We examine the relationship between firm-sponsored training and the sensitivity of product demand to product quality. A quality-adjusted model of monopolistic competition shows the conditions under which the intensity of training increases as product demand becomes more sensitive to quality....

Efficiency wage theory predicts that firms can induce worker effort by the carrot of high wages and / or the stick of monitoring worker performance. Another option available to firms is to tilt the remuneration package over time such that the lure of high future earnings acts as a deterrent to...

Social networks are commonly understood to play a large role in the labor market success of immigrants. Using 2000 U.S. Census data, this paper examines whether access to native networks, as measured by marriage to a native, increases the probability of immigrant employment. We start by...

In the first study using British data, we show that the average wage advantage of holding a performance pay job is greater for minorities than that for Whites. This generates a smaller ethnic wage gap among performance pay jobs than among time rate jobs. Yet, this pattern is driven by those...

This paper examines the relationship between firm-specific training and product market competition. A canonical Cournot competition model shows that the profitability of training investments increases as the number of competitors decreases. Empirical evidence from British establishments in 1998,...

This paper examines the role of ethnic networks in disability program take-up among working-age immigrants in the United States. We find that even when controlling for country of origin and area of residence fixed effects, immigrants residing amidst a large number of co-ethnics are more likely...

We use recent matched employer-employee data to directly test if white workers have a taste for racial discrimination in Britain. We formally introduce individual and firm heterogeneity into the discrimination model used by Becker (1957, 1971) which we extend to generate predictions consistent...

Using matched employer-employee data we examine firm-specific gender and ethnicity pay differentials in Britain. We estimate an econometric earnings model using the partially-observed pay variable provided in the data and test the normality assumption that underlies the usual interval regression...

According to the 2001 UK Census ethnic minority groups account for 4.6 million or 7.9 percent of the total UK population. The 2001 British Labour Force Survey indicates that the descendants of Britain's ethnic minority immigrants form an important part of the British population (2.8 percent) and...

This paper reviews the labour market performance and educational attainment of ethnic minorities and second generation immigrants in the UK over the last three decades. We first describe the size and composition of the minority population and its regional distribution over time, and investigate...