Management attitudes toward two-tier pay plans

Two-tier pay plans, under which new hires are paid on a lower pay scale than existing employees, have been used with increasing frequency in union-management contracts. The two-tier phenomenon appears to be associated with the wider concession bargaining movement that began in the early 1980s. In this study, management attitudes toward and forecasts about two-tier pay plans are explored by means of a questionnaire survey. In general, the management community is found to be optimistic about the spread and utility of two-tier pay plans in the near term. Managers in firms that actually have two-tier plans are more enthusiastic about their impacts than other managers. Over a longer term, however, the managers surveyed tend to believe that separate wage scales under two-tier plans will eventually be merged into a unified scale. The authors would like to thank Maury Pearl and Gwang-Gi Baek for research assistance on this study.     

The component structure of elderly population growth in the Netherlands: 1950–1980

While there is no doubt about the magnitude of the growth of older age groups in industrialized nations, its structural components are less well understood. This paper examines the roles played by cohort succession and mortality in the process for the Netherlands during the period 1950 to 1980. While the size of population aged 65 and over has increased for both males and females, increases in the size of succeeding cohorts explain all of the growth in the older male population. Reductions in mortality at the older old ages play a much greater role than do reductions at younger old ages; the latter reductions occur among females only.     

Distributional implications of equal sacrifice rules

A conclusive story can be made out of equal absolute and equal proportional sacrifice rules if only income after some poll tax of equal total revenue is taken as basis for distributional comparisons.     

Cancer Risk Assessment with Intermittent Exposure

Applications of methods for carcinogenic risk assessment often focus on estimating lifetime cancer risk. With intermittent or time-dependent exposures, lifetime risk is often approximated on the basis of a lifetime average daily dose (LADD). In this article, we show that there exists a lifetime equivalent constant dose (LECD) which leads to the same lifetime risk as the actual time-dependent exposure pattern. The ratio C = LECD/LADD then provides a measure of accuracy of risk estimates based on the LADD, as well as a basis for correcting such estimates. Theoretical results derived under the classical multistage model and the two-stage birth-death-mutation model suggest that the maximum value of C, which represents the factor by which the LADD may lead to underestimates of risk, will often lie in the range of 2- to 5-fold. The practical application of these results is illustrated in the case of astronauts subjected to relatively short-term exposure to volatile organics in a closed space station environment, and in the case of the ingestion of pesticide residues in food where consumption patterns vary with age.     

OPTIMAL CALL SCHEDULING FOR A TELEPHONE SURVEY

Contacting a suitable respondent at home and securing the interviewis a significant component of the typical household telephonesurvey. An optimal calling schedule minimizes the number ofcallbacks required and thus conserves resources. This articlepresents an analysis of time-of-day and day-of-week effectson the probabilities of obtaining an answered outcome and aninterviewed outcome in a large national telephone survey ofadult males. The data presented indicate that, at least forthe survey population included in this study, the chances ofobtaining an answer and conducting an interview on the firstcall are much better on weekday evenings and on weekends thanthey are during weekday daytime hours. Moreover, there is someevidence to indicate that this finding also applies to secondcalls made to first-call no-answers, at least with regard tocontacting efforts. Time-of-day and/or day-of-week effects onfirst call outcomes appear to be generally consistent with respectto both contacting and interviewing, although Sunday has a decidedlyhigher interview response rate for answered calls than do theother calling periods analyzed.