Using longitudinal data collected in 1996–98 from over 800 similar workplaces owned and operated by one corporation, the authors examine how workplace diversity and employee isolation along the dimensions of gender, race, and age affected employee turnover. This design controls for much...

This analysis examines how changes in major industrial relations policies affected productivity over the years 1974–91 at one of the most important manufacturing plants in the United States. The authors find that productivity fell greatly, both in percentage terms and in absolute dollars,...

Using a new set of directly observed wage expectations among firms, this paper finds that in general firms' forecasts fail the unbiasedness and efficiency requirements of weak-form rational expectations. These market participants consistently underestimate the wages they actually end up paying,...

Recent arguments that employment growth occurs disproportionately at small establishments are fundamentally misleading because they confuse regression to the mean with structural shifts in the size distribution of establishments and with an aging effect within cohorts. The net growth usually...

We develop a model of turnover and wages based on the legal limits on workers' liability. A simple two-period model generates differences among firms in entry level wages, and in returns to age and tenure. It predicts that both quits and discharges are negatively correlated with the steepness of...

This paper reviews some recent empirical analyses of the impact of affirmative action and anti-discrimination law on employment and productivity.The major findings are that:1)Affirmative action has some success in improving employment opportunities for minorities and females, particularly for...

The past three decades have witnessed a large and puzzling decline in labor force participation by prime-age males, and a correspondingly large increase in Social Security disability beneficiary roles.This paper reviews the analytical studies that have attempted to determine the causal links...

Critics have said that affirmative action is at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. In particular, it has been argued that if affirmative action helps anybody, it helps only the highly educated cream of the minority population, and may perversely work to the detriment of the...

This study analyzes the impact of major industrial relations variables on productivity within a plant that assembles large commercial aircraft. The analysis combines the deep firm- specific knowledge of management and labor typical of the best of traditional industrial relations with formal...