The paper attempts to integrate new approaches to estimating union wage effects with the analysis of public-private sector wage differentials. Estimates of the union differential in both public and private sectors, allowing for the endogeneity of union status, are presented. The hypothesis that the recently measured rents to public sector employment primarily reflect the recent increase in unionization in that sector is examined, and receives considerable empirical support. There was evidence of positive selection into the union sector, especially for private sector workers. Union status appears to be strongly influenced by the expected wage gain from joining the union sector

Affirmative action remains controversial. The controversy extends from the original antidiscrimination legislation and its interpretation to estimates of affirmative action's effect on the labor market. This paper provides a progress report on our recent efforts at detecting the effects of affirmative action on minority wages and employment. Although we find a substantial increase in wages for black men and black women over our sample period, the timing of these wage changes is surprising. Most of the wage gains came prior to 1974, before the establishment of an effective monitoring structure for affirmative action. Indeed, when the powers of the EEOC and OFCC are greatest, the wage effects for young blacks are somewhat perverse. Using EEO-1 reports we find a major shift in black employment toward firms most vulnerable to the monitoring and potential sanctions of the affirmative action programs. As with wages, the shift in minority employment came prior to the expansion of the powers and budgets of the EEOC and OFCC. We are surprised by the timing of these changes and are concerned about the quality of the EEO-1 reports

Using a sample of newly hired semiskilled production workers at two manufacturing facilities, I investigate various factors affecting the probability of workers' quitting. Workers who quit a previous job to take the jobs studied are less likely to quit than are workers who were unemployed when they applied for the jobs surveyed. Workers assigned to more complex tasks are more likely to quit their jobs than are workers assigned to simpler tasks. Younger workers are more likely to quit than are older workers. Better-educated workers have lower quit propensities than do less well educated workers. These correlations, which stem from multiple regressions using probit estimation routines, can be explained by a model in which individuals' quit propensities are functions of their alternative opportunities, job satisfaction, and the pecuniary and nonpecuniary costs of quitting.

Strikes seem to be a Pareto-inefficient outcome of bargaining between a union and a firm; however, this paper shows that strikes can be the outcome of rational behavior by both agents. If the firm has more information than the union concerning the state of nature, the union can use strikes as a way of gaining information. The paper uses an asymmetric information model where the firm has information about the state (i.e., profitability) that the union does not know. The schedule of wage offers by the union then depends on the probability that a given state will occur

Excessive layoffs in bad times and excessive quits in good times both stem from the same weakness in practical employment arrangements: the specific nature of worker-firm relations creates a situation of bilateral monopoly. Institutions which have arisen to avert the associated inefficiency cannot mimic the separation decisions of a perfect-information, first-best allocation rule. Simple employment rules based on predetermined or indexed wages are in many cases the most desirable among the class of feasible employment arrangements. More complicated contracts which seem to deal more effectively with turn-over issues either are infeasible because of informational requirements or create adverse incentives on some other dimension.

The paper considers an industry in which individual output follows a stochastic growth process with a cumulative effect. It analyzes the roles of labor mobility and capital market conditions in the determination of wage contracts. Positive costs of mobility are shown to be necessary for the provision of wage and employment insurance when workers have no access to the capital market. When insurance is provided, wages grow less than average productivity. If the capital market is perfect, wage insurance will be provided even in the absence of costs of mobility. In this case, wages grow faster than average productivity

Who should pay the resource costs of higher education? This paper investigates a simple model of the general equilibrium of the labor market with three skill levels. Those in the population with the lower level of intelligence and/or sophistication can only become low-skilled workers, but the brighter segment of the population can become either high- or medium-skilled workers. Given the tax structure, the welfare of each group is maximized by a unique subsidy rate on the cost of training high-skilled workers. Under several circumstances, the lower IQ group wants a higher subsidy rate than will the group that benefits directly from the training