Labor Economics Commons^™

Temporary Employment: The Spanish Experience, Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes

Dissertations

In an effort to promote employment flexibility and reduce the unemployment rate, Spanish authorities deregulated temporary employment in the early 1980s. Nonetheless, the deregulation of temporary employment took place at the margin, favoring the development of a dual labor market in which temporary workers constituted a second class of workers involuntarily employed and enduring limited advancement opportunities.

Using data from the Spanish labor force survey, Spanish temporary employment and job transitions into and out of temporary employment are examined. The study first evaluates the incidence of Spanish temporary employment and its involuntary and demand-led character. Secondly, the analysis reveals temporary …

A Cross Country Evaluation Of Active Labor Programs In Hungary And Poland, Christopher J. O'Leary

Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Active Labor Programs In Hungary, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Efficient Relocation Of Spectrum Incumbents, Peter Cramton, Evan Kwerel, John Williams

Peter Cramton

Changes in technologies and in consumer demands have made prior radio spectrum allocations far from efficient. To address this problem the FCC has recently reallocated spectrum for more flexible use in bands that are partially occupied by incumbent license holders. Often, it is necessary for the new license holder to relocate incumbents to make efficient use of the spectrum. Regulations structuring the negotiation between incumbent and new entrant can promote efficiency. In particular, giving the new entrant the right to move the incumbent with compensation can reduce negotiation costs and promote efficiency when there is private information about spectrum values …

Affidavit Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Reply to comments on review of rules. For ISO New England.

The Efficiency Of The Fcc Spectrum Auctions, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

From July 1994 to July 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conducted nine spectrum auctions, raising about $20 billion for the U.S. Treasury. The auctions assigned thousands of licenses to hundreds of firms. Were the auctions efficient? Did they award the licenses to the firms best able to turn the spectrum into valuable services for consumers? There is substantial evidence that the FCC's simultaneous ascending auction worked well. It raised large revenues. It revealed critical information in the process of bidding and gave bidders the flexibility to adjust strategies in response to new information. As a result, similar licenses sold …

Efficient Relocation Of Spectrum Incumbents, Peter Cramton, Evan Kwerel, John Williams

Peter Cramton

Changes in technologies and in consumer demands have made prior radio spectrum allocations far from efficient. To address this problem the FCC has recently reallocated spectrum for more flexible use in bands that are partially occupied by incumbent license holders. Often, it is necessary for the new license holder to relocate incumbents to make efficient use of the spectrum. Regulations structuring the negotiation between incumbent and new entrant can promote efficiency. In particular, giving the new entrant the right to move the incumbent with compensation can reduce negotiation costs and promote efficiency when there is private information about spectrum values …

Market Reaction To Seasoned Equity Offerings: The Relevance Of Leverage, Growth Opportunities, And Corporate Structure, Mojib U. Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Empirical work on the market's reaction to seasoned equity offerings has rarely considered the impact of the issuing firm's leverage level or its corporate structure. This work is an attempt to include these parameters in order to better understand the market's reaction to such issue announcements.

The current finance literature recognizes the fact that leverage plays an important role in assessing the value of the firm. Leverage has both negative and positive impacts on the value of a firm (McConnell and Servaes, 1995), and thus, has both negative and positive impacts on the market's reaction to seasoned equity offerings. This …

A Review Of Iso New England's Proposed Market Rules, Peter Cramton, Robert Wilson

Peter Cramton

For ISO New England.

A Review Of Iso New England's Proposed Market Rules, Peter Cramton, Robert Wilson

Peter Cramton

This report reviews the proposed rules for restructured wholesale electricity markets in New England. We review the market rules, both individually and collectively, and identify potential problems that might limit the efficiency of these markets. We examine alternatives and identify the key tradeoffs among alternative designs. We believe that the wholesale electricity market in New England can begin on December 1, 1998. However, improvements are needed for long-run success. We have identified four major recommendations:

* Switch to a multi-settlement system.

* Introduce demand-side bidding.

* Adopt location-based transmission congestion pricing, especially for the import/export interfaces.

* Fix the pricing …

Design For A Net Impact Evaluation Of Retraining In China, Christopher J. O'Leary

Reports

The main aim of the national reemployment project in China is to redeploy workers identified as redundant within urban state owned enterprises (SOEs) to new jobs.1 As part of a larger effort to document the success of the reemployment project in China, a net impact analysis of retraining will be performed using a sample drawn from three cities which span the range of economic conditions in China: Shanghai, Wuhan and Shenyang. 2 This paper presents a practical design for the sampling necessary to undertake the evaluation.

Victorian Workers' Compensation System: Review And Analysis, Volume Ii, H. Allan Hunt, Peter S. Barth, Alan Clayton, Ralph W. Mcginn

Reports

No abstract provided.

The Labor Supply Effects Of Welfare Reform, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Will welfare reform increase unemployment and reduce wages? The answer depends in part on how much welfare reform increases labor supply. This paper considers the labor supply effects of the welfare reforms that have occurred since 1993, when President Clinton entered office with a promise to "end welfare as we know it." The paper reviews previous estimates, and provides new estimates, of how many additional labor force participants have entered the labor force due to welfare reform. I estimate that welfare reform from 1993-96 increased the U.S. labor force by between 100,000 and 300,000 persons. Between 1996, when the major …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Active Labor Programs In Poland, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Ingham County Economic Development Policy Assessment And Organization Implementation, George A. Erickcek, Gove Associates, Inc., W.E. Upjohn Institute For Employment Research

Reports

This report provides an independent assessment of Ingham County's current economic development policy and offers recommendations on how to make the county's role in economic development more effective.

Glens Falls, New York: An Industrial Perspective, Kathleen M. Tarrant

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

This paper examines the decline and changing nature of work in the manufacturing sector in a variety of industries located in the city of Glens Falls, New York. A small industrial city, Glens Falls has experienced an overall decline in population, the number of industries, plant locations, and total manufacturing employment. An examination of eleven companies, including the history and nature of operations, confirms a cycle of manufacturing job creation and job destruction which ebbs and flows based on the restructuring activities of companies including shifting, consolidating and closing plants as they strive to maintain and increase profitability. In the …

Ascending Auctions, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

A key question of auction design is whether to use an ascending-bid or a sealed-bid format. The critical distinction between formats is that an ascending auction provides the bidders with information through the process of bidding. This information is a two-edged sword. It may stimulate competition by creating a reliable process of price discovery, by reducing the winner’s curse, and by allowing efficient aggregations of items. Alternatively, the information may be used by bidders to establish and enforce collusive outcomes. Ex ante asymmetries and weak competition favor a sealed-bid design. In other cases, an ascending auction is likely to perform …

Contested Workplace: The Case Of The Strike Of The United Food And Commercial Workers Union Versus Meijer, Barbara Thomas Coventry, Marietta Morrissey

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper examines the struggle between labor and management at four, newly-opened supermarket/discount stores, culminating in a strike. It considers workplace control as an issue in the strike and its resolution. Edwards' typology of workplace control is reviewed, along with other indirect forms of control explored in recent literature. Workers complained most stridently about direct control mechanisms. Workers' objections to technical and bureaucratic control played only a minor part in workers' decision to strike and the work stoppage's outcome. Indirect controls, including customer and gender-specific control mechanisms, were seldom questioned or acknowledged by workers. On the other hand, both the …

Assessing Evaluation Methodologies For Performance-Based Incentives, George A. Erickcek

Reports

No abstract provided.

Profiling For Reemployment Bonus Offers, Christopher J. O'Leary

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Three Case Studies Industrialization, Eve S. Weinbaum

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article analyzes the grassroots efforts of the working and unemployed poor of three Appalachian communities to improve their towns ' devastated economy in an era of rapid economic change and globalization. While all three were beset by plant closings, their forms of political mobilization, both before and after the shutdown, differed. Each group of workers mounted a communitywide campaign designed to convince the company to stay, to induce local government action, to receive pay and benefits due, and to influence state legislation and economic development policy. Mobilization in the wake of a plant closing is rather extraordinary, especially in …

Simultaneous Ascending Auctions With Package Bidding, Peter Cramton, John Mcmillan, Paul Milgrom, Bradley Miller, Bridger Mitchell, Daniel Vincent, Robert Wilson

Peter Cramton

An effective package bidding mechanism addresses three problems: the exposure problem (the risks a bidder faces in trying to construct an efficiently large combination of licenses), the free-rider problem (the difficulties small bidders have in beating those who bid for larger packages of licenses), and the computational complexity problem (which arises from the fact that the number of possible combinations of licenses is much larger than the number of licenses). Package bidding offers the possibility of an improvement over individual-license bidding only when there are strong complementarities and the pattern of those complementarities varies across bidders. Package bidding works satisfactorily …

Auctioning Securities, Peter Cramton, Lawrence M. Ausubel

Peter Cramton

Treasury debt and other divisible securities are traditionally sold in either a pay-your-bid (discriminatory) auction or a uniform-price auction. We compare these auction formats with a Vickrey auction and also with two ascending-bid auctions. The Vickrey auction and the alternative ascending-bid auction (Ausubel 1996) have important theoretical advantages for sellers. In a setting without private information, these auctions achieve the maximal revenue as a unique equilibrium in dominant strategies. In contrast, the pay-your-bid, uniform-price, and standard ascending-bid auction admit a multiplicity of equilibria that yield low revenues for the seller. We show how these results extend to a setting where …

Can We Believe In Cold Showers?, Neil Campbell

Neil Campbell

This paper considers the case of a firm which faces the decision as to whether to invest in a cost-reducing technology with an uncertain return. Under certain conditions the removal of protection can facilitate this investment (a 'cold shower'). It is shown, in the case of Cournot competition, that a cold shower is more likely if a quota rather than a tariff is the protective instrument. It is also shown that a cold shower is more likely if the domestic firm is a Stackelberg leader rather than a Cournot competitior. A Cournot market structure is used to consider a reduction …

The Optimal Dole With Risk Aversion And Job Destruction, Carl Davidson, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper extends earlier research on optimal unemployment insurance (UI) by developing an equilibrium search model that encompasses simultaneously several theoretical and institutional features that have been treated one-by-one (or not at all) in previous discussions of optimal UI. In particular, the model we develop allows us to determine the optimal potential duration of UI benefits as well as the optimal UI benefit amount; assumes (realistically) that not all workers are eligible for UI benefits; allows examination of various degrees of risk aversion by workers; models labor demand so that the job destruction effects of UI are taken into account; …

The Economic Impact Of Human Services Agencies On The Pioneer Valley Region: An Analysis Of Expenditures And Jobs, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

The Center for Economic Development, working in concert with the Human Service Forum, assessed the expenditure and job multipliers for the human service industry on the Pioneer Valley region. The study consists of three parts: 1) detailed assessments of expenditures for six human service providers that helped shape a survey of jobs and expenditures; 2) a follow-up survey was sent to 110 agencies with a response rate of 53% and ; 3) the subsequent application of job multipliers, developed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, to the information in order to assess the total impact of jobs in the …

The Valley Of Innovation Springfield Biotechnology Summary Report, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

The Valley of Innovation is a new industrial region that is being formed as the result of recent technology transfers and significant growth in the biotechnology sector. The region includes part of western Massachusetts along with Central Connecticut and runs from north to south along the I-91 corridor, following the general borders of the Connecticut River Valley. The region extends from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, through Springfield, Massachusetts, and continues past Hartford, Connecticut, to New Haven, and down I-95 towards New York State.

Currently in embryonic form, the region has the potential to grow rapidly. It is nurtured …

Growth In Disability Benefits: Explanations And Policy Implications, Kalman Rupp Editor, David C. Stapleton Editor

Upjohn Press

This collection of original papers reveals why caseloads of the nation's two largest income entitlement programs for disability - Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) - have soared.

The Use Of Replacement Workers In Union Contract Negotiations: The U.S. Experience, 1980-1989, Peter Cramton, Joseph Tracy

Peter Cramton

It is argued in many circles that a structural change occurred in U.S. collective bargaining in the 1980s. Strike incidence declined, dispute incidence increased, and the composition of disputes shifted away from strikes and toward holdouts. We investigate the extent to which the hiring of replacement workers can account for these changes. For a sample of over 300 major strikes since 1980, we estimate the likelihood of replacements being hired. We find that the risk of replacement is lower for bargaining units with more experienced workers, and declines during tight labor markets. The composition of disputes shifts away from strikes …

Auctions And Takeovers, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Under Delaware law (the predominant corporate law in the US), when a potential acquirer makes a serious bid for a target, the target's board of directors is required to act as would "auctioneers charged with getting the best price for the stock-holders at a sale of the company." (Revlon v. MacAndrews & Forbes, 173). The target's board may not use defensive tactics that destroy the auction process and must attempt to seek higher bids. Similarly, the Williams Act requires takeover bids to remain open for at least 20 business days on the grounds that the delay facilitates auctions. This preference …