Industrial change, stability of relative earnings, and substitution of unskilled labor in West-Germany

We analyze the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in the West German economy, in particular its relation to the relatively rigid earnings structure. We find that the substitution elasticity between unskilled and skilled labor is rather low in most sectors of the economy. However, the substitution elasticity is relatively high for males in the construction sector and for females in personal services. In these sectors, earnings of unskilled workers have even increased relative to skilled workers in the observation period. Hence, in these sectors reductions in the relative earnings of unskilled workers could have contributed to the stabilization of their relative employment level. In other sectors of the economy, the decline in the skills ratio, i.e. the employment share of unskilled relative to skilled workers, attributable to an inflexible earnings structure seems to have been modest compared to the trend decline in the skills ratio. The skills ratio has declined by about 3% (6%) per year for men (women). This decline has been relatively uniform across sectors of the economy. Potential effects of intensified international competition and skill?biased technological change on the relative employment and earnings position of unskilled workers are also discussed. We find some modest effects from international competition and technological change on the employment share of unskilled labor in the manufacturing sector. --

Is Job Enrichment Really Enriching?

This study uses a survey of Canadian workers with rich, matched data on job characteristics to examine whether “enriched” job design, with features like quality circles, feedback, suggestion programs, and task teams, affects job satisfaction. We identify two competing hypotheses on the relationship between enriched jobs and job satisfaction. The “motivation hypothesis,” implies that enrichment will generally increase satisfaction and the “intensification hypothesis,” implies that enrichment may decrease satisfaction by increasing the intensity and scope of work. Our results show that several forms of enrichment, specifically suggestion programs, information sharing, task teams, quality circles and training, raise satisfaction. Therefore we argue that the data support the motivation hypothesis. Partitioning the data by education level or union membership further supports this conclusion, while a direct test of the intensification hypothesis does not support the competing hypothesis.Job Satisfaction; Job Enrichment; Human Resource Practices

Algorithms for Nonconvex Optimization Problems in Machine Learning and Statistics

The purpose of this thesis is the design of algorithms that can be used to determine optimal solutions to nonconvex data approximation problems. In Part I of this thesis, we consider a very general class of nonconvex and large-scale data approximation problems and devise an algorithm that efficiently computes locally optimal solutions to these problems. As a type of trust-region Newton-CG method, the algorithm can make use of directions of negative curvature to escape saddle points, which otherwise might slow down the optimization process when solving nonconvex problems. We present results of numerical experiments on convex and nonconvex problems which support our claim that our algorithm has significant advantages compared to methods like stochastic gradient descent and its variance-reduced versions. In Part II we consider the univariate least-squares spline approximation problem with free knots, which is known to possess a large number of locally minimal points far from the globally optimal solution. Since in typical applications, neither the dimension of the decision variable nor the number of data points is particularly large, it is possible to make use of the specific problem structure in order to devise algorithmic approaches to approximate the globally optimal solution of problem instances of relevant sizes. We propose to approximate the continuous original problem with a combinatorial optimization problem, and investigate two algorithmic approaches for the computation of the optimal solution of the latter

Workplace Organization and Innovation

This study uses data on Canadian establishments to test whether particular organizational structures are correlated with the likelihood of adopting process and product innovations, controlling for the endogeneity of the predictors. We find that establishments with decentralized decision-making, information-sharing programs, or incentive pay plans are significantly more likely to innovate than other establishments. Larger establishments and those with a high vacancy rate are also more likely to innovate. These findings are consistent with a model in which workers hold information about production inefficiencies or consumer demands that can lead to productive innovations and that workplace organization attributes facilitate the communication and implementation of those ideas.Innovation, Decision-Making, Information-Sharing

Industrial Change, Stability of Relative Earnings, and Substitution of Unskilled Labor in West Germany

We analyze the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in the West German economy, in particular its relation to the relatively rigid earnings structure. We find that the substitution elasticity between unskilled and skilled labor is rather low in most sectors of the economy. However, the substitution elasticity is relatively high for males in the construction sector and for females in personal services. In these sectors, earnings of unskilled workers have even increased relative to skilled workers in the observation period. Hence, in these sectors reductions in the relative earnings of unskilled workers could have contributed to the stabilization of their relative employment level. In other sectors of the economy, the decline in the skills ratio, i.e. the employment share of unskilled relative to skilled workers, attributable to an inflexible earnings structure seems to have been modest compared to the trend decline in the skills ratio. The skills ratio has declined by about 3% (6%) per year for men (women). This decline has been relatively uniform across sectors of the economy. Potential effects of intensified international competition and skill–biased technological change on the relative employment and earnings position of unskilled workers are also discussed. We find some modest effects from international competition and technological change on the employment share of unskilled labor in the manufacturing sector

Service Delivery in Rural Municipalities: Privatize, Cooperate, or Go It Alone?

Choices in production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services were studied using data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities from Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Results suggest the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with other governments correlate negatively with population. Small municipalities are less likely to use competitive bidding processes, compare costs between production options, or report that privatization produces savings. Median income, rural geography, and ideology show statistically-significant associations with contracting choices. Respondents generally consider themselves ―satisfied‖ with services provided by contract, although satisfaction levels are lower than those associated with self-provision. Satisfaction associated with services provided by other governments is lower than satisfaction with services provided by private contractors, suggesting no tradeoff in service quality directly attributable to ―for-profit‖ contractors.privatization, municipal services, cooperation, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics,

Improving the Quality and Efficiency of the Medicare Program Through Coverage Policy

Outlines Medicare coverage and payment policy on new technologies and recommends changes that could help achieve the Triple Aim goals of enhancing the individual experience of care, improving population health, and reducing per capita costs of care

The Role of Integrated Curriculum in the 21st Century School

In schools across the country, there appears to be an increasing focus on 21st Century Skills development. While there may be some variance among specific definitions of these skills by national groups and individual schools, review of the literature has identified eight common features among widely accepted frameworks: creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, digital literacy, social and cultural skills, and self-regulation. It is proposed that integrated curriculum should be considered an ideal method for the teaching and learning of 21st Century Skills. While neither the collection of skills designated as “21st century” in and of themselves, nor the integrated curriculum are novel ideas in education, there appears to be a gap in related literature studying the complementary relationship of the two. Surveys were conducted to measure frequency of practices associated with the integrated curriculum and teacher attitudes related to 21st Century Skills. Teachers were interviewed to identify practices and attitudes, providing data for mixed-methods analysis. An interrelationship between the integrated curriculum and the teaching of 21st Century Skills as well as barriers to best practice were identified

Situational Management Support Systems: Accommodating the Growing Range ofWorking Styles, Use Cases, and Access Modes

Digital natives increasingly populate organizations' management. These new-generation managers more naturally accept management support systems (MSS), but also have higher expectations about how they should accommodate their individual user preferences. As a result, managers question MSS that have been developed without configuration mechanisms to accommodate their working style, relevant MSS use cases, and different MSS access modes. The objective of this article is to reveal managers' different MSS use situations and propose levers for tailoring (conceptual) MSS design to them. Use situations generalize classes of similar user-group preferences. We first apply findings from a literature review to cluster managers' user-group preferences into 36 MSS use situations. Second, we propose that the selection of end-user devices can serve as a main lever for MSS configuration. Third, we complete the configuration with a MSS user-interface design. Finally, we demonstrate utility of our configuration model by presenting and evaluating a prototyp