Labor Economics Commons^™

Domestic Outsourcing In The United States: A Research Agenda To Assess Trends And Effects On Job Quality, Annette Bernhardt, Rosemary L. Batt, Susan N. Houseman, Eileen Appelbaum

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The goal of this paper is to develop a comprehensive research agenda to analyze trends in domestic outsourcing in the United States—firms’ use of contractors and independent contractors—and its effects on job quality and inequality. In the process, we review definitions of outsourcing, the available scant empirical research, and limitations of existing data sources. We also summarize theories that attempt to explain why firms contract out for certain functions and assess their predictions about likely impacts on job quality. We then lay out in detail a major research initiative on domestic outsourcing, discussing the questions it should answer and providing …

Use Of Online Career Development Tools By Vocational Rehabilitation Professionals, Rebecca Goe, Catherine Ipsen, University Of Montana Rural Institute Rural Institute

Employment

Online career development refers to using online resources such as social media and job boards for finding employment and advancing careers. Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allow users to connect with potential employers and advertise their strengths to a diverse audience. Online job boards connect employers and job seekers based on specific interests, skills and locations. Unfortunately, the same online tools that can help people find employment and advance their careers can also limit opportunities if the job seeker’s online presence is unprofessional or absent (Brown & Vaughn, 2011).

Wage Distribution Impacts Of Higher Education Faculty Unionization, Charles S. Wassell Jr, David W. Hedrick, Steven E. Henson, John M. Krieg

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The literature on the effects of unions on the distribution of wages at the macroeconomic and inter-industry levels has given little attention to the effects at the firm level. At the same time, research on collective bargaining impacts in higher education has focused on the overall wage level rather than on the distribution of salaries. Using panel data on individual faculty members, we find faculty unionization to be associated with a significant flattening of the wage distribution across academic disciplines. This has implications for why faculty might choose to unionize, even in the absence of an overall wage premium.

James Livingston Interview, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews James Livingston, professor at Rutgers University in the department of History about his new book tentatively entitled F--- Work. Thomson and Livingston discuss cultural ideas about work and full employment. Livingston describes the cultural changes necessary for the adoption of ideas related to transfer payments.

U.S. Employment Outlook For 2016, Randall W. Eberts

Periodical Articles

No abstract provided.

Wage Insurance As A Policy Option In The United States, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Wage insurance is a program that attempts to help permanently displaced workers transition to employment rapidly, effectively, and equitably. Because displaced workers have been found to suffer substantial earnings losses when they become reemployed, a wage insurance program provides a temporary wage supplement that partially reduces the wage loss experienced by targeted, newly reemployed workers. While participating workers receive a “wage supplement,” the program is called “wage insurance” because of its design as a social insurance program rather than an income transfer program. This paper provides a discussion of the development of wage insurance as a policy option in the …

The Impact Of Nurse Turnover On Quality Of Care And Mortality In Nursing Homes: Evidence From The Great Recession, Yaa Akosa Antwi, John R. Bowblis

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We estimate the causal effect of nurse turnover on mortality and the quality of nursing home care with a fixed effect instrumental variable estimation that uses the unemployment rate as an instrument for nursing turnover. We find that ignoring endogeneity leads to a systematic underestimation of the effect of nursing turnover on mortality and quality of care in a sample of California nursing homes. Specifically, 10 percentage point increase in nurse turnover results in a facility receiving 2.2 additional deficiencies per annual regulatory survey, reflecting a 19.3 percent increase. Not accounting for endogeneity of turnover leads to results that suggest …

"Extra-Activism", Dorothy Kidd

Media Studies

No abstract provided.

Global Climate Change, Fair Trade, And Coffee Price Volatility, Thomas M. Segerstrom

Gettysburg Economic Review

Fair Trade coffee sales have grown exponentially over the past fifteen years amidst a volatile and shaky coffee commodity market. This paper incorporates the prior research that global climate change will lead to more climate shocks with research on the coffee market’s volatility and farmer welfare. In accordance with prior research on commodity volatility, I develop an OLS estimator of the volatility of prices received by growers and evaluate the effect of climate shocks on it. I find that, when control variables are introduced, the volatility of the coffee price does increase at a statistically significant level with a climate …

The Determinants And Trends In Public-Private Wage And Fringe Benefit Differential, Sun Ki Choi

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The decline in private sector wages in the aftermath of the Great Recession reopened a longstanding debate about whether public sector employees make more than private sector employees. However, much of this debate has only focused on the difference in wages over the past few years. This paper uses the Current Population Survey from 1995-2013 to examine how the federal-private wage differential has evolved over time. Wage regressions are estimated by year for federal and private sector workers. I then use these estimates to calculate the federal-private wage differential. This is augmented with selectivity bias corrections for each year. Probit …

My Two Factor Model Of Income Distribution, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Distribution of labor income in Turkey: Gender, urbanization and geographical region differences by Anwar Shaikh and Hale Kirer (unpublished work).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Folder label notation NA-24-22. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). An probability. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Even though men have higher average incomes than women, & whites have higher average incomes than African Americans, the distribution of income within groups are all essentially exponential. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Gender differences in income levels are much greater. (Unpublished manuscript …

Distribution Of Labor Income In Turkey, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Distribution of labor income in Turkey: Gender, urbanization and geographical region differences by Anwar Shaikh and Hale Kirer (unpublished work).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Folder label notation NA-24-22. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). An probability. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Even though men have higher average incomes than women, & whites have higher average incomes than African Americans, the distribution of income within groups are all essentially exponential. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Gender differences in income levels are much greater. (Unpublished manuscript …

Paying For Performance At The Plate: An Investigation Of Variable Pay Systems In Major League Baseball, Mitchell S. Bremermann

CMC Senior Theses

Previous empirical research on variable pay systems have suggested that possible gains can come from paying for performance, but highlight the difficulty firms face in measuring performance. Using contracts signed in Major League Baseball’s free agent market, I find that over the 2010-2014 period, teams utilized variable pay schemes with players that were more productive or signaled greater risk, either in their contract terms or via overspecialization. However, not all forms of risk signaling were correlated with greater use of performance incentives, including age and proxies for injury history. These findings have significant implications for labor practices more broadly, as …

Three Essays On Unemployment Insurance In The 21St Century, Lewis H. Warren

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays focusing on unemployment insurance (UI) and how it affects recipients. The first essay examines how UI generosity affects the search intensity of recipients through matching American Time Use Survey respondents to all of their observations in the Current Population Survey (CPS), the population from which they are drawn. Earnings from the CPS are then run through a benefit calculator that determines eligibility and benefit amounts which are used to determine how UI generosity affects search times. The second essay uses the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine how lesser known policies affecting …

The Impact Of Cash Transfers On Labor Force Participation And Household Consumption: Evidence From Post-Apartheid South Africa, Steve M. M. Muchiri

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The Old Age Pension (OAP) program for elderly South Africans puts a significant cash transfer in the hands of many poor households. This dissertation investigates its impact on labor force participation and consumption of selected household items. In the first half of the dissertation, we take advantage of a policy reform that lowered men's OAP eligibility age from 65 to 60 for men to match that of women for estimation identification. Using the General Household Survey data, we first demonstrate that both men and women respond to the eligibility age by dropping from labor force participation at the eligibility age, …

Economic Assimilation For Immigrants In Chile: An Employment Convergence Analysis, Emily C. Long

Scripps Senior Theses

Blending migration studies and labor economics, this thesis explores the economic implications of immigrant assimilation in Chile by using probit models to test for employment convergence and labor market convergence between immigrant groups and native Chileans. Using census data from 1992 and 2002, we find significant differences in the employment and labor force participation rates for these demographic groups, affected by the immigrants’ gender, decade of arrival, and country of origin. We see evidence of the nascent care industry in Chile, as well as the implications of the Chilean visa system and employment contracts. Additionally, we see employment probabilities fall …

Sustaining Social Security In An Era Of Population Aging, John A. Turner

Upjohn Press

John A. Turner offers a set of reforms for restoring solvency to Social Security that are deemed to have merit in the current political climate. These reforms relate to several vexing issues including increased life expectancy, the growing relationship between income and life expectancy, the declines in the physical demands of jobs, growing income inequality, and the pattern of poverty increasing at older ages.

Surviving Job Loss: Paper Makers In Maine And Minnesota, Kenneth A. Root, Rosemarie J. Park

Upjohn Press

Root and Park examine the plight of long-tenured workers displaced from two paper mills—their paths to reemployment, retirement decisions, and the personal struggles they confront.

The Impact Of State-Provided Paid Family Leave On Wages: Examining The Role Of Gender, Aimee Samantha Abrams Widdicombe

Scripps Senior Theses

The U.S. is the only OECD country that does not offer any form of federal paid parental leave. Only three states—California, New Jersey and Rhode Island—have state-provided paid leave policies; implemented in 2004, 2009 and 2014, respectively. Through descriptive statistics and difference-in-difference-in-difference regression analyses of the wages of women and men of childbearing age (19-45 years) in those three states, we assess whether the paid leave programs have effected wages, and whether these effects vary depending on gender. Our results show that wages of women of childbearing age saw negligible net effects post-policy in policy states, although statistically insignificant. On …

The Nature And Role Of Temporary Help Work In The U.S. Economy, Susan N. Houseman, Carolyn J. Heinrich

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.