THE GROCERY STORES' WAGE DISTRIBUTION: A SEMI-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF RETAILING AND LABOR MARKET INSTITUTIONS

How and why has the wage distribution in U.S. grocery stores changed between 1984 and 1994? Unlike other industries in the time period, the important change in the wage distribution is not rising inequality, but the real wages fell across the entire wage distribution. Changes in labor market institutions explain more than half of the change in the wage distribution in grocery stores. Specifically, the decline in the real value of the minimum wage explains little of the decline in the mean real wage but much of the change in the shape of the distribution between 1984 and 1994, and 95 percent of the decline at the lowest 10th percentile. The decline in union coverage in grocery stores and the narrowing of the union-nonunion wage gap explains much of the decline above the 25th percentile. A third institutional change, the use of part-time employees, is not associated with the changes in grocery industry wage outcomes. One might think that the major changes in operation and technologies that occurred during this time period are at least contributing factors, but we find quite the contrary. If average store size, weekly operating hours, and the use of scanning technology had remained at their 1984 levels, the real wage decline would have been even greater than that actually seen, and for the entire wage distribution. Changes in grocery retailing prevented and even greater decline in real wages. Again unlike many other industries, skill-biased technological change does not appear important for grocery industry wage outcomes. The basis of our analysis is a statistical technique which combines nonparametric kernel density estimation with a parametric re-weighting, applied to Current Population Survey data supplemented with secondary data sources on the Grocery industry.Agribusiness, Labor and Human Capital,

A Loran-C prototype navigation receiver for general aviation

Prototype equipment was developed for flight evaluation which provides enroute navigation in both latitude-longitude and rho-theta coordinates. The nonprecision approach capabilities of this equipment was evaluated. The antenna/preamplifier coupler, the RF processor, tracking loop hardware, tracking loop software, and the video output are discussed. Laboratory and flight test results are evaluated

Causality-based criteria for a negative refractive index must be used with care

Using the principle of causality as expressed in the Kramers-Kronig relations, we derive a generalized criterion for a negative refractive index that admits imperfect transparency at an observation frequency $\omega$. It also allows us to relate the global properties of the loss (i.e. its frequency response) to its local behaviour at $\omega$. However, causality-based criteria rely the on the group velocity, not the Poynting vector. Since the two are not equivalent, we provide some simple examples to compare the two criteria.Comment: slightly longer version of published PR

Soil Management for House Plants

An "ideal" soil for house plants is one that has adequate and lasting fertility, has good structure so that air and water penetrate readily, retains moisture, is free of weed seeds, insects and disease organisms, and has suitable pH for optimum growth of the plant to be grown

Starter Solutions for the Home Garden

Starter solutions are dilute solutions of fertilizer applied to plants at time of transplanting. They are utilized to give higher survival rate and earlier renewed growth of these plants

Site Selection for the Home Garden

Proper selection and preparation of the home garden site is an important key to successful production. To obtain high yields of good quality produce, plants require an adequate supply of plant nutrients, light, air, moisture, support, protection from pests and competitors, and deep fertile soils. Proper site selection should take these factors into consideration. The following presentation will discuss these points: light, soil, and plant protection