The statistical observation that small firms have created the majority of new jobs during the 1980s has had a tremendous influence on public policy. Governmentshave looked to the small firm sector for employment growth, and have promoted policies to augment this expansion. However, recent...

In a setting where training or promotion opportunity depend on expected initial ability, the effects of signalling initial skills on wages may last well beyond the period when knowledge of a workers' skill set is fully known. This paper proposes extending recent tests for signalling to better...

This paper studies changes in diversification of firms and plants since the early 1970s in the Canadian manufacturing sector. It finds that there has been a general increase in specialization of both firms and plants. Firms have been continuously reducing the span of industries in which they...

The strategies and competencies of small and medium-sized firms are explored here using the responses to the Survey of Growing Small and Medium Size Enterprises, conducted by Statistics Canada. The paper classifies small and medium-sized firms by innovator type and explores the complementary...

Using a nationally representative sample of establishments, we have examined whether selected alternative work practices (AWPs) tend to reduce quit rates. Overall, our analysis provides strong evidence of a negative association between these AWPs and quit rates among establishments of more than...

The exploration of newly available administrative data in a number of countries has led to a growing realization that a careful study of the interaction between employer and employee characteristics is needed to fully understand labour market outcomes. The objective of this paper is to develop...

Controlling for observable worker attributes, we find that computer use is associated with a wage premium of at most 14%. Following Dinardo and Pischke (1997), we examine the wage premium associated with other tools used on the job. While these authors find a significant wage premium for the use...

This paper examines the factors underlying firm failure, and compares the failure mechanisms for young firms against those of older organizations. This paper suggests that there are systematic differences between the determinants of firm failure for firms that fail early in life and those that...

Fundamental changes have taken place in the labour market and among firms in the 1980s and 1990s. In some cases we understand what has occurred, but notwhy. In other cases the data do not exist to shed light on exactly what is happening, let alone why. Changes in the labour market are often...