Direct and indirect effects of unionization on the wage levels of nurses: A case study of New Jersey hospitals

This study examines the determination of wage rates for nurses in hospital employment. Of particular concern is the effect of the recent increase in unionization by nurses on their wages, both directly and indirectly via threats from competing hospitals’ unionization. To improve on earlier work, the data are disaggregated and gathered from only one state to standardize for the legal, licensing, and reimbursement systems. We also look at the difference between highly skilled professional nurses, RN’s, and more general and less professional nurses, LPN’s. The results show that working conditions and competition in the market influence the wage rate as one would expect. The unionization of nurses, however, affects the wage levels differently for the two groups. We would like to thank Professors Robert Higgs and Alan Childs of Lafayette College, Professor David Fairris of Williams College, Professor James C. Luzier of Muhlenberg College, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Direct and indirect effects of unionization and government employment on fringe benefit provision

The separate influences of unionization and government employment on the provision of two major fringe benefits, pensions and health insurance, are investigated. Each influence is decomposed into a direct effect and an indirect effect through earnings. The sum of these effects often differs in size from estimates that ignore the two distinct effects. Moreover, studies that argue that both unions and governmental employees capture greater fringe benefits focus on the direct effect, yet estimates usually have not isolated this effect.     

Effects of positive attitude and optimism on wage and employment: A double selection approach

Using two samples from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), a longitudinal data set from the United States, and following a double selection approach, the current study estimates the worker's employment and wage equations simultaneously with positive attitude and optimism as additional explanatory variables. Modeling employment as a bivariate decision process, the study examines different factors that influence the worker's labor market participation decision, the employer's hiring decision and the wage rate. The study finds the evidence that the worker's positive attitude and optimism affect the worker's employment probability from different angles: the former through the participation decision and the latter through the hiring decision. Following an alternative approach, this study also provides strong support to the earlier finding that positive attitude affects the worker's wage positively. Interestingly, the effects of attitude variables on the worker's wage are found to be quite comparable in magnitude to the wage effects of the traditional human capital variables.     

The effects of prevailing wage laws: A comparison of individual workers’ wages earned on and off prevailing wage construction projects

I evaluate the effects of prevailing wage laws using a unique data set that shows the wages paid to workers on prevailing wage projects and the wages paid to the same workers during the same time period for work on projects not covered by prevailing wage regulations. The wage comparison shows that workers are generally paid more for work on prevailing wage projects than they are for work on nonprevailing wage projects. Thus, prevailing wage laws likely do increase the cost of public construction. In addition, to the extent that the quality of construction is improved, prevailing wage laws appear to be an inefficient mechanism by which to achieve additional quality, as the regulations often result in workers being paid more than they earn in the private market. This research was done originally for the Program Review and Investigations Committee of the Kentucky State Legislature. I thank the staff of the Program Review and Investigations Committee and the Legisla-tive Research Commission for assistance with data collection and Mark Berger for helpful comments. Due to confidentiality requirements, the data cannot be made available.     

Direct and indirect effects of low self-control on the personal victimization of South Korean youth

To estimate the direct effects of low self-control on the incidence of personal victimization among South Korean elementary and middle school students; to examine whether these effects are mediated by deviant lifestyles and parental attachments, and to determine whether these effects differ by a youth's sex. Data from the Korean Youth Panel Survey were examined. A national sample of 2844 South Korean fourth grade students was followed for five years. Wave-specific analyses consistently revealed significant direct and indirect effects of low self-control on victimization, and the direct effects were not fully mediated by deviant lifestyles and parent-child attachment. Direct effects of low self-control were invariant between the sexes whereas indirect effects involving delinquent peers were not.     

The labor market effects of minimum wage laws: A new perspective

Economists almost uniformly argue that minimum wage laws benefit some workers at the expense of other workers. This argument is implicitly founded on the assumption that money wages are the only form of labor compensation. Based on the more realistic assumption that labor is paid in many different ways, the analysis of this paper demonstrates that all laborers within a perfectly competitive labor market are adversely affected by minimum wages. Although employment opportunities are reduced by such laws, affected labor markets clear. Conventional analysis of the effect of minimum wages on monopsony markets is also upset by the model developed. The author is indebted to Rex Cottle, Benjamin Hawkins, Hugh Macaulay, Michael Maloney, Thomas Schaap, Gordon Tullock, Gene Uselton, and Karen Vaughn for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

A note on interdependent happiness

Based on two models of interdependent utilities [Becker, G., 1974. A theory of social interaction, Journal of Political Economy 82, 1064–1093; Fehr, E., Schmidt, K., 1999. A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation, Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, 817–868] we derive a functional relationship between average happiness and the standard deviation of happiness within a country. This hypothesis is supported by an empirical investigation of 71 countries which shows that the average happiness in these countries depends only on income and on the standard deviation of happiness σ. The latter may be partly based on influences beyond income, for which no data are available. Income has the expected positive influence and σ has the expected negative influence, i.e. large differences in “autonomous” happiness have a dampening influence on “effective” happiness which also takes into account the happiness of others.     

The measurement of gender wage discrimination: the distributional approach revisited

This paper presents the advantages of taking into account the distribution of the individual wage gap when analyzing female wage discrimination. Several limitations of previous approaches such as the classic Oaxaca–Blinder and the recent distributive proposals using quantile regressions or counterfactual functions are thoroughly discussed. The methodology presented here relies on Jenkins’ (J Econom 61:81–102, 1994) work and supports the use of poverty and deprivation literature techniques that are directly applicable to the measurement of discrimination. In an empirical illustration, we quantify the relevance of the glass ceiling and sticky floor phenomena in the Spanish labor market.     

Reconsidering union wage effects: Surveying new evidence on an old topic

I examine evidence on private sector union wage gaps in the United States. The consensus opinion among labor economists of an average union premium of roughly 15 percent is called into question. Two forms of measurement error bias downward standard wage gap estimates. Match bias results from Census earnings imputation procedures that do not include union status as a match criterion. Downward bias is roughly equal to the proportion of workers with imputed earnings, currently about 30 percent. Misclassification of union status causes additional attenuation in union gap measures. This bias has worsened as private sector density has declined, since an increasing proportion of workers designated as union are instead nonunion workers. Corrections for misclassification and match bias lead to estimated union gaps substantially higher than standard estimates, but with less of a downward trend since the mid 1980s. Private sector union gaps corrected for these biases are estimated from the CPS for 1973–2001. The uncorrected estimate for 2001 is .13 log points. Correction for match bias increases the gap to .18 log points; further correction for misclassification bias, based on an assumed 2 percent error rate, increases the gap to .24. Reexamination of the skill-upgrading hypothesis leads to the conclusion that higher union gap estimates are plausible. The conventional wisdom of a 15 percent union wage premium warrants reexamination.     

A note on strangers,friends and happiness

Using network data obtained in the 1985 General Social Survey, expressions of happiness are shown to increase with the size of a person's discussion network and decrease with the prevalence of strangers in the network. The density of especially close relations in the network has no direct effect on happiness. It is the negative impact of strangers rather than the positive impact of close relations that determines expressions of happiness. The network size and stranger effects remain strong even after respondent differences in socioeconomic status, age, sex, race, and domestic situation are held constant. However, it is clear that an almost certain route to strengthening the network measures to predict well-being lies in studying how happiness varies with the position of a spouse or other domestic partner in the respondent's network.     

Direct and indirect effects of human population density and land use on physical features and invertebrates of Iowa (U.S.A.) streams

To improve understanding of human impacts on headwater stream condition, we quantified relationships between human, terrestrial landscape, and stream system variables in 29 central Iowa watersheds. Across study watersheds, between 0 and 100 % of total land area was characterized as “urban” (developed and barren land), whereas cultivated land constituted between 0 and 71 % of watershed area. Several variables were measured for each stream and associated watershed. Strengths of correlative relationships were used to select variables for path analysis, which we used to gain insight into factors affecting stream condition by evaluating direct and indirect effects of human system variables, terrestrial landscape variables, and physical stream variables on stream invertebrates. Results indicated that in predominantly urban watersheds, contaminant inputs to streams (measured by streamwater conductivity) negatively affected invertebrates, including EPT taxa (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera), and streamwater contaminant concentrations increased with impervious surface and human population density in the watershed. In rural watersheds, high streamwater nitrogen concentrations associated with cultivated land were related to declines in invertebrate taxon richness. Independent of land use, invertebrate abundance and taxonomic diversity were positively related to coarse substrate abundance on the streambed. Additionally, stream flow (discharge) increased with watershed area, which in turn increased invertebrate taxonomic diversity. Apparently, mechanisms responsible for human impacts on stream condition in central Iowa depend on dominant land use in the watershed. Additionally, stream ecosystems with high quality benthic habitat, and those located in large watersheds with greater flow, appear to be more resilient to land use effects.     

Comparative advantage and the welfare effects of uniform wage policies

This paper analyzes the theoretical impact of a commonly cited union goal — the elimination or reduction of wage differentials within occupations. By dropping the usual assumption of homogeneous labor, we show how, and under what market conditions, workers will receive rents due to individual comparative advantage. In competitive labor markets a union-imposed uniform wage may lower the earnings of workers holding a productive advantage, causing a reduction in employment and a welfare loss of comparative advantage rents. The implications of a strict uniform wage rule imply that unions may be forced to adapt their wage policy to allow more productive workers to receive wage differentials. This consideration helps explain some common trade union institutions.     

Revisiting multi-tier wage structures: Equity,employment mobility,and tier effects

This study considers the competing conclusions reached by Martin and Peterson (1987) and Cappelli and Sherer (1990) regarding two-tier wage systems and examines how worker perceptions of their own employment mobility affect attitudes about two-tier systems. Findings from a hybrid multi-tier wage system in the retail food industry containing both permanent and merging or temporary tiers indicates that workers on the permanently lower B tier possessed more negative attitudes than their A-tier counterparts, with some evidence that the effects of permanent and temporary plans differ. Employment mobility moderates these attitudes, for low mobility workers report more positive attitudes than do high mobility workers.     

To be or not to be a rights holder: Direct and indirect effects of perceived rights on psychological adjustment through group identification in care

This study explores how young people in residential care perceive their rights and the relationship with their adjustment, through the role of group identification. Data from a non-random sample of young people (N = 356; aged 11–18 years) in Portuguese residential settings was analysed and a set of mediation effects was found. Findings revealed a set of mediation effects on the relationship between Participation and Protection and Positive Self and between Respectful system practices and behaviours and Emotional Distress, Anger Control and Antisocial Behaviour. Higher scores of these rights perceptions were associated with lower psychological problems, through the indirect effect of group identification (i.e., the sense of belonging to the group in residential care). These findings are discussed based on social and developmental insights together with empirical evidence on residential care. These results provided important practical implications in residential care, namely, assuring the young people's participation, the promotion of professional practices based on the respect for young people and their families, non-discriminatory behaviours and equal opportunities.