Despite indications that interpersonal interactions are important for understanding individual labor-market outcomes and have become more important over the last decades, there is little analysis by economists. This paper shows that interpersonal interactions are important determinants of...

The model developed in this paper explains differences in the division of labour across firms as a result of computer technology adoption. We find that changes in the division of labour can result both from reduced production time and from improved communication possibilities. The first shifts...

Negotiating the Life Course (NLC) is a longitudinal survey that investigates how men and women in Australia negotiate employment, family formation and domestic responsibilities across their lifetimes. The survey collects data on a range of variables: demographic, labour market, income, housing,...

There is growing interest by policy makers in the gap between those who have skills in information technologies and those who do not, due, in part, to the concern that this gap contributes to rising income inequality. In this paper, unit record data are used to examine the factors that determine...

This paper presents a simple theoretical model of the Australian Traineeship System and goes on to evaluate the early career outcomes of young persons who take up a traineeship shortly after leaving school. The trainees are compared to other school leavers who do not undertake any further...

This paper uses Australian data from the Negotiating the Life Course Project 1997 to investigate the impact of marriage on men’s and women’s earnings. We extend earlier earnings research and investigate whether the effect of marriage is constant for men and women at different points on the...

When workers adopt technology at the point where the costs equal the increased productivity, output per worker increases immediately, while the productivity benefits increase only gradually if the costs continue to fall. As a result, workers in computer-adopting labor market groups experience an...

This study investigates some aspects of part-time and full-time employment in Australia. The main objective is to analyze whether part-time workers receive lower hourly wages than full-time workers who have similar levels of human capital and perform similar jobs. The study is based on...

Using data from the 1997 Skills Survey of the Employed British Workforce, we examine the returns to computer skills in Britain. Many researchers, using information on computer use, have concluded that wage differentials between computer users and non-users might, among others, be due to...