Trends in Intergenerational Mobility across Offspring's Earnings Distribution in Norway

Using register data for Norwegian cohorts born in 1950, 1955, and 1960, we found intergenerational earnings mobility to be high, and lower at the lower end of offspring's earnings distribution than at the upper end. The findings also indicate that mobility has increased over time and that the increase is somewhat higher for lower earnings. The increase in earnings mobility over time is larger for women than for men.     

Trends in the Intergenerational Elasticity of Family Income in the United States

This paper asks whether the degree to which our incomes resemble our parents’ incomes has changed over time. After comparing various methods of correcting for differences in the ages at which successive birth cohorts are observed, and correcting for sample attrition, I find no evidence of a linear trend in the intergenerational elasticity of family income for those born into the Panel Study of Income Dynamics between 1952 and 1975 and observed as adults between 1977 and 2000.     

Growth,Industrialization, and the Intergenerational Correlation of Advantage

The shift from feudalism to industrial capitalism was generally accompanied by an increase in social mobility. We ask whether such an increase has occurred in a developing nation currently undergoing rapid industrialization, Indonesia. It has, at least as measured by a declining intergenerational correlation of education. To highlight the effects of economic growth on intergenerational mobility, we contrast Indonesia's experience with that of Bangladesh, where industrialization has proceeded more slowly and the correlation between parents’ and children's education has been roughly stable. We also examine potential causal channels for the rising educational mobility we find in Indonesia, but cannot identify specific pathways related to above‐average school building or rapid industrialization in a region.     

The Plateau in U.S. Women's Labor Force Participation: A Cohort Analysis

After going up steadily for the last century, the female labor force participation (FLFP) rate in the United States suddenly leveled off in the early 1990s. Using March Current Population Survey data, I find that the FLFP stopped rising for birth cohorts from the 1950s on. My shift‐share analyses show that both the plateau and the earlier upward trend in FLFP appeared within almost every category broken down by education, marital status, and child‐rearing.     

From the Drive System to the Capital-Labor Accord: Econometric Tests for the Transition between Productivity Regimes

This article explores the emergence and consolidation of a new system of labor relations and productivity “regimes” in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. Was there a clearly identifiable transition in the U.S. between the “drive system,” which had structured labor relations after the turn of the century, and the “capital-labor accord” that came to dominate the organization of production after World War II? This article begins with a review of comparative international data. The U.S. economy achieved a major surge in relative productivity growth rates between the late 1930s and early 1950s, not attributable exclusively to wartime production itself. The hypothesis that U.S. productivity growth accelerated beginning in the late 1930s as a result of the institutionalization of a new set of production relations, the capital-labor accord, which formed one of the principal buttresses of the postwar social structure of accumulation (SSA), is formally tested. The econometric analysis supports the conclusion that this new set of production relations first took hold during the 1930s and 1940s, and that it can be distinguished clearly from the drive system prevailing from the turn of the century through the 1920s. It thus provides a formal econometric basis for tracing the transition between productivity regimes.     

The Impact of Employment on Parental Coresidence

We examine the extent to which parents use housing and shared living arrangements as a form of risk‐sharing for their adult children, using detailed data on children and parents in the Health and Retirement Study for 1998–2012. On average, a young man moving from full‐time to nonemployment raises the likelihood of coresiding with a parent by 1.5 percentage points; moving from full‐time employment to being part‐time employed raises the likelihood of coresiding with a parent by 2 percentage points. The implied elasticity of parental coresidence with respect to the son's income is ‐1.1; for daughters, the elasticity is ‐0.5.     

The Measurement and Determinants of Single-Family House Prices

We assess the conceptual and empirical features of a number of house price series for the United States. We then calculate a measure of the net up-grading of the existing stock of houses that took place during the 1950–1989 period and adjust price indexes for this net increase in quality. Judgments about the trend, volatility, and determinants of house prices are shown to depend crucially on which price series is used. The Freddie Mac upgrade-adjusted house price measure rose 5.7% over the past four decades, falling 7.7% from 1950 through 1970 before rising 14.5% from 1970 through 1989. Real house prices declined in the early 1980s due to the increase in real after-tax interest rates and the decline in real materials costs. The recovery of house prices in the late 1980s is attributed to lower unemployment and real after-tax interest rates and particularly to demographic factors associated with the aging of baby boomers.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Automobile Brand Preferences

We document a strong correlation in the brand of automobile chosen by parents and their adult children, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. This correlation could represent transmission of brand preferences across generations, or it could result from correlation in family characteristics that determine brand choice. We present a variety of empirical specifications that lend support to the former interpretation and to a mechanism that relies at least in part on state dependence. We then discuss implications of intergenerational brand preference transmission for automakers’ product‐line strategies and for the strategic pricing of vehicles to different age groups.     

Family,Place and the Intergenerational Transmission of Union Membership

This article examines the importance of family, gender and place to the intergenerational transmission of trade union membership. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we show that union membership among parents influences the union joining behaviour of young workers. These effects are particularly apparent among daughters and where both parents are members of unions. The effects of parental membership are also stronger among those born in areas characterized by relatively high levels of union density. Parental effects are therefore important to our understanding of the persistence of regional variations in levels of trade union membership.     

Erosion of the Ghent System and Union Membership Decline: Lessons from Finland

Union density declined in Finland by more than 10 percentage points in less than 10 years. This paper analyses the reasons behind the decline, using micro data from the 1990s. According to our results, the changes in the composition of the labour force and the changes in the labour market explain only about a quarter of this decline. The main reason for the decline appears to be the erosion of the Ghent system, due to the emergence of an independent unemployment insurance fund that provides unemployment insurance without requiring union membership. We also find that the decline in the union density can be attributed to the declining inclination of the cohorts born after the early 1960s to become union members.     

‘Mental mobility’ in the digital age: entrepreneurs and the online home‐based business

Home‐based online business ventures are an increasingly pervasive yet under‐researched phenomenon. The experiences and mindset of entrepreneurs setting up and running such enterprises require better understanding. Using data from a qualitative study of 23 online home‐based business entrepreneurs, we propose the augmented concept of ‘mental mobility’ to encapsulate how they approach their business activities. Drawing on Howard P. Becker's early theorising of mobility, together with Victor Turner's later notion of liminality, we conceptualise mental mobility as the process through which individuals navigate the liminal spaces between the physical and digital spheres of work and the overlapping home/workplace, enabling them to manipulate and partially reconcile the spatial, temporal and emotional tensions that are present in such work environments. Our research also holds important applications for alternative employment contexts and broader social orderings because of the increasingly pervasive and disruptive influence of technology on experiences of remunerated work.     

Using the Hicks formula to evaluate an estimate of the elasticity of derived demand for toll-free numbers

Duffy-Deno & Parsons D-D & P (2012) estimated the coefficient for the price elasticity of demand for toll-free numbers (TFNs) at between −0.04 and −0.05. Here, the Hicks formula for derived demand is used to check the range of likely demand elasticity for TFNs given the special characteristics of this market. This approach suggests that the demand for TFNs is likely not more elastic than estimated by D-D & P. Therefore, the premise is sound for D-D & P's discussion of the public policy implications of highly inelastic demand for TFNs. The use of industry information for all four parameters of the Hicks formula to check a derived demand elasticity is the first of its kind in the published literature.     

A Review of: THE EVALUATION OF RISKY INTERRELATED INVESTMENTS by Frederick S. Hillier

The flood of publications and seminars on activity costing in the last few years suggests that companies suddenly encountered a need for better management accounting information in the 1980s. In fact, management accounting's relevance to most business decision-making deteriorated steadily since the 1950s. However, most companies did not perceive these inadequacies in management accounting until the early 1980s. Current interest in activity management and activity costing reflects the convergence around 1980 of two forces: a long-undetected set of problems in management accounting that seems to originate in the 1950s; and the growth of new competitive pressures in the 1970s that made companies acutely aware of these problems. Although these two forces arose independently, their interaction in the 1970s led to the rise of activity-based management thinking. This paper describes the past, present, and future of activity-based management: past uses of financial accounting information that confounded companies' efforts to plan marketing strategies and to control operations after the 1950s; present ideas for solving these problems with activity-based management concepts such as activity costing; and the likely future direction of activity-based management thought.     

The reference wars: Encyclopædia Britannica's decline and Encarta's emergence

Research summary: The experience of Encyclopædia Britannica provides the canonical example of the decline of an established firm at the outset of the digital age. Competition from Microsoft's Encarta in 1993 led to sharp declines in the sales of books, which led to the distressed sale of the firm in 1996. This article offers new source material about the actions at both Encarta and Britannica, and it offers a novel interpretation of events. Britannica's management did not misperceive the opportunities and threats, and Britannica did not lack technical prowess. This narrative stresses that Britannica's management faced organizational diseconomies of scope between supporting lines of business in the old and new markets, which generated internal conflicts. These conflicts hindered the commercialization of new technology and hastened its decline . Managerial summary: An established and leading firm, such as Encyclopædia Britannica, would seem to have enormous advantages over its competitors in a new market. Why would a successful firm come to have severe difficulties organizing for a new market? Of particular importance for explaining Britannica's decline are theories that stress its inherited capabilities, especially inherited technological (in)abilities and inherited (mis)perceptions about the potential for new market opportunities. This article argues that Britannica's management did not misperceive the opportunities and threats, and Britannica did not lack technical prowess. This narrative stresses that Britannica's management faced organizational diseconomies of scope between supporting lines of business in the old and new markets, which generated internal conflicts. The narrative directs attention at managing commercialization activity around new products using new technologies . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of the business cycle on oligopoly coordination: Evidence from the U.S. rayon industry

Recent game-theoretic studies of the effects of the business cycle on oligopoly coordination predict that coordination is weakest when demand is high and expected future profit is lower. An empirical model that uses a conjectural elasticity term to measure the degree of coordination is developed to test for these two effects. The rayon industry of the 1930s is one that exhibited significantly non-competitive conduct that appears to have varied, in degree, with fluctuations in demand. Application of the empirical model to data from this industry produces results that support the predictions of recent theoretical models.     

Job Lock: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Employer‐provided health insurance may restrict job mobility, resulting in “job lock.” Previous research on job lock finds mixed results using several methodologies. We take a new approach to examine job lock by exploiting the discontinuity created at age 65 through the qualification for Medicare. Using a novel procedure for identifying age in months from matched monthly Current Population Survey data and a relatively unexplored administration measure of job mobility, we compare job mobility among male workers in the months just prior to turning age 65 to job mobility in the months just after turning age 65. We find no evidence that job mobility increases at the age 65 threshold when Medicare eligibility starts. We also do not find evidence that other factors such as retirement, reduction in hours worked, Social Security eligibility, pension eligibility, and sample changes confound the results on job mobility in the month individuals turn 65.     

The broadband bonus: Estimating broadband Internet's economic value

How much economic value did broadband Internet create? Despite the importance of this question for national policy, no research has estimated broadband's incremental contribution to U.S. GDP by calibrating against historical adoption and incorporating counterfactuals. This study provides benchmark estimates for 1999 through 2006 and finds that broadband accounts for $28 billion of the $39 billion observed in 2006. Depending on the estimate, households generated $20-$22 billion of broadband revenue and approximately $8.3-$10.6 billion was additional revenue created between 1999 and 2006. Consumer surplus accounted for $4.8-$6.7 billion of this amount, which is not measured in GDP. An Internet-access Consumer Price Index would have to decline by 1.6-2.2% per year for it to reflect this unmeasured value. These estimates differ from existing benchmarks by an order of magnitude and relate to several policy debates.     

The Impact of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 on Housing Turnover in the U.S. Single‐Family Residential Market

The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA97) replaced a one‐time, post‐age‐55 capital gain exclusion with a larger gain exclusion amount that could be protected every two years without requiring that the taxpayer trades up in housing. This action had the potential to impact housing transactions for every existing homeowner, regardless of age, as well as future purchasers of housing. We analyze household‐level data to determine if the repeated ability to exclude periodic recognized capital gains on housing from taxation shortened housing tenure significantly after TRA97 became effective. We next consider whether the decline was heterogeneous across age groups, across trading up and trading down and across geography. Given that the impact of TRA97 appears at first glance to be most profound for taxpayers close to 55 years of age, a somewhat surprising result of our research is that significant decreases in tenure are pervasive, appearing in all age ranges and in samples of homeowners who trade up and who trade down. Finally, we provide additional evidence at the aggregate level that TRA97 led to measurable changes in the price elasticity of housing turnover in the four geographic regions defined by the U.S. Census Bureau (Northeast, Midwest, South and West) and in states that are home to large metropolitan housing markets.     

The Growth of Residential Capital Since World War II

The growth rate of residential capital in constant dollars shows a downward trend. Its decline since the early postwar years conforms broadly to the growth retardation found in an earlier study for the 1890–1950 period. The article analyzes the forces associated with the slowing rate of real capital increase in 1945–77 and concludes that they differed substantially from those operative in the earlier era. The growth patterns of residential and of fixed business capital since World War II have been quite dissimilar and generally in disfavor of the residential sector.