Spikes and spill-overs: The impact of the national minimum wage on the wage distribution in a low-wage sector

The UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) has had a minimal impact on UK wage inequality because it has been set at a modest level and because aggregate evidence suggests very small spill-over effects. But the small spill-over effects might be because of the small numbers of workers affected and widespread anticipation of the introduction of the NMW might make the impact effect appear very small. This paper investigates these issues using data collected from care homes where the NMW affected 40% of workers. But we still find no evidence of large spill-over effects and very small amounts of anticipation of the NMW.     

US fiscal policy in a (brief?) era of surpluses

This paper has several objectives. First, it reviews the recent improvement in the US fiscal picture and discusses the sources of this trend. It then considers the implications for the future, taking into account the past performance of budget forecasts as well as the changing composition of the federal budget. Next, it provides some estimates of the long-term fiscal imbalance still faced by the US. Finally, it briefly discusses the various policy options available to address this imbalance, and suggests how the budget measurement and forecasting procedures should be changed to accommodate the current budget situation, in which the long-term problems are not adequately conveyed by short-term measures.     

Optimal Categorical Transfer Payments: The Welfare Economics of Limited Lump-Sum Redistribution

Despite their importance in tax-transfer systems, categorical transfer payments, based on (nearly) exogenous characteristics such as disability or date of birth, have been deemphasized in optimal-tax analysis. I use the well-developed theory of first-best redistribution to clarify the welfare economics of categorical transfers, which are a form of limited lump-sum redistribution. The comparison to first-best redistribution explains how categorical transfers affect groups' labor supplies and utility levels, why the use of categorical transfers is inversely related to the planner's inequality aversion, and why their use reduces the optimal income tax rate.     

Managing frustration in the sales force

In the day-to-day operations, a sales manager must solve a multitude of problems. One such problem is dealing with behavior resulting from employees' frustration. Frustration-instigated behavior is different in kind from motivated or goal-directed behavior. Failure to recognize frustration-instigated behavior in a salesperson and to respond appropriately can have serious consequences. Because a salesperson often has little control over factors affecting his performance, he is particularly susceptible to frustration. This article tells how to recognize frustrated behavior and then describes six of the most common frustrating sales situations and how to deal with them.     

Collective bargaining and new work regimes: ‘too important to be left to bosses’

The formal negotiations process remains perhaps the least‐studied moment of collective bargaining. Drawing on ideal types of ‘distributive’ and ‘integrative’ bargaining and the ‘formal/informal’ distinction, this article reports non‐participant observation and ethnographic research into the negotiations process that enabled a change agreement in a British multinational, hereafter anonymised as FMCG. Informal bargaining relations provided the backdrop to—and emerged within—the formal negotiations process. Formal bargaining established new employment contracts based on a simplified internal labour market and generated the joint governance processes to enable and regulate the change process. Neither management nor union strategy was wholly derived from rational, interest‐based positions. The negotiations process was essential to strategy formation and to the emergence of sufficient ‘integrative’ bargaining for all parties to devise and approve new processual institutions and norms to deliver a more flexible labour process and to restore the long‐run viability for ‘distributive’ bargaining.