Throughout the postwar era until 1995 labor productivity grew faster in Europe than in the United States. Since 1995, productivity growth in the EU-15 has slowed while that in the United States has accelerated. But Europe's productivity growth slowdown was largely offset by faster growth in...

There are two obvious possibilities that can account for the rise in productivity during recent recessions. The first is that the decline in the workforce was not random, and that the average worker was of higher quality during the recession than in the preceding period. The second is that each...

A central organizing framework of the voluminous recent literature studying changes in the returns to skills and the evolution of earnings inequality is what we refer to as the canonical model, which elegantly and powerfully operationalizes the supply and demand for skills by assuming two...

Despite recent international efforts to increase antiretroviral treatment (ART) coverage, it is estimated that more than 5 million people who need ART in developing countries do not receive such treatment. Shortages of human resources to treat HIV/AIDS (HRHA) are one of the main constraints to...

Employment rates in Puerto Rico range from 55 to 65 percent of U.S. rates during the past thirty years. This huge employment shortfall holds for men and women, cuts across all education groups, and is deeper for persons without a college degree. The shortfall is concentrated in the private...

In search and bargaining models, the effect of higher wages on employment is determined by the elasticity of the job creation curve. In this paper, we use U.S. data over the 1970-2007 period to explore whether labor market outcomes abide by the restrictions implied by such models and to evaluate...

Many developing countries would like to increase the share of modern or formal sectors in their employment. One way to accomplish this goal may be to encourage the entrance of foreign firms. They are typically relatively large, with high productivity and good access to foreign markets, and might...

In Neumark and Wascher (1992), we present findings supporting the earlier consensus that minimum wages reduce employment for teens and young adults, with elasticities in the range -0.1 to -0.2. In addition, we find that subminimum wages moderate these disemployment effects. Card, Katz and...

This paper analyzes employment and earnings differentials between Spanish speakers and English speakers in the United States, using data from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 U.S. censuses. The results show that Spanish speakers, both men and women, do not perform as well in the labor market as English...

West Germany's Employment Promotion Act of 1985 facilitated the use of fixed term contracts and increased the number of dismissals above which the employer is required to establish a 'social plan' (involving severance payments). The effect of this reduction in 'firing costs' on movements in...