WAGES, RENTS, AND AMENITIES: DIFFERENCES AMONG WORKERS AND REGIONS

What explains persistent regional earnings differences? This paper argues that regional differences in amenities can account for the wage differences; in contrast, cost of living variations do not account for wage differences, but actually exacerbate them. This conclusion results from a model in which variations in rents and wages are equalizing differences for amenity differences. Empirical results are consistent with the model.     

WAGES, EARNINGS AND HOURS OF FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD GENERATION AMERICAN MALES

Analysis of 1970 census data for eight ethnic groups indicates that, other things equal, recent immigrants generally receive lower wages and earnings than second generation workers, but second generation workers receive higher wages and earnings than do third. Recent immigrants and third generation men work significantly fewer hours per year than do earlier immigrants and second generation men. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that increases in U. S. specific human capital over generations are offset by decreases in motivation. The higher motivation of immigrants appears to reflect greater preference for money over family ties, leisure, and easy work as compared with non-immigrants. immigrants.     

THE TECHNOLOGY FACTOR AND THE EXPORT PERFORMANCE OF U.S. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

The paper examines two central theories advanced to explain the revealed comparative advantage of U.S. industries. The neo-technological account centers on the process of innovation among industries and is represented in the regression analysis by an R&D intensity variable. The neofactor theory advances both human and "physical" capital as important variables in determining countries' comparative advantage. Foreign protection is postulated to affect the export performance of U.S. industries. Generally the results suggest that U.S. revealed comparative advantage is most pronounced in R&D intensive industries that give the U.S. a temporary technological lead in world markets.     

INFORMATION, CAPITALISM AND UNCERTAINTY

This article argues that the changes characterized by many commentators as announcing the 'information age' are better seen, not as heralding a new type of society, but as the continuation, consolidation and extension of capitalism - something which is accompanied by constant upheaval and innovation. The shift from conceiving the 'information society' as a result of technological breakthroughs to one which lays emphasis on the primacy of 'information' itself is observed. The importance especially of informational labour's 'flexibility' is regarded, not as indicative of a new age but of the requirements of globalized capitalism which engenders change the better to consolidate its practices. The instability of life today is ascribed, not to the upheavals resulting from the 'information revolution', but rather to the insatiable dynamic that has long been a distinguishing feature of capitalist enterprise. These processes are examined in terms of the shift from public to private provision of information and in the heightened uncertainty of existence today.     

SUBURBAN LABOR MARKETS, URBAN LABOR MARKETS, AND GENDER INEQUALITY IN EARNINGS

This study focuses on the role of labor market location in generating gender inequality in earnings. Specifically, the article examines whether suburban versus urban labor market conditions differentially affect gender-based earnings inequality. Tel Aviv metropolitan area labor force data support the thesis that women's tendency to settle for jobs in the vicinity of home is an exchange between economic opportunities and convenience, to avoid conflict with traditional roles. The cost of staying in the suburban labor market is greater for women than men, and suburban exceeds urban labor market gender-linked economic discrimination.     

CYCLIC PATTERNS IN WEEKS AND WAGES

An attempt is made to measure the sensitivity of real wages and weeks worked to overall cyclic disturbances using rather refined microdata. While overall results indicate that real wages are "rigid" with weeks worked exhibiting a procyclic pattern, significant contrasts in cyclic patterns are evident between union and nonunion sectors. Furthermore, these cyclic contrasts are generated by worker experience level to ascertain the extent of cyclic variation depending upon years on current job by a worker. An attempt is then made to link these empirical contrasts to patterns that are expected for two theoretical frameworks: an auction market model and an implicit contracting model. This leads to a conclusion that the union sector tends to exhibit implicit contracting characteristics whereas auction market characteristics prevail in the nonunion sector.     

ADVERTISING, CONCENTRATION AND PROFITABILITY IN MANUFACTURING

This paper predicts an inverted-LI relationship between concentration and advertising only for oligopolistic industries facing relatively less elastic demand curves. It rejects the inverted-LI theory based on the hypothesis that the large firms collude and lends empirical support to the idea that causation runs from Concentration to advertising intensity. By confirming that the effect of advertising on profitability is significant and greater for industries producing homogeneous goods than for those producing heterogeneous goods, this study fails to support the barriers-to-entry hypothesis.     

THE ORGANIZATION AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL PASTS IN CRIMINAL COURTS

This article demonstrates the contributions of Katovich and Couch's (1992) formal theory of social pasts to conceptualizations of social world contexts and processual order (Strauss 1978; 1993). Using interview and observational data from three criminal courts, I focus on the interrelationship of two social world contextual features: (1) the organization of participants' social pasts, and (2) the degree of ideological consensus between participants in terms of sentencing goals. These two factors interact to influence interorganizational relationships in the three courts; and, in combination with individual criminal case characteristics, influence actors' case processing strategies. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the organization of social pasts in criminal courts and organizational arenas in general for the availability and attractiveness of alternative action strategies, as well as the management of uncertainty in organizational decision making. I also suggest several directions for further research.     

MARKET STRUCTURE AND PRICE-COST MARGINS:A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF U.K. AND U.S. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

This paper reports a comparative study of market structure- performance relations in U. K. and U.S. manufacturing indus- tries. The multivariate regression results support the hypothesis of homogeneity of the links between market structure and the price-cost margin dimension of performance in manufacturing industries of the two countries. Furthermore, the results indicate that the differences in the legal and cultural environments of U.K. and U.S. industries do not significantly affect the pattern of similarity in the links.     

PARENTAL ALTRUISM AND SELF-INTEREST: CHILD LABOR AMONG LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN FAMILIES

Intergenerational relationships within late nineteenth-century industrial families are analyzed using several large-scale, contemporary household surveys. Nonaltruistic behavior by parents was pervasive. Even among families with positive assets, child labor was common in certain industrial settings, suggesting that child labor (or nonschooling) did not simply reflect parental borrowing constraints. Neither did physical asset transfers offset human capital losses among working youth. A quantitative estimate of parental nonaltruism is derived from an equilibrium labor market model: approximately 90 percent of all child earnings was implicitly competed away through lower adult wages as families migrated to areas with abundant child labor opportunities.     

THE SUBSTITUTABILITY OF BLACK, HISPANIC, AND WHITE LABOR

This paper analyzes the extent of labor market competition among blacks, hispanics, and whites in the United States. The specification of a generalized Leontief production function leads to an empirically tractable system of input demand functions. The estimation of the demand system, using the 1976 Survey of Income and Education, reveals that (a) blacks and hispanics are complementary inputs; (b) hispanics and whites may also be complements; and (c) blacks and whites are not complements and may be substitutes.     

WORK AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR

The paper is an attempt to conceptualize the division of labor in terms of work. This perspective leads to a necessary distinction between work and workers, and its implications. Among the main considerations discussed are actor, accountability, division of rights versus division of labor, work patterns and interactional styles, rapidly changing organizations and industries in relation to their divisions of labor, and reciprocal macro and micro impacts. Some research implications are also discussed.     

GENDER, EARNINGS, AND THE ENGLISH SKILL ACQUISITION OF HISPANIC WORKERS IN THE UNITED STATES

Using the 1980 and 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples, we find that labor market outcomes associated with English proficiency vary with respect to gender. For example, a synthetic cohort analysis provides evidence of gender-related differences in Hispanic workers' English skill acquisition. Moreover, we observe that Hispanic women face a lower English deficiency earnings penalty that rises more sharply with education than the penalty obtained by their otherwise similar male peers. Finally, English fluency appears to serve as a stronger occupational sorting mechanism for women than men. ( JEL J3, J1)