Municipal unions may often use their own votes and those of sympathetic fellow citizens to promote increases in demand for municipal services. If successful, this strategy can increase member employment levels without sacrificing compensation. Municipal employee unionization significantly...

This paper presents an analysis of employment and compensation practices under alternative institutions of municipal government which demonstrates that institutional variations have significant, important, and predictable effects upon outcomes in municipal labor markets. Municipal institutions...

This paper discusses the pure static price effects which are engendered by tax preferences for nonwage compensation. Section II demonstrates that, because of these price effects, optimal consumption bundles will contain larger quantities of the goods included in nonwage compensation, and smaller...

In the private sector, "unionization" typically refers to employees who are organized, recognized, and covered by contracts, according to the procedures established by the National Labor Relations Board. The municipal sector provides an instructive contrast. There, "unionization" encompasses...

This paper assesses regional inequality in contemporary urban China by predicting earningss for individual workers in multiple provinces, comparing the province of maximum predicted earnings to the province of residence and assessing the predicted gains from relocation. The paper performs the...

When worker commutes are suboptimal, quits and moves are related. Either a quit, a move, or both can achieve an optimal commute. However, with fixed costs to quitting and moving, a quit or move alone is more likely than both together. Payroll records of a firm which relocated from the central...

Abstract This paper demonstrates that conventional single regression estimators of voting preferences for groups within the electorate are unreliable when group-specific turnout rates are unknown. In this context, the relationship between voting choices and the composition of the electorate is...

This paper demonstrates that subsidized housing substantially increased inequality among urban Chinese residents in 1988 and 1995. Regressions for 1995 rental units impute estimated market rents in 1988 and 1995 for all dwelling units. In both years, these imputed values exceeded actual rents by...