Regional wage convergence and divergence: adjusting wages for cost-of- living differences

An examination of the divergence of U.S. regional fortunes in the early 1980s, showing that once regional prices are factored in, relative wage rates continue to converge across regions. The trend in regional wage variation is also shown to be attributable to declining differences in labor market valuations of worker attributes, rather than to shifts in the regional composition of the workforce.Wages ; Regional economics

Insurance companies as financial intermediaries: risk and return

Insurance industry ; Risk ; Investments

Identifying amenity and productivity cities using wage and rent differentials

An explanation of how regional wage and rent differentials can be used to classify metropolitan areas according to their amenity and productivity characteristics.Wages ; Cities and towns

Identifying productivity and amenity effects in interurban wage differentials

This study focuses on the relative importance of amenity and productivity differences in determining wage differentials across urban areas. The approach developed takes advantage of the connection between land and labor market clearing conditions required for locational equilibrium of households and firms. Data on recent movers are used to estimate equilibrium wages and rents for a sample of metropolitan areas. This information is then used to identify amenity and productivity components of wages for each city in the sample. Using national estimates of the relative share of land in consumption and production, differences in productivity and amenities are found to be roughly equal sources of wage variation across the sample.Wages ; Labor supply

Evolution of Cooperative Thought, Theory, and Purpose

The evolution of agricultural cooperative thought, theory, and purpose in the United States is reviewed from the standpoint of the reemergence of interest in how cooperatives can provide some of the security and benefits that might be lost with gradual phasing out of federal government farm support programs. By accomplishing group action for self-help, the early development of cooperatives drew considerable attention from economists, social theorists, and politicians. Alternative schools of cooperative thought developed, but most proponents of cooperatives regarded them as having enormous potential to provide a public service role in building a more economically stable and democratic society This paper also surveys how cooperative theory was developed more rigorously in the post-WWII period. It has provided better analytical tools for understanding how and why cooperatives have changed in response to technological and economic developments, as well as to social trends, like individualism. Given the new perspectives on cooperative theory and the scope of changes in how cooperatives operate and are structured, cooperatives have even greater potential for coordinating self-help actions, but this potential needs the support of cooperative education services.Agribusiness,

A COEVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE PARADOX OF SOCIAL PRESSURES VERSUS ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY ACROSS THE WORLD'S FOOD CHAINS

Institutional and Behavioral Economics,