College students select their majors for a variety of reasons, including expected returns in the labor market. This paper demonstrates an empirical method that links a census of U.S. degrees and fields of study with measures of the knowledge content of jobs. The study combines individual wage...

Compensation for U.S. Postal Service workers is determined through a process of collective bargaining and mandatory interest arbitration in the event of impasse. The directive of the Postal Reorganization Act is to maintain compensation similar to that awarded for comparable levels of work in...

Theory and evidence indicate that wage rates across labor markets adjust only partially with respect to differences in consumer prices. Earnings differentials are estimated for 185 labor markets during 1985-95, following control for worker and area characteristics, based on nominal wages, wages...

This note describes the construction and provision of an Internet database providing private and public sector union membership, coverage, and density estimates compiled from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Economy-wide estimates are provided beginning in 1973, estimates by state, detailed...

This note describes the construction and provision of an Internet database providing private and public sector union membership, coverage, and density estimates compiled from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Economy-wide estimates are provided beginning in 1973, estimates by state, detailed...

This study estimates union effects on workers' compensation indemnity claims in 1977-92, based on individual panel data constructed from the March Current Population Survey. Union members were substantially more likely to receive workers' compensation benefits than were similar nonunion workers,...

Registered nurses (RNs) employed in hospitals realize a large wage advantage relative to RNs employed elsewhere. Cross-sectional estimates indicate a hospital RN wage advantage of roughly 20%. This paper examines possible sources of the hospital premium, a topic of some interest given the...

This paper describes the construction of time-consistent national and state-level estimates of union density for the years 1964 through 2000. Two sources of data are combined to produce these estimates, the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly survey of U.S. households, and the...

This paper describes the construction of time-consistent national and state-level estimates of union density for the years 1964 through 2000. Two sources of data are combined to produce these estimates, the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly survey of U.S. households, and the...

This paper examines the relationship between private sector union density and the wage premium, identifying where we have been and where we may go. The starting point is that labor unions are in decline and now represent a small proportion of the private sector workforce. This trend poses a...