Labor eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Following the Leader: Race and Player Behavior in the 1987 NFL Strike","authors":"Cynthia L. Gramm, John F. Schnell","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.39100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.39100","url":null,"abstract":"The NFL's decision to hold regularly scheduled games during the 1987 strike by the NFL Players' Association forced NFL players to choose between behaving in a manner consistent with either the union's objective (i.e., withholding labor) or the employing team's objective (i.e., supplying labor). In this chapter, we use data on player behavior during this strike to test the general proposition that a member of an organization will be more likely to behave in a manner that is consistent with the organization's objectives when the demographic traits, in particular race, of organizational leaders with whom the member has opportunities to interact regularly are similar to those of the member. Our findings suggest that having formal organizational leaders in the same racial category significantly influences the behavior of nonwhites, but not of whites. As hypothesized, the percent of the team?s coaches who are of the same race as the player has a significantly positive effect and having a team union representative of the same race has a significantly negative effect on the probability that a nonwhite player returns to work during the strike. Neither the percent of the team?s coaches who are of the same race as the player nor having a team union representative of the same race has a statistically significant effect on the choice made by white players. Our results also suggest that both white and nonwhite players are more likely to cross the picket line when a same-race peer leader crosses the picket line than when a different-race peer (team) leader crosses the picket line.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"118 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123220499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do Trade Unions Actually Worsen Economic Performance?","authors":"Jan Rose Sørensen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.44634","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.44634","url":null,"abstract":"The answer to the question in the title of course depends on how we define economic performance. In an overlapping generations model we show that trade unions do worsen economic performance in the sense that we get uemployment, but it is quite likely that trade unions give rise to a higher growth rate than what would have been the case if the labour market were ambiguous. One surprising result is that trade unions give rise to an unambiguous decrease in welfare if bargaining is over all variables affecting the bargaining parties (i.e. \"efficient bargaining\"), whereas welfare may increase if bargaining is only over a subset of the variables affecting the bargaining parties (e.g. training and wage).","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123684861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Divergent Inequalities -- Theory, Empirical Results and Prescriptions","authors":"M. Wolfson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.66212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.66212","url":null,"abstract":"Widely used summary measures of inequality or the \"disappearing middle class\" are potentially misleading. Divergences between evidence cited and conclusions drawn include failing to distinguish the concepts of inequality and polarization, and using scalar ?inequality? measures which are not consistent with rankings based on Lorenz curves. In addition, inappropriate claims about trends in inequality can arise from focusing on only a sub-population such as full-time male workers, and failing to account for sampling variability. These divergences are illustrated using Canadian data on labour incomes over the 1967 to 1994 period.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"149 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122725208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Microeconomic Analysis of Slavery in Comparison to Free Labor Economies","authors":"H. Ergin, S. Sayan","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.62685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.62685","url":null,"abstract":"In addition to supervision costs, the labor cost of an enterprise (plantation) in the system of slavery consists of the cost of acquiring the slaves and the subsistence compensation given out to the slaves. In this paper, we leave aside the issue of supervision costs previously taken up in the theoretical literature on slavery, and focus on these two peculiar components of labor costs. We analyze the implications of this cost structure on the levels of profitability, efficiency and determination of equilibrium wages, and compare them to systems with free labor markets, along a continuum of demand side Cournotic competition. For this purpose, we first use a model characterized by a decreasing returns to scale technology, and show, parallel to the findings of Vedder, et. al. (1990), that the equilibrium subsistence wage in the system of slavery is strictly lower than the marginal product of labor. We then extend the model, given the same technology and preferences, to free labor markets covering possibilities ranging from monopsony to perfect competition in the limit, and obtain a second and perhaps more striking result: Differently from equilibria in imperfectly competitive free labor markets, slavery and perfect competition equilibria are Pareto optimal. Furthermore, our comparisons across labor market scenarios suggest that the resistance of slaveholders to the abolishment of slavery is directly related to the expected level of demand side competition in the free labor market which would replace slavery. Finally, we show that the conclusions derived from our analysis would remain generally valid under a constant returns to scale technology as well.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116908897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Equilibrium Search Models and the Transition from School to Work","authors":"Audra J. Bowlus, N. Kiefer, G. Neumann","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.40040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.40040","url":null,"abstract":"This paper applies an equilibrium search to study the transition from schooling to work of U.S. high school graduates. We consider the case where there is heterogeneity in firm productivity and the number of firm types is discrete. For this case the estimation problem is non-standard and the likelihood function is non-differentiable. This paper provides a computational method to obtain the MLE and, through several Monte Carlo studies, characterizes the behavior of the estimator. Applying these methods to the transition from school to work, our results show that nonemployed blacks receive fewer offers than whites and employed blacks are more likely to lose their jobs. Importantly, employed blacks and whites receive job offers at the same rate. However, the difference in job destruction rates is so great that it accounts for three-quarters of the black-white wage differential.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134273552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Human Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Farm Household Earnings","authors":"D. Yang, M. An","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.8594","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.8594","url":null,"abstract":"Farm households in modern environments engage in multiple productive activities. In this paper we formulate and estimate a profit maximization model in which human capital enhances earnings through both activity-specific effects and across-activity factor allocation. Our purpose is to decompose these contributions. The model is estimated using Chinese household data that contain detailed activity information. We find that schooling and experience improve the allocation of family-supplied inputs between agricultural and non-agricultural uses, counting for 46 percent of their total returns. The evidence suggests that studies ignoring activity choice could substantially undervalue the role of human capital in development.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134329804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Jobs Lost, Jobs Regained: An Analysis of Black/White Differences in Job Displacement in the 1980s","authors":"R. Fairlie, L. Kletzer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.38048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.38048","url":null,"abstract":"Over the period 1982 to 1991, black men were considerably more likely to experience job displacement than were white men, and following displacement, the likelihood of reemployment was substantially lower for black men. Using data from the 1984 to 1992 Displaced Worker Surveys, we find that black men experienced rates of job displacement that were 30 percent higher, and reemployment rates that were 30 percent lower, than the corresponding rates for white men. We find that racial differences in education levels and occupational distributions explain part of these racial gaps in job displacement and reemployment, whereas racial differences in industry distributions worked to narrow these gaps.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130218408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"International Competitiveness: Labor Productivity Leadership and Convergence Among 14 OECD Countries","authors":"Morton Schnabel","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.329","url":null,"abstract":"From 1970 through 1991, the United States led other OECD countries in overall labor productivity, a key measure of national competitiveness. During this period, labor productivity in these countries converged, both towards the mean OECD labor productivity and the U.S. level of labor productivity. This suggests living standards among the OECD countries are becoming more alike. In the latter half of the period, the rate of convergence slowed. The industrial components of aggregate labor productivity offer insight into the causes of this convergence slowdown. Although most industry groups continued to converge between 1982 and 1991, two key industry groups--1) Manufacturing, and 2) Finance, insurance and real estate and business services--did not. Growth in Japanese labor productivity created the divergence in Finance, insurance and real estate and business services. Strong manufacturing labor productivity growth in United States high-technology industries was a primary cause of the divergence in Manufacturing. In 1991, the United States was among the labor productivity leaders in almost all manufacturing industries. It was, however, no longer the unequivocal labor productivity leader in these industries. Other countries had overtaken U.S. labor productivity in three of the nine industries and retained the lead in three other industries. Japan, for example, had a dominant lead in Chemicals and chemical petroleum, coal, rubber and plastic products. The United States, however, held a considerable lead in Fabricated metal products, machinery and equipment, which includes most key high-technology manufacturing industries. The slowdown of OECD labor productivity convergence toward the U.S. level since 1982 is a sign of continued U.S. competitiveness. The results of this analysis of selected OECD countries at the aggregate and industry levels suggest that the pundits of the 1980s were too quick to point to the demise of the U.S. competitiveness. These results show that although the United States? overall labor productivity lead is not as overwhelming as it once was, the United States continues to lead in overall labor productivity and in labor productivity in many important individual industries. This is not to say that there are no reasons to watch U.S. labor productivity measures closely and explore the roots of labor productivity changes. The situation is, however, much more complicated and not necessarily as dire as some analysts suggested during the 1980s.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"67 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132478736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"European Trade with Lower-Income Countries and the Relative Wages of the Unskilled: An Exploratory Analysis for West Germany and the U.K.","authors":"Matthias Lücke","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.54052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.54052","url":null,"abstract":"This paper develops a Heckscher-Ohlin-type framework in which relative factor prices are affected by output prices as well as by total factor productivity growth. The empirical analysis finds no evidence that the relative prices of unskilled-labour- intensive manufactures, adjusted for total factor productivity growth, declined after 1970 to depress the wages or employment opportunities (in the presence of an inflexible wage structure) of unskilled labour. Similarly, neither in West Germany nor in the UK did changes in the commodity composition of foreign trade reflect a sustained rise in the stock of unskilled labour in the rest of the world (which they should if labour markets were strongly affected by growing developing country exports).","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122300388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effect of Old Age Assistance on Retirement","authors":"Leora Friedberg","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.49040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.49040","url":null,"abstract":"Researchers have devoted considerable attention to analyzing the impact of Social Security on retirement, with mixed findings. However, Old Age Assistance (OAA), a means-tested program established at the same time, dwarfed Social Security until the 1950s and coincided with the early decline in elderly participation. In addition, OAA benefit levels were determined by the states - a key source of policy variation that is missing in the case of Social Security. I estimate the relationship between OAA benefit levels and elderly labor force participation using individual data from the 1940 and 1950 Censuses. The effect of OAA is found to be strong and implies that participation would have risen slightly instead of falling if benefits had not been raised during the 1940s. I also present evidence against the endogeneity of state benefit levels.","PeriodicalId":114523,"journal":{"name":"Labor eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126169857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}