This paper presents two key facts which call into question the value of unemployment rates as barometers of labor market tightness. First, while both unemployment rates and unsatisfied labor demand proxies perform reasonably well on their own in compensation growth equations, in models which...

This paper presents new survey evidence that relative protection against job loss grows with length of service, independent of their net value to the firm. This protection makes good sense given that at most companies employees appear to earn less than their value marginal product in the early...

A firm's decision to contract out for business support services may be influenced by the wage and benefit savings it could realize, the volatility of its output demand and the availability of specialized skills possessed by the outside contractor. Analysis of newly-available establishment-level...

This study investigates where and when last-in-first-out permanent layoff policies seem to go hand in hand with compensation policies under which the net value of senior workers appears to be less than that of their junior peers. The investigation relies upon both the approximately 260 usable...

Recent studies have documented the growth of earnings inequality in the United States during the 1980s. In contrast to these studies' findings, our analysis of micro data for the former West Germany yields virtually no evidence of growth in earnings inequality over the same period. Between 1978...

Estimates of volunteering in the United States vary greatly from survey to survey and do not show the decline over time common to other measures of social capital. We argue that these anomalies are caused by the social processes that determine survey participation, in particular the propensity...

The stylized fact that seniority and earnings in a cross-section are positively related, even after controlling for total labor market experience, has served as the basis for theoretical analyses of implicit labor contracts suggesting that workers post bonds in the form of deferred compensation...

One of the most prominent features of U.S. unionism is the key role played by seniority. However, in cross-sectional data, the positive association between seniority and earnings is typically much stronger for nonunion workers than for union workers. This finding has puzzled previous...

This study provides evidence which we believe challenges some conventional assumptions about the promotion process. Based on survey information collected from a large random sample of U.S. private sector firms, we reach two main conclusions. First,seniority independent of productivity appears to...

This study discusses newly collected data concerning the role played by seniority in U.S. firms' termination and promotion decisions. The new information, based on 561 usable responses to a nation-wide survey of companies conducted by the authors, sheds light on two key questions: For what...