The primary goal of a national minimum wage floor is to raise the incomes of poor or near-poor families with members in the work force. However, estimates of employment effects of minimum wages tell us relatively little about whether minimum wages are likely to achieve this goal; even if the...

In earlier work we examined the temporal evolution of job stability in U.S. labor markets through the 1980's, using data assembled from a sequence of Current Population Survey tenure supplements. We found little or no change in aggregate job stability in the U.S. economy. In addition, older and...

We report new evidence on the existence of sex discrimination in wages and whether competitive market forces act to reduce or eliminate discrimination. Specifically, we use plant- and firm-level data to examine the relationships between profitability, growth and ownership changes, product market...

We attempt to draw inferences about potential behavioral responses to means-tested" income support for the elderly by examining the effects on saving of the Supplemental Security" Income (SSI) program for the aged in the U.S. Part of the SSI program provides payments to the" poor elderly, thus...

The primary goal of a national minimum wage floor is to raise the incomes of poor or near-poor families with members in the work force. However, estimates of employment effects of minimum wages tell us little about whether minimum wages are can achieve this goal; even if the disemployment...

In Lazear's (1979) model of efficient long-term incentive contracts, employers impose involuntary retirement based on age. This model implies that age discrimination laws, which bar involuntary terminations based on age, discourage the use of such contracts and reduce efficiency. Alternatively,...

We assess the evidence on the contribution of changes in the population age structure to the changing fortunes of youths in labor markets in advanced economies over the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and use this evidence to project the likely effects of future cohort sizes on youth labor...

This paper examines the consequences of initial periods of churning,' floundering about,' or mobility' in the labor market to help assess whether faster transitions to stable employment relationships--such as those envisioned by advocates of school-to-work programs--would be likely to lead to...

One potential method to increase the success of female graduate students in economics may be to encourage mentoring relationships between these students and female faculty members. Increased hiring of female faculty is viewed as one way to promote such mentoring relationships, perhaps because of...

Publication bias in economics may lead to selective specification searches that result in overreporting in the published literature of results consistent with economists' priors. In reassessing the published time-series studies on the employment effects of minimum wages, some recent research has...