Information, Employer Size, Training, and Wage Growth

We posit that larger employers possess greater information than smaller employers about the effects of on-the-job training (OJT) investments on the productivity of their workers. As a result, larger employers pay a greater percentage of OJT costs, and OJT is effectively more firm-specific at larger firms. Supporting our model, we find: (1) the positive effect of productivity growth on wage growth is smaller in larger plants; (2) the adverse effect of minimum wage on wage growth is smaller in larger plants; and (3) the negative effect of initial OJT investments on starting wages is smaller in larger plants.Firm; Firms; On the Job Training; Pay; Productivity; Training; Wage

Establishment Size Differentials in Internal Mobility.

The relationship between employer size and within firm job mobility is investigated. Larger employers are posited to provide their workers with greater options for career advancement within the firm in an attempt to both protect (and encourage) the relatively higher investments in their workers and to evaluate employee performance. Using microdata on actual levels of internal mobility, direct support is found for the propositions of greater internal mobility in larger establishments. Copyright 1989 by MIT Press.

Student Time Allocation and Scholastic Ability

This paper examines the relationship between academic ability and student allocation of time to school work, market work and “leisure” activities.  Based on a sample of undergraduates at two U.S. universities, we find that students with greater scholastic aptitude allocate greater amounts of time to studies and to market work, while consuming lower amounts of leisure.  These results indicate the existence of a dominant substitution effect in time allocation with respect to the time price of grades

Participation in Policy Determination by Registered Nurses in Not-for-Profit and Proprietary Facilities

It is generally assumed in the not-for-profit literature that when not-for- profit and proprietary facilities coexist in the same industry, workers gener ally have a preference for employment in not-for-profit facilities. A question arises, however, as to whether the work environment is better in not-for- profit facilities. This article examines this issue, using data from the 1985 National Nursing Home Survey. Our results indicate that while the degree of participation in policy determination by registered nurses is greater in proprietary facilities than not-for-profit facilities, once personal and insti tutional controls are introduced, the effect of type of ownership on the degree of policy determination by registered nurses becomes insignificant. The main factor producing the gross differentials is found to be the larger average size of not-for-profit institutions

Wage Determination of Registered Nurses in Proprietary and Nonprofit Nursing Homes

This study explores why registered nurses employed in nonprofit nursing homes earn higher wages than those employed in proprietary facilities. Previous studies have explained this finding in a property rights context, where higher wages were posited to result from the weaker incentives for cost minimization accompanying nonprofit status. This paper tests an alternative explanation of sectoral wage differences which is predicated on the reason for the coexistence of for-profit and nonprofit firms in a given industry. Informational constraints concerning the quality of care are posited to cause the long-term health care market to fail to provide care at the upper levels of a quality of care continuum. Nonprofits are viewed as a response to this form of market failure, acting to fulfill customers demand for higher quality (and higher cost) long-term care, with attendant demand for higher quality nurses than in for-profit homes. Both the observed sectoral pattern in selectivity, and wage decompositions based on selectivity corrected wage regressions, call into question the property right explanation yet are consistent with an asymmetric information explanation.