Labor market equilibrium under nonsequential search

This study presents a full model of the labor market under imperfect information. Workers bear the burden of search and are assumed to use a stochastic variant of an optimal sample size search strategy. The existence and uniqueness of a nondegenerate equilibrium distribution of wage offers is established. Infficiencies which lead to underinvestment in search are uncovered and analyzed.     

Unilateral and bilateral trade policies for a minimum-wage economy

This paper considers optimal commercial policy for a trading economy which departs from neo-classical characteristics only in that a minimum-wage constraint gives rise to unemployment. Although for a flexible-wage fully employed economy the Baldwin envelope yields dominant domestic production-cum-trade possibilities, unilateral imposition of an optimum tariff is shown not necessarily to be optimal commercial policy for the minimum-wage economy. Rather, there exists an envelope, derived from foreigners' trade indifference and attained via bilateral trade policy, which dominates the Baldwin envelope when the optimum tariff is zero (as Brecher has shown it can be for a minimum-wage economy), and can still yield superior production-cum-trade possibilities when the optimum tariff is non-zero.     

RISK,UTILITY AND STOCKING RATE*

A simple utility-based model of risky wool production is presented. Evaluation of the model indicates the effect on optimal stocking rate of changes in the degree of risk aversion, farm area, variable cost, fixed cost, wool cut, wool price, variance of wool price, climatic variability and tax rate. It is shown that the utility hypothesis implies a lower optimal stocking rate than does expected profit maximization and hence implies a discrepancy between private and public optimal resource use which it is suggested, might be mitigated by a progressive bounty on wool production.     

Occupational role development: the changing determinants of outcomes for the individual.

This research examined the development of an occupational role from one month before the role incumbent's graduation from training to five months into the first job. Kahn et al.'s (1964) theory of "expectation-generated role stress" provided a conceptual framework for the development of a causal model of role development. A national sample of 181 physicians' assistants (PAs) and their supervising physicians reported by questionnaire on actual and expected PA task performance and participation in decision making at three points during the period of interest. Task data were used to derive three measures of objective role ambiguity and conflict. In addition, PAs provided data on perceived role ambiguity and conflict and attitudes about work, A path analytic technique was applied to the model to examine changes over time. Results suggest that, during the first months of employment, the role occupant passes through different stages of development, during which the determinants of outcomes change. This notion of changing causal structure was supported by the identification of four casual patterns of outcomes, the changing strength of prediction models, and the changing effects of discrepancies between pre-job expectation and on-the-job reality. Role-development stages are discussed in terms of rational and emotional processes, and implications for theory, research, and practice are proposed.