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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Understanding The Decline Of U.S. Manufacturing Employment, Susan N. Houseman Jun 2018

Understanding The Decline Of U.S. Manufacturing Employment, Susan N. Houseman

Susan N. Houseman

U.S. manufacturing experienced a precipitous and historically unprecedented decline in employment in the 2000s. Many economists and other analysts—pointing to decades of statistics showing that manufacturing real (inflation-adjusted) output growth has largely kept pace with private sector real output growth, that productivity growth has been much higher, and that the sector’s share of aggregate employment has been declining—argue that manufacturing’s job losses are largely the result of productivity growth (assumed to reflect automation) and are part of a long-term trend. Since the 1980s, however, the apparently robust growth in manufacturing real output and productivity have been driven by a relatively …


Measuring Manufacturing: How The Computer And Semiconductor Industries Affect The Numbers And Perceptions, Susan N. Houseman, Timothy J. Bartik, Timothy J. Sturgeon Feb 2015

Measuring Manufacturing: How The Computer And Semiconductor Industries Affect The Numbers And Perceptions, Susan N. Houseman, Timothy J. Bartik, Timothy J. Sturgeon

Susan N. Houseman

Growth in U.S. manufacturing’s real value-added has exceeded that of aggregate GDP, except during recessions, leading many to conclude that the sector is healthy and that the 30 percent decline in manufacturing employment since 2000 is largely the consequence of automation. The robust growth in real manufacturing GDP, however, is driven by one industry segment: computers and electronic products. In most of manufacturing, real GDP growth has been weak or negative and productivity growth modest. The extraordinary real GDP growth in computer-related industries reflects prices for computers and semiconductors that, when adjusted for product quality improvements, are falling rapidly. Productivity …


The Role Of Manufacturing In A Jobs Recovery, Susan Houseman Feb 2015

The Role Of Manufacturing In A Jobs Recovery, Susan Houseman

Susan N. Houseman

No abstract provided.


Measuring Manufacturing: How The Computer And Semiconductor Industries Affect The Numbers And Perceptions, Susan N. Houseman, Timothy J. Bartik, Timothy J. Sturgeon Jan 2015

Measuring Manufacturing: How The Computer And Semiconductor Industries Affect The Numbers And Perceptions, Susan N. Houseman, Timothy J. Bartik, Timothy J. Sturgeon

Timothy J. Bartik

Growth in U.S. manufacturing’s real value-added has exceeded that of aggregate GDP, except during recessions, leading many to conclude that the sector is healthy and that the 30 percent decline in manufacturing employment since 2000 is largely the consequence of automation. The robust growth in real manufacturing GDP, however, is driven by one industry segment: computers and electronic products. In most of manufacturing, real GDP growth has been weak or negative and productivity growth modest. The extraordinary real GDP growth in computer-related industries reflects prices for computers and semiconductors that, when adjusted for product quality improvements, are falling rapidly. Productivity …


Review Of The Book The Economic Analysis Of Unions: New Approaches And Evidence, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Jun 2013

Review Of The Book The Economic Analysis Of Unions: New Approaches And Evidence, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This book surveys, synthesizes, and critically analyzes the rapidly growing theoretical and empirical literature on unions and dispute resolution. The focus is primarily on the United States literature, although references to studies from Canada and the United Kingdom are also included. That the survey is complete and up-to-date is suggested by the thirty pages of references at the end of the book; a number of these are to papers that are still awaiting publication. The authors present a remarkably balanced treatment and, for the most part, do not allow their own ideological orientation toward unions to influence their analyses.


Adverse Selection And Incentives In An Early Retirement Program, Kenneth T. Whelan, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Kevin F. Hallock, Ronald L. Seeber Jan 2013

Adverse Selection And Incentives In An Early Retirement Program, Kenneth T. Whelan, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Kevin F. Hallock, Ronald L. Seeber

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

We evaluate potential determinants of enrollment in an early retirement incentive program for non-tenure-track employees of a large university. Using administrative record on the eligible population of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, historical employee count and layoff data by budget units, and public information on unit budgets, we find dips in per-employee finance in a budget unit during the application year and higher recent per employee layoffs were associated with increased probabilities of eligible employee program enrollment. Our results also suggest, on average, that employees whose salaries are lower than we would predict given their personal characteristics and …


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 …


Unions And Productivity In The Public Sector: A Study Of Municipal Libraries, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel R. Sherman, Joshua L. Schwarz Jul 2012

Unions And Productivity In The Public Sector: A Study Of Municipal Libraries, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel R. Sherman, Joshua L. Schwarz

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper develops and illustrates the use of two methodologies to analyze the effect of unions on productivity in the public sector. Although the methodologies are applicable to a wide variety of public sector functions, the focus of the paper is on municipal libraries because of the availability of relevant data. The empirical analysis, which uses 1977 cross-section data on 260 libraries, suggests that collective bargaining coverage has not significantly affected productivity in municipal libraries.


Unemployment And The Uk Labour Market Before, During And After The Golden Age, Timothy J. Hatton, George R. Boyer Dec 2011

Unemployment And The Uk Labour Market Before, During And After The Golden Age, Timothy J. Hatton, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

During the ‘golden age’ of the 1950s and 1960s unemployment in Britain averaged 2 per cent. This was far lower than ever before or since and a number of hypotheses have been put forward to account for this unique period in labour market history. But there has been little attempt to isolate precisely how the determinants of wage setting and unemployment differed before, during and after the golden age. We estimate a two-equation model over the whole period from 1872 to 1999 using a newly constructed set of long-run labour market data. We find that the structure of real wage …


Impacts Of Formal Financing On The Development Of The Sudanese Agricultural Sector, Issam A.W. Mohamed Professor Aug 2011

Impacts Of Formal Financing On The Development Of The Sudanese Agricultural Sector, Issam A.W. Mohamed Professor

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The agricultural sector of Sudan is faced by many problems. In the irrigated schemes, the government who officially owns most of them there are entrenched managerial problems that brewed for more than six decades. Moreover, the privatization policies of those schemes provoked many outcries and protests. Large schemes like Gezira have collapsed, this year 2011, only 10% of its over one million hectares were cultivated. The rainfed farming is not different with lack of machineries, shortages of available labor and high priced agricultural inputs, it is not expected to fare better than the irrigated schemes. However, even if those problems …