ILR Research in Progress 2011-12

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty's research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journals.Research_in_Progress_2011_12.pdf: 46 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Explaining inequality in today’s capitalism.

Inequality within advanced countries has returned to levels typical of a century ago. At the global level it remains extremely high despite the rapid growth of major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil. This makes inequality a major economic issue, social problem and political challenge in today’s capitalism. However, economic inequality is the object of limited research efforts and attracts modest attention in the political arena.This is the result of several factors. Mainstream approaches view inequality as a necessary condition – or, at best, an unfortunate side effect - for achieving the more general objectives of economic growth and market efficiency. Most studies emphasise that inequality is to a large extent the consequence of international forces laying beyond the reach of policies by nation-states. More importantly, today’s inequality is the result of a variety of processes that have seriously increased its complexity, with major changes in its nature and mechanisms, compared to past decades. To the fundamental divide between capital and labour in the distribution of income between social classes and groups, new mechanisms have been added, that have fuelled income inequalities among individuals, rooted in the rise of top incomes, technological change, international production, labour markets, influence of families of origin and lack of intergenerational mobility. In this paper we propose an overall interpretation of the trajectory of inequality. The functional income distribution that leads to inequalities in factor incomes, with an increasing divide between the growing share of profits and financial rents – free to move across national borders, escape taxation and search for speculative gains – and the dwindling share of wages, nation-bound and unable to escape taxes. The specificity of top incomes – that combine rents, profits and “superstar” labour compensation complicates this picture with the effects of pro-rich policy changes. Inequalities have also strongly increased within wages, resulting from several factors. Education has an obvious influence, but plays a much smaller role than mainstream views would expect. Skill differences are increasingly important, and need to be examined in the context of specific professional groups, rather than with wide generalisations. Industry specificities, technology and international production do play a role, but in complex ways, depending on the nature of innovative strategies, local competences, market power and demand dynamics. Labour market arrangements – unionisation, presence of minimum wages or national contracts, diffusion of temporary or part-time labour contracts, etc. – are increasingly important factors in explaining the low pay of many young and low-skilled workers. Outside labour markets and the opportunities for social mobility promised by education, the family of origin remains a major determinant of individuals’ education and incomes, with an increasingly strong persistence of inequality across generations. The interpretation we provide offers a new explanation of the nature of today’s economic inequalities, of its consequences, and possible remedies.Inequality, Distribution, Welfare.

ILR Faculty Research in Progress, 2016-2017

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty's research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journals.ResearchinProgress_2016_17.pdf: 38 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Faculty Research in Progress, 2018-2019

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty\u27s research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journal

ILR Research in Progress 2013-14

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty's research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journals.Research_in_Progress_2013_14.pdf: 54 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

ILR Faculty Research in Progress, 2015-2016

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty's research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journals.ResearchinProgress_2015_16.pdf: 22 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Domestic Outsourcing in the United States: A Research Agenda to Assess Trends and Effects on Job Quality

The goal of this paper is to develop a comprehensive research agenda to analyze trends in domestic outsourcing in the U.S. -- firms' use of contractors and independent contractors -- and its effects on job quality and inequality. In the process, we review definitions of outsourcing, the available scant empirical research, and limitations of existing data sources. We also summarize theories that attempt to explain why firms contract out for certain functions and assess their predictions about likely impacts on job quality. We then lay out in detail a major research initiative on domestic outsourcing, discussing the questions it should answer and providing a menu of research methodologies and potential data sources. Such a research investment will be a critical resource for policymakers and other stakeholders as they seek solutions to problems arising from the changing nature of work

Knowledge Spillovers and Wage Inequality: An Empirical Investigation of Knowledge-Skill Complementarity

This paper examines the importance of knowledge-skill complementarity in the process of contemporary economic growth. By analyzing Dutch manufacturing and carrying out an extensive spillover and wage inequality analysis, it is shown that knowledge-intensive sectors pay their high-skilled workers a relatively higher wage in the form of a wage premium, which is defined as the sector bias of technical change.research and development ;

Education for all is central to Higher Education Reforms in Developing Countries

A successful higher education reform in the South is not limited to improvement in quality and access to higher education but it should directly and indirectly cater to the millennium development goals by ensuring pro poor pro growth outcomes. Once we link higher education reforms with a development agenda or strictly speaking millennium development goals, the reform process in higher education becomes much more than a mere pro growth strategy. The purpose of this paper is to identify ways in which the reform process in higher education is aligned with the larger development agenda of the South. To this effect, we discuss the issue that lie in the peripheries of higher education reform debate- which is to directly link up higher education policy to overall education policy formulation in the South. In the paper, we highlight that generally governments in the South promote higher education at the cost of primary education, and thus indirectly undermine the effectiveness of their development strategies. We have empirically analyzed the effects of higher education focus on economic welfare. As per decomposition, poverty can be either affected by economic growth or unequal distribution of income. In order to investigate whether higher education, as it prevails in the South, is good for the poor, we see the relationship of average years of higher schooling at age of 25 with economic growth and inequality. The paper undertakes regression analysis by utilizing 5 different proxies of economic growth/ economic development and 4 proxies for income inequality as basis for 14 separate IV regression models. Average years of higher schooling have been used as the common regressor. Our results do suggest that higher education is a significant determinant of economic development. However, our inequality regression models suggest that education policies in general and higher education policies in specific do not cater for the lowest income groups in the South and if anything higher education favors the more affluent. The study recommends that higher education policies should not be implemented in isolation with over all education policy frameworks. As a first step to this effect the paper calls for more coordination between higher education commissions and education ministries in the South.Higher Education Reform; Millenium Development Goals;