Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?

This article presents and explores a rich new data source to analyse the determinants of pay and job rank among academic economists in the UK. Characteristics associated with individual productivity and workplace features are found to be important determinants of the relative wage and promotion structure in this sector. However, there is also a substantial unexplained gender pay gap. Men are considerably more likely to work in higher paid job ranks where there are also substantial within-rank gender pay gaps. We show that the nature of the gender pay gap has changed over the last two decades; but its size has not, suggesting a role for suitable policy intervention.     

The Effects of Teachers’ Unions on the Gender Pay Gap among U.S. Public School Teachers

This study examines the effect of teachers’ unions on the gender pay gap among teachers under various legal environments, using nationally representative district–teacher matched data. To identify union effects, I employ propensity score matching, considering both contractual status and teacher union density in each district as a treatment. I find that teachers’ unions significantly reduce the gender pay gap, and the union effects vary by legal environment. I also find that unions reduce teacher attrition for female teachers, but not for male teachers, thereby decreasing the gender pay gap by helping female teachers accumulate experience.     

The Enduring Alliance? Trade Unions and the Making of New Labour, 1994–1997

The period of Tony Blair's leadership preceding the 1997 general election saw a transformation of the Labour Party. This was of immense importance to the political role of trade unions. The emergence of New Labour can only be understood through analysis of developments in both party and unions. This paper discusses the recasting of the party's industrial politics and reform of party structure, locating its provenance in electoral, representational and governmental strategies. It examines the unions' response, rooted in their industrial predicament but shaped by political reaction to it. Union politics intersected but did not coincide with the policies of New Labour. Political differentiation in the unions and opposition to New Labour is considered. It is concluded that change represents restructuring rather than termination of the link, but it will be further tested with New Labour in government.     

The Gender Gap in Funeral Directors: Burying Women with Ready‐to‐Embalm Laws?

Over the last few decades, the gender composition of funeral directors in the United States has changed dramatically as women have entered this traditionally male‐dominated occupation. To practise as funeral directors, women (and men) must be licensed in all but one state. The most extensive training requirements exist in the 27 states with ‘ready‐to‐embalm’ laws, which require funeral directors to be embalmers. Using a sample of 45,989 licensing records from 40 states, we find that 18.1 per cent of funeral directors were women in 2006. However, the proportion is significantly lower in states with ready‐to‐embalm laws. Our regressions imply that these laws reduce the proportion of female funeral directors by 24 per cent. More generally, we find that the number of funeral directors per capita is 17 per cent lower, on average, in states with ready‐to‐embalm laws.     

Is There a Public Sector Training Advantage? Evidence from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey

Using matched employer–employee data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (2004), we find a significant training ‘advantage’ exists for public sector workers over private sector workers even after accounting for differences in the composition of the two workforces. This finding is robust to all but one change in specification, designed to account for worker sorting effects which can lead to unobserved workplace‐based effects being correlated with individual worker characteristics. Using the average characteristics of workers within an establishment as a control for these sorting effects all but eliminates the estimated public sector training advantage, which has otherwise been an empirical regularity of many individual‐based training models.     

The Gender Gap in Real Estate Sales: Negotiation Skill or Agent Selection?

This study examines differences in net selling price for residential real estate across male and female agents. A sample of 2,020 home sales transactions from Fulton County, Georgia, are analyzed in a two‐stage least squares, geospatial autoregressive corrected, semi‐log hedonic model to test for gender and gender selection effects. Although agent gender seems to play a role in naïve models, its role becomes inconclusive as variables controlling for possible price and time on market expectations of the buyers and sellers are introduced to the models. Clear differences in real estate sales prices, time on market and agent incomes across genders are unlikely due to differences in negotiation performance between genders or the mix of genders in a two‐agent negotiation. The evidence suggests an interesting alternative to agent performance: that buyers and sellers with different reservation price and time on market expectations, such as those selling foreclosure homes, tend to select agents along gender lines.     

When Is Open Innovation Beneficial? The Role of Strategic Orientation

Various scholars have accomplished a great deal to better understand open innovation effectiveness. Case studies have detailed its performance effects, while other studies showed the effectiveness of an aspect of open innovation, such as collaboration with third parties, external technology commercialization, and cocreation. Though most studies report a positive relation between open innovation and innovation performance, some studies indicate possible negative effects. This has resulted in a call for research on what kind of organizational context suits open innovation best. This study therefore addresses two questions: (1) does performing open innovation activities lead to increased innovation performance, and to which aspects of innovation performance is open innovation most strongly related? (2) what is the moderating impact of various kinds of strategic orientation on the relation between open innovation and innovation performance? In this study, we investigate three types of strategic orientations: entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and resource orientation. In a survey among 223 Asian service firms, we first develop and test a comprehensive measurement scale for open innovation that captures the entire range of open innovation activities, including outside‐in activities, inside‐out activities, and coupled activities. The final scale comprises of 10 items and indicates to what extent a firm has implemented open innovation activities. Next, we study the relation between open innovation and innovation performance. The results indicate that performing open innovation activities is significantly and positively related to all four dimensions of innovation performance: new product/service innovativeness, new product/service success, customer performance, and financial performance. The impact of open innovation is not limited to a particular aspect of innovation performance; it positively affects a broad range of innovation performance indicators. Though open innovation is positively related to all four dimensions of innovation performance, the effect sizes are not equal. The impact on new service innovativeness and financial performance is relatively stronger. Regarding the influence of a firm's strategic orientation, we find that all significant moderation effects are positive. This suggests that, in general, having a more explicit strategic orientation enhances the effectiveness of open innovation. When comparing the three strategic orientations, entrepreneurial orientation strengthens the positive performance effects of open innovation significantly more than market orientation and resource orientation do. In turn, market orientation has a significantly stronger moderation effect than resource orientation. These findings provide empirical evidence of the context dependency of open innovation. Especially an entrepreneurial orientation, which is associated with proactive and entrepreneurial processes, seems to create a fertile setting for open innovation.     

Housing Tenure Transitions of Older Households: What is the Role of Child Proximity?

This study examines the role of proximity of children to their parents and recent moves of children within a proximate distance in housing tenure transitions of older households. This study is the first to investigate the interplay between health status of older households, moves of their children and a household's decision to make housing tenure transitions. In doing so, we rely on longitudinal household data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with residential location information at the census tract level. The results demonstrate that after controlling for the financial and demographic characteristics of children, living near children reduces the likelihood of making a housing tenure transition for older households, but that the impact of distance is not monotonic with respect to the degree of geographic distances. The results also demonstrate that if a child enters or moves closer to her or his parents’ home, it increases the probability that older households exit homeownership. Finally, we find no evidence that children's moves mitigate the likelihood that their older parents whose health deteriorates become renters.     

Is the ‘Linkage Principle’ Valid? Evidence from the Field

We present field evidence concerning experienced bidders that supports the linkage principle—specifically, the prediction that in affiliated‐values auction environments the expected revenues generated at open‐outcry, ascending‐bid auctions are higher than those under auction formats that reveal less information to participants. Using field data from a large seller of automobiles who experimented with different selling formats, we have found that average revenues were significantly higher under an English auction than under a dynamic Internet auction format that revealed less information to bidders.     

Does the UK have a ‘comparative institutional advantage’ that is supportive of the IT services sector?

This paper applies a ‘sector‐in‐country’ approach to examine the institutional conditions associated with the recent expansion of the information technology services sector in the UK. The findings reveal both synergies and tensions between the business and employment conditions of the sector and the wider institutional characteristics of the UK employment model.     

Minimum Wages and Collective Bargaining: What Types of Pay Bargaining Can Foster Positive Pay Equity Outcomes?

Using data from interviews and collective agreements in five European countries, this article analyses the relationship between collective bargaining and the minimum wage. In a context of changing minimum wage policy and competing government objectives, the findings illuminate how pay bargaining strategies of trade unions and employers shape the pay equity effects of minimum wage policy. Two general forms are identified: direct responses to a changing national minimum wage, and responses to the absence or weakness of a national minimum wage. The article explains how particular intersections of minimum wage policy and collective bargaining, together with country and sector contingencies, shape the form of pay bargaining and pay equity outcomes.     

Is technological change really skill‐biased? Evidence from the introduction of ICT on the Italian textile industry (1980–2000)

This paper investigates the effects of the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) on the skills of a workforce. Using micro-data collected from workers in the textile sector, we analyse whether the introduction of ICT has modified workers' tasks, so that higher skills and longer training periods than before are necessary. Empirical evidence suggests that the adoption of ICT has no universal skill-biased effect for all occupations at least in the textile sector.     

The Role of Employee Stock Purchase Plans — Gift and Incentive? Evidence from a Multinational Corporation

Employee share purchase plans (ESPPs) give free or discounted shares of stock to workers who buy shares in the hope that the greater share ownership will retain workers, build loyalty and raise productivity, as in gift exchange models. Using measures of workers’ organizational loyalty and sense of ownership in a multinational firm that puts the ESPP at the heart of its compensation policy, we find that workers who join the ESPP have lower turnover intentions and do less on‐the‐job search than others, motivated in part by gift exchange reciprocity, and also respond to the group incentive of ownership with greater work effort, longer hours, and lower absence rates. Workers in workplaces with high perceived rates of ESPP participation are more likely to intervene against shirkers. The results appear robust to the selectivity of who joins the ESPP. The mix of gifting shares to workers who buy shares and the group incentive of ownership makes ESPPs a unique dual form of compensation.     

A Note on Public Sector Integration: The Decline of British Naval Aviation, 1914–1945

Review of Industrial Organization -     

Monopoly in the UK: What determines whether the MMC finds against the investigated firms?

This paper draws on data from 73 UK Monopolies and Mergers Commission reports on monopoly between 1973 and 1995. It shows that there is a roughly two in three chance that the Commission will come to an adverse conclusion against the investigated firms in a given case. 75–80% of decisions can be explained purely in terms of the market share of the leading firm and knowledge of the broad nature of the alleged anti-competitive practice. An adverse finding is most likely in cases involving exclusive dealing, and least likely where other vertical restraints are involved.     

When Should RD&E and Marketing Collaborate? The Moderating Role of Exploration–Exploitation and Environmental Uncertainty

Collaboration between research, development, and engineering (RD&E) and marketing has traditionally been regarded as beneficial for new product performance (NPP). However, some studies have pointed out the drawbacks of excessive collaboration. Because collaboration simultaneously presents costs and benefits that vary with conditions, a contingent view of managerial practices suggests that the optimal level of integration should vary according to some factors that indicate when high levels of collaboration are preferable to lower levels. Although the literature on the many different factors that may impact the desirable level of collaboration is abundant, only a few studies have investigated the role of the peculiar characteristics of the new products being developed. This is at odds with several calls for future research on the role of the characteristics of the new product. This paper investigates the moderating role of an explorative versus an exploitive innovation program. It also controls for the moderating role of environmental uncertainty, which has been traditionally considered a moderator of the relationship between RD&E–marketing collaboration and new product program performance. The paper also investigates how a firm's innovation posture—a cultural trait—influences both directly and indirectly, via marketing's technical knowledge, RD&E–marketing collaboration. Indeed, several scholars have recognized that cultural differences create the main barrier between RD&E and marketing. Hence, a firm's culture should have an impact on the cultural barriers between the two departments. Further, the firm's innovation posture affects the extent to which the departments have to share resources and exchange information. In their seminal work, Gupta, Raj, and Wilemon argue that resource dependency is the main factor affecting the integration achieved between RD&E and marketing. Hence, an analysis of a firm's innovation posture is required to gain a deeper understanding of the antecedents of the collaboration between the two departments. The antecedents and effects of RD&E–marketing collaboration are tested in a sample of 80 companies operating in the U.S. auto industry through partial least squares. The paper shows that the extent to which a company develops explorative rather than exploitative innovations is a better moderator than environmental uncertainty in the relationship between RD&E–marketing collaboration and new product program performance. This contradicts much previous literature and sheds light on a partially neglected construct in the new product development literature. Second, the paper demonstrates that firms with a more aggressive innovation posture tend to develop greater collaboration between RD&E and marketing. Also, the marketing department tends to have a better understanding of the RD&E processes and capabilities in companies with an aggressive innovation posture than in companies with a defensive one.     

Pay Determination in the Republic of Ireland: Towards Social Corporatism?

In Ireland there is a widespread belief that the country is moving towards a 'European model' of industrial relations. One claim is that the industrial relations system can be now described as social corporatist. Advocates of this view invariably point to the substance and the durability of the latest round of centralized wage agreements in support of this claim. This paper assesses the validity of the argument. Because discussions about social corporatism are so diffuse, the first part of the paper develops a framework that sheds light on what the concept means in economic and institutional terms. In the second part of the paper this framework is used to assess the functioning of the recent national pay deals. The conclusion is that these agreements should not be regarded as social corporatist.