This paper examines the relationship between wage rates and the racial composition of jobs, using large cross-sectional and longitudinal samples constructed from monthly Current Population Surveys for 1983-92. Support is found for a "quality sorting" model that posits an equilibrium in which the...

In the twentieth century two intellectual traditions were the most influential in the American field of labor economics. The first was the tradition of institutional economics (IE) and its close offshoot industrial relations (IR), the second was the tradition of neoclassical economics (NE). This...

Drawing on the economics and industrial relations literatures, this paper argues that the conventional conceptualization and theorization of human resource management, and the attendant empirical literature on the HRM-firm performance relationship, are likely to suffer from significant problems...

This paper describes the original paradigm of industrial relations, as developed in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. The original paradigm had three faces: science-building, problem-solving, and ethical/ideological. It is argued that the core principle that spans and...

The theory of trade unions is re-examined using principles and ideas of institutional economics. An institutional perspective provides a more balanced and inclusive portrait of what unions do; it also demonstrates flaws and biases in the standard neoclassical account that lead to overly negative...