Business Commons^™

[Review Of The Book Jobs And Incomes In A Globalizing World], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This is a timely book about the labour market effects of globalization – specifically, the effects of globalization on jobs, wages and incomes in industrialized and developing countries. Ajit Ghose defines globalization as “a process of integration of national markets into a global market.” Globalization, he writes, is of such great concern now because of a new development: trade between developed and developing countries in competing products.

[Review Of The Book Technology Choice And Employment Generation By Multinational Corporations In Developing Countries], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] The present volume, by addressing technology choice and employment in multinational enterprises (MNEs), adds to our understanding of the determinants of demand for labor in developing countries. The book synthesizes results from case studies of MNEs in Singapore, Nigeria, Brazil, India, and Kenya, and it does so in such a way that the main conclusions can easily be identified.

[Review Of The Book Urban Labour Market Structure And Job Access In India: A Study Of Coimbatore], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This is a book about "labor status"—what it is, how it works, and how it can be used in labor market analysis. The authors make a convincing case that the labor status approach is indeed a useful one to follow.

[Review Of The Book Successes In Anti-Poverty], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Michael Lipton has devoted a long career to studying and fighting poverty in the developing world. In this volume he talks about how to make anti-poverty programs work.

Place-To-Place Migration: Some New Evidence, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This paper presents new evidence on the determinants of place-to-place migration in the United States. For understanding the causes of differential migration rates into and out of labor markets, knowledge of place-to-place migration functions is of interest for a number of reasons. Given a thorough understanding of gross place-to-place flows, one can proceed to calculate net flows; the reverse, of course, is not possible. There are also other advantages of place-to-place studies: parallelism to microeconomic behavior, opportunity to investigate specific 'origin-destination match-ups, recognition of the number and location of alternative opportunities for persons residing in different origins, and exploration …

Disparate Impact Is Not Unconstitutional, Michael Evan Gold

Michael Evan Gold

[Excerpt] In Ricci v. DeStefano, the "New Haven Firefighters" case, whitefirefighters and one Hispanic firefighter sued the city of New Haven, Connecticut and city officials under Title VII. The plaintiffs claimed the city had committed intentional discrimination or disparate treatment against them when the city disregarded the results of promotion examinations that had an adverse effect on black and Hispanic applicants. The Supreme Court sustained the claim. In his concurring opinion, Justice Scalia invited attorneys in subsequent cases to consider arguing that the disparate impact theory of employment discrimination is unconstitutional. He reasoned as follows: • The Constitution prohibits the …

Assessing Progress Toward Greater Equality Of Income Distribution, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Income distribution is only one indicator of economic well-being useful in gauging improvements in the economic position of the poor; change in income distribution, appropriately conceived and measured, is as good a criterion as any for assessing progress toward the alleviation of poverty. Income is intimately bound up with a family's command over economic resources. Rising modern-sector employment or reduced infant mortality might be suggestive of improvements in the economic position of the poor; gains in real income among low-income groups provide direct evidence that poverty is being alleviated. This chapter answers the following questions: What are the strengths …

Taiwan’S Changing Employment And Earnings Structure, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] In its determined pursuit of economic development throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, Taiwan consistently succeeded in achieving growth rates that were amongst the highest in the world; however, in tandem with such growth, a number of significant changes also took place in the island's labour market. This chapter begins by highlighting some of the most important of these aggregate changes, as follows: (i) the achievement, and subsequent maintenance of, essentially full employment; (ii) improvements in the overall mix of jobs, in particular, a steady reduction in the share of agricultural employment to total employment, a very …

Taiwan’S Private Sector Labour Market Prior To 1996, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Analysis of the inter-industry earnings differentials revealed that these differentials were quite small by international standards, and indeed, that earnings were rising at roughly the same rate in every sector of the labour market in Taiwan. Wage differentials in Taiwan's private sector are generally in line with the economy as a whole; quite small by international standards, with real wages rising at very similar rates throughout all of the major private sector industries, whilst also demonstrating similar growth and decline patterns. For example, the agricultural sector in Taiwan is a declining sector of the economy, relative to non-agriculture, whilst …

Education And Taiwan’S Changing Employment And Earnings Structure, Gary S. Fields, Amanda Newton Kraus

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Between 1980 and 1992, the enormous changes in economic development in Taiwan had significant impacts on the island's labour market. Examples of these changes include the island's almost legendary and meteoric economic growth, the maintenance of essentially full employment, an increase of around 116 per cent in real labour earnings, considerable upgrading of the educational qualifications of the labour force as a whole, a sustained and systematic shift in the composition of the labour force from agriculture into manufacturing and services and occupational upgrading (defined as the expansion of the share of the labour force in the better occupations, …

Labour Market Modelling And The Urban Informal Sector: Theory And Evidence, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] The purpose of this paper is to assess the compatibility between theoretical models of the urban informal sector (UIS) and empirical evidence on the workings of that sector in the context of developing countries' labour markets. My major point is that although the UIS is an excellent idea which has served us well in the 1970s and 1980s, we have need in the next round of research to refine our terminology and our models in light of empirical findings which have come to the fore in the interim. I would contend that what empirical researchers label "the informal sector" …

Employment Generation And Poverty Alleviation In Developing Economies, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] We know well that the East Asian economies have achieved higher economic growth rates than those in any other region of the world and that production for world markets has featured as a hallmark of the East Asian successes. This paper has three purposes: first, to present comparative data showing that the rates at which employment opportunities improve and poverty is reduced mirror countries' differential growth experiences; second, to examine differences in labour market institutions, demonstrating that those in East Asia have similarities more likely to lead to higher output performance and shared improvements in living conditions; and third, …

Long-Term Economic Mobility And The Private Sector In Developing Countries: New Evidence, Gary S. Fields, Walter S. Bagg

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Consistent with the mainstream view of economic growth as a factor promoting long-term economic mobility, we hypothesize that those economies in which economic growth has been most rapid are precisely the ones that have achieved the greatest progress toward poverty reduction through improved labor market conditions, especially in private employment. We also hypothesize that the positive relationship running from economic growth through the labor market to poverty reduction continued to hold in the 1990s in essentially the same way as in earlier years when globalization was less intense. Both hypotheses are confirmed by our data. Our results therefore cast …

Reducing Poverty: The Overall Framework, Guy Pfeffermann, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] How private firms contribute to economic mobility and poverty reduction and what governments can do to enhance their contribution is the theme of this book. We look first at the positive role the private sector plays in economic development, a role that has received less emphasis that that of other players. We then focus on the labor market and how various mechanisms in the economy interact to affect conditions for people as workers and as consumers. The volume examines the links among the business environment, private sector development, economic growth, poverty reduction, and economic mobility. Until recently, development economists …

The Measurement Of Income Mobility: An Introduction To The Literature, Gary S. Fields, Efe A. Ok

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Our main purpose in this survey is, therefore, to provide a somewhat unified setting within which the basic features of the theory of income mobility measurement can be outlined. Our aim is to provide a (subjectively) selective introduction to the literature on income mobility, and thereby shed some light on particular aspects of mobility measurement. Consequently, the present study should not be viewed as an exhaustive survey of the related literature. It is rather a very concise account of some key elements of the theory of income mobility measurement.

Employment In Low-Income Countries: Beyond Labor Market Segmentation?, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Throughout the world, there are fundamentally two, and only two, ways that people can escape from poverty. One is by earning their way out of poverty. The other is by receiving socially-provided goods and services that lift them out of poverty. Even with multilateral and bilateral assistance, low-income countries are too poor to be able to make a significant dent in poverty by the social services route alone. This means that creating more and better earning opportunities for the poor is the only other option available. In policy discussions, two mistakes are often made. One is to assume that …

Escaping From Poverty: Household Income Dynamics In Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, And Venezuela, Gary S. Fields, Paul L. Cichello, Samuel Freije, Marta Menéndez, David Newhouse

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This study presents the main results of a larger, more technical report (Fields and others 2001) and subsequent work (Fields and others 2002) that analyzes income mobility in Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and Venezuela. These economies were selected on the basis of the availability of panel data with which to analyze household income dynamics in the 1990s. By following households over time, we are able to investigate how households that were poor initially fared economically, relative to their richer counterparts. We can learn more about how and why households exit—and enter—poverty. To gauge income mobility, this study centers on …

Do Inequality Measures Measure Inequality?, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] In the literature, much attention has been paid to a number of aspects of inequality including the distinction between relative and absolute inequality, axiomatization of inequality, the Lorenz criterion for inequality comparisons, properties of various inequality measures, and inequality decomposition. In no way do I wish to argue with the main results derived in these areas. Rather, my purpose here is to add to the theory of inequality measurement by dealing with one aspect of inequality which has been largely ignored by economists and by others. This is the question of how inequality changes - in particular, whether it …

Income Mobility, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Income mobility means different things to different people. This article explains the six different mobility concepts used in the literature, reviews the various indices used in the mobility literature to measure these concepts, summarizes the difference the use of different mobility concepts and measures makes in practice, presents the axiomatic approach to income mobility, and discusses a number of other issues that arise in the mobility literature.

The Employment Problem In South Africa, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

South Africa is experiencing a major employment problem that includes not only unemployment, but also low labour market earnings. In this article, Gary Fields discusses what can be done to alleviate South Africa's employment problem.

International Labor Standards And Decent Work: Perspectives From The Developing World, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] It is a very positive development that the world community has now reached agreement on four core labor standards, described further below. The moral force of this agreement will help slow and possibly even reverse the infamous "race to the bottom"—for example, child labor in the carpet industries of India undermining Nepal's efforts to keep its carpet industry free of child labor (Hensman, 2000). Ironically, some of the loudest and most strident voices against international labor standards come from the poorest parts of the world. My thesis in this chapter is that while some of the arguments being voiced …

Two-Tiered Faculty Systems And Organizational Outcomes, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] In this chapter, I present a case study of a department at a large research university in which the use of non-tenured faculty increased dramatically over three decades. I begin by examining the historical sources of the expansion. I describe the arrangements that were implemented to resolve these problems. These arrangements exemplify many of the “best management practices” for non-tenure-track faculty mentioned earlier. Based on discussions with non-tenure-track and tenure-track department members and university administrators, I assess the effectiveness of these employment arrangements in resolving problems and the general consequences for the department of having a large contingent of …

Men's And Women's Definitions Of "Good" Jobs: Similarities And Differences By Age And Across Time, Pamela S. Tolbert, Phyllis Moen

Pamela S Tolbert

Whether and to what extent men and women hold differing preferences for particular job attributes remains the subject of debate, with a sizable number of empirical studies producing conflicting results. These conflicts may have temporal sources—historical changes in men's and women's preferences for particular job attributes, as well as changes in preferences that commonly occur over individuals' life cycle. Most previous research has neglected the effects of time on gender differences. Using data from national surveys of workers over a 22-year period, this study focuses explicitly on changes by age over time in men's and women's preferences for five key …

Group Gender Composition And Work Group Relations: Theories, Evidence, And Issues, Pamela Tolbert, Mary Graham, Alice Andrews

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] Prior to the publication of Kanter's seminal Men and Women of the Corporation in 1977, the field of organizational studies exhibited a striking degree of oblivion to the effect of gender relations on work group dynamics. This neglect may have been due, in part, to the relatively small proportion of women in the labor force in the first half of the 20th century, as well as to high levels of occupational and job segregation, which helped conceal the influence of group gender composition on individual and group behavior. In the postwar years, however, women's rate of entry into the …

Exceling On The Job, Micah Schwartz

Senior Honors Projects

Graduating and seeking employment in this current economy can be a daunting challenge. However, when armed with the right tools, securing full-time employment is possible. In order to set oneself apart, it is essential to have a broader skill-set than that of other candidates.

As a Finance major here at the College of Business, I became interested in developing a set of “how to” tutorials for using advanced features of Microsoft Excel in order to better prepare students who will be entering the job market. Through a series of professional internships, I have picked up some crucial skills and have …

Effects Of Disability, Gender, And Level Of Supervision On Ratings Of Job Applicants, Bradford S. Bell, Katherine J. Klein

Bradford S Bell

Using ratings of hypothetical job applicants with and without a disability obtained from both fulltime workers (n = 88) and undergraduates (n = 98), we examined the effects of disability (paraplegia, epilepsy, clinical depression, or non-disabled), gender, and nature of the job (supervisory or non-supervisory) on five job-relevant dependent measures. Contrary to our hypothesis, applicants with a disability were rated significantly higher in activity and potency than applicants without a disability. Further, also contrary to our predictions, gender and job type did not moderate the relationship between disability and applicant ratings. Post-hoc analyses revealed a significant gender by job type …

Innovation And Employment, Hian Teck Hoon, Edmund S. Phelps

Research Collection School of Economics

Is employment higher in an economy that has a higher rate of innovation? In Hoon and Phelps (1997), we study this question in the small open, and closed, economy under the assumption that the rate of technological progress is exogenous to the economic system.In this paper, we reexamine this question in the context of a model with endogenous product innovation (and thus endogenous technological progress) and endogenous labor supply first in a small open economy taking the world interest rate as given and then ina closed economy that determines the whole term structure of the interest rate. In our present …

2011 National Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey, Caster Center For Nonprofit And Philanthropic Research, University Of San Diego

Nonprofit Sector Issues and Trends

The 2011 national Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey™ is intended to provide a snapshot of current employment practices and discuss the economic trends and implications of employment practices in the sector. This report, which has been produced annually by Nonprofit HR Solutions since 2007, includes responses from more than 450 nonprofits nationwide.

Centrelink Prosecutions At The Employment/Benefit Nexus: A Case Study Of Wollongong, Freda Hui, Lee Moerman, Kathy Rudkin

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This report examines financial and social issues pertaining to Centrelink prosecutions for overpayments of unemployment‐related social security benefits. Specifically, it examines the circumstances of prosecutions of those returning to work, and those in precarious casual employment. A sample of overpayment prosecutions in the Wollongong area of New South Wales from July 2008 to June 2010 is profiled and analysed.

A Moral Contractual Approach To Labor Law Reform: A Template For Using Ethical Principles To Regulate Behavior Where Law Failed To Do So Effectively, Zev J. Eigen, David S. Sherwyn

Faculty Working Papers

If laws cease to work as they should or as intended, legislators and scholars propose new laws to replace or amend them. This paper posits an alternative—offering regulated parties the opportunity to contractually bind themselves to behave ethically. The perfect test-case for this proposal is labor law, because (1) labor law has not been amended for decades, (2) proposals to amend it have failed for political reasons, and are focused on union election win rates, and less on the election process itself, (3) it is an area of law already statutorily regulating parties' reciprocal contractual obligations, and (4) moral means …