bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Workers and Trade Liberalization: The Impact of Trade Reforms in Mexico on Wages and Employment
Authors: Feliciano Zadia M.
Published: June 2015

Between 1986 and 1990, the Mexican government reduced tariffs and import license coverage by more than 50%. The author, using micro-level data, analyzes the impact of trade reform on Mexican wages and employment. Industries that had greater reductions in protection levels, she finds, had a larger percentage of low-skill workers. Wage dispersion increased in both the non-tradables sector and, to a much greater degree, the tradables sector. This pattern suggests that trade reform increased wage inequality. The decline in import license coverage appears to have reduced relative wages of workers in reformed industries by 2%, but did not affect relative employment. Reductions in tariffs had no statistically significant effect on relative wages or relative employment.
Healthcare Reform and the Workplace Experience of Nurses: Implications for Patient Care and Union Organizing
Authors: Clark Paul F. , Clark Darlene A. , Day David V. , Shea Dennis G.
Published: June 2015

The introduction of market-based reforms over the past twenty-five years has fundamentally changed the way healthcare is delivered in the United States. This paper reports the results of a survey of the workplace experiences and attitudes of hospital-based registered nurses under healthcare reform. The authors find that nurses who had experienced reform-related job restructuring held substantially more negative views of the climate for patient care than nurses who had not experienced restructuring. Also, nurses who had experienced reform-related mergers held more negative perceptions of the climate for patient care than those who had not been through a merger, although the relationship was less strong than it was for restructuring. Nurses concerned about a deteriorating climate for patient care indicated a desire for greater voice in the organization and staffing of hospitals and also indicated a greater readiness than other nurses to vote for a union.
Why Employers Use Flexible Staffing Arrangements: Evidence from an Establishment Survey
Authors: Houseman Susan N.
Published: June 2015

Drawing on a nationally representative survey of private sector establishments, the author presents new evidence on which employers use flexible staffing arrangements and why they use them. The surveyed employers made widespread use not only of regular part-time workers but also of short-term hires, on-call workers, agency temporaries, and contract workers. Two-thirds expected flexible staffing use to increase in their industry in the near future. Most commonly cited as reasons for using all types of flexible staffing arrangements were the needs to adjust for workload fluctuations and staff absences. Many employers also used agency temporaries and part-time workers to screen workers for regular positions. In addition, the survey evidence points to savings on benefits costs as an important factor in employers' decisions to use most flexible arrangements. The author examines the implications of why employers use the various types of flexible staffing arrangements for workers and public policy.
When Unions “Mattered”: The Impact of Strikes on Financial Markets, 1925–1937
Authors: Dinardo John , Hallock Kevin F.
Published: June 2015

This examination of the Stock Market's responsiveness to strikes looks specifically at strike actions that labor historians generally view as the major ones occurring in the United States in the years 1925–37. The authors find that strikes had large, negative effects on industry stock value. Longer strikes, violent strikes, strikes in which unions “won,” industry-wide strikes, strikes that led to union recognition, and strikes that led to large wage increases were associated with larger negative share price reactions than were other strikes. Much of the “news” generated by the typical strike seems to have been registered by the Stock Market very early in the strike. However, there were also some fairly large stock price reactions to news that could be fully revealed only at the end of a strike.
Language and the Earnings of Immigrants
Authors: Dustmann Christian , Van Soest Arthur
Published: June 2015

Several studies, most of them employing straightforward regression analysis, have concluded that immigrants' proficiency in the language of their adopted country is correlated with their productivity, as measured by earnings. Two weaknesses of these studies are potential unobserved heterogeneity, which could result in over-estimated effects if overall ability is linked with language acquisition, and potential measurement error in the language proficiency measures, which would probably result in under-estimation of language effects. The present study, which uses panel data for a 10-year period in Germany, yields evidence that the latter bias tends to be much larger than the former, implying that language proficiency is far more important than suggested by the existing literature.
Pay and Productivity Differences between Male and Female Veterinarians
Authors: Smith David M.
Published: June 2015

The author uses data from annual wage surveys conducted in 1994 and 1995 by Medical Economics Research Group to study differences in pay and productivity between male and female veterinarians in the wage-salary sector. The gender gap in average earnings was 15%. When controls for various observable characteristics are added to the analysis, the earnings gap narrows to 9%, based on the most conservative estimates. Using unique revenue production measures in an analysis holding other factors constant, the author finds that women's productivity was not statistically different from men's. Together, the findings of gender differences in earnings but not in productivity are consistent with the presence of wage discrimination, but the author explores other possible explanations as well.
Worker Sorting and Job Satisfaction: The Case of Union and Government Jobs
Authors: Heywood John S. , Siebert W. S. , Wei Xiangdong
Published: June 2015

In initial cross-section estimates using data from the 1991–94 British Household Panel Study, the authors find that union members had lower overall job satisfaction than non-union members, and public sector workers had higher satisfaction than private sector workers. Controlling for individual worker effects (sorting) using panel methods confirms the lower satisfaction of union members, but eliminates the higher satisfaction of public sector workers. These results suggest that unions do not simply attract the dissatisfied, as previously suggested. By contrast, the greater satisfaction expressed by public sector workers seems largely a consequence of sorting, with those who are more easily satisfied being drawn to the public sector. Additional analysis of particular aspects of satisfaction, including satisfaction with pay, the work itself, and relations with the boss, generally supports these conclusions.
Union Effects on Health Insurance Provision and Coverage in the United States
Authors: Buchmueller Thomas C. , Dinardo John , Valletta Robert G.
Published: June 2015

During the past two decades, union density has declined in the United States and employer provision of health benefits has changed substantially in extent and form. Using individual survey data spanning the years 1983–97 combined with employer survey data for 1993, the authors update and extend previous analyses of private-sector union effects on employer-provided health benefits. They find that the union effect on health insurance coverage rates has fallen somewhat but remains large, due to an increase over time in the union effect on employee “take-up” of offered insurance, and that declining unionization explains 20–35% of the decline in employee health coverage. The increasing union take-up effect is linked to union effects on employees' direct costs for health insurance and the availability of retiree coverage.
Are Apprenticeships Still Relevant in the 21st Century? A Case Study of Changing Youth Training Arrangements in German Banks
Authors: Finegold David , Wagner Karin
Published: June 2015

The authors present a detailed case study of the evolution of apprenticeships in German banking over the past two decades to analyze why employers continue to be willing to invest in these programs that provide workers with transferable skills. They explain employers' motivation in terms of two “logics.” Some considerations stemming from the logic of consequences, such as recruitment cost savings and enhanced workplace flexibility, encourage retention of the apprenticeship system. On balance, however, the cost calculus that is at the heart of the logic of consequences would, if unopposed, encourage head-hunting for apprentices trained by other firms, eventually undermining the system. The countervailing logic of appropriateness, however, discourages defections from the system by fostering trust among employers, encouraging new firms to participate in the system, supporting the strong reputational effect associated with training, and creating mechanisms with which banks can have a hand in keeping the system efficient.
College Quality and Employee Job Performance: Evidence from Naval Officers
Authors: Bowman William R. , Mehay Stephen L.
Published: June 2015

This study analyzes the effects of college quality and individual academic background on selected job performance measures for officers working in professional and managerial jobs in the U.S. Navy. The study analyzes performance indicators at selected career points for cohorts in two occupational groups. Among staff personnel, who perform mostly administrative and support functions, the authors find that graduates of private schools, regardless of college quality, received better performance appraisals than did other officers. Among line personnel, who perform jobs on ships and submarines and in aviation, graduates of top-rated schools, both public and private, received better appraisals during the early career period. Within both occupational groups, graduates of top-rated private schools were more likely than other officers to be promoted at the up-or-out point. The results are consistent with prior studies that find an earnings premium attached to attendance at elite private colleges.
Uncovering and Explaining Variance in the Features and Outcomes of Contingent Work
Authors: Lautsch Brenda A.
Published: June 2015

Existing research tends to depict contingent work either as having similar implications for firms and workers in all settings or as varying in its implications depending only on contingent workers' occupation or personal characteristics. In contrast, the author of this paper identifies systematic differences in contingent jobs across organizational contexts that are due to the strategies and practices of management. She uses internal labor market theory and data collected from two comparative case studies, both conducted in 1996–97, to develop four distinct models of how contingent work may be managed. Each of the contingent employment subsystems had distinct practices—related to job definitions, wage rules, and deployment through career ladders—put in place by management in response to technological factors and performance objectives. Each also raised challenges for integrating regular and contingent workers and generated trade-offs for both groups of workers as well as for the firm.
Changes in the Union Wage Premium by Industry
Authors: Bratsberg Bernt , Ragan James F.
Published: June 2015

Relying on CPS data, the authors estimate the union wage premium—the amount by which wages of union workers exceeded those of nonunion workers in the same industry conditional on worker characteristics—for 32 industries over the period 1971–99. The dispersion of union premiums across industries narrowed over time as high premiums tended to fall and low premiums to rise. At the aggregate level, the premium drifted lower. When the authors model the union premium as a function of cyclical and structural variables and unmeasured industry characteristics, they find that Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA) clauses reduced the responsiveness of the union premium to economic conditions and that increases in import penetration were strongly associated with rising union premiums. The effect of deregulation was mixed.
Evidence on Adverse Selection and Establishment Size in the Labor Market
Authors: Krashinsky Harry
Published: June 2015

A commonly suggested explanation for the finding that laid-off workers have greater mean post-displacement earnings losses than workers who lose their jobs through plant closings is that the former are of lower quality than the latter. But there is also an alternative explanation for this result: laid-off workers suffer larger earnings losses because, as a group, they have more to lose in the first place, having been displaced from larger, higher-wage establishments. An analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth confirms this hypothesis. Accounting for establishment size removes virtually all of the difference in wage losses for the two groups of displaced workers.
The Immigrant and Native-Born Wage Distributions: Evidence from United States Censuses
Authors: Butcher Kristin F. , Dinardo John
Published: June 2015

Recent studies document a large widening of the immigrant/native-born mean wage gap since about 1970, a trend that some observers ascribe to post-1965 changes in U.S. immigration policy. These studies are limited, however, by their exclusive focus on men, which ignores important gender differences in the wage gap, and by the inadequacy of the mean wage for characterizing the gap when, as in recent decades, the wage distribution dramatically changes. This study of recent immigrants examines changes across the entire wage distribution, for both genders. The authors find evidence, based partly on gender differences, that minimum wages strongly influenced the gap. A counterfactual analysis also indicates that if recent immigrants in 1970 had faced the 1990 wage structure, their wage distribution would have closely resembled that of recent immigrants in 1990. These and other results suggest that the increasing wage gap is linked to changes in the wage structure.
The Relative Earnings of Young Mexican, Black, and White Women
Authors: Antecol Heather , Bedard Kelly
Published: June 2015

This analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth indicates that young Mexican women and young black women earned, respectively, 9.5% and 13.2% less than young white women in 1994. Differences in education appear to be the most important explanation for the Mexican-white wage gap, whereas differences in labor force attachment are the most important determinant of the black-white wage gap. The authors show that accounting for actual labor market experience, rather than simply imputing experience based on years since leaving school, is crucially important in such analyses.
Premarital Childbearing and Welfare Receipt: The Role of Mothers' Receipt
Authors: Ratcliffe Caroline E.
Published: June 2015

This study uses the 1968–91 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine the relationship between mothers' receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) welfare benefits and their daughters' premarital childbearing and welfare receipt. The results for black females suggest that black daughters from welfare-recipient households were more likely to become adult welfare recipients than were black daughters from non-welfare-recipient households, but that there was only a weak relationship between mothers' welfare receipt and daughters' premarital childbearing. These results suggest that premarital childbearing was not an important variable mediating intergenerational transmission of welfare use in black families. Other results call into question previous findings using PSID data that suggest the existence of intergenerational welfare transmission among non-blacks. Specifically, it appears that the sample of non-black daughters in the PSID is insufficient to provide a satisfactory answer to the question of welfare transmission for that group.
The Effect of Employer Networks on Workplace Innovation and Training
Authors: Erickson Christopher L. , Jacoby Sanford M.
Published: June 2015

If innovative work practices improve performance, why does the intensity of their adoption vary substantially across establishments? Following a lead suggested by some sociological studies, the authors empirically investigate the role of social networks (ties to other organizations) in the organizational learning associated with diffusion of innovative work practices. Using establishment data on formal affiliation and other network measures, they find that managerial participation in networks—specifically, in industry and cross-industry associations, civic organizations, and the internal networks of multi-unit firms—positively affected both the probability that high-performance work practices and employee training programs would be adopted and, where they were adopted, the intensity of their adoption. Furthermore, multiple affiliations raised the likelihood that an establishment would pursue an intensive approach to work reorganization and training.
Opening the Box: Information Technology, Work Practices, and Wages
Authors: Hunter Larry W. , Lafkas John J.
Published: June 2015

Using 1994–95 survey data on customer service representatives in 303 U.S. bank branches, the authors investigate the effects on wages of information technology (IT), of work practices, and of those two factors in combination. Offline high-involvement practices (measured by the presence of quality circles) were related positively to wages, as was more extensive use of IT that supports sales efforts. Where IT was used more extensively to automate routine processes, wages were lower in branches that did not have high-involvement work practices. The effects are partially explained by higher education requirements and more extensive introductory training in higher-wage jobs.
The Motherhood Wage Penalty Revisited: Experience, Heterogeneity, Work Effort, and Work-Schedule Flexibility
Authors: Anderson Deborah J. , Binder Melissa , Krause Kate
Published: June 2015

This paper seeks an explanation for the well-documented wage disadvantage of mothers compared to women without children. An analysis of data from the 1968–88 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women shows that human capital inputs and unobserved heterogeneity explain 55–57% of the gap. Further analysis suggests that mothers tended to face the highest wage penalty when they first returned to work. A finding that medium-skill mothers (high school graduates) suffered more prolonged and severe wage losses than either low- or high-skill mothers casts doubt on the work-effort explanation for the wage gap, according to which women reduce work effort in response to childcare duties. The authors instead cite variable time constraints: high school graduates are likely to hold jobs requiring their presence during regular office hours, and are unlikely to gain flexibility by finding work at other hours or by taking work home in the evening.
The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use
Authors: Friedberg Leora
Published: June 2015

New technologies like computers alter skill requirements. This paper explores two related effects of the spread of computers on older workers, using data from the Current Population Survey and the Health and Retirement Study. One conclusion is that impending retirement, rather than age alone, explains why older workers used computers less than prime-age workers did. A second conclusion is that computer users retired later than non-users. Although this pattern may arise because workers planning later retirement decided to acquire computer skills, the empirical analysis suggests that the causation also went in the other direction, with computer users choosing to delay retirement. It will be important to understand these effects as the baby boom cohort nears retirement, while technologies continue to change rapidly.
High Performance Work Systems and Organizational Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Information Quality
Authors: Preuss Gil A.
Published: June 2015

Using data on registered nurses and nursing assistants in 50 acute-care hospital units, the author explores the relationships among high performance work systems, information quality, and performance quality within a context shaped by equivocal information—information that can be interpreted in multiple and sometimes conflicting ways. He finds that the quality of information available for decision-making, which largely depends on the interpretative skills of the workers who are exposed to important equivocal information, partially mediates how employee knowledge, work design, and total quality management systems affect organizational performance (which is measured as the inverse of medication error incidence). Providing employees with extensive relevant knowledge and enabling them to use their skills during even seemingly routine tasks improves the effective quality of information they bring to decision-making, and thereby promotes high performance quality.
Salaries of Recent Male and Female College Graduates: Educational and Labor Market Effects
Authors: Joy Lois
Published: June 2015

Why do recent male college graduates earn more than their female counterparts? The author explores this question by estimating several salary regressions using data from the 1993–94 NCES Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study. The results suggest that labor market variables outweighed academic variables in their contribution to the gender salary gap. Of the academic variables, gender differences in total credits accounted for more of the salary gap than did gender differences in majors, grades, or institution attended. Of the labor market variables, gender differences in job sector, industry, and hours worked had the largest effect on gender differences in salaries. Differences in how men and women searched for and selected first jobs appear to have had little impact on gender differences in salary. Most important, as much as 75% of the wage gap remains unexplained by both the academic and labor market variables.
The Nexus of Sexual Orientation and Gender in the Determination of Earnings
Authors: Blandford John M.
Published: June 2015

This analysis of 1989–96 General Social Survey data reveals how sexual orientation and gender jointly influence earnings outcomes. Gay and bisexual men experienced a 30–32% income disadvantage relative to heterosexual peers, while lesbian and bisexual women enjoyed a wage premium of 17–23%. The disparate earnings effects of sexual orientation across genders suggest that workplace discrimination may be only one factor accounting for measured wage differentials associated with sexual orientation. These findings qualify pioneering work on the subject that indicated that wage differentials were attributable largely to employer bias. A further analysis that distinguishes the separate effects of gender, marital status, and sexual orientation suggests that differentials long attributed to marital status may in part reflect previously unobserved effects of sexual orientation.
The Hiring Decisions and Compensation Structures of Large Firms
Authors: Hu Luojia
Published: June 2015

This paper investigates differences between large and small firms in new hires' ages and in compensation structures. An analysis of data from the Benefits Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) shows that large firms hired younger workers than small firms and awarded starting wages that discriminated less between young and older workers. Most strikingly, the well-known wage premium associated with employment in large firms did not obtain for white-collar workers who were hired at age 35 or older, due to large firms' preference for younger new hires. Another finding is that wage growth in large firms equaled or exceeded that in small firms. The author argues that these findings accord with firm-specific human capital theory. Finally, limited evidence from the 1995 BLS Survey of Employer-Provided Training and the CPS suggests that industries that train more also hire younger workers.
The Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement for Young Adult Workers
Authors: Kletzer Lori G. , Fairlie Robert W.
Published: June 2015

Using NLSY data, the authors estimate the long-term costs of job displacement for young adults. Earnings and wage losses were large for the first three years following displacement. Compared to earnings losses found by other studies for more mature workers, however, earnings losses for these young adults were short-lived, with differences between observed and expected earnings narrowing considerably five years after job loss. At that point, the shortfall in annual earnings (relative to what would have been expected absent job loss) was 9% for men and 12.5% for women, and the shortfall in hourly wages was 21.2% for men. Young workers also apparently differ from more established workers in the composition of total earnings losses: for older workers, total losses largely represent actual, immediate earnings losses, whereas for young workers the loss of opportunities for rapid earnings growth is more important.
Work History and Later-Life Labor Force Participation: Evidence from a Large Telecommunications Firm
Authors: Singh Gangaram , Verma Anil
Published: June 2015

This study examines the relationship between later-life labor force participation and work history. Survey data on 1,805 Bell Canada early retirees show that 40% returned to work, of whom 17% took full-time employment, 51% took part-time employment, and 32% became self-employed. Return to work was positively related to work attachment and tenure in the last job, and negatively related to having been in a non-managerial occupation and lacking upward career mobility. Those with high attachment to work (as measured by responses to several survey questions) were more likely to return to full-time employment than to retire. Clerical workers were less likely than managers to choose part-time employment over retirement. Both lateral (versus upward) mobility in the last job and high work attachment were negatively related to the choice of self-employment over retirement.
Unions, Work-Related Training, and Wages: Evidence for British Men
Authors: Booth Alison L. , Francesconi Marco , Zoega Gylfi
Published: June 2015

Using data for the years 1991–96 from the British Household Panel Survey, the authors investigate how union coverage affected work-related training and how the union-training link affected wages and wage growth for a sample of full-time men. Relative to non-covered workers, union-covered workers were more likely to receive training and also received more days of training. Among workers who received training, those with union coverage enjoyed greater returns to training and higher wage growth than did those without. While some of these results have been found in previous studies, others are new. The wage results, in particular, suggest a need for rethinking the conventional view that union wage formation in Britain reduces the incentives to acquire work-related training.
The Role of Temporary Agency Employment in Tight Labor Markets
Authors: Houseman Susan N. , Kalleberg Arne L. , Erickcek George A.
Published: June 2015

The authors use case study evidence from hospitals and auto parts manufacturers to investigate why employers used—and even increased their use of—temporary help agencies during a period of tight labor markets in the 1990s. In high-skill occupations, the evidence suggests employers paid substantially more to agency help than to regular employees in large part to gain additional time to recruit employees for permanent positions and thereby avoid raising wages for new hires and existing employees. In low-skill occupations, temporary help agencies appear to have facilitated the use of more “risky” workers by lowering their wages and benefits and the costs associated with turnover. As in high-skill occupations, the use of agency temporaries in low-skill occupations relieved pressure on companies facing tight labor markets to raise employees' wages, and may have contributed to the stagnant wage growth and low unemployment observed in the 1990s.
Human Resource Management and Organizational Performance: Evidence from Retail Banking
Authors: Bartel Ann P.
Published: June 2015

Studies of the relationship between human resource management and establishment performance have heretofore focused on the manufacturing sector. Using a unique longitudinal dataset collected through site visits to branch operations of a large bank, the author extends that research to the service sector. Because branch managers had considerable discretion in managing their operations and employees, the HRM environment could vary greatly across branches and over time. Site visits provided specific examples of managerial practices that affected branch performance. An analysis of responses to the bank's employee attitude survey that controls for unobserved branch and manager characteristics shows a positive relationship between branch performance and employees' satisfaction with the quality of performance evaluation, feedback, and recognition at the branch—the “incentives” dimension of a high-performance work system. In some fixed effects specifications, satisfaction with the quality of communications at the branch was also important.
Minimum Wages, Labor Market Institutions, and Youth Employment: A Cross-National Analysis
Authors: Neumark David , Wascher William
Published: June 2015

The authors estimate the employment effects of changes in national minimum wages using a pooled cross-section time-series data set comprising 17 OECD countries for the period 1975–2000. The average effects they find are consistent with the view that minimum wages cause employment losses among youths. However, the evidence also shows considerable variation across countries. In particular, disemployment effects of minimum wages appear to be smaller in countries that have subminimum wage provisions for youths. Regarding other labor market policies and institutions, the authors find that more restrictive labor standards and higher union coverage strengthen the disemployment effects of minimum wages, while employment protection laws and active labor market policies designed to bring unemployed individuals into the work force help to offset these effects. Overall, the disemployment effects of minimum wages are strongest in the countries with the least regulated labor markets.
Black Job Applicants and the Hiring Officer's Race
Authors: Stoll Michael A. , Raphael Steven , Holzer Harry J.
Published: June 2015

Recent studies have consistently found that in the United States, black job applicants are hired at a greater rate by establishments with black hiring agents than by those with white hiring agents. The results of this examination of data from the 1992–94 Multi-City Employer Survey suggest two proximate reasons for this pattern: black hiring agents receive applications from blacks at greater rates than do white hiring agents, and they hire a greater proportion of blacks who apply. The authors suggest that moving more blacks into positions with hiring authority within firms might help to alleviate the persistent unemployment difficulties of African Americans.
The Union Membership Wage-Premium Puzzle: Is There a Free Rider Problem?
Authors: Booth Alison L. , Bryan Mark L.
Published: June 2015

Economists have long suggested that labor unions suffer a free rider problem. The argument is that, since union-set wages are available to all workers covered by unions irrespective of their union status, and union membership entails costs, workers will only join if they are coerced or are offered non-wage goods that they value above membership costs. Yet U.S. and British empirical research has found a substantial union membership wage premium among private-sector union-covered workers, implying that there is no free rider problem. The authors of this study hypothesize that these findings arise due to selectivity problems associated with identifying the union membership effect. Their analysis, which uses rich data from a new linked employer-employee survey for Britain and exploits the within-establishment variation in wages as a function of individual union membership status, demonstrates that the apparent wage premium for members is illusory. Hence, a potential free rider problem remains.
The Changing Nature of Employment-Related Sexual Harassment: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Government, 1978–1994
Authors: Antecol Heather , Cobb-Clark Deborah
Published: June 2015

This paper examines the changing nature of attitudes toward and reports of sexual harassment using data for 1978–94 drawn from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (USMSPB) of the U.S. federal government. The authors find that although unwanted sexual behavior reported by federal government employees changed only slightly in overall incidence over the period, its pattern changed noticeably. Unwanted sexual attention by supervisors, for example, declined in incidence; crude and offensive behavior by co-workers increased; and the likelihood that harassment would occur only once (rather than repeatedly) increased. Employees' attitudes toward sexual harassment changed markedly, with a dramatically increased willingness to define unwanted sexual behavior as sexual harassment. This trend appears to have been due not to changes in employees' demographic, human capital, and job characteristics, but rather to structural changes in their views of what constitutes sexual harassment.
Importing Equality? The Impact of Globalization on Gender Discrimination
Authors: Black Sandra E. , Brainerd Elizabeth
Published: June 2015

A key dynamic implication of the Becker model of discrimination (1957) is that increased product market competition will drive out costly discrimination in the long run. This paper tests that hypothesis by examining the impact of globalization on gender discrimination in manufacturing industries. Because concentrated industries face little competitive pressure, an increase in competition from trade should reduce the residual gender wage gap more in these industries than in competitive industries. The authors compare the change in the gender wage gap between 1976 and 1993 in concentrated versus competitive manufacturing industries, using the latter as a control for changes in the gender wage gap that are unrelated to competitive pressures. They find that while trade increases wage inequality by modestly reducing the relative wages of less-skilled workers, at the same time it appears to benefit women by reducing the ability of firms to discriminate.
Human Resource Management as a Substitute for Trade Unions in British Workplaces
Authors: Machin Stephen , Wood Stephen
Published: June 2015

The authors use British workplace data for 1980–98 to examine whether increased human resource management (HRM) practices coincided with union decline, consistent with the hypothesis that such practices act as a substitute for unionization. Two initial analyses show no important differences between union and non-union sectors or between newer workplaces (which are likelier to be non-union) and older ones in the pattern of HRM practices over time; and the study's longitudinal analysis picks up no evidence of faster union decline in workplaces or industries that adopted HRM practices than in those that did not. Not only is the hypothesized substitution effect thus not supported, but the authors even uncover some evidence of a complementarity between unions and HRM practices. The authors conclude that increased use of HRM practices is probably not an important factor underpinning union decline in Britain.
Self-Reported Sexual Orientation and Earnings: Evidence from California
Authors: Carpenter Christopher S.
Published: June 2015

Researchers using the 1988–96 General Social Survey (GSS) have found that behaviorally gay/bisexual men earn 15–30% less, and behaviorally lesbian/bisexual women earn 20–30% more, than similar heterosexuals. This study uses confidential data on self-reported sexual orientation for 50,000 adults in California in 2001, providing more than five times as many respondents who identify themselves as sexual minorities as does the GSS. Previous approaches are extended by using more complete data on earnings, work effort, and job characteristics. Apart from the well-documented marriage premium, the author finds no statistically or economically significant independent effect of a gay or lesbian sexual orientation on earnings. There is some evidence that bisexual men and women earn less than heterosexuals. Analysis of more recent GSS data (including data from 1998–2000) suggests the findings of previous studies are somewhat sensitive to the time period considered.
Employment Determination in Enterprises under Communism and in Transition: Evidence from Central Europe
Authors: Basu Swati , Estrin Saul , Svejnar Jan
Published: June 2015

The authors present a comparative analysis of employment determination in four transition economies as they moved from central planning to a market economy in the early 1990s. They use firm-level panel data sets from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia to estimate dynamic employment equations for the period from immediately before to immediately after the start of transition. For the most part, firms appear to have been quick to adjust employment to wage levels, and there is little evidence of labor hoarding. There were important cross-country variations in the determinants of employment during the reform process, however. Hungarian and Polish firms started the transition already substantially reformed, and became even more responsive to market signals as transition proceeded. In contrast, firms in the Czech and Slovak Republics started in the completely unresponsive mode characteristic of central planning, but rapidly caught up with their counterparts in Hungary and Poland.
Do Wages Rise with Job Seniority? A Reassessment
Authors: Altonji Joseph G. , Williams Nicolas
Published: June 2015

The authors provide new estimates of the return to job seniority using a dataset similar to that employed in Joseph Altonji and Robert Shakotko, “Do Wages Rise with Job Seniority?” Review of Economic Studies (1987) and Robert Topel, “Specific Capital, Mobility, and Wages,” Journal of Political Economy (1991). They consider the strengths and weaknesses of these studies' treatment of economy-wide trends, their dating conventions for tenure and wages, their handling of wage observations that might span multiple jobs, and their estimation approaches. Re-estimation points to an effect often years of tenure on the log wage equal to .11, which is above the preferred estimate of Altonji and Shakotko but far below that of Topel. Changes in earnings distributions and in the employment relationship motivate the examination of more recent data. Perhaps surprisingly, the return to tenure has probably increased over time.
Did Expanding Medicaid Affect Welfare Participation?
Authors: Ham John C. , Shore-Sheppard Lara D.
Published: June 2015

In a widely cited 1995 paper, Aaron Yelowitz concluded that Medicaid eligibility expansions for children were associated with increased labor force participation and reduced welfare participation among single mothers. The authors of the present study, using data from the 1988–96 Current Population Surveys, re-examine the evidence presented by Yelowitz. They find that Yelowitz's results resulted from two factors: he imposed a restriction on the parameter estimates not predicted by theory and rejected in the data, and he used only one of two income tests that families must pass to be eligible for welfare. The authors conclude that there is no evidence detectable in the CPS data of a relationship between welfare or labor force participation and the Medicaid income limits.
Why Do Part-Time Workers Earn Less? The Role of Worker and Job Skills
Authors: Hirsch Barry T.
Published: June 2015

Part-time workers receive considerably lower hourly earnings than do full-time workers. Using Current Population Survey earnings files for September 1995 through December 2002, the author finds that measurable worker and job characteristics, including occupational skill requirements, account for much of the part-time penalty. Longitudinal analysis of the data indicates that much of the remaining gap reflects worker heterogeneity, evidenced by small wage gains and losses among workers switching between part-time and full-time jobs. The lower skills of part-time than full-time workers result primarily from limited work experience and accumulation of human capital. Little evidence can be found of a large wage gap between part-time and full-time women. A part-time wage penalty is found for men, but men account for less than one-third of total part-time employment.
The Declining Effects of Osha Inspections on Manufacturing Injuries, 1979–1998
Authors: Gray Wayne B. , Mendeloff John M.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the impact of OSHA inspections on injuries in manufacturing plants. The authors use the same model and some of the same plant-level data employed by several earlier studies that found large effects of OSHA inspections on injuries for 1979–85. These new estimates indicate that an OSHA inspection imposing a penalty reduced lost-workday injuries by about 19% in 1979–85, but that this effect fell to 11% in 1987–91, and to a statistically insignificant 1% in 1992–98. The authors cannot fully explain this overall decline, which they find for nearly all subgroups they examine—by inspection type, establishment size, and industry, for example. Among other findings are that, across the years studied, inspections with penalties were more effective than those without, and the effects on injury rates were greater in smaller plants and nonunion plants than in large plants and union plants.
Strike Incidence and Strike Duration: Some New Evidence from Ontario
Authors: Campolieti Michele , Hebdon Robert , Hyatt Douglas
Published: June 2015

The authors use a unique longitudinal data set from Ontario, covering the years 1984–92, to estimate the determinants of strike incidence and duration. Unlike most empirical analyses of strikes, the data set for this study contains both small and large bargaining units. The authors find strong evidence that the likelihood of a future strike was lower among bargaining units that had struck before than among those that had not (the “teetotaler” effect); the longer a strike lasted, the greater was the probability of settling (positive duration dependence); and smaller bargaining units were less likely to strike than were larger bargaining units, but had longer strikes when they did strike.
Tight Labor Markets and the Demand for Education: Evidence from the Coal Boom and Bust
Authors: Black Dan A. , McKinnish Terra G. , Sanders Seth G.
Published: June 2015

Human capital theory predicts that individuals acquire less schooling when the returns to schooling are small. To test this theory, the authors study the effect of the Appalachian coal boom on high school enrollments. During the 1970s, a boom in the coal industry increased the earnings of high school dropouts relative to those of graduates. During the 1980s, the boom subsided and the earnings of dropouts declined relative to those of graduates. The authors find that high school enrollment rates in Kentucky and Pennsylvania declined considerably in the 1970s and increased in the 1980s in coal-producing counties relative to counties without coal. The estimates indicate that a long-term 10% increase in the earnings of low-skilled workers could decrease high school enrollment rates by as much as 5–7%—a finding with implications for policies aimed at improving low-skilled workers' employment and earnings, such as wage subsidies and minimum wage increases.
The Employment Effects of a “Good Cause” Discharge Standard in Montana
Authors: Ewing Bradley T. , North Charles M. , Taylor Beck A.
Published: June 2015

With passage of a 1987 statute, Montana became the only state to adopt a “good cause” standard for discharge of employees with contracts of unspecified duration. The new statute was a legislative response to a series of Montana Supreme Court cases, starting in 1980, that gave otherwise at-will employees a broad right to sue for wrongful discharge. Estimating a policy intervention model using monthly time-series data on Montana employment, the authors find that the seminal Montana wrongful discharge case reduced annual employment growth in Montana by 0.46 percentage points, and that the “good cause” statute restored the original growth rate. While the firing costs literature would suggest that employment should fall following implementation of a heightened discharge standard, the contrary result in Montana is likely due to important procedural and other limitations imposed by the new statute on discharged employees' legal recourse.
Registered Nurses and the Value of Bilingualism
Authors: Kalist David E.
Published: June 2015

Recent research indicates that markets do not value bilingual skills. These results, however, are not robust across all labor markets, and one notable counter-instance is the market for registered nurses. As the Hispanic population grows in the United States, health care providers will encounter increasing numbers of patients who are not fluent in English. To better serve their patients, meet government requirements, and limit legal liability, employers may offer wage premiums to attract bilingual (Spanish/English) registered nurses. Support for this hypothesis comes from wage regressions on data for the year 2000 from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. The estimates indicate that bilingual registered nurses received wage premiums of up to 7%, depending on the fraction of the population that spoke Spanish in the RN's county of employment.
The Effects of Prevailing Wage Requirements on the Cost of Low-Income Housing
Authors: Dunn Sarah , Quigley John M. , Rosenthal Larry A.
Published: June 2015

Recent California legislation extends the application of prevailing wage regulations to construction workers building subsidized low-income residential projects. Econometric evidence based on micro data covering 205 residential projects subsidized by the California Low Income Housing Tax Credit since 1996 and completed by mid-2002 demonstrates that construction costs increased substantially under prevailing wage requirements. Estimates of additional construction costs in the authors' most extensive models range from 9% to 37%. The analysis controls for variations in cost by geographical location and for differences in project characteristics, financing, and developer attributes. The authors estimate the effect of uniform imposition of these regulations on the number of new dwellings for low-income households produced under the tax credit program in California. Under reasonable assumptions, the mid-range estimate of the prospective decrease exceeds 3, 100 units per year.
A Test of Screening Discrimination with Employer Learning
Authors: Pinkston Joshua C.
Published: June 2015

This paper tests for the presence of screening discrimination, a type of statistical discrimination that occurs when employers are less able to evaluate the ability of workers from one group than from another. Using data from the 2000 release of the NLSY79, the author examines wage equations in a framework of employer learning to test the hypothesis that the market receives less reliable productivity signals at labor market entry from black men than from white men. The estimation results support this hypothesis. Variables that are difficult for employers to observe, such as the AFQT score, had less influence on the wages of black men (and easily observed variables had more influence) than on the wages of white men. The influence of hard-to-observe variables on wages, however, increased faster with experience for black men.