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Full-Text Articles in Economics

Earnings Inequality In Germany, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman Nov 1993

Earnings Inequality In Germany, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Recent studies have documented the growth of earnings inequality in the United States during the 1980s. In contrast to these studies' findings, our analysis of micro data for the former West Germany yields virtually no evidence of growth in earnings inequality over the same period. Between 1978 and 1988, a reduction in the dispersion of earnings among workers in the bottom half of the earnings distribution led to a narrowing of the overall dispersion of earnings in Germany. Earnings differentials across education and age groups remained roughly stable, and there was no general widening of earnings differentials within either education …


The Effects Of Local Labor Demand On Individual Labor Market Outcomes For Different Demographic Groups And The Poor, Timothy J. Bartik Sep 1993

The Effects Of Local Labor Demand On Individual Labor Market Outcomes For Different Demographic Groups And The Poor, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The contribution of this paper is to use panel data on individuals (specifically, data from the Panel Survey on Income Dynamics) to examine how local demand conditions affect the economic well-being of disadvantaged groups and the poor. Previous research on local labor demand conditions uses data from a single cross-section of local economies, or a time-series of cross-sections of regions. With such data, estimated effects of local labor demand conditions on average labor market outcomes might be attributable to changes in local population composition, as we would expect local demand conditions to change in- and out-migration patterns. Because panel data …


Culture, Human Capital, And The Earnings Of West Indian Blacks, Stephen A. Woodbury Sep 1993

Culture, Human Capital, And The Earnings Of West Indian Blacks, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper offers an empirical analysis of West Indians' performance in the U.S. labor market, drawing adjusted comparisons between the earnings of native-born black American men of West Indian ancestry and the earnings of other native-born men, both black and white. The data required for these comparisons come from the 1980 Census of Population, in which native-born respondents reported their ancestry. The results offer a mixed picture of the success of West Indians, suggesting that native-born blacks of West Indian ancestry do have somewhat higher earnings than other native-born blacks, other things equal. Nevertheless, there is still a large earnings …


Reemployment Incentives For Unemployment Insurance Beneficiaries: Results From The Washington Reemployment Bonus Experiment, Christopher J. O'Leary, Robert G. Spiegelman, Kenneth J. Kline Aug 1993

Reemployment Incentives For Unemployment Insurance Beneficiaries: Results From The Washington Reemployment Bonus Experiment, Christopher J. O'Leary, Robert G. Spiegelman, Kenneth J. Kline

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Unemployment insurance is intended to reduce hardship by providing labor force members with partial wage replacement during periods of involuntary unemployment. However, in performing this income maintenance function, unemployment insurance may prolong spells of unemployment. Evidence from a field experiment conducted in Illinois in 1984 suggested that offering unemployment insurance claimants a modest cash bonus for rapid reemployment would increase the speed of return to work and reduce program costs. In 1988 a similar experiment, examining several different bonus offers, was conducted in Washington State. Evidence from the Washington experiment indicates that bonus offers do change job seeking behavior, but …


The Economic Payoffs To Workplace Literacy, Kevin M. Hollenbeck Aug 1993

The Economic Payoffs To Workplace Literacy, Kevin M. Hollenbeck

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper focuses on one of the potential benefits to improving the Nation's literacy the economic payoffs. A more literate workforce provides economic benefits to the members of the workforce themselves, to employers, and to society. Workers who improve their basic skills through participation in workplace literacy programs should be more productive and hence earn higher wages and have greater job security. Employers with more productive workers will be more competitive in their industries and will be more profitable. Society gains by having a more productive and stable economy, by having more individuals employed with higher earnings and thus paying …


The Intertemporal-Substitution Hypothesis Is Alive And Well (But Hiding In The Data), Jean Kimmel, Thomas J. Kniesner Apr 1993

The Intertemporal-Substitution Hypothesis Is Alive And Well (But Hiding In The Data), Jean Kimmel, Thomas J. Kniesner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

According to the intertemporal-substitution hypothesis, which underlies the typical empirical real business cycle model, cyclical fluctuations in employment and hours of work are optimizing labor-supply responses to short-run aggregate demand shifts. We demonstrate that previous empirical labor-supply research has used inappropriate data to test the intertemporal-substitution hypothesis. We estimate a fixed-effects life-cycle labor-supply model with more informative data, the triennial micro data of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We find economy-wide wage elasticities of employment and hours worked per employee of +1.55 and +0.51, which support the intertemporal-substitution hypothesis and give econometric credibility to the labor-market specification of …


The Michigan Disability Prevention Study: Research Highlights, H. Allan Hunt, Rochelle Virginia Habeck Apr 1993

The Michigan Disability Prevention Study: Research Highlights, H. Allan Hunt, Rochelle Virginia Habeck

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This 3-year collaborative research project was designed to provide empirical evidence to substantiate the impact of various employer policies and practices on the prevention and management of workplace disability. It studied a random sample of 220 Michigan establishments with more than 100 employees from seven different industries who responded to a mail survey in the first half of 1991. The study correlates differences in employer-reported levels of achievement on policy and practice dimensions with performance on disability outcome measures, while controlling for a set of establishment characteristics in a multivariate regression analysis.


Federal Policy Towards State And Local Economic Development In The 1990s, Timothy J. Bartik Mar 1993

Federal Policy Towards State And Local Economic Development In The 1990s, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper suggests new federal policies towards state and local economic development assistance to business. I argue that there is some evidence that these programs can be effective in encouraging business growth and helping the unemployed. But state and local governments do not have the right incentives to adequately pursue national goals through economic development programs. State and local governments are not inclined to do quality evaluations of their programs and tend to favor business attraction programs over programs that might increase U.S. business productivity. In addition, it is unclear whether economic development efforts are most vigorously pursued by economically …


Does Employment Protection Inhibit Labor Market Flexibility?: Lessons From Germany, France And Belgium, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman Mar 1993

Does Employment Protection Inhibit Labor Market Flexibility?: Lessons From Germany, France And Belgium, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Laws in most West European countries give workers strong job rights, including the right to advance notice of layoff and the right to severance pay or other compensation if laid off. Many of these same countries also encourage hours adjustment in lieu of layoffs by providing prorated unemployment compensation to workers on reduced hours. This paper compares the adjustment of manufacturing employment and hours in West Germany, France and Belgium, three countries with strong job security regulations and well-established short-time compensation systems, with that in the United States. Although the adjustment of employment to changes in output is much slower …