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Full-Text Articles in Labor Economics

Manufacturers' Outsourcing To Employment Services, Matthew Dey, Susan N. Houseman, Anne E. Polivka Dec 2006

Manufacturers' Outsourcing To Employment Services, Matthew Dey, Susan N. Houseman, Anne E. Polivka

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We estimate the effects of manufacturers' use of employment services—comprised primarily of temporary help and professional employer organizations—on measured employment and labor productivity in manufacturing between 1989 and 2004. A major contribution of the paper is the construction of panel data on employment by occupation and industry from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. We use these data to document the dramatic rise of production and other manual occupations within the employment services sector and, in conjunction with information from the Contingent Worker Supplements, to estimate the number of employment services workers assigned to manufacturing over the period. Although measured employment …


Local Market Scale And The Pattern Of Job Changes Among Young Men, Christopher H. Wheeler Nov 2006

Local Market Scale And The Pattern Of Job Changes Among Young Men, Christopher H. Wheeler

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

In finding a career, workers tend to make numerous job changes, with the majority of 'complex' changes (i.e., those involving changes of industry) occurring relatively early in their working lives. This pattern suggests that workers tend to experiment with different types of work before settling on the one they like best. Of course, since the extent of economic diversity differs substantially across local labor markets in the U.S. (e.g., counties and cities), this career search process may exhibit important differences depending on the size of a worker’s local market. This paper explores this issue using a sample of young male …


Complementarity And Custom In Wage Contract Violation, John S. Earle, Klara Sabirianova Peter Jul 2006

Complementarity And Custom In Wage Contract Violation, John S. Earle, Klara Sabirianova Peter

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We analyze a model of wage delay in which strategic complementarity arises because each employer's costs of violating its contracts decrease with the arrears in its labor market. The model is estimated on panel data for workers and firms in Russia, facilitating identification through fixed effects for employees, employers, and local labor markets, and instrumental variables based on policy interventions. The estimated reaction function displays strongly positive neighborhood effects, and the estimated feedback loops - worker quits, effort, strikes, and legal penalties - imply that costs of wage delays are attenuated by neighborhood arrears. We also study a nonlinear case …


Nonstandard Forms And Measures Of Employment And Unemployment In Transition: A Comparative Study Of Estonia, Romania, And Russia, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Vladimir Gimpelson, Rostislav Kapeliushnikov, Hartmut Lehmann, Álmos Telegdy, Irina Vantu, Ruxandra Visan, Alexandru Voicu Feb 2006

Nonstandard Forms And Measures Of Employment And Unemployment In Transition: A Comparative Study Of Estonia, Romania, And Russia, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Vladimir Gimpelson, Rostislav Kapeliushnikov, Hartmut Lehmann, Álmos Telegdy, Irina Vantu, Ruxandra Visan, Alexandru Voicu

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper looks behind the standard, publicly available labor force statistics relied upon in most studies of transition economy labor markets. We analyze microdata on detailed labor force survey responses in Russia, Romania, and Estonia to measure nonstandard, boundary forms and alternative definitions of employment and unemployment. Our calculations show that measured rates are quite sensitive to definition, particularly in the treatment of household production (subsistence agriculture), unpaid family helpers, and discouraged workers, while the categories of part-time work and other forms of marginal attachment are still relatively unimportant. We find that tweaking the official definitions in apparently minor ways …


Wages, Layoffs, And Privatization: Evidence From Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Volodymyr Vakhitov Feb 2006

Wages, Layoffs, And Privatization: Evidence From Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Volodymyr Vakhitov

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper estimates the effects of privatization on worker separations and wages using retrospective data from a national probability sample of Ukrainian households. Detailed worker characteristics are used to control for compositional differences and to assess types of observable "winners" and "losers" from privatization. Preprivatization worker-firm matches are used to control for unobservables in worker and firm selection. The results imply that privatization reduces wages by 5 percent and cuts the layoff probability in half. Outside investor ownership reduces separations but leaves wages unaffected. Winners from privatization tend to be higher-skilled employees of larger firms, but there is no discernible …