Program Applicants As a Comparison Group in Evaluating Training Programs: Theory and a Test

Business & Money

Orr, Larry L.

W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

Blomquist, John D.

Cain, Glen G.

Management & Leadership

W E Upjohn Inst for

When Is Transition Over?

Western Michigan University Dept. of Economics

Economics

The Economics of Sports

The good old days...a time when employers rewarded employees' loyalty to the company with job security and stable wages. Alas, according to many pundits, those days are gone only to be replaced during the early 1990s by a "new employment contract" under which employers reward each employee's skills based on a value determined by the current labor market. This new paradigm is described as being more "flexible" in terms of employment attachment and wages paid. 
This book explores this apparent change in the employment contract from a new perspective. Whereas earlier studies in this area focused on the rigidities in the quantity side of the employment relationship, e.g., changes in job tenure and rates of displacement, the authors focus on the price side of the contract -- whether wage structures have become more flexible. 
In 1971, Doeringer and Piore published a notable account of how wages were set at large employers in the U.S. They described internal labor markets that contained a number of wage rigidities, namely that large employers paid higher wages, they paid similar workers similar wages even when the employees were in different regions and labor markets, and relative pay between occupations showed little variation over time. 
Levine, et al. see such facets of the old employment contract as hypotheses that can be tested to see if changes have indeed occurred under the new employment contract. For instance, they probe whether the amount of variance in pay among employers has decreased and whether variation in pay within a job title increased (presumably due to a heavier reliance on merit pay and bonuses). These and other hypotheses on internal labor markets are studied by utilizing five data sets, including a survey on fairness in employment relations collected specifically for this study. 
Readers may be surprised to learn that the authors' survey results show that the rigidities of the old employment contract remain. Employees' norms toward pay cuts and layoffs remain consistent with the old employment contract. Similarly, companies' pay policies -- likely related to this stability in norms -- do not appear substantially more flexible and market-oriented now than they did in years past. 
A number of notable contributions relating to wages paid also result. Levine, et al. document the rising overall inequality within individual employers and decompose that into inequality within an employer and rising inequality for similar workers at different employers. They verify the rising returns to skill found by other researchers, and test whether product markets or labor markets affect the level of wages paid by large employers or the rigidities over time and space at large employers. The authors also contribute a description of changing wage structures over four decades, and they broaden our understanding of human capital theory and other explanations of internal labor markets. 
Overall, readers of this book will gain a better understanding of how internal labor markets have operated and the extent to which they exist or have been superseded by the new employment contract.

How New Is the "New Employment Contract?": Evidence from North American Pay

Bargaining for Competitiveness: Law, Research, and Case Studies

This book offers an analysis of the relationship among collective bargaining, firm competitiveness, and employment protection/creation in the United States. The contributors offer an overview of the systemic perspectives of collective bargaining, then follow with four instructive case studies that provide insights into the process of collective bargaining and its current status in the evolving U.S. labor-management system.

Law Practice

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Books by W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research