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?

Research in Labor Economics (Research in Labor Economics, 36)

Business & Money

Solomon W. Polachek

Economics

Emerald Publishing Limited

After three decades of economic reform, China is experiencing substantial demographic changes and a steady structural transformation toward a market economy. These phenomena pose major challenges for the Chinese labor market, which are at the center of the booming academic and policy research in recent years. This volume presents fresh knowledge on labor market issues in China. It contains eight original research articles which offer insights and answers to question such as: Which are the most important challenges of the Chinese labor market? How does rural-urban migration affect occupational choice in rural China? Does urban occupational mobility differ across gender? What is the cost of job displacement in urban labor markets? Is over-qualification affecting the hiring probability across educational groups? How does the social insurance system perform in terms of coverage of urban workers? Which are the incentive problems in the new rural pension program?

Labor Market Issues in China (Research in Labor Economics, 37)

Human Resources

This volume contains new important research on worker well-being in a changing economy. Topics include employee compensation, human capital investment, women's wages, unemployment, and the effects of government policies. Among the questions answered are:  Does free-trade (particularly regarding NAFTA) affect women's wages relative to men's? 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?

New Analyses in Worker Well-Being (Research in Labor Economics, 38)

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?

Factors Affecting Worker Well-Being: The Impact of Change in the Labor Market (Research in Labor Economics, 40)

The 2008 global financial and economic crisis led to a significant increase in unemployment rates in most developed economies, yet despite the rising supply of labor, a high share of employers claim that they cannot find the right talent and skills. Concerns that economic restructuring and changing skill needs associated with new technologies and workplace organization practices will not be met by an adequately skilled workforce, has placed the issue of skill mismatch - the incongruence between skill supply and skill demand - high up in the policy agenda. This volume contains eleven original research articles which deal with the linkages between education and skills and the causes and consequences of different types of skill mismatch. Topics include the way graduate jobs can be defined, the labor market decisions and outcomes of graduates, the determinants of the overeducation wage penalty, the determinants and consequences of underskilling, the wage return of skills, the impact of skill mismatch on aggregate productivity, and the role of work-related training and job complexity on skill development.

Skill Mismatch in Labor Markets (Research in Labor Economics, 45)

Emerald Publishing

Understanding the factors that affect howone transitions from school to the labor market and finally to retirement isimportant both to the individual and to the policy maker. This volume containsseven original and innovative articles that analyze aspects of such labormarket transitions. Questions answered include: How did hiring and firingdecisions change for blacks and Hispanics relative to whites in the GreatRecession? Can redesigning the minimum wage lead to more efficient employmenttransitions and greater social welfare? What are the factors leading a companyto fast-track an employee? How does the number of layers in a company'shierarchical structure affect one's ability to be promoted? Do women gravitateto more socially caring occupations because they care more than men? Doesgaming among youth increase math scores more for boys than girls? And, doesgood health impede one's inclination to retire?

Transitions through the Labor Market: Work, Occupation, Earnings and Retirement (Research in Labor Economics, 46)

Personal Finance

This volume contains twelve cutting edge papers contributing new research to important issues concerning worker welfare. The research deals with earnings inequality, discrimination, the effects of migration, and economic policy. Answers to a number of policy related questions are given including: Why are jobs designed the way they are? Does seniority-based pay provide a sufficient motivation for workers? Do sex-segregated firms grow more quickly than firms more equally divided by gender? What policies are effective in combating discrimination? Why is relative rural-urban income inequality so much greater in China than the US? How does migrating from one region to another affect one's child's schooling decisions? Do higher migration levels affect native worker wages?

Jobs, Training, and Worker Well-Being (Research in Labor Economics, 30)

Management & Leadership

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Books by Solomon W. Polachek