Suchergebnisse

A simple theory of the labor market is presented in which the short end of the market sells. A flexible parameterisation of the theory yields an earnings distribution density function which is closely approximated by the well-known beta and gamma specifications. Apart from providing a theoretical rationale for these tractable and closefitting specifications, the theory suggests that the parameters of the beta distribution (this distribution encompassing the gamma as a special case) can be interpreted in terms of the structure of labor markets. This has implications for why earnings distributions take their commonly observed positive skew, as well as for wider issues including the relationship between employment and equality.

Split labor market theory was originally advanced as a general approach explaining ethnic antagonism as the result of class‐based interests. In this investigation, the threat to "high‐priced" (white) labor from "cheap" (black) labor within the farm tenancy system of the postbellum South is examined as an underlying cause of the lynching of blacks by whites. Supporting this interpretation, the ratio of black to white tenants in southern counties, a measure of the level of economic threat to high‐priced labor, is shown to be a strong predictor of lynching rates in the Cotton South. Findings for the Non‐Cotton South, however, are inconsistent with theoretical expectations. We conclude that racial violence linked to economic competition between working‐class whites and blacks was limited to that part of the South dominated by the plantation system.

Palestine, under British mandatory rule since the end of the First World War, was an arena of confrontation between Arabs and Jews over land, immigration, and political power, as well as over place and position in the labor market. This article will deal with the split labor market of mandatoryPalestineand the actors within it. The analysis will make use of the split labormarket theory of Edna Bonacich. In her theory she posits a situation in whichtwo groups of labor, belonging to different ethnic and national origins, meet in the same labor market. The more advantageous ethnic group has been able, due to its past history and its more advantageous position within world capitalist development, to ensure a higher value for its labor but considers itself threatened by the presence of the less advantageous groups, whose labor has lower value and thus greater attraction to employers who aim to maximize their profits. The theory then goes on to develop the different ways in which cheaper labor might serve to displace and substitute higher-priced labor and the strategies pursued by the latter in recurring attempts to maintain its relative advantage.