Does Affirmative Action Lead to Mismatch? A New Test and Evidence

We argue that once we take into account the students' rational enrollment decisions, mismatch in the sense that the intended beneficiary of affirmative action admission policies are made worse off could occur only if selective universities possess private information about students' post-enrollment treatment effects. This necessary condition for mismatch provides the basis for a new test. We propose an empirical methodology to test for private information in such a setting. The test is implemented using data from Campus Life and Learning Project (CLL) at Duke. Evidence shows that Duke does possess private information that is a statistically significant predictor of the students' post-enrollment academic performance. We also propose strategies to evaluate more conclusively whether the evidence of Duke private information has generated mismatch.

Dynamic Career Models and Inequality Research: A Reexamination of the Sørensen Model

This article presents a reexamination of the Sørensen model. This model derives the pattern of individual careers from structural considerations. If longitudinal data on individual careers are available, Sørensen's model provides two methods to infer the underlying structural parameter. This structural parameter gives a useful measure for unequal career chances. An implementation of these methods, using firm data, shows, however, that they lead to contradictory conclusions; this is shown to be the result of some unrealistic assumptions Sørensen uses in his derivation. Some more realistic assumptions are suggested that produce reasonable results. Finally, it is shown that despite these modifications, the main conclusions of the Sørensen model are preserved. This seems to be promising for future work with this model

Social Economic Transformation in Bulgaria: An Empirical Assessment of the Merchant Capitalism Thesis

Major accounts for transformations in post-1989 Eastern Europe include neoclassical economic and institutionalist, among which is the recent merchant capitalist thesis (Burawoy & Krotov 1992). It suggests transformation in the former Soviet Union in the direction of a primitive merchant capitalism with the absence of a superordinate control agent in relations in production and relations of production. Constituent hypotheses predict: (1) increased importance of lateral linkages among enterprises; (2) increased economic concentration; and, (3) increased worker control inside of enterprises. This study uses new data from a panel study of 497 Bulgarian manufacturing establishments, including organizational and worker level data, to test the hypotheses for 1989–92 time period. Overall, the evidence is mixed with little or no support for the lateral linkage hypothesis, some support for increased economic concentration, and mixed support for increased worker control in establishments but from a weak beginning position. Our analysis suggests additional mechanisms, consistent with other institutional accounts, through which underdeveloped or more primitive merchant capitalism can occur in manufacturing industries undergoing transformation from state socialism

Does Affirmative Action Lead to Mismatch? A New Test and Evidence

We argue that once we take into account the students' rational enrollment decisions, mismatch in the sense that the intended beneficiary of affirmative action admission policies are made worse o could occur only if selective universities possess private information about students' post-enrollment treatment effects. This necessary condition for mismatch provides the basis for a new test. We propose an empirical methodology to test for private information in such a setting. The test is implemented using data from Campus Life and Learning Project (CLL) at Duke. Evidence shows that Duke does possess private information that is a statistically significant predictor of the students' post-enrollment academic performance. We also propose strategies to evaluate more conclusively whether the evidence of Duke private information has generated mismatch.Mismatch, Private information, Affirmative Action

Strong Legacies and Weak Markets: Bulgarian State-Owned Enterprises During Early Transition

We examine the factors affecting the performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) during early transition to a market economy. Data come from a longitudinal study of a representative sample of Bulgarian SOEs for the period from 1989 (the last year under communism) to 1993 (three years after major macroeconomic shifts). We investigate how changes in authority structure, work organization, technology, marketing strategy, and organizational boundaries during these years affected organizational performance in 1993. We also assess the degree of path dependence in performance and the role of competitive industry conditions. Numerous organizational changes made by SOEs during early transition had little effect on performance. Yet organizational performance from 1989 to 1993 was highly path-dependent, although this dependence was mediated by the competitive conditions: Stronger markets displayed less path dependence. Overall the results favor the interpretations derived from selected neo-institutional and ecological perspectives of organizational sociology over neoclassical economic interpretations

The Changing Nature of Work, Implications for Occupational Analysis

The document of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.17226/9600.The committee's current topic and the subject of this book are the changing nature of work and the implications for occupational analysis. The charge to the committee from the Army Research Institute was (1) to review and analyze the research on the environmental forces, organizational factors, and the content of work; (2) to identify key issues in the changing context and content of work that affect the design of occupations in the civilian and military sectors; (3) to evaluate the changes in tools for analyzing the nature of the work environment and developing occupational classification systems that are responsive to current and future needs of the workplace; and (4) to assess the application of methods and tools developed in the civilian sector to occupational classification and analysis in the Army. The current composition of the committee includes experts in the areas of sociology, economics, management, occupational analysis, and industrial and organizational psychology and training. This book is intended to provide decision makers in both public and private organizations, as well as in both the civilian and military sectors, with guidance on how to assess and respond to contemporary debates about changes in work