bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Single Women's Labor Supply Elasticities: Trends and Policy Implications
Authors: Bishop Kelly , Heim Bradley , Mihaly Kata
Published: June 2015

This paper uses CPS data to examine changes in single women's labor supply elasticities in recent decades. Specifically, the authors investigate trends in how single women's hours of work and labor force participation rates responded to both wages and income over the years 1979–2003. Results from the base specification suggest that over the observation period, hours wage elasticities decreased by 82%, participation wage elasticities by 36%, and participation income elasticities by 57%. These results imply that changes in tax policy had a much larger effect on the labor supply and labor force participation behavior of women in this subpopulation in the early 1980s than in recent years.
Does Outsourcing Reduce Wages in the Low-Wage Service Occupations? Evidence from Janitors and Guards
Authors: Dube Arindrajit , Kaplan Ethan
Published: June 2015

Outsourcing of labor services grew substantially during the 1980s and 1990s and was associated with lower wages, fewer benefits, and lower rates of unionization. The authors focus on two occupations for which they can identify outsourcing in those two decades using industry and occupation codes: janitors and guards. Across a wide array of specifications, they find that the outsourcing wage penalty ranged from 4% to 7% for janitors and from 8% to 24% for guards. Their findings on health benefits mirror those on wages. Evidence suggests that the outsourcing penalty was not due to compensating differentials for higher benefits or lower hours, skill differences, or the types of industries that outsourced. Rather, outsourcing seems to have reduced labor market rents for workers, especially for those in the upper half of the occupational wage distribution. Industries with higher historical wage premia were more likely to outsource service work.
Will I See You at Work? Ethnic Workplace Segregation in Sweden, 1985–2002
Authors: Åslund Olof , Skans Oskar Nordström
Published: June 2015

Using linked employer-employee data covering the entire working-age Swedish population between 1985 and 2002, the authors present evidence of substantial and increasing ethnic workplace segregation. Moreover, when human capital, geography and industrial affiliation are taken into account, immigrants are overexposed both to workers from their own birth region and to immigrants from other regions. Segregation is generally negatively correlated with economic status: groups with low employment rates are more segregated from natives; groups with many immigrant colleagues earn less than those with more native colleagues; and the higher the number of immigrants to which individuals are exposed, the lower their wages. When local labor market conditions improve, however, segregation decreases. Though the degree and nature of segregation varies substantially across ethnic groups, the patterns are quite persistent over time.
First Contract Arbitration: Effects on Bargaining and Work Stoppages
Authors: Johnson Susan J. T.
Published: June 2015

Newly certified unions often experience difficulty negotiating a first agreement. To remedy this, the Employee Free Choice Act proposes that the National Labor Relations Act provide for first contract arbitration (FCA). Using a panel of Canadian jurisdictions that have introduced FCA legislation at different times over several decades, the author addresses three questions: (1) How does this legislation affect the incidence of first agreement work stoppages? (2) Does FCA encourage or discourage collective bargaining in the negotiation of first agreements? (3) Does FCA influence the duration of first agreement work stoppages? The author finds that the presence of FCA legislation reduces first agreement work stoppage incidence by at least 50 percent, yet unions make use of FCA infrequently and first contracts are rarely imposed by third parties. Together these results suggest that FCA encourages collective bargaining by creating an incentive for the parties to bargain in good faith and negotiate an agreement. Finally, FCA legislation has no statistically significant impact on the duration of first agreement work stoppages.
The Structure of Labor Costs with Overtime Work in U.S. Jobs
Authors: Barkume Anthony
Published: June 2015

The author analyzes employment contract and labor demand models of the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime pay regulation to determine their effects on employers' labor costs. Using National Compensation Survey data to obtain a representative sample of U.S. private-industry jobs, he assesses each model's ability to predict either the adjustment of wage rates if overtime is warranted (the employment contract model) or the probability of using overtime to meet labor demands (the labor demand model). Using quasi-fixed employment costs as independent variables allows for a better accounting of labor demand. He finds that lower wages go hand-in-hand with jobs requiring more overtime work, which indicates that overtime pay regulation influences the structure of compensation.
Evidence on Incentive Effects of Subjective Performance Evaluations
Authors: Engellandt Axel , Riphahn Regina T.
Published: June 2015

The authors investigate the effect of managerial performance evaluation styles on employee work effort. Using panel data on 4,080 employees in a Swiss unit of an international company for the period 1999–2002, they test two hypotheses using paid and unpaid overtime work as effort indicators. The company applies two performance-based remuneration mechanisms: an individual “surprise” bonus and one in which salary is affected by the extent to which an individual has reached personalized targets. The authors hypothesize that effort is higher in departments in which individual performance evaluations are more flexible over time as well as when surprise bonuses are used more frequently. Both hypotheses are supported, and the estimated effects are substantial. Increases in rating flexibility or bonus payments by one standard deviation above the mean increase average overtime hours by more than 20%. The findings are robust and suggest that surprise bonuses and flexible performance evaluations over time provide effective incentives.
Employer Size or Skill Group Size Effect on Wages?
Authors: Barth Erling , Dale-Olsen Harald
Published: June 2015

The authors analyze explanations for firm- or establishment-size effects on wages. One theory is that each firm faces an upward sloping supply curve for labor, implying that the number of any particular type of worker should matter for his or her level of pay, rather than the total number of workers in the firm. To test this hypothesis, the authors add the log of skill group size to the standard log wage equation. Results indicate that the traditional employer-size effect on wages dwindles away once control for the number of workers of the same skill group (educational type) as the observed individual within the establishment is added to the equation. The skill group size effect on wages is substantial. After controlling for both individual- and establishment-specific heterogeneity, a dwindling employer-size effect and a significant group size effect remain.
Inter-Industry Wage Differentials Job Content and Unobserved Ability
Authors: Gittleman Maury , Pierce Brooks
Published: June 2015

The authors estimate inter-industry wage differentials using the Bureau of Labor Statistics's National Compensation Survey (NCS) dataset. The NCS dataset has a number of distinct advantages over household survey datasets typically used for this purpose, in part because its establishment data contain information on job content and more accurate measures of industry and occupation. The authors find that controlling for job functions substantially lowers inter-industry wage variation. To the extent that job function proxies for productivity, a substantial portion of inter-industry wage variation may be explained by worker sorting on (observed) ability.
Patient-Centered but Employee Delivered: Patient Care Innovation, Turnover Intentions, and Organizational Outcomes in Hospitals
Authors: Avgar Ariel C. , Givan Rebecca Kolins , Liu Mingwei
Published: June 2015

Hospitals are increasingly experimenting with workplace innovations designed to improve the quality of patient care, alleviate financial pressures, and retain staff. The authors examine one such innovation, patient-centered care (PCC), and its effects on clinical and employee outcomes in hospitals in the United Kingdom. Employing PCC entails a shift from an institutional and physician focus to one that emphasizes patients' needs and preferences. Drawing on a combined dataset covering the period 2001–2005 that includes 173 hospitals belonging to the British National Health Service as well as employee and patient survey data, the authors examine how hospital use of PCC affects patient care, perceptions of care, and employee outcomes. They find that greater use of PCC has positive consequences for hospital error rates and perceptions of care. They also find that PCC is associated with lower turnover intentions, which are positively related to the quality of care. The effectiveness of PCC is enhanced when complemented by the use of high involvement work practices.
The Firm's Choice of Hrm Practices: Economics Meets Strategic Human Resource Management
Authors: Kaufman Bruce E. , Miller Benjamin I.
Published: June 2015

The authors compare and contrast two theoretical approaches to explaining a firm's choice of human resource management (HRM) practices—one from strategic human resource management (SHRM) and the other from economics. They present HRM frequency distributions depicting key empirical patterns that both theories must explain and then review and apply SHRM theory to explain these patterns. Since no economic model has thus far explicitly considered firms' choice of HRM practices, the authors develop one based on standard microeconomic production theory. The model yields a new theoretical construct, the HRM demand curve, and a new empirical estimating tool, the HRM demand function. Together, these provide an alternative explanation of HRM frequency distributions, new insights on the limitations of SHRM theory, and the first alternative to the standard “Huselid-type” regression model. Using recent survey data on HRM practices at several hundred American firms, the authors estimate representative HRM demand functions to illustrate the empirical implementation of the model. They find that although both theoretical approaches have value, the economic model seems superior in terms of generality, logical coherence, predictive ability, and congruence with empirical data.
Teacher Salaries and Teacher Unions: A Spatial Econometric Approach
Authors: Winters John V.
Published: June 2015

The author uses a spatial econometric framework to examine the determinants of teacher salaries in the United States, including union activity in the teachers' own and in neighboring districts, teacher salaries in nearby districts, and other school district characteristics such as size and student-teacher ratios. Using the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey as well as the School District Demographic System and Bureau of Labor Statistics data sets, he finds that union activity (measured by the legal status of collective bargaining and teacher union membership density) increases salaries for experienced teachers by as much as 18 to 28%; it increases salaries for beginning teachers, however, by considerably less. Results also confirm that salaries for experienced and beginning teachers are positively affected by the salaries of teachers in nearby districts. A one-percent increase in the distance-weighted average of teacher salaries in nearby districts increases salaries in a given district by 0.52% for experienced teachers and 0.66% for beginning teachers. Studies that ignore such spatial dependence are likely to be mis-specified and may lead to misleading conclusions.
How Multi-Tasking Job Designs Affect Productivity: Evidence from the Australian Coal Mining Industry
Authors: Takahashi Shingo
Published: June 2015

The author studies how the Australian coal mining industry adopted multitasking job designs by eliminating two types of task demarcations: (a) the demarcation between production and maintenance stream tasks and (b) the demarcation within the production stream. Using an original dataset of Australian open-cut coal mines covering the period 1985–2005, he estimates the effect of multi-tasking on productivity and explains its effects. Results indicate that the elimination of between-demarcation would increase coal production by 27% whereas the elimination of within-demarcation has no effect on productivity. Furthermore, he finds that the relationship between coal demand uncertainty and the elimination of demarcations is weak. The author demonstrates that these patterns are inconsistent with the explanation commonly given for how multi-tasking affects productivity–that mines able to redeploy workers freely allows them to use labor fully and to adjust to demand fluctuations. The explanation that better describes the results is, rather, the elimination of redundancies: the bundling of overlapping tasks reduces duplication of effort and unnecessary waiting.
Technological Change at Work: The Impact of Employee Involvement on the Effectiveness of Health Information Technology
Authors: Litwin Adam Seth
Published: June 2015

The link between employee involvement (EI) and organizational performance is not clear-cut, and the diffusion of information technology (IT) in the workplace complicates this relationship. The author argues that new technologies offer an important avenue by which EI can improve firm performance. He also contends that those studies that do consider EI in the context of technological change may be focusing exclusively on workplace-level features of the employment relationship, ignoring variation in functional- and strategic-level aspects of employment relations. To test this hypothesis, he uses Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region's patient scheduling module as an exemplar to investigate the extent to which this particular technology interacts with EI to affect clinic-level improvements in patient satisfaction. He studies the impact of the technology over the period October 2004 to August 2007 across 16 clinics to identify variation across sites. Measuring outcomes from a dataset that includes employee and patient surveys, interviews, archival data, and clinic observations, he finds that the use of IT is associated with performance increases and that these effects are greater in those clinics achieving higher mean levels of EI. This study presents the first empirical evidence of the potential of EI to enhance the effectiveness of health IT.
Have Welfare-to-Work Programs Improved over Time in Putting Welfare Recipients to Work?
Authors: Greenberg David , Robins Philip K.
Published: June 2015

The authors examine data from 21 random assignment evaluations of 76 experimental welfare-to-work programs conducted in the United States between 1983 and 1998 to determine whether the impacts of these programs on employment improved over time. Welfare-to-work programs have long played an important role in the federal assistance program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), now called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Over the 16-year period covered by the experiments, an increasing percentage of control group members received services similar to those offered to program group members. As a result, the differential participation in program service activities between the program and the control group decreased steadily over time, reducing the impact of these programs on employment. The negative influence of the reduced incremental services was nevertheless offset by other factors that resulted in program impacts remaining essentially constant during the study period. The authors suggest ways to improve program impacts in future experiments.
Unions and Privatization: Opening the “Black Box”
Authors: Jalette Patrice , Hebdon Robert
Published: June 2015

Using a survey of Canadian city managers during the period 2002–2003 modeled on the U.S. International Cities and Counties Management Association surveys, the authors examine a range of union responses to proposals to privatize city services. When confronted with possible member losses, unions adopted a number of strategies: a) they reacted not at all or they supported the proposal; b) they engaged in collective action; c) they attempted arbitration and litigation; d) they negotiated to reduce adverse effects; or e) they suggested alternatives to privatization. Though unionized cities attracted a greater number of new privatization proposals, unions effectively rejected them, the most successful strategy being to suggest alternatives. Conversely, initiating strikes and other industrial actions were not as effective. Cities in which multiple strategies were adopted had lower long-term privatization rates. These results support a pragmatic view of union-management relations illustrating how unions and city managers found mutually acceptable alternatives to privatization or adjustment policies.
Does it Matter WHO Responded to the Survey? Trends in the U.S. Gender Earnings Gap Revisited
Authors: Lee Jungmin , Lee Sokbae
Published: June 2015

Studies have shown a decreasing trend in the U.S. gender earnings gap since the 1980s. The authors work with a framework established by Blau and Kahn (1997 JOLE; 2006 ILRR), who used the Michigan Panel of Income Dynamics (PSID) to decompose that gap into observable and unobservable components in order to determine which contributing factors are gender-specific and which can be attributed to the wage structure. They extend the Blau and Kahn framework to consider measurement error due to the use of proxy/representative respondents of the survey's earnings variable. First, they find a trend toward more females in the gender composition of the household respondents, and second, they estimate the impact of that change on Blau and Kahn's decomposition. They determine that some of the changes in the gender earnings gap could actually be attributed to whether the surverys were self- or proxy-responded. That is, the actual reduction in the gender pay gap may be smaller than what the estimates—without taking into account the measurement error—might indicate. The authors suggest the need for a careful validation study to ascertain the extent of the spurious measurement error effects.
Immigrants and the Dynamics of High-Wage Jobs
Authors: Skuterud Mikal , Su Mingcui
Published: June 2015

The authors exploit immigrant identifiers in the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the longitudinal dimension of these data to compare the labor force and job dynamics of immigrants and native-born workers. They examine the role of job, as opposed to worker, heterogeneity in driving immigrant wage disparities and investigate how the paths into and out of jobs of varying quality compare between immigrant and native-born workers. They find that the disparity in immigrant job quality, which does not appear to diminish with years since arrival, reflects a combination of relatively low transitions into high-wage jobs and high transitions out of these jobs. The former result appears to be due equally to difficulties obtaining high-wage jobs directly out of unemployment and to using low-wage jobs as stepping-stones. The authors find little or no evidence, however, that immigrant job seekers face barriers to low-wage jobs.
The Deregulation of Temporary Employment and Workers' Perceptions of Job Insecurity
Authors: Kuroki Masanori
Published: June 2015

This study investigates whether the expansion of temporary employment in Japan has caused an increased perception of job insecurity among workers there. Non-regular employment, such as part-time and temporary work, has increased as a proportion of the Japanese workforce in recent years. The deregulation of temporary staffing in 2004 allowed firms to use temporary agency staffing for production line work in manufacturing. Using this legislation as a turning point and analyzing data from the Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), which contains a question eliciting workers' beliefs about their own job insecurity, the author uses a difference-in-differences (DD) methodology to find that the expansion of temporary employment contributes significantly to a rise in perceived job insecurity among workers.
Multinational Companies in Cross-National Context: Integration, Differentiation, and the Interactions between MNCS and Nation States
Authors: Edwards Tony , Marginson Paul , Ferner Anthony
Published: June 2015

In the introductory article to a special issue on multinational corporations (MNCs) and employment practices, the authors highlight the key features of an international survey research project. Research teams carried out parallel surveys in four countries: Canada, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. These surveys are the most comprehensive investigations of the employment practices in MNCs in their respective countries. In framing the comparative analysis of these data, the teams had four objectives: (1) to explore the processes of integration and differentiation in MNCs, including the interactions among MNCs and nation states and their impact on employment practices; (2) to chart the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) and systems of industrial relations; (3) to outline the key elements of the research design and chart the process of collecting data; and (4) to provide a summary of the patterns of integration and differentiation found among MNCs.
Human Resource Management Practices in the Multinational Company: A Test of System, Societal, and Dominance Effects
Authors: Edwards Paul K. , Sánchez-Mangas Rocío , Tregaskis Olga , Lévesque Christian , McDonnell Anthony , Quintanilla Javier
Published: June 2015

Does the use of HRM practices by multinational companies (MNCs) reflect their national origins or are practices similar regardless of context? To the extent that practices are similar, is there any evidence of global best standards? The authors use the system, societal, and dominance framework to address these questions through analysis of 1,100 MNC subsidiaries in Canada, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. They argue that this framework offers a richer account than alternatives such as varieties of capitalism. The study moves beyond previous research by differentiating between system effects at the global level and dominance effects arising from the diffusion of practices from a dominant economy. It shows that both effects are present, as are some differences at the societal level. Results suggest that MNCs configure their HRM practices in response to all three forces rather than to some uniform global best practices or to their national institutional contexts.
Quality over Quantity: Reexamining the Link between Entrepreneurship and Job Creation
Authors: Litwin Adam Seth , Phan Phillip H.
Published: June 2015

Although much has been written about the quantity of jobs created by entrepreneurs, scholars have yet to examine the quality of these jobs. In this article, the authors begin to address this important issue by examining nearly 5,000 businesses that began operations in 2004. They investigate the extent to which nascent employers provide what many think of as quality jobs—those offering health care coverage and a retirement plan. The authors find that because of small scale, constrained resources, and protection from institutional pressures, start-up companies do not provide their employees with either of these proxies for job quality, and their likelihood of offering health or retirement benefits increases only marginally over their first six years of operation. The finding that entrepreneurs' impressive record of job creation is not matched by a similarly impressive outcome with respect to job quality challenges policymakers to ensure that entrepreneurs are encouraged to create quality employment opportunities in the course of creating new businesses.
A Study of the Extent and Potential Causes of Alternative Employment Arrangements
Authors: Cappelli Peter H. , Keller JR
Published: June 2015

The notion of regular, full-time employment as one of the defining features of the U.S. economy has been called into question in recent years by the apparent growth of alternative or “nonstandard” work arrangements—part-time hours, temporary help, independent contracting, and other configurations. Identifying the extent of these arrangements, whether they are increasing and where they occur, is the first step to understanding their implications for the economy and the society. But such steps have been difficult to take because of the lack of appropriate data. Based on a national probability sample of U.S. establishments, the authors present estimates of the extent of these practices, evidence on changes in their use over time, and analyses that contribute to understanding why alternatives have come into play.
Effects of Union Organization on Strike Incidence in EU Companies
Authors: Jansen Giedo
Published: June 2015

The author reinvestigates the relationship between the organizational power of trade unions and strikes based on data from the European Company Survey 2009 (ECS-2009) and the Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts (ICTWSS) database, which include more than 5,000 firms across all 27 European Union (EU) member states. He shows that the incidence of strikes is higher in companies for which workplace union membership is high, the number of workplace unions is high, and unions dominate establishment-level works councils. These factors interact to affect strike incidence. In addition, the company-level effects of union organization on strike incidence vary across countries. These country differences can partially be explained by differences in national trade union systems, such as decentralization and membership density.
Distributional Changes in the Gender Wage Gap
Authors: Kassenboehmer Sonja C. , Sinning Mathias G.
Published: June 2015

Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, the authors analyze changes in wage differentials between white men and women over time and across the entire wage distribution. The authors decompose distributional changes in the gender wage gap to assess the contribution of observed characteristics measuring individual productivity. They find that the gender wage gap narrowed by 16% at the lowest decile and by less than 5% at the highest decile. The decomposition results indicate that changes in the gender wage gap are mainly attributable to changes in educational attainment at the top of the wage distribution, with a sizable part due to work history changes at the bottom. The findings further reveal that the accuracy of the results depends on the direction in which the decompositions are performed.
The Impact of Segregation and Sorting on the Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from German Linked Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data
Authors: Ludsteck Johannes
Published: June 2015

For this study, the author inspects the relationship between segregation in the workplace (measured as the proportion female in job cells) and the gender wage gap using linked longitudinal employer-employee data from the German Employment Register. He extends the literature by controlling for nonrandom sorting of workers into job cells, establishments, and occupations. In line with previous studies, the pooled least squares estimates show that the gender wage gap increases as the job-cell-level proportion of females increases. This increase is attributable to the fact that women experience greater wage declines than men do when additional women enter their job cells. Controlling additionally for unobserved heterogeneity at the individual, establishment, occupation, and job-cell levels considerably reduces the size of the proportion female effects on women's wages while rendering the effects on men's wages insignificant or even positive. The same controls also significantly decrease the proportion effects on the wage gap. The related sorting analysis shows that a good deal of the proportion effects can be explained by unobserved individual ability and suggests that especially women working in job cells with small proportions of females show above-average unobserved individual ability.
The Early History of Program Evaluation and the Department of Labor
Authors: Ashenfelter Orley C.
Published: June 2015

My contact with the Department of Labor began more than 40 years ago, so it is a little alarming to consider that the Department is merely 100 years old! These remarks are addressed to those early days in the history of program evaluation 40 years ago, days that were both challenging and, in retrospect, more influential than anyone in the Department imagined.
It’s a Long Way from Norms to Normality
Authors: Lehndorff Steffen
Published: June 2015

The present overview on existing research addresses the double implication of working-time standards as legal (or contractual) norms, on the one hand, and socially established normality, on the other. Looking primarily at the evidence on the statutory 35-hour week in France, the author discusses the question of how changes in norms as stipulated by law or collective agreements may affect working-time practices in the society. Given the specific institutional and policy tradition of statist intervention in France, a comparison with the effects of the contractual 35-hour week on actual hours in the West German metal industry highlights particular strengths and weaknesses of the French approach. While the empirical evidence underscores the crucial importance of statutory norms and the interaction between governments and social actors, it equally reveals the increasing difficulties to set limits to normal hours for growing shares of the workforce just by setting statutory or collective norms. The transformation of new working-time norms into normality leading to a generalized shorter standard workweek is a long-term social process that requires continual intervention of actors at various levels and must be embedded in agreements both at the workplace and within households.
Skill Gaps, Skill Shortages, and Skill Mismatches
Authors: Cappelli Peter H.
Published: June 2015

Concerns over the supply of skills in the U.S. labor force, especially education-related skills, have exploded in recent years with a series of reports not only from employer-associated organizations but also from independent and even government sources making similar claims. These complaints about skills are driving much of the debate around labor force and education policy, yet they have not been examined carefully. In this article, the author assesses the range of these charges as well as other evidence about skills in the labor force. Very little evidence is consistent with the complaints about a skills shortage, and a wide range of evidence suggests the complaints are not warranted. Indeed, a reasonable conclusion is that overeducation remains the persistent and even growing condition of the U.S. labor force with respect to skills. The author considers three possible explanations for the employer complaints and the associated policy implications.
Is Skill Mismatch Impeding U.S. Economic Recovery?
Authors: Abraham Katharine G.
Published: June 2015

As the labor market continues its slow return to health following the Great Recession, economic policymakers have been concerned that unemployed workers do not have the skills required for the jobs that employers would like to fill. In this article, the author reviews available evidence and finds little empirical basis for the view that skill mismatch has impeded U.S. economic recovery. She then considers why the widespread perception of serious skill mismatch is so much at odds with what the data suggest. The article concludes with a brief discussion of implications for policy.
A Road Map to Vocational Education and Training in Industrialized Countries
Authors: Eichhorst Werner , Rodríguez-Planas Núria , Schmidl Ricarda , Zimmermann Klaus F.
Published: June 2015

Young people have been among those most affected by the recent financial crisis. Vocational education and training (VET) is often viewed as the silver bullet for the youth joblessness problem. In this article, the authors provide a better understanding of VET in industrialized countries, proposing a typology with three types of vocational systems: 1) vocational and technical schools, 2) formal apprenticeships, and 3) dual apprenticeship systems that combine school training with a firm-based approach. They first describe the strengths and challenges of each system. They subsequently review the evidence of the effectiveness of VET versus general education and the relative effectiveness of the different VET systems. Results indicate that VET is a valued alternative beyond the core of general education and that the use of apprenticeships combined with institutional learning tends to be more effective than school-based VET.
Performance-Related Pay and Firm Productivity
Authors: Lucifora Claudio , Origo Federica
Published: June 2015

The authors investigate the causal effect on firm productivity of a switch from fixed wages to collective performance-related pay, exploiting a reform in the structure of collective bargaining triggered by a social pact. They find that an increase in the adoption of collective performance-related pay leads to a 3 to 5% productivity gain but that such effect declines over time. They show that the effect on productivity varies substantially by firm size, industry affiliation, and union density. Both the size of the bonus and the design of the scheme—in terms of number and types of parameters used—are also important features for a firm’s productivity.
Erratum
Authors: Barron John M. , Gilley Otis W.
Published: June 2015

The Impact of Unemployment Insurance on the Search Process

A SERIOUS coding error in the data used in our recent article published in the April 1979 Review has been pointed out by Joe Stone of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our paper proposed a test of Mortensen's hy-pothesis that both future expected unem- ployment insurance benefits and benefits re-ceived during a current unemployment spell affect an individual's search intensity.

Regression 1, which remains unchanged, still provides no support for Mortensen's proposed effect of unemployment insurance benefits to be received during the subse- quent unemployment spell on the current job-search intensity of the unemployed. Regression 3, which remains unchanged, still indicates a distortion in the search process-in particular in the methods of search chosen-for current recipients of unem- ployment insurance benefits and the un- employed who are eligible and have applied for these benefits.

The error affects the results of the estimnation of Equation 2. It occurred because unemployed individuals who were eligible and had applied for benefits were assigned zero weeks left to receive these benefits rather than the maximum allowable duration of benefits according to the individual's state of residence. As a result, the value of unem- ployment insurance benefits for these individuals was inadvertently set equal to zero. Yet these individuals, other things equal, were shown in our original study to have a measured job-search intensity 74 percent higher than individuals currently receiving unemployment insurance, a difference related to the time involved in the ap- plication process rather than to actual job- search efforts.

Reestimation of Equation 2 controlling for this effect and correcting for the measure- ment error in the value of unemployment benefits results in one important change. The coefficient on the value of unemployment insurance benefits, though still negative, is riot different from zero for standard significance levels. A serious consequence is that the traditional disincentive effect of unemployment insurance on search in- tensity is not supported by our test. One explanation for this finding may be that individuals with larger values of unemployment benefits have a greater incentive to overstate search intensity since such benefits are dependent on search activity.
United States Immigration Policy and Unsanctioned Migrants
Authors: Fogel Walter
Published: June 2015

After providing an introduction to the symposium as a whole, this paper argues that basic changes are needed in this country's immigration policy to cope with the large flow of migrants who have entered the United States illegally in recent years. Fogel attacks the position, described best in Michael J. Piore's recent study, Birds of Passage, that most illegal immigrants fill only those jobs that native workers will not take and intend their stay in the United States to be temporary, not permanent. Fogel disputes both of those claims and argues that alternate forms of adjustment to labor shortages are available and preferable. He favors an immigration policy that would make our society less heavily dependent on rapid economic growth and, by reducing the number of migrants permitted to enter this country, would increase the relative wage of low-skilled indigenous workers. He recommends particularly the adoption of a law prohibiting the employment of illegal aliens and levying civil or criminal penalties on employers who violate that law.
Wage Determination in the Union and Nonunion Sectors: A Sample Selectivity Approach
Authors: Duncan Gregory M. , Leigh Duane E.
Published: June 2015

This paper re-examines the question, recently raised in this journal by Bloch and Kuskin, of whether wages are determined differently in the union and nonunion sectors. Whereas Bloch and Kuskin employed ordinary least squares to estimate separate wage equations for the two sectors, this study uses a methodology proposed by Heckman and by Lee to correct for the possibility that wage differences may determine the union status of workers as well as vice versa. The authors find that union status is strongly related to the predicted union-nonunion wage differential, but their evidence nevertheless reinforces Bloch and Kuskin's empirical finding that the union earnings function is less sensitive than the nonunion earnings function to changes in nearly every observable attribute of workers, such as education and experience. The authors also conclude that previous studies using separately estimated union and nonunion wage equations may have understated the success of unions in raising the relative wages of their members.
Presidential Labor-Management Committees: Productive Failures
Authors: Moye William T.
Published: June 2015

Over the last quarter-century, six Presidents have sought to encourage labor-management-government collaboration through the creation of advisory committees. This study describes how these committees have grappled with such crucial topics as wage-price stabilization, fiscal and monetary policy, and the employment problems created by technological change. Each of these committees eventually expired for a number of reasons: some Presidents ignored them and others viewed them as an exercise in public relations; business and labor representatives sooner or later disagreed with presidential policies and with each other; and those representatives could not speak for all American employers and workers. Nonetheless, the author concludes, the committees produced some concrete achievements, such as recommending or providing important support for certain programs, and they also provided a needed forum in which labor and business leaders could discuss issues of mutual concern.
The Davis-Bacon Act: An Appraisal of Recent Studies
Authors: Goldfarb Robert S. , Morrall John F.
Published: June 2015

The intensified controversy in recent years over the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires the payment of prevailing wages on federally funded construction projects, has resulted in several new studies of the effects of that act. This invited paper reviews the evidence presented in these recent studies on several aspects of the act, including how Davis-Bacon wage determinations compare to local construction wages as measured by sources other than the act's administrators; the effects of lags in the act's data-gathering process; and the savings that would result from calculating the prevailing rate as the arithmetic mean of local wages instead of the current use of the modal rate in most cases. The authors conclude that although the cost studies to date have been faulty in several respects, it is reasonably clear that Davis-Bacon is unattractive on grounds of economic efficiency alone. The question remains, however, whether these efficiency costs are offset, partially or wholly, by the possible equity benefits of the act.
The Mobility of Professional Workers and Fair Hiring
Authors: Haber Sheldon E.
Published: June 2015

In Title VII cases involving hiring discrimination, local area data are generally used to determine the composition of the labor pool available to a firm, but national data are employed for professional workers because their labor market is assumed to be nationwide. This study analyzes data from the 1970 Census Public Use Sample to determine spatial mobility by occupation. A model is formulated which takes spatial mobility into account in estimating the proportion that blacks were expected to comprise of the labor pool available to employers in New York City and Philadelphia. When the model's estimates are compared with the data on the actual patterns of employment and mobility, the results show that not only are local area data less appropriate for professionals than for blue-collar workers but national data can also be misleading when applied to professionals. The author concludes that the proportion of blacks among professionals available to a firm often lies somewhere between the estimates derived from local and national data.
The Behavior of Unemployment Insurance Recipients under Adverse Market Conditions
Authors: Cooke William N.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the effect on job search behavior of changes in unemployment insurance (UI) provisions and in labor market conditions. There are good reasons for assuming, on the one hand, that more generous benefits prolong job search and, on the other hand, that an increase in the rate of unemployment causes recipients to reduce reservation wages and thus shorten their job search. Previous studies have not resolved which of these tendencies will prevail in case of a conflict. The evidence from two samples of recipients in Maine during the period 1974 – 76, when a significant increase occurred in both the rate of unemployment and the maximum weeks of potential receipt of UI, indicates that the effect of increased unemployment offsets the effect of increased benefits. The author concludes that extended benefit programs during periods of high unemployment do not cause recipients to ignore the realities of the market.
Are Public Sector Workers More Risk Averse Than Private Sector Workers?
Authors: Bellante Don , Link Albert N.
Published: June 2015

Available evidence suggests that stability of employment is greater in the public sector than in the private sector. The value that individuals place on this stability depends on the individual's degree of risk aversion. Economic reasoning suggests that, other things equal, those individuals with a high degree of aversion to risk will be more likely than others to seek employment in the public sector. This paper tests that hypothesis through the use of probit analysis and a measure of risk aversion developed in the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results tend to confirm the hypothesis, implying that a policy of intersectoral equality of pay for comparable jobs would result in an excess supply of workers to the public sector.
Race and Sex Differences in Quits by Young Workers
Authors: Blau Francine D. , Kahn Lawrence M.
Published: June 2015

This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of young men and women to analyze race and sex differences in the probability and consequences of quitting. The authors find that overall quit rates in this group are higher for women than for men and about the same for blacks and whites. When several personal and job characteristics are held constant, however, the quit rates of young men and women are about the same and young blacks actually quit less frequently than young whites. When an instrumental variable approach is used to account for sample heterogeneity, it is found that, for all race and sex groups, quitting improved both current wages and long-term earnings prospects. Further, the improvement in long-term earnings prospects is found to be greater than the gain in current earnings, suggesting that training opportunities are an important consideration in the job shifts of all young people.
Concentration Trends in Union Structure: An International Comparison
Authors: Windmuller John P.
Published: June 2015

The structure of unionism in nine Western countries became on the whole more concentrated during the two decades 1957–58 to 1977–78, as indicated by a reduction in the number of national unions affiliated with major federations and an increase in the relative size of the largest unions. The reasons for the trend, which has implications for the internal life of unions and for collective bargaining, are linked to the efforts of unions to adapt their structure to changes in the environments in which they operate, often reinforced by pro-merger pressures from the central labor federations. The trend toward greater concentration may be expected to continue, especially in countries in which the major trade union federations are still composed of substantial numbers of affiliated unions.
The Differential Impact of CETA Training
Authors: Sawhney Pawan K. , Jantzen Robert H. , Herrnstadt Irwin L.
Published: June 2015

This study analyzes the effectiveness of CETA skill training programs in Boston, using three techniques not often employed in such evaluation studies—a comparison group, multiple regressions incorporating an unusually large number of explanatory variables, and an examination of the effects of differences in the type of skill-training provided. The authors find that these programs provided participants with significant wage and employment benefits, particularly when participants obtained jobs on which they could use the skills they learned. The results also showed, however, that the stability of postprogram employment is sensitive to the type of training received and postprogram wages are even more so.
The Interindustry Structure of Unionism, Earnings, and Earnings Dispersion
Authors: Hirsch Barry T.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the relationship between unionism and earnings dispersion within U.S. manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries. The author hypothesizes not only that unionism narrows earnings dispersion, as others have shown, but also that the dispersion in earnings, reflecting the degree of worker homogeneity, influences the level of unionism. Estimation of a three-equation model, using 1970 three-digit industry data, provides evidence regarding the simultaneous determination of unionism, earnings, and earnings dispersion within U.S. industries. The estimated equalizing effects of unionism on within-industry earnings distributions are found to be significant both in the manufacturing and nonmanufacturing sectors, the size of these estimates increasing after accounting for simultaneity. In addition, the dispersion in earnings does appear to affect the level of unionism, although the evidence on this point is ambiguous.