In this study based on unpublished wage data collected from a select group of Boston area firms, it was found that the wage structure for unskilled and clerical workers was largely unchanged between 1960 and 1964, but narrowed significantly thereafter. The fact that the Boston unemployment rate...

The authors test for threat and crowding effects of unions on non-union wages at the industry and city levels, using panel data on the percent organized and nonunion industry and city wage differentials constructed from Current Population Surveys over the period 1973-89. At the industry level,...

This paper is concerned with jobs for which nontrivial job-specific skills and task-specific knowledge evolve, in a learning by doing fashion, during the course of a worker's employment. Otherwise qualified but inexperienced workers cannot be regarded as the equivalent of job incumbents under...

We investigate the impact of union strength on changes in nonunion wages and employment. The prevailing model in this area is the threat model, which predicts that increases in union strength cause increases in nonunion wages and decreases in nonunion employment. In testing the threat model, we...

This study presents a time series analysis of the youth unemployment problem stressing the cohort overcrowding effect, a result of the baby-boom induced imbalance between younger and older workers. Several techniques are used to study the problem. First, reduced form unemployment equations are...