Search Results
Report
What's driving the new economy? The benefits of workplace innovation
Using a unique nationally representative sample of U.S. establishments surveyed in both 1993 and 1996, we examine the relationship between workplace innovations and establishment productivity and wages. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, we find evidence that high-performance workplace practices are associated with both higher productivity and higher wages. Specifically, we find a positive and significant relationship between the proportion of non-managers using computers and the productivity of establishments. We find that firms re-engineer their workplaces and incorporate` ...
Report
Risk and the democratization of credit cards
The dramatic rise in credit card charge-offs in the midst of a vigorous expansion suggests that bank card borrowers have become inherently riskier. This paper investigates how the mix of credit card borrowers has changed in recent years, and how those changes affect delinquency risk. The new card holders seem riskier along several dimensions. They tend to earn less, and as a result, they owe more relative to income. This rise in debt burdens almost certainly contributed to the rise in charge-offs, since debt burdens are a key determinant of delinquency risk. Card holders are also more likely ...
Report
Do better schools matter? Parental valuation of elementary education
The evaluation of numerous school reforms requires an understanding of the value parents place on school quality. I use house prices to infer this value, where school quality is proxied by elementary school test scores. I do so by looking within school districts at houses located on attendance district boundaries; I am then comparing houses that differ along only one dimension: the elementary school the child attends. I thereby effectively remove the variation in neighborhood characteristics, property tax rates, and school spending. I find that parents are willing to pay 2.5% more for a 5% ...
Journal Article
Workplace practices and the new economy
This Economic Letter looks at how increased managerial focus on employee involvement, quality management, continuous innovation, and incentive-based compensation has boosted labor productivity and draws out some implications for future productivity gains. The research summarized here indicates that the combination of investment in new technology along with workplace innovation has had especially high payoffs to U.S. firms in the 1990s, and, with the continued reorganization of firms, high productivity growth may continue into the future.
Working Paper
How workers fare when employers innovate
Complementing existing work on firm organizational structure and productivity, this paper examines the impact of organizational change on workers. We find evidence that employers do appear to compensate at least some of their workers for engaging in high performance workplace practices. We also find a significant association between high performance workplace practices and increased wage inequality. Finally, we examine the relationship between organizational structure and employment changes and find that some practices, such as self-managed teams, are associated with greater employment ...
Journal Article
Meet the new borrowers
Credit card lenders have been writing off loans at sharply higher rates since 1995, suggesting that riskier borrowers are acquiring credit cards. What makes the new borrowers riskier--even more than their personal characteristics and attitudes toward debt--is the fact that they carry higher debt burdens and work in occupations where income may be more cyclical.
Report
Importing equality? The effects of increased competition on the gender wage gap
It is now well documented that the gender wage gap declined substantially in the 1980s, despite rising overall wage inequality. While Blau and Kahn (JoLE 1997) attribute much of this improvement to gains in women's relative labor market experience and other observable characteristics, a substantial part of the decline in the gender wage gap remains unexplained, and may be due to reduced discrimination against women in the labor market. This paper tests the hypothesis (based on Becker 1957) that increased globalization in the 1980s forced employers to reduce costly discrimination against women ...
Journal Article
Measuring the value of better schools
Several researchers have attempted to measure the value of educational quality by examining its impact on wages earned by students later in life. Adopting an alternative approach, the author of this study calculates what people are willing to pay to reside in a community with superior schools. Controlling for neighborhood characteristics and school financial inputs, she finds that a 5 percent increase in the average test scores of an elementary school leads to a 2.1 percent increase in the price of houses in that school's attendance district.
Working Paper
Why the apple doesn't fall far: understanding intergenerational transmission of human capital
Parents with higher education levels have children with higher education levels. However, is this because parental education actually changes the outcomes of children, suggesting an important spillover of education policies, or is it merely that more able individuals who have higher education also have more able children? This paper proposes to answer this question with a unique dataset from Norway. Using the reform of the education system that was implemented in different municipalities at different times in the 1960s as an instrument for parental education, we find little evidence of a ...