LABOR IMMOBILITY AND THE FORMATION OF GENDER WAGE GAPS IN LOCAL MARKETS

Family ties have an important effect on the wage gap between male and female workers because wives are often more geographically tied to their husband's location, which may not be the best market for the wife's skills. Theory implies a testable inverse relationship between urban size—reflecting labor market size—and male-female wage differentials. Our results indicate that the wage gap between married men and women narrows with urban size. About 17 percent of the wage gap between married men and women can be accounted for by urban size—or, more fundamentally, by geographic immobility due to the family tie constraint.     

THE SUPPLY OF OCCUPATIONAL REGULATION

This paper examines the state's decision to supply monopoly rights to occupations. The two key aspects of the analysis are the degree of political competition and the proportion of market demand of the regulated service accounted for by government officials. An application of the analysis is developed to explain an episode of comparative occupational regulation in mercantile England and France. Other applications of the analysis are suggested.     

THE COLOR OF THE UNDERGRADUATE EXPERIENCE AND THE OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF BLACKS AND WHITES: Evidence from Longitudinal Data

This study examines the impact of attendance at colleges with higher black enrollment on occupational attainment. The unique multipopulation LISREL models focus on blacks and whites, specify income and occupational self-direction as distinct dimensions of labor market accomplishment, and adjust for the possible confounding influence of college selectivity and precollege self-appraisals. Data from the NLS-72, augmented by selectivity and black enrollment data from other sources, are utilized. Findings largely support the hypothesis of within-race parity in occupational attainment. Black enrollment exerts nonsignificant effects on income among blacks and occupational self-direction in both races and slightly enhances income among whites.     

THE GROWTH OF THE FEDERAL DEFICIT AND THE ROLE OF PUBLIC ATTITUDES

How can the recent explosion in the fiscal deficit of the UnitedStates be reconciled with the well-known support of the Americanpublic for fiscal conservatism? It is first shown that the reputationfor fiscal conservatism is fully supported by public opinionpolls dating back over a period of four decades. Solid majoritieshave consistently opposed tax reductions that might producean unbalanced budget. Recently, however, the public has alsoshown strong opposition to increases in taxes to close the fiscalgap, which might appear to imply a new acquiescence to the deficit.But this opposition, too, is shown to have persisted for a longtime and to be not logically inconsistent with rejecting taxcuts resulting in deficit. Another fashionable explanation forthe deficit holds that the budget process in a democratic societyis biased toward deficit because the cost of higher taxes isimmediate while the cost of deficit is delayed. But it is inconsistentwith the fiscal history of the United States over the last 100years, which reveals no systematic bias toward deficits, atleast until recent years. The major explanation that emergesis that the administration succeeded in misleading the public(and perhaps even itself) into believing that the tax cut wouldnot result in deficit thanks to "supply" and "Laffer curve"effects.     

ON IMPERFECT EVALUATION AND EARNING DIFFERENTIALS

This paper investigates the relationship between the technology for evaluating performance and optimal contract choice. Specifically, the paper examines the different compensation packages that arise when occupations differ in evaluation technology, workers are risk averse, work effort is endogenous, and there exists asymmetric information. In occupations in which it is less difficult to measure output, it is shown that compensation is more closely tied to output; the implications for work effort, the sorting of workers by ability, and average compensation are developed. Analysis of a new data set confirms our predictions concerning earning differentials and wage growth.
The powerful 1.6 million-member National Education Association and other teacher organizations have traditionally fought the notion of rewarding better teachers with more money, arguing that there is no objective way to measure a teacher's competence and that it would lead to favoritism, and bad morale [ Time , June 20, 1983].     

EMPLOYER AND OCCUPATIONAL INSTABILITY IN TWO COHORTS OF THE NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEYS

Previous research on trends in employer and occupational stability found evidence of declines in stability among men but contradictory results for women. I provide new insights into these patterns by simultaneously analyzing employer and occupation changes, and by examining a more detailed set of transition types. I show that the patterns for women are quite similar to those of men but are masked by declines in transitions from employment to out of the labor force. Finally, I find that while some of the changes may bring increased opportunities for wage increases, they bring even greater risks of wage losses.     

THE MEANING OF OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE SCORES:

This research reexamines the meaning of occupational prestige scores from the social psychological perspective of identity theory. Using comparable data for Canada and the United States, it analyzes the degree to which the education and income levels of occupations influence occupational prestige judgements by evoking affective associations (feelings about the goodness, powerfulness, and liveliness of occupational identities), as well as the extent to which these social sentiments are independent determinants of prestige. There has been a longstanding controversy about the normative content of occupational prestige scores. We find that moral worthiness (as measured by the Evaluation dimension of the semantic differential) is a determinant of the prestige of occupations with low and middle but not high levels of education and income. We also find that the impact of education on prestige scores is direct and cognitive, while a considerable proportion of the total effect of income is processed through feelings about the potency of occupations. The results for the two countries are very similar. One exception is that moral worthiness is a more important determinant of prestige in the United States than in Canada. We connect this finding to the literature comparing value differences between the two countries.     

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: THE FRENCH CASE

This article provides a test of the secularization hypothesis, which argues that economic growth, industrialization, increased literacy, and low fertility decrease religiosity. It focuses on the elections of the secular politicians who voted in favor of the separation between Church and State in the French Parliament in 1905. If the secularization hypothesis is correct, these secular politicians should have been elected in the most developed areas of France at the turn of the twentieth century. Contrary to the predictions of the secularization hypothesis, we find that the support for secular politicians originated in the rural areas of France. (JEL Z12, D72, N43)     

GROWTH, WELFARE, AND THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT

Using an endogenous growth model in which government purchases directly affect aggregate productivity and utility, fiscal policy experiments conducted here indicate that the macroeconomic effects of changes in fiscal policy are at least as sensitive to the mix of spending cuts as they are to the mix of tax cuts. In fact, reducing the size of the government actually reduces growth and welfare freductions in government expenditures are heavily weighted towards reductions in public capital or if the proceeds are not used to reduce capital taxation. In addition, across-the-board spending cuts are not likely to significantly improve growth and welfare. ( JEL E62, 041)     

STATUS ATTAINMENT IN AMERICA: THE ROLES OF LOCUS OF CONTROL AND SELF-ESTEEM IN EDUCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL OUTCOMES

A wide range of theoretical and empirical treatments link parental background to educational and occupational outcomes for children . Comparatively few studies have examined these effects in concert with the related social psychological dynamics of self - esteem and locus of control . Our multivariate examination of 1,927 respondents shows that net of traditionally employed regressors such as parental education and occupation , self-esteem and locus of control materially affect respondents' educational and occupational attainments . The article concludes with a discussion of the importance of self-esteem and locus of control as social psychological facilitants to status attainment and identifies directions for future research .     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF POLITICAL POWER, THE COSTS OF RENT-SEEKING, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Poor economic growth in many countries can be explained by the misallocation of entrepreneurial resources to activities that do not foster growth. This paper deals with the relation between the distribution of political power, the allocation of entrepreneurial resources and growth. We model growth as deriving from Schumpeterian entrepreneurs who try to increase profits through innovation. We endogenize the choice of time devoted to this activity vis-a-vis other ways of increasing income, such as obtaining government subsidies. More unequal access to the political redistribution mechanism makes rent-seeking activities less profitable, and results in higher growth.     

THE EFFECTS OF OCCUPATIONAL GENDER SEGREGATION ACROSS RACE

The general relationship between occupational gender segregation and earnings inequality is well documented, although few studies have examined the relationship separately by race/ethnicity. This article investigates occupational gender segregation effects across whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. In addition, we explore two ways in which segregation may affect earnings: (1) by lowering the earnings of workers in female-dominated occupations and (2) by lowering the earnings of all workers in highly segregated labor markets. Our central findings are that both segregation effects contribute to earnings inequality and that the effects are observed quite broadly across racial/ethnic groups, although they particularly impact the earnings of African American women.     

THE RISING COST OF TIME OF FEMALES, THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL BRANDS AND THE SUPPLY OF RETAIL SERVICES

A rise in the relative cost of time of women has increased the demand for brand names and reduced the demand for information traditionally supplied by retailers. A theory of the optimal allocation of shopping responsibilities in a two-earner household shows that a rise in the woman's wage increases the demand for brand names by more than an increase in the man's wage. An increase in the relative earnings of women is related to a rise in male shopping, the growth of trademark filings, an increase in manufacturer advertising, and a reduction in retail personal services in several industries.     

THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION,TAX EVASION,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This study uses a dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the effects of corruption and tax evasion on fiscal policy and economic growth. The model is calibrated to match estimates of tax evasion in developing countries. The calibrated model is able to generate reasonable predictions for net tax rates, the corruption associated with public investment projects, and the negative correlation between corruption and tax revenue. The presence of corruption and evasion is shown to have significant, but not large, negative effects on economic growth. The relatively moderate effects help explain the absence of a robust negative correlation between growth and corruption in cross‐country data. The model also implies that cracking down on tax evasion before addressing corruption can be a bad idea and that higher wages for public officials can improve welfare. (JEL H3, O4)     

THE CREDIT‐CHANNEL TRANSMISSION MECHANISM AND THE NONLINEAR GROWTH AND WELFARE EFFECTS OF INFLATION AND TAXES

With the credit‐channel effect driven by the central bank's open market operations, this paper's model easily gives rise to the nonlinear inflation‐growth nexus, which is evidenced by a number of cross‐country empirical studies. The threshold level of the inflation rate is found to be lower when tax rates are higher. The presence of the credit‐channel effect also provides the rationale for setting positive (and smaller than 1) tax rates on consumption, labor income, and capital income. The optimal tax rates rise as the inflation target declines. Under a fiscal policy rule where labor and capital income taxes move proportionally to each other, the optimal capital income tax rate could be higher than the optimal labor income tax rate. Under a sufficiently large central bank balance sheet, the credit‐channel effect will be so weak that inflation and all kinds of taxes are growth and welfare repressing. This provides a rationale for central banks that have implemented quantitative easing policies to shrink their balance sheets. (JEL E58, E62, O42)