Job Classifications and Plant Performance in the Auto Industry

This study assess the relationship between plant economic performance and job classifications, using data from a large, unionized, automobile manufacturer. Combining skilled and semi-skilled job classifications leads to small improvements in economic performance, while reductions in the member of assembly job classifications affect neither plant productivity nor plant quality. The data also reveal that classification reductions predict plant modernization, although the magnitude of this effect varies with the occupational group.     

The Determinants of Employee Productivity and Earnings

This paper uses data on employee wages and characteristics drawn from a nationwide sample of firms to re-examine the determinants of employee productivity and earnings. The results show that previous experience and tenure in the current job have significant, positive effects on wages and productivity. Hours of training are positively related to productivity and wage growth but generally not to levels of either. Lastly, gender effects are evident. Productivity growth and current productivity levels are slightly higher for females while their wages are significantly lower.     

Immigration and Economic Welfare: Resource and Environmental Aspects*

The relation between immigration and the economic welfare of residents b analyzed for resource-rich economies (such as Australia) both under competitive conditions and when various distortions are present Immigration provides efficiency gains for residents under distortion–free competition for standard ‘gains from trade’ reasons. Such reasons, however, tend to be ignored by immigration and ‘optimal population’ theorists who raise the issue of restricting immigration without explicitly referring to the distortions. In situations where distortions and externalities are present, we argue that it is generally preferable to devise policies which specifically target the distortions than to restrict immigration.     

STUBBORNLY PERSISTENT FACTOR MIGRATIONS WITH RAPID INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONVERGENCE*

A model of persisting labour and capital migrations is proposed which relies on capital installation adjustment costs. Labour and capital markets are supposed internationally integrated with free factor movements imposing a 'law of one price' on the gross return to each factor. The development of infrastructure and other capital projects however is accompanied by adjustment costs that create a divergence between the gross and net returns to capital. This makes it optimal to accumulate capital only gradually. Thus, although there is rapid international economic convergence because returns on traded assets and labour are internationally determined, labour and capital immigrations persist. The consistency of this model with some stylised facts of experience is examined using data for four high factor immigration economies from 1870–1991.