Knowledge that Transforms

This paper examines how measurement error biases longitudinal estimates of union effects. It develops numerical examples, statistical models, and econometric estimates which indicate that measurement error is a major problem in longitudinal data sets, so that longitudinal analyses do not provide the research panacea for determining the effects of unionism (or other economic forces) some have suggested. There are three major findings:

Affirmative action under Executive Order 11246 ranks among the most controversial of domestic federal policies. This study asks whether affirmative action has been successful in promoting the employment of minorities and females. It compares the change in demographics between 1974 and 1980 at more than sixty-eight thousand establishments, and finds that both minority and female employment have increased faster at establishments subject to affirmative action. Compliance reviews, while not well targeted are also found to have been effective.

H. Gregg Lewis' estimates of the relative wage effect of unionism between 1920 and 1958 are routinely cited though they have rarely been subject to scrutiny. This paper extends Lewis' data to 1980 and, in particular, we construct a series on union membership that links up with the data available in the 1970's from the Current Population Surveys. We proceed to reexamine the effects of trade unions both on relative wages and on relative manhours worked.

Using the assumptions of the Capital Asset Pricing Model this paper presents a measure of the effective protection rate which adjusts for the industry's risk. It is shown that if the tariff on the final good is greater (smaller) than the weighted average tariff on the traded inputs, then the effective protection increases (decreases) as one moves from an industry with low risk (low beta) to an industry with high risk (high beta), holding other things constant. The empirical methodology of the new measure is also provided, as well as several illustrations from U.S. industries.

The efficiency with which coefficients in probit models are estimated is improved by exploiting data on continuous ancillary variates.In this paper the resulting gains in efficiency are examined and illustrative calculations are provided.Extra precision is achieved at the cost of making an extra assumption but this assumption can be tested.It is shown that fully efficient maximum likelihood estimation of the probit model with a continuous ancillary variate can be achieved by a simple two step procedure involving an ordinary least squares and a probit estimation.

Richard M. Adams, Thomas D. Crocker, Richard W. Katz, Assessing the Adequacy of Natural Science Information: A Bayesian Approach, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 568-575

This study presents the first evidence on the relation of consumption to lifetime wealth, based on data from the 1973 and 1975 Retirement History Survey that have been linked to Social Security earnings records.

The resolution of any bargaining conflict depends crucially on the relative urgency of the agents to reach agreement and the information each agent has about the others' preferences. This paper explores, within the context of an infinite-horizon bargaining model with two-sided uncertainty, how timing and information affect the rational behaviour of agents when commitment is not possible. Since the bargainers are uncertain about whether trade is desirable, they must communicate some of their private information before an agreement can be reached. This need for learning, due to incomplete information about preferences, results in bargaining inefficiencies: trade often occurs after costly delay. Thus, the model provides an explanation for the inefficient bargaining behaviour that appears to occur often in practice.

Stiglitz dissects the relationship between price rigidities and market structure.