Papers Containing Keywords(s): 'labor'
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Viewing papers 221 through 230 of 255
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Working PaperThe Demand for Human Capital: A Microeconomic Approach
December 2001
Working Paper Number:
CES-01-16
We propose a model for explaining the demand for human capital based on a CES production function with human capital as an explicit argument in the function. The resulting factor demand model is tested with data on roughly 6,000 plants from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Research Database. The results show strong complementarity between physical and human capital. Moreover, the complementarity is greater in high than in low technology industries. The results also show that physical capital of more recent vintage is associated with a higher demand for human capital. While the age of a plant as a reflection of learning-by-doing is positively related to the accumulation of human capital, this relation is more pronounced in low technology industries.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperWithin and Between Firm Changes in Human Capital, Technology, and Productivity Preliminary and incomplete
December 2001
Working Paper Number:
tp-2001-03
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Working PaperU.S. Productivity and Electronic Processes in Manufacturing
October 2001
Working Paper Number:
CES-01-11
Recent studies argue that the use of information technology is a significant source of U.S. productivity growth. Official U.S. data on this use have been scarce. New official data on the use of electronic business processes (business processes such as procurement, payroll, inventory, etc.,conducted over computer networks) in the manufacturing sector of the United States were recently released. Preliminary estimates based on these data are consistent with some results in the literature. However, they also raise questions requiring additional detailed micro data analysis.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperWho Dies? International Trade, Market Structure, and Industrial Restructuring
June 2001
Working Paper Number:
CES-01-04
This paper examines the role of changing factor endowments in the growth and decline of industries and regions. The implications of an endowment-based Heckscher-Ohlin trade model for plant entry and exit are tested on 20 years of data for the entire US manufacturing sector. The trade model provides predictions for which industries will see growth through the positive net entry of plants. A multi-region version of the same model has predictions for which regions will see high turnover and net entry of plants. In a country such as the U.S. that is augmenting both its physical and human capital, the least capital-intensive, least skill-intensive industries are correctly predicted to have the lowest rate of net entry. In addition, increases in regional capital and skill intensity are associated with higher probabilities of shutdown, especially for plants in industries with low initial capital and skill intensities.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperEscaping poverty for low-wage workers The role of employer characteristics and changes
June 2001
Working Paper Number:
tp-2001-02
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Working PaperCounty-Level Estimates of the Employment Prospects of Low-Skill Workers
July 2000
Working Paper Number:
CES-00-11
This study examines low-skill wage and employment opportunities for men and women at the county level over the period 1989-96. Currently, reliable direct measures of wages and employment rates for different demographic and skill groups are only available for large geographic areas such as regions and populous states or at infrequent intervals (e.g., from the Decennial Census) for some smaller areas. This study constructs indirect annual measures for all counties from 1989-96 by combining skill-specific information on earnings and employment from the Sample Edited Detail File (SEDF) of the 1990 Decennial Census and the 1990-97 Annual Demographic files of the Current Population Survey (CPS) with annual industry-specific information from the Regional Economic Information System (REIS). Special versions of the SEDF and CPS files that identify county of residence are used. The study regresses the low-skill wage and employment data from the SEDF and CPS files on a set of personal variables from the combined files and local employment measures derived from the REIS. The wage regressions are corrected for selectivity from the employment decision and account for county-specific effects as well as general time effects. Estimates from the regressions are then combined with the available employment data from the REIS to impute wage and employment rates for low-skill adults across counties.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperExporting and Productivity
May 2000
Working Paper Number:
CES-00-07
Exporting is often touted as a way to increase economic growth. This paper examines whether exporting has played any role in increasing productivity growth in U.S. manufacturing. Contemporaneous levels of exports and productivity are indeed positively correlated across manufacturing industries. However, tests on industry data show causality from productivity to exporting but not the reverse. While exporting plants have substantially higher productivity levels, we find no evidence that exporting increases plant productivity growth rates. However, within the same industry, exporters do grow faster than non-exporters in terms of both shipments and employment. We show that exporting is associated with the reallocation of resources from less efficient to more efficient plants. In the aggregate, these reallocation effects are quite large, making up over 40 percent of total factor productivity growth in the manufacturing sector. Half of this reallocation to more productive plants occurs within industries and the direction of the reallocation is towards exporting plants. The positive contribution of exporters even shows up in import-competing industries and non-tradable sectors. The overall contribution of exporters to manufacturing productivity growth far exceeds their shares of employment and output.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperDifferences in Job Growth and Persistence in Services and Manufacturing
March 2000
Working Paper Number:
CES-00-04
Employment flows in services have greatly exceeded those in manufacturing over the recent decade. We examine these differences and their variation over establishment sizes and types. We test three hypotheses which have been offered to explain these differences: (1) that the difference in behavior of single and multi-unit establishments accounts for much of the difference in the net and gross growth rates of jobs in services and manufacturing; (2) that relative wage differences have a disparate effect on employment growth for services and manufacturing, and (3) that the rates of persistence (or retention) of new jobs are higher in multi-unit establishments than in single unit firms, and similar between the sectors after controlling for this. We find that it is primarily the underlying differences in establishment age and size distributions that account for the substantial differences in the average gross and net job flow rates of the two sectors, and that relative wage differences have a similar effect on employment growth in services and manufacturing.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperGross Job Flows and Firms
November 1999
Working Paper Number:
CES-99-16
This paper extends the work of Dunne, Roberts, and Samuelson (3) and Davis, Haltiwanger, and Schuh (2) on gross job flows among manufacturing plants. Gross job creation, destruction, and reallocation have been shown to be important in understanding the birth, growth, and death of plants, and the relation of plant life cycles to the business cycle. However, little is known about job flows between firms or how job flows among plants occur within firms (corporate restructuring). We use information on company organization from the Longitudinal Research database (LRD) to investigate the relationship between plant-level and firm-level job flows. We document: (1) the fraction of plant-level gross job flows occurring between firms; and (2) gross job flows by the extent of excess job reallocation occurring in firms.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperEmployment Adjustment Costs and Establishment Characteristics
November 1999
Working Paper Number:
CES-99-15
Microeconomic employment adjustment costs affect not only employment adjustments at the micro level but may also profoundly impact aggregate employment dynamics. This paper sheds light on the nature of these microeconomic employment adjustment costs and quantifies their impact on aggregate employment dynamics. The empirical exercises in the paper analyze the differences in employment adjustments by establishment characteristics within a hazard model framework using micro data for approximately 10,000 U.S. manufacturing plants. I find that employment adjustments vary systematically by establishment characteristics; moreover, these variations suggest that employment adjustment costs reflect the technology of the plant, the skill of its workforce, and the plant's access to capital markets. Concerning the structure of the adjustment costs, the employment adjustments have significant nonlinearities and asymmetries consistent with nonconvex, asymmetric adjustment costs. Specifically, employment adjustment behavior shows substantial inertia in the face of large employment surpluses, varied adjustment behavior for small deviations from desired employment, and (S,s)-type of bimodal adjustments in response to large employment shortages. Finally, the micro level heterogeneity, asymmetries, and nonlinearities significantly impact sectoral and aggregate employment dynamics.View Full Paper PDF
