth strategies, and inter-organizational linkages to gain advantage. The CWA conformed to another prediction of contingency theory by using an integration strategy—specifically, by making simultaneous and interactive use of activities in collective bargaining, politics, and organizing—to spur innovation and respond to environmental complexity and uncertainty.
A Meta-Analysis of Government-Sponsored Training Programs
Authors: Greenberg David H. , Michalopoulos Charles , Robins Philip K.
Published: June 2015

This study uses meta-analysis to synthesize findings from 31 evaluations of 15 voluntary government-funded training programs for the disadvantaged that operated between 1964 and 1998. On average, the earnings effects of the evaluated programs seem to have been largest for women, quite modest for men, and negligible for youths. For men and women, the earnings effects of training appear to have persisted for at least several years after the training was complete. Classroom skills training was apparently effective in increasing earnings, but basic education was not. There is no evidence that more expensive training programs performed better than less expensive ones. Although the United States has more than three decades of experience in running training programs, the programs do not appear to have become more effective over time.
The Value of Bilingualism in the U.S. Labor Market
Authors: Fry Richard , Lowell B. Lindsay
Published: June 2015

Much is surmised, but little is known about the value of bilingualism in today's U.S. economy. The authors use the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) to provide the first rigorous estimates of the wages of bilingual workers. Although the nominal wages of bilinguals exceed those of their monolingual peers, this pattern largely reflects the higher completed schooling of the bilinguals. In fact, regression analysis shows that bilingual skills do not make a statistically significant contribution to weekly wages, once all workers' human capital characteristics are held constant. Thus, the market little values foreign language proficiency and creates no incentive to acquire or maintain it, doubtless contributing to the relatively rapid shift to monolingualism across generations.
A Test of Competitive Labor Market Theory: The Wage Structure among Care Assistants in the South of England
Authors: Machin Stephen , Manning Alan
Published: June 2015

This paper examines the structure of wages in a very specific labor market: care assistants in residential homes for the elderly on England's “sunshine coast.” This sector corresponds closely to economists' notion of what should be a competitive labor market, both because it has a large number of small firms undertaking a very homogeneous activity in a concentrated geographical area, and because the workers are neither unionized nor covered by any minimum wage legislation, so that there are effectively no external constraints on the wage-setting process. The authors find that the wage structure deviates in important respects from what would be expected in a competitive labor market. In particular, wage dispersion is small within firms, but large between firms; and the wage dispersion that is present does not seem to be closely related to workers' productivity-related characteristics. A test rejects the hypothesis that unobserved labor quality can explain these findings.
Labor Policy and Investment: Evidence from Canada
Authors: Budd John W. , Wang Yijiang
Published: June 2015

Some critics of proposed legislative labor policy changes contend that laws favoring labor would adversely affect business investment. Research on labor policy, however, often assumes that investment is fixed. The authors present a sequential bargaining model in which labor policies that increase labor's bargaining power and reduce management's options during strikes are predicted to reduce investment. The results of an analysis of provincial data on investment for 1967 to 1999 indicate that strike replacement bans and protections for workers who refuse to handle struck work did indeed reduce new investment, especially within the first few years after the policy change. Particularly sensitive was building construction investment, which declined by about as much when a labor policy benefiting labor was enacted as it would be expected to decline in a recession.
Union Certification Success under Voting versus Card-Check Procedures: Evidence from British Columbia, 1978–1998
Authors: Riddell Chris
Published: June 2015

The author estimates the impact of compulsory election laws on certification success using data on over 6,500 private sector certifications from British Columbia over the years 1978–98. A unique quasi-experimental design is used by exploiting two changes in the union recognition law: first, in 1984, the introduction of mandatory elections; and second, in 1993, the repeal of elections and their replacement by the original card-check procedure. The author also estimates the effectiveness of management opposition tactics across union recognition regimes. Success rates declined by an average of 19 percentage points during the voting regime, and then increased by about the same amount when card-checks were re-instituted. The results indicate that the mandatory election law can account for virtually the entire decline. In addition, the findings suggest that management opposition was twice as effective under elections as under card-checks.
Does the G.E.D. Improve Earnings? Estimates from a Sample of Both Successful and Unsuccessful G.E.D. Candidates
Authors: Tyler John H.
Published: June 2015

The author uses a unique data set constructed from Florida General Education Development certificate (GED) and Unemployment Insurance (UI) administrative records to estimate the relative earnings of two groups of male high school dropouts who took the GED exams in 1995: those who passed the exams, obtaining the credential, and those who failed the exams. Estimates from several different specifications all show greater mean quarterly earnings growth among those who obtained a GED than among unsuccessful candidates. The advantage was small in dollar terms—only about $1,400 annually, six years after the exams—but, given the very low initial earnings of these school dropouts, it was large in relative terms, growing from zero immediately after the 1995 exams to 13–20% six years later. Most of these gains appear to reflect not differential wage growth between the two groups, but a differential rate of movement from non-employment to employment.
Taking Stock of Work-Family Initiatives: How Announcements of “Family-Friendly” Human Resource Decisions Affect Shareholder Value
Authors: Arthur Michelle M. , Cook Alison
Published: June 2015

This study examines share price reactions to 231 work-family human resource policies adopted by Fortune 500 companies and announced in the Wall Street Journal between 1971 and 1996. Consistent with past research, the results suggest that firm announcements of work-family initiatives positively affected shareholder return. The authors also empirically test three hypotheses concerning how the timing of work-family initiatives influences shareholder reaction. They find that a pioneering company announcing the first-ever implementation of a work-family initiative was likely to realize a larger announcement-day share price increase than did later adopters of the same initiative; the first work-family announcement released by a firm influenced announcement-day share price more than did successive work-family announcements by the same firm; and share price reactions to work-family human resource decisions were not importantly affected by whether those decisions followed a gender discrimination suit.
The Influence of Wages and Industrial Relations Environments on the Production Location Decisions of U.S. Multinational Corporations
Authors: Bognanno Mario F. , Keane Michael P. , Yang Donghoon
Published: June 2015

Using the Benchmark and Annual Surveys of U.S. Direct Investment Abroad collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the authors examine the operations of U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) in seven manufacturing industries and twenty-two countries over the years 1982–91. They analyze how tariffs, wages, and industrial relations environments influenced U.S. MNCs' decisions about where to locate assets and employment. The results imply that wages and the industrial relations environment were statistically significant determinants of the extent to which MNCs located operations in a particular host country. However, while these factors were important, their impact was much smaller than that of host country market size, which was by far the main determinant of MNC location decisions. Furthermore, the authors find no evidence that tariff reductions increased the share of U.S. MNC activities located abroad. Thus, concerns that tariff reductions may lead to loss of “American jobs” appear to be exaggerated.
Does Managed Care Change the Management of Nonprofit Hospitals? Evidence from the Executive Labor Market
Authors: Bertrand Marianne , Hallock Kevin F. , Arnould Richard
Published: June 2015

This paper examines how the managerial labor market in nonprofit hospitals has adjusted to the financial pressures induced by HMO penetration. Using a panel of about 1,500 nonprofit hospitals over the period 1992–96, the authors find that top executive turnover increased following an increase in HMO penetration. Moreover, the increase in turnover was concentrated among the hospitals that had lower levels of economic profitability. While the link between top executive pay and for-profit performance measures was on average very weak, HMO penetration tightened that link: as HMO penetration increased, top executives were compensated more for improving the profitability of their hospitals. These results, while of limited economic magnitude, are qualitatively consistent with the view that HMO penetration has increased the weight assigned to for-profit performance in the management of not-for-profit hospitals.
Effects of Industry Growth and Decline on Gender and Education Wage Gaps in the 1980S
Authors: Devereux Paul J.
Published: June 2015

The author uses longitudinal data to study the effects of industry growth and decline on wage changes between 1976 and 2001. He finds that over this period, workers who were initially in industries that subsequently expanded enjoyed faster wage growth than other workers. Moreover, wage growth was strongly related to employment changes in industries the individual was likely to move to: that is, workers' wage growth tended to be relatively fast if their skills suited them for entry into rapidly expanding industries, whether or not they actually moved between industries. The author uses the estimates to evaluate the effects of industry demand changes on within-cohort relative wages during the 1980s. He finds that changes in industrial composition can account for most of the within-cohort increase in the wages of women relative to men and about 30–50% of the increase in the relative wages of more educated groups within cohorts.
The Benefits and Costs of Employee Suggestions under Gainsharing
Authors: Kim Dong-One
Published: June 2015

Using data for the years 1985–92 from a discontinued suggestion program at a manufacturing plant in the United States, this study examines the benefits and costs of suggestions under gainsharing. The implemented suggestions are found to have improved labor productivity and reduced grievances and disciplinary actions, but more robust evidence suggests that they also incurred transaction costs and implementation costs. The author speculates that substantial transaction and implementation costs may be a factor responsible for the typically modest outcomes and generally short longevity of employee involvement programs and high-performance work practices.
When Welfare-to-Work Programs Seem to Work Well: Explaining Why Riverside and Portland Shine So Brightly
Authors: Greenberg David , Ashworth Karl , Cebulla Andreas , Walker Robert
Published: June 2015

Of welfare-to-work programs evaluated by random assignment, two stand out as having exceptionally large estimated effects: one in Riverside, California, and the other in Portland, Oregon. The authors use data from 24 evaluations and the tools of meta-analysis to examine why. The findings indicate that the apparently superior performance of these two programs in increasing the earnings of participants is only partly attributable to program design (for example, the type of services provided, the use of sanctions, and the quality of program administration). Differences in caseload characteristics and site characteristics are probably more important. However, Riverside and Portland's relatively large effects in reducing the percentage of participants on the AFDC rolls appear mainly attributable to the design of the programs run in these sites.
Analytical Modeling in Complex Surveys of Work Practices
Authors: Reiter Jerome P. , Zanutto Elaine L. , Hunter Larry W.
Published: June 2015

Quantitative industrial relations research frequently relies on data collected from large surveys of establishments that use complex sampling designs, such as stratified and unequal probability sampling. The authors analyze two complex surveys of establishments, the National Organizations Survey and the National Survey of Establishments. They discuss design-based (survey-weighted) and model-based (unweighted) strategies for analyzing these data. They show that the choice of strategy can affect inferences about parameters, and hence conclusions drawn from analyses. They discuss the advantages of model-based approaches that include independent variables corresponding to design features, such as functions of size measures or indicator variables for strata or clusters, relative to purely design-based approaches.
Time off at What Price? The Effects of Career Interruptions on Earnings
Authors: Spivey Christy
Published: June 2015

Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, the author explores how nonemployment spells and career expectations affected men's and women's wages. Wage profiles were affected by total nonemployment time, by recent work interruptions, and by some past interruptions. Statistically significant interruptions were more numerous for women than men, but the wage loss associated with any given interruption was less severe for women. Future career interruptions, which workers presumably anticipate in many cases, affected current investment in human capital to some degree for both sexes. The wage effects of the timing of experience (defined by the fraction of weeks worked, by specific years) correspond closely to the wage effects of interruptions (calendar years without work): when the analysis accounts for the former, little additional penalty is found to have been associated with the latter. A very small fraction of the gender wage gap was attributable solely to timing of experience.
Risk Compensation for Hospital Workers: Evidence from Relative Wages of Janitors
Authors: Bender Keith A. , Mridha Hosne A. , Peoples James
Published: June 2015

This study, using individual worker data on janitors taken from the 1985–2001 Current Population Survey and industry injury data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, examines whether compensation for working in a high-risk work environment contributes to the relatively high wage rates of hospital janitors. The authors find that when the analysis corrects for risk endogeneity (workers' tendency to sort themselves according to their tolerance for workplace risk), risk compensation increases wage rates by 13.4% for union hospital janitors and is a major source of their wage advantage over nonunion janitors in other industries. Since this risk compensation is only available to union workers, the authors interpret this result as the effect of the union voice mechanism.
Job-Lock and Public Policy: Clinton's Second Mandate
Authors: Sanz-De-Galdeano Anna
Published: June 2015

This study evaluates whether the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which was signed into law in 1996, succeeded in mitigating job-lock, defined as reduced mobility out of jobs that offer health insurance. An analysis that uses quarterly data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation and exploits state variation in regulatory environment prior to the federal legislation shows no evidence that HIPAA significantly reduced job-lock.
Further Evidence on the “Monday Effect” in Workers' Compensation
Authors: Campolieti Michele , Hyatt Douglas E.
Published: June 2015

An analysis of data from the Workers' Compensation Board of Ontario reveals evidence of a “Monday effect”—more workers' compensation claims on Mondays than on other days, especially for back injuries and sprains/strains—similar in magnitude to that found in U.S. studies. Because Canadians, unlike most Americans, have universal health care, this similarity across the studies' core results disfavors the hypothesis that workers post-date weekend injuries in order to obtain medical care via workers' compensation insurance. A second moral hazard explanation that is not ruled out, however, is that some workers represent non-work-related injuries as work-related in order to exploit the earnings loss indemnification provided by workers' compensation. Finally, the results are not inconsistent with the strictly physiology-based hypothesis that time off during weekends and holidays simply makes workers more susceptible to injuries of all types, but especially back injuries and sprains and strains.
Internal Promotion versus External Recruitment in Industrial Plants in Spain
Authors: Bayo-Moriones Alberto , Ortín-Ángel Pedro
Published: June 2015

Analyzing data obtained from interviews at 653 Spanish industrial plants in 1997, the authors investigate factors affecting the choice between two ways of filling supervisory and skilled technician positions: internal promotion of blue-collar workers, and external recruitment. The use of internal promotion was positively correlated with efforts by plants to measure employees' skills, as well as with the specificity of blue-collar workers' human capital investment at the plant. Contrary to expectations, no evidence is found that the use or efficiency of other incentive systems, such as variable pay, had a significant influence on the degree to which internal promotion was used. The authors interpret their results as preliminary evidence that internal promotions are used to protect and favor specific investments, especially those made by firms to assess their workers' skills.
Are Education and Training Always Complements? Evidence from Thailand
Authors: Ariga Kenn , Brunello Giorgio
Published: June 2015

This paper investigates the relationship between education and employer-provided training, both on-the-job and off-the-job, using a unique dataset drawn from a survey of Thai employees conducted in the summer of 2001. The authors find a negative and statistically significant relationship between educational attainment and on-the-job training (OJT) and a positive and statistically significant relationship between education and off-the-job training. Since the marginal monetary returns to OJT increase with education, the negative relationship between education and OJT suggests that the marginal costs of OJT are higher for the better educated, perhaps because the opportunity costs of the time spent receiving OJT increase with educational attainment.
Wages, Employment, and Capital in Capitalist and Worker-Owned Firms
Authors: Pencavel John , Pistaferri Luigi , Schivardi Fabiano
Published: June 2015

The authors investigate how worker-owned and capitalist enterprises differ with respect to wages, employment, and capital in Italy, the market economy with the greatest incidence of worker-owned and worker-managed firms. Estimates calculated using a matched employer-worker panel data set for the years 1982–94 largely corroborate the implications of orthodox behavioral models of the two types of enterprise. Co-ops had 14% lower wages than capitalist enterprises, on average; more volatile wages; and less volatile employment. Given the quality of the data set analyzed, the authors argue, these results can be regarded as having broad generality.
The U.S. Gender Pay Gap in the 1990S: Slowing Convergence
Authors: Blau Francine D. , Kahn Lawrence M.
Published: June 2015

Using Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, the authors study the slowdown in the convergence of female and male wages in the 1990s compared to the 1980s. They find that changes in human capital did not contribute to the slowdown, since women's relative human capital improved comparably in the two decades. Occupational upgrading and deunionization had a larger positive effect on women's relative wages in the 1980s than in the 1990s, explaining part of the slower 1990s convergence. However, the largest factor was a much faster reduction of the “unexplained” gender wage gap in the 1980s than in the 1990s. The evidence suggests that changes in labor force selectivity, changes in gender differences in unmeasured characteristics and in labor market discrimination, and changes in the favorableness of demand shifts each may have contributed to the slowing convergence of the unexplained gender pay gap.
Temporal Flexibility and Careers: The Role of Large-Scale Organizations for Physicians
Authors: Briscoe Forrest
Published: June 2015

This study investigates how employment in large-scale organizations affects the work lives of practicing physicians. Well-established theory associates larger organizations with bureaucratic constraint, loss of workplace control, and dissatisfaction, but this author finds that large scale is also associated with greater schedule and career flexibility. Ironically, the bureaucratic processes that accompany large-scale organization also allow for a reduction of patient demands on individual physicians, freeing those physicians to pursue other career activities or to fulfill family responsibilities. Large-scale organizations thus appear to represent a trade-off between workplace control and temporal flexibility, and many physicians appear to embrace this trade-off. The data come from surveys and interviews conducted in 2002. Implications extend to other professional and managerial labor markets in which client demands constrain schedules and careers.
Do Works Councils Inhibit Investment?
Authors: Addison John T. , Schank Thorsten , Schnabel Claus , Wagner Joachim
Published: June 2015

Theory suggests that firms confront a hold-up problem in dealing with workplace unionism: unions will appropriate a portion of the quasi-rents stemming from long-lived capital. As a result, firms may be expected to limit their exposure to rent-seeking by reducing investments. The U.S. evidence points clearly in this direction. The authors of this paper investigate whether the same is true for German works councils, the analogue of workplace unionism in that nation. Using establishment panel data for the years 1998–2003, they find no evidence that a works council's formation adversely affected investment or that its dissolution favorably affected investment.
Labor Market Institutions and Wage Inequality
Authors: Koeniger Winfried , Leonardi Marco , Nunziata Luca
Published: June 2015

The authors investigate how labor market institutions such as unemployment insurance, unions, firing regulations, and minimum wages have affected the evolution of wage inequality among male workers. Results of estimations using data on institutions in eleven OECD countries indicate that changes in labor market institutions can account for much of the change in wage inequality between 1973 and 1998. Factors found to have been negatively associated with male wage inequality are union density, the strictness of employment protection law, unemployment benefit duration, unemployment benefit generosity, and the size of the minimum wage. Over the 26-year period, institutional changes were associated with a 23% reduction in male wage inequality in France, where minimum wages increased and employment protection became stricter, but with an increase of up to 11% in the United States and United Kingdom, where unions became less powerful and (in the United States) minimum wages fell.
Does a Minimum Job Search Requirement Reduce Time on Unemployment Payments? Evidence from the Jobseeker Diary in Australia
Authors: Borland Jeff , Tseng Yi-Ping
Published: June 2015

This study examines the impact of the Jobseeker Diary (JSD), a program designed to increase the job search effort of unemployed persons in Australia. The JSD program is distinguished by combining a focus on work search verification with large scale implementation. Applying a quasi-experimental matching method to data on unemployment spells occurring in 1997–98, the authors find that JSD participation was associated with an increased rate of exit from unemployment payment recipiency and a shorter total time spent on payments. Payment receipt duration is estimated to have fallen for about one-half of JSD participants. The largest effects of the JSD occurred for payment recipients for whom labor demand conditions were the most favorable. Cost-benefit analysis suggests a fairly large net societal gain per program participant.
A Cure for Discrimination? Affirmative Action and the Case of California's Proposition 209
Authors: Myers Caitlin Knowles
Published: June 2015

An important claim made for affirmative action programs has been that they need not be permanent: they can be discontinued, the argument runs, once they have transformed employers' attitudes. Proposition 209, enacted in California in 1996 and made effective the following year, represents a natural experiment testing that claim. It ended long-standing state affirmative action programs not only in education, but also in public employment and government contracting. The author uses Current Population Survey data to gauge the labor market effects of this policy change. The key finding is that employment among women and minorities dropped sharply, almost wholly because of a decline in labor force participation rather than an increase in unemployment. This finding suggests that affirmative action programs in California either had been inefficient—that is, resulted in sub-optimal employment outcomes—or had been effective while in place but had failed to create lasting change in employers' prejudicial attitudes.
The Role of Health Insurance in Joint Retirement among Married Couples
Authors: Kapur Kanika , Rogowski Jeannette
Published: June 2015

Because the near-elderly have high expected medical expenditures, availability of health insurance is an important factor in their retirement decisions. Using Health and Retirement Study data collected in 1992–2002, the authors of this study investigate whether access to employer-provided retiree health insurance enabled dual working couples to time their retirement together—a behavior called “joint retirement.” They find that when wives had employer-provided retiree health insurance, the likelihood of joint retirement more than doubled. The effect of retiree health insurance on overall employment patterns, in contrast, was modest: estimates indicate that a hypothetical change from universal availability of such insurance to its universal unavailability would have increased employment levels by only two percentage points.
Fairness and Freight-Handlers: Local Labor Market Conditions and Wage-Fairness Perceptions in a Trucking Firm
Authors: Verhoogen Eric A. , Burks Stephen V. , Carpenter Jeffrey P.
Published: June 2015

The authors draw on an internal attitude survey conducted yearly from 1996 to 2000 in the freight-handling terminals of a unionized trucking firm to investigate the effect of local labor market conditions on employee wage-fairness perceptions. Their research design exploits the fact that local managers had no discretion to vary wage rates in response to local labor market conditions; local economic shocks thus generated exogenous variation in the attractiveness of the wage paid by the firm relative to employees' options in the outside labor market. The authors find robust associations between the wage-fairness perceptions of employees in the firm and two indicators of local conditions—the rate of unemployment and the wages of similar workers in the outside market. They argue that these correlations reflect a causal relationship: an increase in unemployment or a decrease in outside wages led workers to perceive their wage to be more fair.
The Economic Effects of a Citywide Minimum Wage
Authors: Dube Arindrajit , Naidu Suresh , Reich Michael
Published: June 2015

This paper presents the first study of the economic effects of a citywide minimum wage—San Francisco's adoption of an indexed minimum wage, set at $8.50 in 2004 and $9.14 by 2007. Compared to earlier benchmark studies by Card and Krueger and by Neumark and Wascher, this study surveys table-service as well as fast-food restaurants, includes more control groups, and collects data for more outcomes. The authors find that the policy increased worker pay and compressed wage inequality, but did not create any detectable employment loss among affected restaurants. The authors also find smaller amounts of measurement error than characterized the earlier studies, and so they can reject previous negative employment estimates with greater confidence. Fast-food and table-service restaurants responded differently to the policy, with a small price increase and substantial increases in job tenure and in the proportion of full-time workers among fast-food restaurants, but not among table-service restaurants.
The Impact of Provider Choice on Workers' Compensation Costs and Outcomes
Authors: Neumark David , Barth Peter S. , Victor Richard A.
Published: June 2015

Using survey data collected in 2002 and 2003 in California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Texas on workers injured 3 to 3.5 years earlier, coupled with information on the associated workers' compensation claims from the Workers Compensation Research Institute, the authors examine how provider choice in workers' compensation is related to costs and to workers' outcomes. They find that employee choice of the provider, by comparison with employer choice, was associated with higher costs and worse return-to-work outcomes. Although the same rate of physical recovery was found for both groups, workers who chose their providers reported higher satisfaction with medical care. The higher costs and worse return-to-work outcomes associated with employee choice arose largely when employees selected a new provider, rather than a provider with whom they had a pre-existing relationship. The findings lend some support to recent policy changes limiting workers' ability to choose a provider with whom they do not have a prior relationship.