Suchergebnisse

This volume contains new important research on worker well-being. Topics include employment contracts, compensation schemes, worker productivity, retirement decisions, the demographic transition, time allocation, and child labor. Among the questions answered are: How important is incentive pay in increasing worker productivity? Does monitoring productivity affect a worker's earnings trajectory? How is the decision to retire different in two-earner families compared to one-earner families? How did the evolution of the family affect men's and women's proclivities to work? Do welfare subsidies encourage recipients to spend additional productive time with their children? Can property titles (land reform) affect child labor in less developed country settings?

This volume contains new important research on worker well-being in a changing economy. Topics include employee compensation, human capital investment, womens wages, unemployment, and the effects of government policies. Among the questions answered are: Does free-trade (particularly regarding NAFTA) affect womens wages relative to mens? Can guaranteeing college scholarships raise high school students grade-point averages? Does increasing wage dispersion within a plant induce workers to put out more effort; or does it decrease commradery among employees, thereby lowering productivity? Does deferring worker pay really affect productivity on the job? Do firms manipulate fringe benefits (job characteristics) to adequately compensate workers for dangerous jobs? Do business cycles influence the terms of effort-enhancing labor contracts? How can workers signal their potential quality when displaced by plant closings? How severe are the detrimental effects of long-term joblessness? And finally, how do changes in welfare laws affect recipients time allocation at home?

This volume contains eight new and innovative research articles relevant to researchers and policy makers. Each chapter deals with an aspect of human welfare and is authored by an expert in the field. One deals with how technological change affects the distribution of earnings, two deal with how workers advance through corporate hierarchy, four deal with how incentives motivate workers, and the final chapter deals with how one immigrant group is far more successful than even the native population. Among the questions answered are: What accounts for the relative rise in skilled worker salaries? Which workers advance more quickly up the corporate ladder? Are workers hired from outside the company as successful as internally promoted workers? Does performance-based pay affect worker absenteeism? Do retirement incentives to workers really help the firm? Do unexpected decreases in retirement income decrease retiree life satisfaction? Do more stringent divorce laws increase cohabitation? What causes immigrants to really succeed in their new country?

This volume contains 10 new and innovative research articles of relevance to researchers and policy makers. Each chapter deals with an aspect of human welfare, and each is authored by an expert in the field. Of these, the first three investigate earnings distribution, the next four examine job remuneration, the next two explore discrimination, and the final chapter considers wage rigidities. Answers to a number of important questions are given. These questions include: What role does population heterogeneity play in shaping a country's earnings distribution? Does more training really reduce wage inequality? How does growth in Chinese well-being compare to the growth in US well-being? What role do employees play in the way their jobs are designed? Does deferred compensation really motivate workers? To what extent do firms "fast-track" some employees for eventual executive positions? Are workers in the public sector better off than workers in the private sector? Does a firm's gender composition affect its survival? Are current Equal Employment Opportunity Commission anti-discrimination laws the best way to combat discrimination, or are there better approaches? How does one detrmine the extent of wage rigidities in the labor market? --Book Jacket.

Informality and informal employment are wide-spread and growing phenomena in all regions of the world, in particular in low and middle income economies. A large part of economic activity in these countries is not registered or under-declared and many workers enter employment relationships that do not provide any or only partial protection, work with little or no physical capital, receive low wages and work under conditions that can be hazardous to their health. This volume sheds light on the incidence and persistence of informality and the role of institutions and government regulations. The articles offer insights into issues such as how labor and tax regulations determine the incidence of informality, whether reforms on tax and other regulations can reduce informal employment, to what extent informality occurs as a result of job separations, how persistent is informal employment, how informal employment can be detected and whether migration can be a substitute for informal employment.

Although converging somewhat, men are still economically more successful than women. These stark economic differences prevail in the United States and in virtually all countries throughout the world. This volume contains a number of important new articles analyzing reasons for continuing gender discrepancies in wellbeing. To get at these incongruities, the volume analyzes a number of key questions including: Do men seek greater financial risk than women? Do men really bargain better, and under what circumstances? Why are women rapidly closing the college enrollment gap, but not the wage gap? How do educational choices affect men's and women's starting salaries? What are the chances of women attaining the same occupational status as men? And, how does intergenerational socioeconomic mobility differ between sons and daughters? The answers will not only further our understanding of resource distribution, but will also inform the policy debate on where within society one finds discriminatory practices and where one does not.