The authors examine the sensitivity of wage setting in two federal pay systems—the General Schedule (GS) system, covering white-collar workers, and the Federal Wage System (FWS), covering blue-collar workers—to local wages and cost-of-living. In 1978 and 1980, the years of the...

In final offer arbitration the decision of the arbitrator provides the parties with information about the preferences of the arbitrator that is not available prior to the award. Using data from Wisconsin teacher negotiations from 1977 to 1986, the authors find that the information contained in...

Recent studies have investigated arbitrator decision rules in both experimental and field settings. The authors of this paper evaluate the external validity of experimental studies by comparing the decisions made in an experiment with those made in actual cases by the same arbitrators. The...

The author estimates the impact of compulsory election laws on certification success using data on over 6,500 private sector certifications from British Columbia over the years 1978–98. A unique quasi-experimental design is used by exploiting two changes in the union recognition law:...

This paper examines the earnings effects of performance pay using linked employee-employer panel data from Finland's metal industry for 1990–2000. The authors estimate the effects of performance pay contracts in the presence of individual and firm unobserved heterogeneity as well as in...

Using data spanning half a century for adjacent jurisdictions in the United States and Canada, the authors study the long-term effects of a generous unemployment insurance (UI) program on the distribution of weeks worked. They find substantial effects. For example, in 1990, about 12.6% of...

This paper examines the determinants and consequences of delay in the union certification process using data from certification applications and unfair labor practice complaints (ULPs) from British Columbia (1986–98) and Ontario (1993–98). During the period studied, there were...

Using the ExecuComp data set, which contains information on the five highest-paid executives in each of a large number of U.S. firms for the years 1992–97, the authors examine the gender compensation gap among high-level executives. Women, who represented about 2.5% of the sample, earned...

This examination of the Stock Market's responsiveness to strikes looks specifically at strike actions that labor historians generally view as the major ones occurring in the United States in the years 1925–37. The authors find that strikes had large, negative effects on industry stock...

This paper examines how the managerial labor market in nonprofit hospitals has adjusted to the financial pressures induced by HMO penetration. Using a panel of about 1,500 nonprofit hospitals over the period 1992–96, the authors find that top executive turnover increased following an...