Performance Appraisal Systems: Determinants and Change

Using establishment data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this paper estimates the determinants of performance appraisal systems. The results indicate that performance appraisal is associated with workers having shorter expected tenure and greater influence over productivity. We argue these results reflect those circumstances in which the net benefits of performance appraisal are likely to be greatest. The results also show that complementary human resource management practices, such as formal training and incentive pay, are associated with an increased likelihood of performance appraisal, but that union density is associated with a reduced likelihood of performance appraisal.     

Pay Secrecy and the Gender Wage Gap in the United States

Legislators and advocates claim that pay secrecy perpetuates the gender wage gap and that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) should be amended to outlaw these practices. Using a difference‐in‐differences fixed‐effects human‐capital wage regression, I find that women with higher education levels who live in states that have outlawed pay secrecy have higher earnings, and that the wage gap is consequently reduced. State bans on pay secrecy and federal legislation to amend the FLSA to allow workers to share information about their wages may improve the gender wage gap, especially among women with college or graduate degrees.     

Are Union Wage Differentials in the United States Falling?

This paper addresses several estimation and specification issues in estimating union wage differentials in the United States over the last two decades. Estimates provide strong evidence of a decline in the differential for women. For men, the differential appears to have declined for a person with overall average characteristics, but not for a male with characteristics of the average unionized male.     

A Reexamination of Public-Sector Wage Differentials in the United States: Evidence from the NLSY with Geocode

While many researchers have sought to estimate federal-private wage differentials in the United States, most of them ignore the issues of unobserved heterogeneity and selectivity among sectors. This article seeks to fill the gap in previous literature by using a more appropriate data set and several compelling techniques. The main results suggest substantial bias in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of federal-private wage differentials due to individual heterogeneity and self-selection. The direction of bias under selectivity correction (upward for men and downward for women) is consistent with results from both test-score approach estimates and the fixed-effects estimates.     

Explaining the Small Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage in the United States

This paper reviews the most recent wave of research—roughly since 2000—on the employment effects of the U.S. minimum wage and concludes that the weight of evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases. The paper then examines eleven possible adjustments to minimum‐wage increases that may explain why the measured employment effects are consistently small. Given the relatively low cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low‐wage workers.     

Systems Model of the Performance Appraisal Interview Process

A model of the performance appraisal interview, adapted from open systems theory, is proposed. The linkages within the model are examined and examples of hypotheses regarding the patterns of relationships which can be generated from this systems perspective are provided. The open systems framework is useful for examining the performance appraisal interview process because it integrates past models and research, generates issues and ideas for future research, and provides a multivariate perspective.     

中美优秀企业文化陈述的对比研究

本文通过对比美国43家“最佳雇主”和中国“全国企业文化优秀成果奖”43家获奖企业的企业文化,发现中美优秀企业文化陈述的共同点和差异:中美企业都重视客户、创新、团队;美国企业既重视人又重视组织,中国企业更重视组织;中国企业绩效导向强于美国企业;美国企业人文导向强于中国企业。这些发现与已有研究不完全相同。中国企业应注意在企业文化陈述中体现员工意愿,用词贴切,表意清楚、准确。     

The Use of Performance Appraisal Systems: Evidence from Dutch Establishment Data

Using Dutch data, we examine the characteristics of establishments that operate performance appraisal systems. Our estimates provide a couple of interesting results: (1) Multitasking and teamwork play a role in the use of performance appraisal systems. (2) While a shared corporate culture, the sharing of information, and a professional personnel management emerge as positive determinants, unions appear to play a negative role. (3) Employers fostering career development and promotion opportunities make greater use of performance appraisal. (4) Public sector affiliation plays a negative role.     

Merger Policy in the United States: A Reconsideration

Review of Industrial Organization -     

德国与美国当前能源转型进程比较分析

从当前积极推进能源转型的国家看,德国和美国是两个具有典型性的国家.德国和美国能源转型既有共同点,也有差异性,差异性主要源于两国能源转型的核心动机不同.德国能源转型的核心动机是大气与环境保护,美国能源转型的核心动机是能源安全.转型核心动机差异导致两国能源的转型方向与路径不同,德国向可再生能源转型,美国向清洁能源(可再生能源、天然气和核能)转型.过渡能源选择是国家能源转型的必备要件,且可再生能源政策推进强度与居民电价成正比.电力系统转型对国家能源转型至关重要,智能电网是电力系统转型的重中之重.     

Municipal fiber in the United States: A financial assessment

Despite growing interest in broadband provided by municipally owned and operated fiber-to-the-home networks, the academic literature has yet to undertake a systematic assessment of these projects' financial performance. To fill this gap, we utilize municipalities' official reports to offer an empirical evaluation of the financial performance of every municipal fiber project in the U.S. operating in 2010 through 2019. An analysis of the actual performance of the resulting fifteen-project panel dataset reveals that none of the projects generated sufficient nominal cash flow in the short run to maintain solvency without infusions of additional cash from outside sources or debt relief. Similarly, 87% have not actually generated sufficient nominal cash flow to put them on track to achieve long-run solvency. In addition, 73% generated negative nominal cash flow over the past three fiscal years, leaving them poorly positioned to make up their deficits and causing them to fall farther into debt. An assessment based on the net present value of these projects' operating cash flow indicates that 53% of projects would not be on track to breakeven even assuming the theoretical best-case performance in terms of capital expenditures and debt service. Close analysis of these projects’ performance reveals that revenue generation likely plays a more important role in generating cash flow than efficiency in construction costs or operating efficiency.     

中美快速换油业务比较研究

快速换油起源于20世纪70年代的美国,在90年代得到兴起发展,通常以专业快速更换润滑油液为主,辅以免拆清洗、更换轮胎等服务,普遍存在于美国经济发达、汽车保有量大的城市和地区,并以其专业、快速、经济、环保等特点深得消费者的认可.近年来快速换油正在逐渐成为国际石油公司拓展润滑油销售渠道的重要途径之一.比较中美两国快速换油行业,二者所处的历史发展阶段、消费环境、成本和技术环境不同,面临的机遇和挑战也不同.随着我国汽车工业发展和民用轿车普及率的快速提高,汽车养护特别是快速换油业务将进入一个高速发展的阶段,相关服务行业将迎来千载难逢的战略发展机遇期.     

The Determinants of Performance Appraisal Systems: A Note (Do Brown and Heywood's Results for Australia Hold Up for Britain?)

This article offers a replication for Britain of Brown and Heywood's analysis of the determinants of performance appraisal in Australia. Although there are some important limiting differences between our two datasets — the Australia Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS) and the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) — we reach one central point of agreement and one intriguing shared insight. First, performance appraisal is negatively associated with tenure: where employers cannot rely on the carrot of deferred pay or the stick of dismissal to motivate workers, they will tend to rely more on monitoring, ceteris paribus. Second, employer monitoring and performance pay may be complementary. However, consonant with the disparate results from the wider literature, there is more modest agreement on the contribution of specific human resource management practices, and still less on the role of job control.     

Immigrants’ Wage Performance in a Routine Biased Technological Change Era: France 1994–2012

Over the period 1994–2012, immigrants’ wage growth in France outperformed that of natives. We investigate to what extent changes in task‐specific returns to skills contributed to this wage dynamics differential through two channels: changes in the valuation of skills (price effect) and occupational sorting (quantity effect). We find that the wage growth premium of immigrants is mainly explained by the progressive reallocation of immigrants toward tasks whose returns increase over time. Immigrants seem to have taken advantage of labor demand restructuring driven by globalization and technological changes.     

Changes in the Relative Economic Performance of Immigrants to Great Britain and the United States, 1980–2000

We compare the relative labour market performance of immigrants in the USA and in Britain over the period 1980–2000, when the stocks of immigrants were rising in both countries alongside differential shifts in demand and changes to labour market institutions. We find that the average relative employment prospects of immigrants are generally better in the USA than in Britain, particularly for non‐white immigrants, while the average relative wage prospects for immigrants are generally better in Britain, particularly for men. Over time, relative wage and employment prospects for immigrants to the USA appear to have deteriorated, particularly among women, in a way that is not as apparent in Britain.     

A study of company profit-rate time series: Japan and the United States

Usinf the methodology of D.C. Mueller as well as the alternative model we propose, we estimate the long-run profit rate (normalized to the cross-company mean in each year to eliminate the effect of the general rise or decline in profitability) of each of 294 major Japanese manufacturing corporations using the time series of its profit rate over 1964–1980. Three of the major findings are (1) a company with a high (low) initial profit rate tended to earn a high (low) profit rate even in the long run, implying a persistence of intercompany profit-rate differences, and (2) across companies, the estimated long-run profit rates were similarly distributed between Japan (our estimates) and the United States (Mueller's estimates), but (3) the movement of profit rate is more volatile and can be less well explained by the model in Japan. Further studies on the time series of the company profit rate revealed that the cross-company variance of the normalized profit rate (which equals the coefficient of variation of the unnormalized profit rate) was smaller in Japan in every year from 1964 to 1972, which together with the observed larger interindustry profit-rate differences, suggests smaller intraindustry intercompany profit-rate differences in Japan. Some preliminary discussions are given to eplain these findings.     

Current and Future Uses of the Computer: Industrial R&D in the United States

This study of 158 organizations sought to depict current uses of computers in R&D. A survey of senior R&D management by the Industrial Research Institute identifies a number of salient features. Routine computer use is becoming a characteristic of scientists, engineers, and managers. Yet characteristics of usage differ markedly by size of R&D unit and by line of business. Moreover, patterns of responses suggest on-going changes toward the time when R&D will be strongly coloured by the context of an integrated, intelligent computer environment. This implies new roles and skill requirements for R&D managers, professionals, and support staff.