This paper analyzes data on union and employer rankings of different panels of arbitrators in an actual arbitration system. A random utility model of bargainer preferences is developed and estimated. The estimates indicate that unions and employers have similar preferences: in favor of lawyers, more experienced arbitrators, and arbitrators who seem to have previously favored their side. Tests of whether bargainers rank arbitrators strategically reveal no evidence of such behavior.

This study analyzes a new set of data on the decisions of conventional arbitrators.The main goal is to draw inferences about the extent to which conventional arbitration decisions are fashioned as mechanical compromises of • the parties' final offers, without reference to the exogenous facts involved, in different disputes.The results of the analysis are remarkably clear: conventional arbitrators tend to split-the-difference between the parties' final offers with virtually no evidence of systematic reference to the facts of the cases.However, since there is a substantial amount of unexplained variance in the arbitration decisions, this evidence of mechanical compromise behavior should be viewed as characterizing the overall operation of conventional arbitration mechanisms and not the behavior of individual arbitrators in any particular case.Indeed, the results are consistent with the view that individual arbitrators pay close attention to the facts of the cases, but that there is considerable variation in the structure of different arbitrators' preference functions.

This paper reviews selected theoretical and empirical developments in the field of labor migration economics. The migration behavior of individuals differs in accordance with their perceived relative deprivation; those who are relatively more deprived tend to have stronger incentive to migrate than those who are relatively less deprived. Moreover a reference group characterized by more income inequality is likely to generate more relative deprivation. Highly skilled workers are also more likely to migrate. Migration decisions are often made jointly by the migrant and nonmigrant with a contractual arrangement regarding the sharing of costs and returns. The exchange of commitments to share income provides coinsurance. Of particular interest are the determinants of the speed of adoption of migration as an innovation and the characteristics associated with the delay in the adoption of innovation. New econometric techniques including techniques for the analysis of qualitative dependent variables techniques that correct for sample selection bias and those for the analysis of longitudinal data have substantially benefited empirical research in this area. New methods that can correct for the biased estimate of the wages particular individuals would receive at 2 or more locations at the same point in time allow researchers to test locational decsion making models. Estimates of these structural models of labor migration support the hypothesis that individuals respond to income incentives in making the decsion to migrate. Further research is needed on the pazzling observation that migrant workers earn less than native-born workers with similar characteristics during the 1st few years after migration but more thereafter. Other topics that need further research include the macroeconomic effects of migration the microeconomic and macroeconomic relationships between aging and labor migration and the migration behavior of dual-earner families.

The emerging empirical literature on the economics of arbitration has focused primarily on the behavior of arbitrators under alternative forms of arbitration. This article suggests that it is natural for empirical economists to now expand their focus to include issues related to the behavior of negotiators. In this connection, three key aspects of negotiator behavior are discussed: (1) the decision to settle a dispute voluntarily or to proceed to arbitration; (2) the strategy for selecting an arbitrator; and (3) the final bargaining position to advance before an arbitrator.