We explore umpires' racial/ethnic preferences in the evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity. This effect only...

This study derives and estimates a dynamic model of factor demand that includes both fixed and quadratic variable costs of adjustment. Using quarterly data on the employment of mechanics at seven airlines, it finds that both types of adjustment costs characterize the dynamic constraints facing...

We examine the timing of firms' operations in a formal model of labor demand. Merging a variety of data sets from Portugal from 1995-2004, we describe temporal patterns of firms' demand for labor and estimate production-functions and relative labor-demand equations. The results demonstrate the...

The theory of the dynamics of labor demand is based either on the costs of adjusting the level of employment or on the costs of hiring or firing (of gross changes in employment). We write down a generalized cost of adjustment function that includes both types of cost and allows for asymmetries...

The paper demonstrates the general difficulty of inferring the structure of adjustment costs from aggregated, including industry data, except in the unlikely case that costs are symmetric and quadratic at the micro level. The implications of this difficulty for cross-national comparisons of...

I formulate measures of the effective minimum wage, based on broad definitions of the labor costs that face employers, and use these measures in reestimating some simple equations relating the relative employment of youths and adults to the U.S. minimum wage using aggregate data for 1954-78.I...

This study examines the nature of the costs that firms face in adjusting labor demand in response to shocks induced by changes in output demand and prices. Empirical work on monthly plant-level time-series data shows that adjustment proceeds in jumps. Employment is unchanged in response to small...

Using 2004-2008 data from the American Time Use Survey, we show that sharp differences between the time use of immigrants and natives become noticeable when activities are distinguished by incidence and intensity. We develop a theory of the process of assimilation--what immigrants do with their...

We measure the impact of individuals' looks on life satisfaction/happiness. Using five data sets, from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Germany, we construct beauty measures in different ways that allow placing lower bounds on the effects of beauty. Beauty raises happiness: A one...

We examine monthly variation in weekly work hours using data for 2003-10 from the Current Population Survey (CPS) on hours/worker, from the Current Employment Survey (CES) on hours/job, and from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) on both. The ATUS data minimize recall difficulties and constrain...