This study tests the efficiency wage hypothesis by estimating wage and quit equations with data from the Employment Opportunity Pilot Project survey of firms. An efficiency wage model is derived that predicts effects of turnover costs and unemployment on wages as functions of first and second derivatives from the quit equation. The model is tested by examining the relationships between the coefficients in the wage and quit equations; the results are generally favorable to efficiency wage theory. Other important findings are that firm characteristics raising workers' productivity tend to raise wages and that a rise in turnover costs reduces quits.

This article presents estimates of the elasticity of supply of labor to child care. This parameter is an important determinant of the effects of child care subsidies and regulations on the cost of child care. Using data from the Current Population Survey, there is evidence of an elasticity in the range of 1.2-1.9. This implies that the majority of the benefits of child care subsidies accrue to consumers of child care. It is also consistent with the fact that child care workers' wages remained flat in real terms in recent years, despite rapid growth in the demand for child care.

A review of previous analyses of labor supply effects of Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) concludes that estimates of labor supply effects and net social costs are upward biased because they ignore interactions between DI and other insurances. A model of optimal insurance, postinjury accommodations, and labor supply shows that reduction in labor supply and increase in consumption when disabled do not necessarily imply moral hazard. Optimal postinjury accommodations vary inversely with firm size. The Americans with Disabilities Act will reduce wages and labor supply of healthy workers, particularly in small firms. Effects on labor supply of the disabled are ambiguous.

Using union contract and industry wage survey data, this article examines the effect of discounting on cooperative bargaining behavior by unions and firms. Game theory predicts that higher discount rates raise the temptation to defect from cooperation. Measures of cooperative behavior included the presence of merit pay, incentive pay, wage-employment guarantees, or labor-management study committees. Discount rates were proxied by the relevant industry's failure rate. Failure rates generally had negative effects on cooperation. Industry Wage Survey results showed larger effects for union than non-union establishments, providing support for the union bargaining framework.

We survey unemployment insurance (UI) in the United States and provide new evidence on the UI payroll tax. Most UI receipt is due to firms that pay part of the UI costs of their layoffs, but weak experience rating leads most firms to pay considerably less than the full costs. Industries consistently receiving subsidies from the UI system are construction, manufacturing, and mining. Finally, a large fraction of layoffs resulting in payment of UI are made by firms that are not charged for the costs of the claim because they have employed the individual for less than 2 quarters.