Labor Market
Baby Dilemma (9/1/2005)
Low fertility among educated women threatens to lower the supply of high-skilled workers.
Broken Promises? (1/14/2006)
New York transit workers staged a 5-day disruptive pre-Christmas labor strike to hang onto unsustainable benefits.
Choke Power (1/10/2007)
Their strategic location at the chokepoints of global trade allows American longshoremen to share a bigger piece of the globalization pie.
Fast Labor (9/2/2005)
Extreme division of labor into simple repetitive tasks allows the fast-food industry to increase throughput while lowering labor cost by tapping unskilled teenage and marginal workers.
Glamour vs Hardship (6/22/2006)
Most glamorous jobs have high average income but low median income while most bread-and-butter jobs have median income that is very close to the average income.
Global Labor Market (9/5/2005)
Labor is increasingly globally sourced due to aging populations and lagging labor productivity in developed countries.
Healthcare Tourism (3/7/2007)
Lower-pay certified doctors, duly accredited facilities, and 5-star facilities have contributed to the comparative advantage of overseas hospitals in non-emergency big-budget surgeries for international patients.
Labor on Call (1/10/2007)
Flexible work scheduling to match customer traffic is one effective way to transform labor from a fixed cost into a variable cost in the retail business.
Legacy Curse (1/14/2006)
The legacy of high union wages and benefits progressive measures has become part of a vicious circle of market-share erosion for old-time U.S. car makers.
Machines vs Brawn (2/27/2007)
Mechanization may not be able to totally eliminate low-wage and low-skilled jobs that illegal immigrants are eager to fill.
Management Tournament? (1/16/2006)
Outsized CEO compensation reflects talent scarcity and competitive emulation among interlocking compensation committees.
Moving Up by Staying Put (8/30/2001)
American companies are increasingly outsourcing back-office and software design work to highly skilled but lower-cost English-speaking foreign workers.
Niche Specialization (1/30/2007)
Niche comparative advantage in location proximity and fast response time could overcome the disadvantage of high wages in the garment industry.
Opportunities Pay (9/5/2005)
Job security of American workers whose opportunity costs are higher but whose labor productivity is no higher than foreign workers will be increasingly threatened by foreign competition.
Reality Benefits (1/16/2006)
Low-cost competition and escalating health care cost have eroded U.S. car-makers’ ability to honor generous union contracts.
The Economics of Superstars (9/26/2000)
Joint consumption technology combined with imperfect substitution of consumer preferences can lead to outsized rewards to a few superstars in mass entertainment businesses.
The Family Gap (9/2/2005)
Motherhood adversely affects women's life-time earnings.
The Insecurity of Job Security (6/22/2006)
Life-time job security with generous fringe benefits have increased youth unemployment by discouraging French employers to hire new workers and encouraging them to substitute capital for labor.
The Rise of Dogs (9/11/2007)
Rising affluence and other social factors have led to the emergence of the dog care industry.
The Seduction of Cheap Labor (8/31/2005)
Cheap immigrant labor has kept labor-intensive lettuce farming in America that should perhaps have been offshored or mechanized.
The Truncated Job Ladder (9/5/2005)
The job ladder that has been truncated from the bottom and from the top means longer formal education to get to the bottom of the ladder and more limited promotion prospects once on the ladder.
To Each According to His Work (3/7/2007)
Piecework pay could raise labor productivity, pay, and company earnings when output and quality are easily measurable.
Two-tier Wages (2/10/2012)
Detroit Three's two-tier wage system may be the answer to the cost advantage of transplanted auto makers.
Underground Homes (2/27/2007)
Influx of illegal immigrant workers to the U.S. homebuilding industry has made new homes more affordable but kept the home construction business labor intensive.
White-collar unions (1/16/2006)
White-collared workers are increasingly affiliated with beleaguered blue-collared labor unions to bulk up their collective bargaining position over non-wage issues.