Economic Effects of Municipal Government Institutions

This paper presents an analysis of employment and compensation practices under alternative institutions of municipal government which demonstrates that institutional variations have significant, important, and predictable effects upon outcomes in municipal labor markets. Municipal institutions in which a single official is responsible for office performance provide that official with incentives to emphasize efficiency in the production of municipal services. Institutions in which responsibility is shared provide individual officials with incentives to emphasize the allocation of municipal resources to their particular constituencies, among whom municipal employees may be prominent. Independently, city managers and mayors chosen through direct election reduce levels of employment and increase employee compensation. Managers offer compensation packages which emphasize nonwage components. In cities which have both institutions, competition between the two nullifies employment reductions and exacerbates compensation increases. Employment increases with the age of the manager's office. City council members chosen through at-large or nonpartisan elections increase levels of both employment and compensation. Compensation packages under both emphasize current components. With both reforms, employment and compensation increases are compounded.

Trends and Deviations in Federal, State and Local Finance

This paper contains a descriptive analysis o+ real per capita annual revenues, expenditures, deficits, debt levels and capital expenditures for federal, state and local government finance in the United States for the rears 1952-83. It summarizes each time series as a deterministic trend and an ARIM characterization of the deviations around trend. These summaries demonstrate that civilian capital outlays are falling at an accelerating pace in ail levels of government; federal government expenditures and debt are expanding at an accelerating rate; local special districts are also growing quadratically; state governments have a continuing surplus of revenues over expenditures; and local governments depend upon intergovernmental revenues to maintain balance between revenues and expenditures while reducing debt. Stochastic persistence tends to increase at more disaggregate levels of government. Expenditures tend to have longer lags than do revenues.

Municipal Employment, Municipal Unions, and Demand for Municipal Services

Municipal unions may often use their own votes and those of sympathetic fellow citizens to promote increases in demand for municipal services. If successful, this strategy can increase member employment levels without sacrificing compensation. Municipal employee unionization significantly increases levels of annual manhours and employment per capita, and reduces annual hours of workper employee. The net effect of average unionization levels is to increase employees per capita by at least 4.7%, and manhours per capita by at least 3.3%, over levels that would prevail in the absence of municipal unions. These effects occur almost entirely in functions withr ecognized bargaining units. In these functions, employment levels are at least 9.9% higher than they would be in the absence of unionization.

Labor Relations, Wages and Nonwage Compensation in Municipal Employment

In the private sector, "unionization" typically refers to employees who are organized, recognized, and covered by contracts, according to the procedures established by the National Labor Relations Board. The municipal sector provides an instructive contrast. There, "unionization" encompasses five mutually exclusive combinations of organizational structure and labor relations practice. These "modes" form a hierarchy of employee power, from strongest to weakest: recognized bargaining units, unrecognized unions in cities which contain other recognized unions, unorganized employees in cities which contain recognized unions,unrecognized unions in cities which contain no recognized unions, and unorganized employees in cities which contain no recognized unions. Differences in the effects of each mode on compensation for municipal employees demonstrate differences in the intrinsic strength of different union institutions. Municipal compensation levels are dramatically higher for employees represented by more powerful modes of unionization, regardless of other conditions in factor and output markets. Union effects on total compensation, in comparison to its mean, range from 3.8% for unrecognized unions in cities which contain no recognized bargaining units, to 11.8% for recognized bargaining units, themselves. In addition, union effects on total compensation are reater than union effects an wages in all modes. Relative union effects on expenditures for paid time not worked and pension benefits are usually more than twice wage effects. Union effects on medical benefits are nearly twice wage effects.

Quits, Moves, Spatial Equilibrium and Workplace Relocation

When worker commutes are suboptimal, quits and moves are related. Either a quit, a move, or both can achieve an optimal commute. However, with fixed costs to quitting and moving, a quit or move alone is more likely than both together. Payroll records of a firm which relocated from the central business district to a suburb of a major metropolitan area confirm this. They demonstrate that white employees rarely quit and move at the same time. Simultaneous bivariate probit estimates of move and quit behavior demonstrate that uncontrolled shocks to quits and mover are negatively correlated. Furthermore, during the spatial dislocation caused by the firm's relocation, quits and moves were direct substitutes. Employees who quit were approximately 29% less likely to move. Those who moved were approximately 40% less likely to quit.

Pure Price Effects of Nonwage Compensation

This paper discusses the pure static price effects which are engendered by tax preferences for nonwage compensation. Section II demonstrates that, because of these price effects, optimal consumption bundles will contain larger quantities of the goods included in nonwage compensation, and smaller quantities of other goods, than they would in the absence of tax preferences. In the presence of preferences, the cost of a compensation package to an employer usually differs from its value to an employee. Under proportional taxation, compensation packages which contain optimal quantities of nonwage compensation may be between 4% and 13% less expensive than cash compensation sufficient to purchase, at retail, consumption bundles providing similar utility. This difference represents a substantial savings to employers. It is largely attributable to reductions in tax payments, and may represent substantial foregone tax revenues. Optimal provision of nonwage compensation confers greater advantages under progressive taxation, advantages which increase with the degree of progressivity.These considerations are important in the analysis of any issue to which employee 'income' or employer costs are relevant. As examples, Section III demonstrates that conventional definitions of income unavoidably generate incorrect conclusions with regard to evaluations of welfare distribution, tax progressivity, and returns to human capital.

The Demand for Medical Care in Urban China

This is the first paper to investigate the determinants of the demand for medical care in the People's Republic of China. It uses a data set that consists of detailed characteristics of 6407 urban households, a continuous measure of health care spending, and price. A two-part model and a discrete factor model are used in the estimation. Household characteristics and work conditions impact the demand for medical care. Income elasticity is around 0.3, indicating medical care is a necessity. Medical care demand is price inelastic, and price elasticity is larger in absolute value for poorer households.

Quits and Race

Previous studies estimate that black quit rates are lower than those of whites. This paper suggests that these estimates under-state black quit propensities because they neglect racial differences in quit responses to commuting time and local unemployment rates. Ignoring these differences, the black quit effect appears to be negative. Controlling for them, the residual race effect is positive and sufficiently large to account for all net black quits.