America Works is a splendid book and Richard Freeman is to be congratulated on producing a work that sets out what is right and what is wrong with the U.S. labor market while being a joy to read. While I am generally sympathetic to both the analysis and the conclusions, there are a number of points of disagreement that I highlight in this review. In particular, I would add to his policy recommendations by taking a gamble and enacting a law that entitled all employees in the United States to four weeks paid holiday per year in addition to public holidays. This may transform summertime in the United States.

This paper is concerned with measuring the true impact of certain human capital variables on an individual's occupational position. The particular variables which are analysed are training, qualifications and spells of sickness and unemployment. The longitudinal nature of the data enables us to control for all relevant individual attributes which remain fixed over the period of the sample. This is vitally important because these attributes are strongly correlated with the variables of interest and would seriously corrupt estimates derived from a single cross-section. A method of generating consistent estimates (as N → ∞, T fixed) for a dynamic model with fixed effects is also illustrated.

Journal Article Uncertainty and Lags in the Investment Decisions of Firms Get access Stephen Nickell Stephen Nickell E.N.S.A.E., Paris, and London School of Economics Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 44, Issue 2, June 1977, Pages 249–263, https://doi.org/10.2307/2297065 Published: 01 June 1977

Journal Article On the Role of Expectations in the Pure Theory of Investment Get access Stephen Nickell Stephen Nickell London School of Economics Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 1974, Pages 1–19, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296395 Published: 01 January 1974

[It is well known from the Monte-Carlo work of Nerlove that using the standard within-group estimator for dynamic models with fixed individual effects generates estimates which are inconsistent as the number of "individuals" tends to infinity if the number of time periods is kept fixed. In this paper we present analytical expressions for these inconsistencies for the first order autoregressive case.]

[This paper proposes an econometric methodology for estimating the conditional probability of an individual leaving unemployment in any particular week of his spell out of work. We use this method with cross-section data on uncompleted unemployment spells to investigate a number of questions concerning unemploymentduration. In particular we look at the impact of unemployment benefits and how this changes over the course of an unemployment spell. We also consider how our results are affected by unobserved sample heterogeneity and present estimates which, to some extent, take account of this problem.]

The relationship between education and unemployment incidence, although theoretically clear-cut, has rarely been quantified. Some estimates of this relationship are obtained for Britain, and these are split into the impact of schooling and qualifications on the probability of entering unemployment and on the expected duration of spells within that state. Finally, estimates of the rate of return to schooling are adjusted to take account of unemployment incidence.

The relationship between education and unemployment incidence, although theoretically clear-cut, has rarely been quantified. Some estimates of this relationship are obtained for Britain, and these are split into the impact of schooling and qualifications on the probability of entering unemployment and on the expected duration of spells within that state. Finally, estimates of the rate of return to schooling are adjusted to take account of unemployment incidence.

This article examines the real wage-employment relationship in the United States in the light of the diversity of results in the literature. It demonstrates that, when the relationship is correctly specified, in the sense that due allowance is made for technical progress and capital accumulation, and the appropriate value-added deflator is used for the wage, then a negative relationship may be observed in the data. An incorrect specification, however, is as likely to lead to a positive relationship as a negative one.

This paper makes use of panel data to consider the effects of unionization, schooling, sickness, and unemployment on individual earnings. Our results may be summarized as follows. The unionization effect is around 15%-20%. This measure is consistently estimated controlling for both fixed individual attributes and serially uncorrelated measurement error. Sickness has little immediate impact, but there is some indication that after 4 years earnings have fallen permanently by around 8% consequent on a 10-week spell of sickness. A spell of unemployment, on the other hand, leads to a sharp fall in earnings, but this effect decays rapidly leaving the possibility of a small permanent impact. Finally, controlling for all fixed individual attributes, we are unable to pin down the schooling effect with any accuracy owing to the absence of instruments that are both valid and effective within the data set.