Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Compensation (11)
- Retirement Policies (8)
- Employment and Compensation (6)
- Academic labor market (4)
- Faculty (4)
-
- Employment (3)
- Higher education (3)
- Mandatory retirement (3)
- Performance (3)
- Public sector (3)
- Unemployment (3)
- Wages (3)
- Discrimination (2)
- Gender (2)
- Gender, Race and Ethnicity (2)
- Hiring (2)
- Labor market (2)
- Mobility (2)
- Overtime (2)
- Public Sector Labor Markets, Nonprofits and Labor Market Regulation (2)
- Public policy (2)
- Retirement policies (2)
- Social Security (2)
- Unions and Collective Bargaining (2)
- Absenteeism (1)
- Affirmative action (1)
- Age (1)
- COLA (1)
- College presidents (1)
- Comparable worth (1)
- File Type
Articles 1 - 23 of 23
Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Merit Pay For School Superintendents?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy A. Ehrenberg
Merit Pay For School Superintendents?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy A. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Given the important role that school district administrators play in the educational process, one might expect their 'performance" to be of fundamental importance in determining both how much students learn and the cost of public education to taxpayers. Yet, while public debate has considered the issue of merit pay plans for teachers, virtually no attention has been directed to the methods by which school administrators are compensated. This paper provides evidence on whether school superintendents are explicitly or implicitly rewarded for their "performance" by higher compensation and/or greater opportunities for mobility. We analyze panel data from over 700 school districts …
Adverse Selection And Incentives In An Early Retirement Program, Kenneth T. Whelan, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Kevin F. Hallock, Ronald L. Seeber
Adverse Selection And Incentives In An Early Retirement Program, Kenneth T. Whelan, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Kevin F. Hallock, Ronald L. Seeber
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
We evaluate potential determinants of enrollment in an early retirement incentive program for non-tenure-track employees of a large university. Using administrative record on the eligible population of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, historical employee count and layoff data by budget units, and public information on unit budgets, we find dips in per-employee finance in a budget unit during the application year and higher recent per employee layoffs were associated with increased probabilities of eligible employee program enrollment. Our results also suggest, on average, that employees whose salaries are lower than we would predict given their personal characteristics and …
Economic And Statistical Analysis Of Discrimination In Hiring, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith
Economic And Statistical Analysis Of Discrimination In Hiring, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Legal and administrative determinations of employers' compliance with "equal employment opportunity" (EEO) requirements often hinge on the Issue of the availability of protected class members to employers. That is, courts and affirmative action review agencies compare the hire rates of protected class members (the ratio of the number of protected class members hired to the number who applied or who were potentially available) to the comparable ratio for other applicants, in assessing whether an employer's hiring policies meet the standards required of them by equal opportunity regulations. The purpose of this paper is to review what economic theory suggests affects …
Paying Our Presidents: What Do Trustees Value?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, John J. Cheslock, Julia Epifantseva
Paying Our Presidents: What Do Trustees Value?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, John J. Cheslock, Julia Epifantseva
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Our study makes use of data from a panel of over 400 private colleges and universities on their presidents’ salaries and benefits. These data, reported annually to the Internal Revenue Service on Form 990, have been collected by and reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education for academic years 1992–1993 through 1997–1998. We merge these data with those from other sources including the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education, Who’s Who in America, the National Association of College and University Business Officers, the Council on Aid to Education, and the National Science Foundation’s CASPAR system. This …
Faculty Retirement Policies After The End Of Mandatory Retirement, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Michael J. Rizzo
Faculty Retirement Policies After The End Of Mandatory Retirement, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Michael J. Rizzo
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The findings we report above have implications for both institutions and their faculty members. In some states, rapidly growing college age cohorts will require academic institutions to hire large numbers of new faculty in the years ahead to fill positions created to meet the expanding demand for enrollments. Nationally, institutions will have to replace a large number of retiring faculty members in the years ahead. This suggests that most institutions’ concern in upcoming years will not be how to encourage their faculty members to retire. Rather, their concern will be how to continue to draw on the skills of …
Cornell Confronts The End Of Mandatory Retirement, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Michael W. Matier, David Fontanella
Cornell Confronts The End Of Mandatory Retirement, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Michael W. Matier, David Fontanella
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] In July 1995, the first author of this paper was appointed vice president of academic programs, planning and budgeting at Cornell and, at his initiative, a joint faculty-administrative committee was subsequently established, with him as chair, to look into how the university should respond to the elimination of mandatory retirement. In this chapter, we discuss the environment in which the university found itself when the committee was established, the recommendations of the committee, faculty reactions to the recommendations, and the actions that the university ultimately decided to pursue.
No Longer Forced Out: How One Institution Is Dealing With The End Of Mandatory Retirement, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
No Longer Forced Out: How One Institution Is Dealing With The End Of Mandatory Retirement, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
: [Excerpt] Why should academic institutions or their faculty care about the end of mandatory retirement for tenured faculty, which became effective in January 1994? From the perspective of an individual tenured faculty member who wants to continue her career beyond age seventy, the elimination is a welcome event. In the past, faculty members who wanted to remain active after reaching seventy had to negotiate their status with institutions that were under no legal obligation to allow them to continue. Now, however, tenured faculty members have the legal right to continue indefinitely in their tenured appointments. From the point of …
Estimating Wage-Fringe Trade-Offs: Some Data Problems, Robert Smith, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Estimating Wage-Fringe Trade-Offs: Some Data Problems, Robert Smith, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] This paper represents an inquiry into some of the data related difficulties inherent in estimating wage-fringe trade-offs, and it explores the usefulness of a particular source of data in meeting these difficulties.
Compensating Wage Differentials For Mandatory Overtime, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Paul L. Schumann
Compensating Wage Differentials For Mandatory Overtime, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Paul L. Schumann
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Our paper estimates the extent to which employees are compensated for an unfavorable job characteristic, being required to accept mandatory assignment of overtime, by receiving higher straight—time wages. Our estimating equations are derived from a model in which wage rates and the existence of mandatory assignment of overtime are jointly determined in the market by the interaction of employee and employer preferences. While on average, we do not observe the existence of a compensating wage differential for mandatory overtime, we do observe the existence of such differentials for unionized workers and workers with only a few years experience at a …
Why Warn? The Impact Of Recent Plant-Closing And Layoff Prenotification Legislation In The United States, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, George H. Jakubson
Why Warn? The Impact Of Recent Plant-Closing And Layoff Prenotification Legislation In The United States, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, George H. Jakubson
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] WARN was passed only after a decade of strenuous debate. We can now look back and address a number of issues it raised. What benefits did its proponents think would arise from the notice legislation, and what costs did its opponents think there would be? What public policies toward advance notice do other nations have? Did displaced workers in the United States receive advance notice before the passage of WARN? What do we know empirically about the effects on workers and firms of the provision of advance notice? What has experience under WARN taught us? Finally, what research issues …
The Costs Of Defined Benefit Pension Plans And Firm Adjustments, Burt S. Barnow, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
The Costs Of Defined Benefit Pension Plans And Firm Adjustments, Burt S. Barnow, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] While it is obvious that the costs of term life insurance vary directly with age, it is less obvious how employers' contributions to pension funds, which comprise a major share of nonwage compensation, vary. As such, we focus in this paper on the most common variant of pension plans and demonstrate how an employer's cost of fully funding a plan varies with the age and service characteristics of his work force. This cost, as a percent of annual salary, is seen to increase with employees' ages and, in some cases, years of service. This variation has important implications for …
Retirement Policies, Employment, And Unemployment, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Retirement Policies, Employment, And Unemployment, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] There is a growing consensus among economists that reliance on aggregate demand policies alone will not be sufficient to move the economy to full employment with a nonaccelerating inflation rate, and that policies which alter the structure of labor markets will be required. While obvious structural policies such as public sector employment programs and training programs are the focus of current debate, many other public policies affect labor markets in subtle ways which may well adversely affect the level and distribution of employment and unemployment. To help improve the inflation-unemployment tradeoff, policymakers should seek to marginally modify these policies, …
Do Economics Departments With Lower Tenure Probabilities Pay Higher Faculty Salaries?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Paul Pieper, Rachel Willis
Do Economics Departments With Lower Tenure Probabilities Pay Higher Faculty Salaries?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Paul Pieper, Rachel Willis
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
The simplest competitive labor market model asserts that if tenure is a desirable job characteristic for professors, they should be willing to pay for it by accepting lower salaries. Conversely, if an institution unilaterally reduces the probability that its assistant professors receive tenure, it will have to pay higher salaries to attract new faculty. Our paper tests this theory using data on salary offers accepted by new assistant professors at economics departments in the United States during the 1974-75 to 1980-81 period, along with data on the proportion of new Ph.D.s hired by each department between 1970 and 1980 that …
The Impact Of Retirement Policies On Employment And Unemployment, Ronald Ehrenberg
The Impact Of Retirement Policies On Employment And Unemployment, Ronald Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] This paper has focused on the impact of retirement policies on the level and distribution of employment and unemployment. All of the policies discussed, except for early retirement provisions in privately negotiated collective bargaining contracts were seen to have adverse effects on the level and distribution of employment. Hence, the paper illustrates the more general point that policies designed to promote one social goal may well detract from achieving other goals and suggests that more explicit attention should be given to the employment effects of social programs and legislation prior to their adoption.
Executive Compensation In Municipalities, Gerald S. Goldstein, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Executive Compensation In Municipalities, Gerald S. Goldstein, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] In this paper we are concerned with the salaries of three important municipal officials; city-managers, police chiefs, and fire chiefs. We present a model that relates the salaries of these officials to a set of explanatory variables, the most important being measures associated with job performance. Two of these measures of performance are developed in the study. Further, the influence of the city-manager form of government on the incentive structure facing police chiefs and fire chiefs, and the interdependence betwen the salaries of police chiefs and fire chiefs is investigated. The model is tested using cross-section data for 1967.
Cost-Of-Living Adjustment Clauses In Union Contracts: A Summary Of Results, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Leif Danziger, Gee San
Cost-Of-Living Adjustment Clauses In Union Contracts: A Summary Of Results, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Leif Danziger, Gee San
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Our paper provides an explanation why cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) provisions and their characteristics vary widely across U.S. industries. We develop models of optimal risk sharing between a firm and union to investigate the determinants of a number of contract characteristics. These include the presence and degree of wage indexing, the magnitude of deferred noncontingent wage increases, contract duration, and the trade-off between temporary layoffs and wage indexing. Preliminary empirical tests of some of the implications of the model are described. One key finding is that the level of unemployment insurance benefits appears to influence the level of layoffs and the …
Comparable Worth In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith
Comparable Worth In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] At the theoretical level, we conclude that the case for comparable worth rests on the argument that the current distribution of female employees is based on discriminatory barriers which existing legislation have not broken down. If this argument is valid, the desirability of comparable worth depends upon one's perceptions of how the benefits it provides contrasts with the efficiency losses it induces. Given the trade-offs involved, ultimately one's position on comparable worth must depend on value judgments.
Comparable-Worth Wage Adjustments And Female Employment In The State And Local Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert S. Smith
Comparable-Worth Wage Adjustments And Female Employment In The State And Local Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert S. Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Our paper simulates the likely effects of a comparable-worth wage-adjustment policy in the state and local sector on female employment in the sector. The simulation is based on estimates of within-occupation male/female substitution and across-occupation occupational employment substitution that we obtain using data from the 1980 Census of Population.
Officer Performance And Compensation In Local Building Trades Unions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Officer Performance And Compensation In Local Building Trades Unions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] This paper presents estimates of the relationship between the performance and compensation of local building trades union leaders. A growing literature has revived the common-sense notion that organizations should structure the compensation of both their employees and their executives so as to encourage them to take actions consistent with the goals of the organizations. One way to minimize the probability that executives will take actions contrary to the organization's goals is to tie their compensation to measures of their organization's performance.
Absenteeism And The Overtime Decision, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Absenteeism And The Overtime Decision, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] Upon reading the congressional hearing on the Overtime Pay Penalty Act of 1964, one cannot fail to be impressed by the emphasis that management places on absenteeism as a primary cause of overtime. The argument given is basically quite simple: Large firms, it is claimed, attempt to account for absenteeism by hiring standby workers; however because of the stochastic nature of the absentee rate, it is impossible for them to have replacements always available. Hence overtime must be worked by existing employees in order to meet production schedules. One concludes from this argument that the randomness of absenteeism is …
Retirement System Characteristics And Compensating Wage Differentials In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Retirement System Characteristics And Compensating Wage Differentials In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
This paper presents evidence that a trade-off exists between wages and certain characteristics of retirement systems in the public sector. Cross-section econometric estimates for uniformed municipal employees, based upon data from two national surveys of municipalities, suggest that, other things equal, an increase in the contribution made by uniformed employees to their retirement system leads to a compensating increase in their salaries, while retirement systems with more "generous" characteristics are associated to some extent with lower salaries. The estimates also indicate that the extent of retirement system underfunding is related to employers' and employees' perceptions of the probability that promised …
Introduction: Do Compensation Policies Matter?, Ronald Ehrenberg
Introduction: Do Compensation Policies Matter?, Ronald Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The papers in this volume should give the reader a sense of the exciting empirical research that has recently taken place on compensation-related issues. As a set, these papers considerably expand our empirical evidence on the effects of compensation policies. Several papers show that executive compensation is structured in a way that at least implicitly ties executive compensation changes to measures of corporate performance, and —crucially—that doing so leads to improved corporate performance (Leonard, Murphy/Gibbons, Abowd). Others show that compensation systems that pay workers for performance, in the sense of providing explicit or implicit incentives for high levels of …
Determinants Of The Compensation And Mobility Of School Superintendents, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ehrenberg
Determinants Of The Compensation And Mobility Of School Superintendents, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Analyzing 197-83 panel data from more than 700 New York State school districts, the authors find evidence that school superintendents were rewarded, both by higher salary increases and by enhanced opportunities to move to belter-paying jobs, for having low school tax rates and high educational achievement within their districts, relative to the values of those variables in comparable school districts in the state. The rewards were, however, quite small. The analysis also suggests that the superintendents themselves did not significantly influence either school tax rates or educational test scores in their districts.