The economic impact of the 2007-2009 increases in the federal minimum wage (MW) is analyzed using a sample of quick-service restaurants in Georgia and Alabama. Store-level bi-weekly payroll records for individual employees are used, allowing us to precisely measure the MW compliance cost for...

A growing number of economists blame the length and severity of the Great Depression on factors that rigidified wage rates, raised production costs, and interfered with flexible allocation of labor. The centerpiece of this critique is President Roosevelt‘s New Deal labor program, portrayed as...

The institutional and industrial relations schools were the dominant groups in labor economics into the 1960s (Boyer and Smith 2001; Kaufman 2006) and among early writers the British husband-wife team of Sidney and Beatrice Webb played a particularly important role – per the Wolman epigraph (also...

The most famous and influential diagram in modern (neoclassical) labor economics is the model of wage determination by supply and demand. Using concepts and ideas from institutional economics, I argue that the theory of a perfectly competitive labor market is logically contradictory and, hence,...

Using the institutional theory of transaction cost, I demonstrate that the assumptions of the competitive labor market model are internally contradictory and lead to the conclusion that on purely theoretical grounds a perfectly competitive labor market is a logical impossibility. By extension,...

The other chapters in this volume examine likely trends and changes in the various institutions, practices and outcomes that comprise the field of employment relations (ER). For the most part, they are empirical-based. To complement them, in this chapter I provide an overview of several...

The methodological approaches of Ronald Coase and Richard Posner are compared and contrasted with regard to microeconomic theory and its application to law and economics. The central divide is whether positive transaction cost requires a major reworking of the core of neoclassical price theory...

The theory of trade unions is re-examined using principles and ideas of institutional economics. An institutional perspective provides a more balanced and inclusive portrait of what unions do; it also demonstrates flaws and biases in the standard neoclassical account that lead to overly negative...

Comparative employment relations (CER) has enjoyed a resurgence of interest and scholarly research in recent years. A significant reason is the rising tide of globalization and its present and future impact on employment relations institutions and practices. Rather quickly the furthest corners...

One of the key figures in the development of modern labor economics is Jacob Mincer (1922-2006). His contributions have recently been highlighted and assessed in two books. The most in-depth and substantive of these volumes is by Portuguese economist Pedro Teixeira, entitled Jacob Mincer: A...