The lower level of school quality available for blacks relative to whites in the segregated era is frequently cited as a primary cause for the currently observed gap in black-white average wages. The inferior education provided to black children is argued to have caused lower levels of human capital production in black schools than white schools The gap in black-white wages can be traced to thi...

Using the Spanish Household Survey Data, we explore the determinants of the timing of the first child in Spain. Our aim is to determine the impact of income, wages and labour market situation in the decision of entry to motherhood. We estimate a discrete-time duration model, controlling for sample selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity. Our results show that employed women delay their firs...

I consider the labor-market effects of mandates which raise the costs of employing a demographically identifiable group. The efficiency of these policies will be largely dependent on the extent to which their costs are shifted to group-specific wages. I study several state and federal mandates which stipulated that childbirth be covered comprehensively in health insurance plans, raising the rel...

The role of migration in influencing convergence between regions at different levels of economic development is analyzed using the example of Germany following reunification, with particular reference to the impact of migration on wages. "Several ways of regional wage formation are investigated, among them a full employment wage mechanism as well as a fast regional convergence of wages which i...

Labor unions are an important economic and political force in South Africa. Inequality in wage rates is among the largest in the world in South Africa, with African and white workers receiving wages that differ by a factor of five. The complex role of unions in closing and creating this wage gap is assessed in this paper. Union membership among Africa male workers is shown to be associated in 1...

In a review of the evidence, the authors find that the ACA had minimal effect on employment, hours of work, and compensation. This brief provides critical perspective on the effects of reforms on labor markets for federal and state policymakers as they consider changing or repealing the law.

Though most of the literature in health insurance and the labor market assumes a tradeoff between employerprovided health insurance and wages, its empirical validity has not been established. Employing Current Population Survey 2004 data, this paper assesses the tradeoff hypothesis in a distributional analysis framework using stochastic dominance tests. In addition, it contributes to the previo...

Average fiscal year 1982 wages from 2,302 rural American hospitals were used to test for a gradient descending from hospitals in counties adjacent to metropolitan areas to those not adjacent. Considerable variation in the ratios of adjacent to nonadjacent averages existed. No statistically significant difference was found, however. Of greater importance in explaining relative wages within State...

Who pays the healthcare costs associated with obesity? Among workers, this is largely a question of the incidence of the costs of employer-sponsored coverage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find that the incremental healthcare costs associated with obesity are passed on to obese workers with employer-sponsored health insura...

This paper explains the narrowing of gender gaps in wages and market hours in recent decades by the growth of the service economy. We propose a model with three sectors: goods, services and home production. Women have a comparative advantage in the production of services in the market and at home. The growth of the services sector, in turn driven by structural transformation and marketization o...