Beginning in 1997, the price of concert tickets took off and ticket sales declined. From 1996 to 2003, for example, the average concert price increased by 82%, while the CPI increased by 17%. Explanations for price growth include (1) the possible crowding out of the secondary ticket market, (2) rising superstar effects, (3) Baumols and Bowen's disease, (4) increased concentraion of promoters, and (5) the erosion of complementarities between concerts and album sales because of file sharing and CD copying. The article tentatively concludes that the decline in complementarities is the main cause of the recent surge in concert prices.

This paper considers conceptual and practical issues that arise in measuring labor's share of national income. Most importantly: How are workers defined? How is compensation defined? The current definition of labor compensation used the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) includes the salary of business owners and payments to retired workers in labor compensation. An alternative series to the BEA's standard series is presented. In addition, a simple method for decomposing labor compensation into a component due to raw labor' and a component due to human capital is presented. Raw labor's share of national income is estimated using Census and CPS data. The share of national income attributable to raw labor increased from 9.6 percent to 13 percent between 1939 and 1959, remained at 12-13 percent between 1959 and 1979, and fell to 5 percent by 1996.

World War II veterans earn more than nonveterans in their cohort. We test whether the World War II veteran premium reflects nonrandom selection into the military of men with higher earnings potential. The estimation is based on the fact that from 1942 to 1947 priority for conscription was determined by date of birth. Information on individuals' dates of birth may therefore be used to construct instrumental variables for veteran status. Empirical results from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 censuses, along with two other microdata sets, support a conclusion that World War II veterans earn no more than comparable nonveterans and may well earn less.

This article examines the properties and prevalence of measurement error in longitudinal earnings data. The analysis compares matched Current Population Survey data to administrative Social Security payroll tax records. In contrast to typically assumed properties of measurement error, the results indicate that errors are serially correlated over two years and negatively correlated with true earnings (i.e., mean reverting). In a cross section, the ratio of the variance of the signal to the total variance is 0.82 for men and 0.92 for women. These ratios fall to 0.65 and 0.81 when the data are specified in first differences. Longitudinal earnings data may be more reliable than previously believed.

This article reports on household survey measurements of the “offshorability” of jobs, defined as the ability to perform the work from abroad. We develop multiple measures of offshorability, using both self-reporting and professional coders. All measures find that roughly 25% of US jobs are offshorable. Our three preferred measures agree between 70% and 80% of the time. Professional coders appear to provide the most accurate assessments. Empirically, more educated workers appear to hold somewhat more offshorable jobs, and offshorability does not have systematic effects on either wages or the probability of layoff.