Upjohn Open Access Books

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Working Time in Comparative Perspective: Volume II - Life-Cycle Working Time and Nonstandard Work

Susan Houseman and Alice Nakamura
2001

The chapters explore an expanded set of working-time issues, which may be loosely grouped under two topics: 1) working time over the life cycle, and 2) nonstandard work arrangements (e.g., temporary work, job sharing and moonlighting).
Reemployment Bonuses in the Unemployment Insurance System: Evidence from Three Field Experiments

Philip K. Robins and Robert G. Spiegelman
2001

In this volume a select group of UI researchers describes the motivation for and the design, implementation, and impacts of UI bonus experiments administered in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington. They also describe the benefits and costs of the various experimental treatments for the government as a whole, the UI system in particular, claimants' earnings, and the overall net benefits to society.
Workers' Compensation: Benefits, Costs, and Safety Under Alternative Insurance Arrangements

Terry Thomason, Timothy P. Schmidle, and John F. Burton
2001

Thomason, Schmidle, and Burton make use of a unique data set to delve into how insurance arrangements affect several objectives of the workers' compensation (WC) program. They underscore the effects of deregulation and other changes in WC insurance pricing arrangements by performing empirical analyses that use state-specific cost, benefit, and injury data from 48 states for 1975-1995. This allows them to address the interactive relationships among the four objectives of WC systems adequacy of benefits, affordability of WC insurance, efficiency in the benefits delivery system, and prevention of workplace injuries and diseases and how various public policies adopted by states or the federal government work to achieve them.
Pay at Risk: Compensation and Employment Risk in the United States and Canada

John A. Turner
2001

The contributors to this book investigate the compensation and employment risks for U.S. and Canadian workers. They examine both wage and nonwage aspects of compensation, and whether workers in the U.S. or Canada face more job-related risks. They also seek to identify trends in risk bearing and whether they differ by country.
Labor, Business, and Change in Germany and the United States

Kirsten S. Wever
2001

The chapters explore the proposition that the benefits of either the German coordinating institutions or the United States' more decentralized political economy each entail trade-offs that may be necessary but politically unpleasant. The authors also offer comparisons of sectoral and firm-level adjustment processes for change.
Working Time in Comparative Perspective: Volume I - Patterns, Trends, and the Policy Implications of Earnings Inequality and Unemployment

Ging Wong and W. G. Picot
2001

The chapters in this volume focus on weekly hours worked by individuals, including the recent changes in the distribution of weekly working time in Canada and the United States, the implications of the changing distribution of hours worked for earnings inequality, and efforts to reduce unemployment through mandated hours reductions.
The Political Economy of Health Care Reforms

Huizhong Zhou
2001

A leading group of health care economists propose solutions to problems related to Medicare, managed care, health insurance, coverage for the uninsured, and the role of tax policy in health care.
Employee Benefits and Labor Markets in Canada and the United States

William T. Alpert and Stephen A. Woodbury
2000

Alpert and Woodbury present a comprehensive set of explorations into the impacts that the provision of various types of employee benefits (or lack thereof) have on labor markets. And while there are, as the editors point out, substantial differences between the employee benefits systems of Canada and the U.S., these differences showcase the impacts of specific policies related to employee benefits on labor markets.
Bidding for Business: The Efficacy of Local Economic Development Incentives in a Metropolitan Area

John E. Anderson and Robert W. Wassmer
2000

Anderson and Wassmer examine the use and effectiveness of local economic development incentives within a specific region, the Detroit metropolitan area. The Detroit area serves as a good example, they say, because of the area's 20-plus year track record of its communities offering the gamut of economic incentives aimed at redirecting economic activity and jobs. The evidence they uncover reveals factors that drive cities not just in this Southeast Michigan area, but nationwide to offer particular types of incentives that are more or less generous than those offered by their neighbors.
Rising Wage Inequality: The 1980s Experience in Urban Labor Markets

Thomas Hyclak
2000

Hyclak analyzes information not utilized in previous studies of wage inequality. Whereas researchers previously relied on data derived from the national labor market, Hyclak draws on data from the Area Wage Surveys (AWS), which allows him to focus on changes in the wage structure in a sample of 20 local labor markets for the period of 1974 to 1991. This source also allows him to examine changes in the structure of wages paid for some 40 different jobs found in four different occupational groups. In addition, Hyclak is able to concentrate on jobs and the skills required as the primary determinant of wages, an approach, he says, that complements the more traditional human capital wage model that emphasizes the personal characteristics of workers
The Economics of Sports

William S. Kern
2000

The contributors to this book, all economists at the forefront of the movement to study the economics of sports, show how a host of contemporary economic issues come into play in today's world of sports. These issues include industrial organization, influences on labor markets, monopsony power, the behavior of cartels, local economic development policies, and price discrimination.
Changes in Income Inequality within U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Janice Fanning Madden
2000

In studying MSA data that link the characteristics of metropolitan economies to significant changes in income inequality, Madden is able to study changes in poverty rates, household income inequality, and wage inequality within 182 of the largest MSAs and to identify what she says are the three factors most likely to influence changes in income inequality in metropolitan areas.
High School Career Academies: A Pathway to Education Reform in Urban School Districts?

Nan L. Maxwell and Victor Rubin
2000

Maxwell and Rubin examine the capacity of career academies to address academic reform in terms of increased education and workplace skills. They accomplish this on two levels. First, they assess academies' development and implementation within an urban school district. Then they assess academies' potential to promote postsecondary success among academy students as compared to nonacademy students. Their findings will help educators and policymakers better understand the strengths and limitations of this method of reform.
The Economics of Medicare Reform

Andrew J. Rettenmaier and Thomas Robert Saving
2000

The authors propose a means for preserving Medicare as we know it. After detailing the reasons for Medicare's financial troubles, they present a cohort-based financing plan for Medicare that represents a fundamental departure from the generation transfer method currently used.
When Is Transition Over?

Annette N. Brown
1999

The transition process in which a country moves from a planned economy to a market economy offers a unique opportunity for economists and policymakers to observe and understand the effects of major institutional, legal, and political changes on economic systems. But one feature of the process that has not been considered until now is when is the process over? When has a transition progressed far enough to ensure that a market system will survive and mature? Are there institutional, economic, and political standards that countries reach that measure the level of transition attained or, indeed, show that they have completed transition?
Economic Conditions and Welfare Reform

Sheldon Danziger
1999

The relationship between welfare caseloads and the economy is one of the key issues addressed in this book. Using the most current data available, a group of the nation's leading researchers examines the effects of welfare reform prior to and after enactment of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).
Legal U.S. Immigration: Influences on Gender, Age, and Skill Composition

Michael J. Greenwood and John M. McDowell
1999

The authors develop empirical models that enable them to examine the influence of two important determinants - source country characteristics and U.S. immigration policy - on the gender, age, and skills of immigrants coming to America.
Skill-Biased Technological Change: Evidence from a Firm-Level Survey

Donald S. Siegel
1999

Siegel provides evidence that technology adoption is associated with downsizing, skill upgrading, greater employee empowerment, and a widening wage gap. Unlike previous studies that use industry-level data, Siegel collected firm-level data on technology usage and labor composition which enable him to link the magnitude of labor market outcomes for six classes of workers to the types of technologies implemented.
Pensions and Productivity

Stuart Dorsey, Christopher Mark. Cornwell, and David A. Macpherson
1998

Employers typically view their investment in pension plans as a means of providing retirement income for their workers. Economists, on the other hand, view pension programs as a way to increase workplace productivity. Dorsey, Cornwell and Macpherson explore the theoretical and empirical basis for this perspective and, in the process, offer a complete and up-to-date discussion on the productivity theory of pensions.
Industrial Incentives: Competition Among American States and Cities

Peter S. Fisher and Alan H. Peters
1998

This book is the first significant attempt to quantify the development efforts made by state and local governments. The authors' extensive research focuses on tax and incentive policies across the 24 most industrialized states in the United States and a sample of 112 cities from within those states.
Growth in Disability Benefits: Explanations and Policy Implications

Kalman Rupp and David C. Stapleton
1998

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.
Topics in Unemployment Insurance Financing

Wayne Vroman
1998

Vroman warns that states are more at risk for insolvency in the late 1990s than they were in 1990 and that a repetition of widespread and large-scale borrowing of the past is a distinct possibility. He bases this statement on an empirical study that examines historical levels of states' UI trust fund balances between recessions, and the specific methods used to finance trust fund blanaces. These methods include traditional means of financing, tax-base indexing, state reserve funds, and "flexible" financing such as solvency taxes and legislative response mechanisms. In addition, he addresses the tradeoffs of financing UI debt by either borrowing from the U.S. Treasury or state bond issues.
The Economics of the Great Depression

Mark Wheeler
1998

This book contributes to our understanding of the Great Depression's immediate and long-term impacts on the American economy. Editor Mark Wheeler has gathered six scholars from a range of subdisciplines within economics who, together, offer a diverse look at the Depression's effects on the nation's GDP, workers and labor markets, and monetary policy.
Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality

Dale Ballou and Michael John Podgursky
1997

Ballou and Podgursky offer solid economic analysis on issues surrounding the debate over whether increasing salaries for teachers leads to a more qualified teaching workforce. The authors find little evidence to support the link between increased salaries and teacher quality, then address two questions: (1) What went wrong? and (2) Which reforms are likely to meet with increased success?
On-the-Job Training

John M. Barron, Mark C. Berger, and Dan A. Black
1997

Firms in the U.S. invest billions of dollars annually in workforce training. Growing evidence of the effects of this training on worker productivity, wages, hiring and turnover has led researchers to gradually incorporate the role of training into their analyses. Barron, Berger and Black advance this line of research by offering new evidence on the amount of training provided to workers during the first three months on the job, and the characteristics of those workers who received that training.