Using a longitudinal survey of fast-food restaurants in Texas, the authors examine the impact of recent increases in the federal minimum wage on a low-wage labor market. Less than 5% of fast-food restaurants were using the new youth subminimum wage in July/August 1991, even though the vast...

Prevailing wage laws, which require that construction workers employed by private contractors on public projects be paid wages and benefits at least equal to those 'prevailing' for similar work in or near the locality in which the project is located, have been the focus of an extensive policy...

Using BLS data on 300 hospitals in 1985, the authors examine pay in four occupations, with a particular focus on the effect of supervision on the pay of nonsupervisory employees. There was a strong hospital-specific effect on wages that cut across occupations; thus, if a hospital paid relatively...

In the past decade, many state courts have ruled in favor of employees alleging they were improperly dismissed. The author of this paper advances an evolutionary theory of unjust-dismissal legislation in which employer groups, responding to the threat of large and variable damage awards imposed...

Between 1996 and 1998 California and Texas eliminated the use of affirmative action in college and university admissions. At the states' elite public universities admission rates of black and Hispanic students subsequently fell by 30-50% and minority representation in the entering freshman...

This paper examines the determinants of the number and quality of outside applicants for federal job openings, using a variety of time-series, cross-sectional, and panel data sets. The main finding is that the application rate for government jobs increases as the ratio of federal to private...