Knowledge that Transforms

A two-state model of strikes, in which both the entrepreneur and the worker randomize their behavior, is developed. The entrepreneur always asks for a wage reduction unaccompanied by a cut in labor services if the state is bad, and he sometimes makes the same request in the good state. The worker sometimes agrees to this request and sometimes threatens to strike. The strike threat is only carried out in the bad state. This equilibrium can Pareto dominate that found in the standard asymmetric information contracting model.

Firms' incentives to inform workers about their future viability are analyzed using a two-period signaling model. I find that, if wages can be set after firms learn their viability, they will perfectly signal firms' closure plans. Mandatory-notice laws, if they have any effect at all, reduce worker utility and raise profits because they obviate the need for "permanent" firms to signal via higher wages. If a noncontingent wage must be set before any private information arrives, pooling occurs in the absence of legislation, and mandatory-notice laws can be Pareto improving.

This article explores a model in which a union confronts many competitive workers, firms, and consumers. Under "monopoly" unionism, union coverage may be incomplete; then, union wages and employment are insensitive to product demand variation. Under "efficient" unionism, coverage can never be incomplete; some union variables necessarily vary with product demand. Preliminary evidence on the demand independence under incomplete coverage hypothesis is presented. Also, more structure is imposed and further hypotheses are derived, and the manner in which the model can be enriched to allow for a variety of union-related issues within a consistent framework is set out.

Wage changes in a sample (1979-86) of Canadian wage contracts are analyzed. The sample is split into cost-of-living allowance (COLA) and non-COLA contracts. Econometric estimation corrects for sample selectivity bias. In non-COLA contracts, the unemployment rate and a proxy for expected inflation are significant. Expected industry price changes and productivity changes exert smaller but significant effects. In COLA contracts, ex ante inflation coverage ranges between 60% and 100% of expected inflation. Catch-up for previous uncompensated inflation, the unemployment rate, and expected inflation are also significant. A common wage structure across COLA and non-COLA contracts is rejected by the data.

Preunemployment search is the fundamental labor market process generating beneficial effects of advance notice. Yet theory indicates that workers receiving notice may not search, whereas others may search even without advance notice. Our weighted results indicate that over one-third of all nonnotified workers still search and over 40% of workers receiving notice do not respond by searching. Further, preunemployment search determinants differ for notified (nonnotified) workers and men (women). For notified men, search is strongly increased by longer notice and strongly decreased by higher unemployment insurance benefits. But neither factor affects the employed search decisions of notified women.

A simple search model that includes the possibility of recall provides predictions as to the changing effects of recall expectations, a bonus offer, and job counseling on new job finding rates over time. Using data from the New Jersey Unemployment Insurance Reemployment Demonstration Project (NJUIRDP), I find evidence for an initial positive effect of the bonus offer, which diminishes over time. New job-finding rates are found to be negatively affected by higher initial recall expectations. This effect also diminishes over time, and evidence suggests that job counseling is successful in speeding up this process.

Worker incentive schemes are invariably assumed to be administered by an owner-entrepreneur who has an incentive to understate worker performance after the event. While tournaments can overcome this problem, they discourage cooperation between workers. We show that a professional manager concerned with equality between workers and with avoiding bankruptcy rather than maximizing shareholder wealth will conduct a tournament that preserves individual effort incentives while promoting cooperation between workers. The theory predicts lower debt levels and more compressed pay scales as cooperation becomes more important. In the limit this becomes a group bonus scheme, supported by "blue-chip" debt.

We argue that lawyers' sons follow in their parents' footsteps because the occupation lends itself to low-cost transfer of relevant skills and knowledge from one generation to the next, especially in the context of the family law practice. Analysis of Project Talent data reveals that knowledge about the law is transmitted from lawyers to their children and that this transmitted knowledge is a significant factor in a son's decision to follow in his father's legal footsteps. Second-generation lawyers who receive these human capital transfers experience greater earnings than lawyers who have not received such transfers.

Workers in a long-term relationship often have an incentive to hide their ability early in the relationship to avoid having the firm increase the level of output expected from them in the future. We show that competition for older workers will permit the implementation of efficient piece-rate contracts. When the difficulty of the job is unobserved by the firm, Gibbons (1987) has shown that all piece-rate contracts will be inefficient. Together, these results may explain why piece rates are common in some jobs, such as agricultural work and sales, and not as popular for many manufacturing jobs.