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Selected Works

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

2012

Articles 31 - 60 of 85

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Career's End: A Survey Of Faculty Retirement Policies, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Sep 2012

Career's End: A Survey Of Faculty Retirement Policies, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

There are almost as many ways to retire from the academy as there are types of schools. But, as a recent study shows, institutional planning can prevent unpleasant surprises.


On Overtime Hours Legislation, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Sep 2012

On Overtime Hours Legislation, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In the United States, proposals have been periodically introduced into Congress to amend the provisions of the Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) to restrict the use of overtime hours and stimulate employment growth. This report summarizes the research I have conducted since 1970 on the likely effects of these proposed policy changes and my appraisal of their desirability. Although all of the empirical results I discuss pertain to United States data, they suggest the type of empirical analyses that should be undertaken with Canadian data before decisions about policy changes are made here. I begin in the first main …


Unequal Progress: The Annual Report On The Economic Status Of The Profession 2002-03, Ronald Ehrenberg Sep 2012

Unequal Progress: The Annual Report On The Economic Status Of The Profession 2002-03, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Most colleges and universities adopted budgets for the 2002-03 academic year in the spring and early summer of 2002. At that time, a pessimist might have cited several factors – negative rates of return from institutional endowments, a rising unemployment rate, an economic recession, and large increases in college and university enrollments, for example - to predict that faculty members would not see their earnings increase substantially in real terms in the coming year. The good news is that, overall and on average, the pessimists' worst fears proved incorrect. The bad news is that the overall aver-ages don't tell …


Estimating Wage-Fringe Trade-Offs: Some Data Problems, Robert Smith, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

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.


Prospects In The Academic Labor Market For Economists, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Prospects In The Academic Labor Market For Economists, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] American colleges and universities are increasingly substituting nontenure track full-time and part-time faculty for full-time tenured and tenure track faculty. Moreover, institutions of public higher education, where almost two-thirds of the full-time faculty members at four-year institutions are employed, are under severe financial pressure. The share of state budgets devoted to public higher education is declining. The salaries of economics department faculty members at public higher education institutions have fallen substantially relative to the salaries of their counterparts at private higher education institutions, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the publics to compete for top faculty in economics. …


Adam Smith Goes To College: An Economist Becomes An Academic Administrator, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Adam Smith Goes To College: An Economist Becomes An Academic Administrator, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] I have conducted research and taught classes on the economics of higher education for almost 20 years. I spent the last three years as a senior central administrator and executive officer of Cornell University. ... My experiences in this position opened my eyes to the use and uselessness of economic analysis in trying to help guide a major university and what I have learned is the focus of this essay. I begin by asking whether it is useful to view universities in a utility-maximizing framework, as I and others have done in the past. I show that the way …


Workers’ Compensation, Wages, And The Risk Of Injury, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Workers’ Compensation, Wages, And The Risk Of Injury, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In many respects the structures of the workers' compensation and unemployment insurance systems are similar. Each is actually a system of individual state systems. Both are financed by a payroll tax that is imperfectly experience rated. Both provide insurance against an adverse consequence (work injury or unemployment) that leads to time away from work; the incidence and duration of these events are at least partially determined by both employer and employee behavior. Both systems provide, at least for temporary events, a structure of benefits that ties compensation to a worker's previous earnings. Because of these similarities, it is not …


Are School Superintendents Rewarded For “Performance”?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ann Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Are School Superintendents Rewarded For “Performance”?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ann Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This chapter presents analyses of the compensation and mobility of school superintendents in New York State during the 1978-79 to 1982-83 period. The focus is on school superintendents because they are the chief operating officers of school districts, their salaries are determined through individual "negotiations" with school boards, and their salary data were made available to us. In contrast, school principals' salary data were not available to us. Especially in large districts, principals tend to be members of a union and their salary increases negotiated collectively, which limits the likelihood of observing individual principals' salaries being related to measures …


Public Sector Labor Markets, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Joshua L. Schwarz Aug 2012

Public Sector Labor Markets, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Joshua L. Schwarz

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper provides a critical survey of the literature dealing with public sector labor markets. It discusses the research by economists on wage determination in the state and local sector (including the effects of. unions), on the estimation of compensating wage differentials for pecuniary and nonpecuniary job characteristics, on the effects of unions on productivity, on the estimation of public sector demand and for labor functions, on dispute resolution, on public/private pay differentials, and on gender and race discrimination in the public sector. Numerous suggestions for future research are offered.


Empirical Consequences Of Comparable Worth, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Empirical Consequences Of Comparable Worth, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] To help focus subsequent debate, this paper presents a nontechnical survey of the small but growing empirical literature by economists on the consequences of comparable worth. I discuss in turn studies of the consequences of comparable worth on the male-female earnings gap, of its potential to affect adversely the employment of women, of its effects on the labor supply and occupational mobility of women, and of its effects on women and their families as a group. The survey is critical in nature and points to areas in which research is needed.


Compensating Wage Differentials For Mandatory Overtime, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Paul L. Schumann Aug 2012

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 …


Are Black Colleges Producing Today's African-American Lawyers?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Are Black Colleges Producing Today's African-American Lawyers?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

In past years, almost all of America's black lawyers came from historically black colleges and universities because these schools were the only ones that would admit black students. Today, it appears that black colleges are producing increasingly fewer of the nation's black lawyers.


The Social Security Student Benefit Program And Family Decisions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

The Social Security Student Benefit Program And Family Decisions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

In 1965 Congress established the Social Security Student Benefit Program which provided benefits for children of deceased, disabled or retired workers, who were enrolled in college full—time and were not married, up until the semester they turned age 22. The program grew to be a major financial aid program; at its peak in FY 81 it represented about 20% of all federal outlays on student assistance for higher education. The program was terminated for students newly entering college as of May 1, 1982. Somewhat surprisingly, in contrast to the debate that accompanies most social programs, debate over the student benefit …


The Changing Distributions Of New Ph.D. Economists And Their Employment: Implications For The Future, Ronald Ehrenberg Aug 2012

The Changing Distributions Of New Ph.D. Economists And Their Employment: Implications For The Future, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Academic careers are no longer the be-all and end-all for economics Ph.D. students, and the findings and background provided by Siegfried and Stock help to explain why this is so. The median age at which individuals receive economics Ph.D.'s in the Siegfried and Stock sample is 32. While they are somewhat surprised at this finding, it parallels the experiences of many other fields. Increasingly, students are working before proceeding to doctoral studies. Often Ph.D. students in economics enter their programs after having spent several years working for government agencies or research consulting companies—work that has whetted their appetites for …


My Life And Economics, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

My Life And Economics, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Age 51 is a bit early to be writing a retrospective about one's career as an economist and one's life. This is especially true for me since I am not on track to win a Nobel Prize, to be admitted to the National Academy of Science, or even to be elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Nonetheless, as I write this essay during the fall of 1997, I look back on the 28 years I have spent as a PhD economist and see a record of accomplishment of which I am proud and a number of messages worth …


Why Warn? The Impact Of Recent Plant-Closing And Layoff Prenotification Legislation In The United States, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, George H. Jakubson Aug 2012

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 Effect Of Unions On Productivity In The Public Sector: The Case Of Municipal Libraries, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Joshua L. Schwarz Aug 2012

The Effect Of Unions On Productivity In The Public Sector: The Case Of Municipal Libraries, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Joshua L. Schwarz

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This paper represents our initial efforts at analyzing the effects of unions on productivity in the public sector. We first sketch an analytical framework that can be used to estimate these effects, focusing for expository purposes on municipal public libraries. We initially focus on libraries because considerable effort has been devoted to conceptualizing productivity measures for them and because of the availability of data to implement the framework. After discussing the analytical framework, we present preliminary estimtes of the effects of unions on productivity in public libraries based upon analyses of data from 71 municipal libraries in Massachusetts. We …


The Costs Of Defined Benefit Pension Plans And Firm Adjustments, Burt S. Barnow, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

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 Aug 2012

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 Aug 2012

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 Aug 2012

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.


How Would Universities Respond To Increased Federal Support For Graduate Students?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer Aug 2012

How Would Universities Respond To Increased Federal Support For Graduate Students?, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This paper has demonstrated that doctorate-producing universities respond to changes in the number of FTSEG students supported on external funds by altering the number of FTSEG students that they support on institutional funds. While institutional adjustment to changes in external support levels appears to be quite rapid, in the aggregate the magnitude of these responses is quite small. A increase of 100 in the number of FTSEG students supported by external funds is estimated to reduce the number supported on institutional funds by 22 to 23. Since some of the institutional funds that are "saved" may be redirected to …


The Flow Of New Doctorates, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

The Flow Of New Doctorates, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] As noted by Bowen and Sosa, their projections of the supply side of the academic labor market, which are typical of those used in other studies, are based on a number of simplifying assumptions. Similarly, their proposed policy remedies to increase the flow of new doctorates, such as increasing financial support for graduate students and shortening the time it takes students to receive degrees, are made presenting only scanty evidence on the likely magnitude of supply responses to these changes. This essay, which draws heavily from my study (Ehrenberg 1991), reviews the academic literature and available data (from a …


Institutional Responses To Increased External Support For Graduate Students, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer Aug 2012

Institutional Responses To Increased External Support For Graduate Students, Ronald Ehrenberg, Daniel Rees, Dominic Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper uses institutionally based data to estimate how universities would respond to increased federal support for graduate students. It demonstrates that doctorate-producing universities do respond to changes in the number of full-time science and engineering students supported on external funds by altering the number of students that they support on institutional funds. Institutional adjustment to changes in external support levels appears to be quite rapid. However, in the aggregate, the magnitude of these responses is quite small.


Executive Compensation In Municipalities, Gerald S. Goldstein, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

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.


Household Allocation Of Time And Church Attendance, Corry Azzi, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Household Allocation Of Time And Church Attendance, Corry Azzi, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper presents the first systematic attempt by economists to analyze the determinants of individuals' participation in religious activities. A multiperiod utility-maximizing model of household behavior is developed which includes among its implications the shape of a house-hold's life-cycle religious-participation profile and the division of religious participation between husband and wife. The theory is empirically tested using statewide church-membership data and survey data on individuals' frequency of church attendance. The paper concludes by discussing several extensions of the model which lead to additional potentially testable hypotheses.


[Review Of The Book Discrimination In Labor Markets], Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

[Review Of The Book Discrimination In Labor Markets], Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In sum, I consider Discrimination in Labor Markets a fine volume. Anyone who has the slightest interest in the analysis of labor-market discrimination should seriously contemplate purchasing it. The relatively nontechnical nature of the papers will appeal to a wide range of readers, and the book should quickly find its way onto reading lists for undergraduate and graduate courses that discuss the economics of discrimination.


Cost-Of-Living Adjustment Clauses In Union Contracts: A Summary Of Results, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Leif Danziger, Gee San Aug 2012

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 …


Studying Ourselves: The Academic Labor Market (Presidential Address To The Society Of Labor Economists, Baltimore, May 3, 2002), Ronald G. Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Studying Ourselves: The Academic Labor Market (Presidential Address To The Society Of Labor Economists, Baltimore, May 3, 2002), Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] The study of academic labor markets by economists goes back at least to Adam Smith’s suggestion in The Wealth of Nations that a professor’s compensation be tied to the number of students that enrolled in his classes. This article focuses on three academic labor market issues that students at Cornell and I are currently addressing: the declining salaries of faculty employed at public colleges and universities relative to the salaries of their counterparts employed at private higher education institutions, the growing dispersion of average faculty salaries across academic institutions within both the public and private sectors, and the impact …


Black Youth Nonemployment: Duration And Job Search: Comment, Ronald Ehrenberg Aug 2012

Black Youth Nonemployment: Duration And Job Search: Comment, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Holzer's paper has a number of attributes that I find very appealing. It focuses on an important topic and uses two different data bases to test the robustness of its findings. It uses alternative specifications of the variable of interest (reservation wages), examines the sensitivity of the results to alternative sets of control variables, uses a variety of statistical methods to confront a number of statistical issues, and honestly reports cases in which any of the above leads to differences in results. Finally, the paper does not claim more than the evidence warrants—a feature not present in enough academic …