Cihan Bilginsoy

Living with Phenylketonuria: Perspectives of Patients and Their Families

SummaryThis study surveyed PKU patients and their primary caretakers to assess their current management practices, the barriers to effective management, and the potential utility of a home monitor in managing PKU. A survey instrument was mailed to caretakers of all 50 patients with PKU in Utah between the ages of 2 and 18 years in 1997 (response rate 64%). It included separate components for caretakers and patients aged 10 to 18 years. Although there was uneven compliance with recommended practices, caretakers universally recognized the negative consequences of not adhering to the low-protein diet. There was, however, disagreement regarding such consequences among the older children surveyed. The primary obstacles cited to better adherence were time constraints and stress associated with food preparation and record-keeping, and the restrictions imposed on social life. Phenylalanine test results were regarded as the principal signal for the need for dietary adjustment. Despite the facts that obstacles to dietary adherence are multifaceted and that no single intervention would therefore serve as a panacea, a large majority of respondents believed a home monitor would facilitate better management of PKU through more regular and timely feedback.

The Hazards of Training: Attrition and Retention in Construction Industry Apprenticeship Programs

Apprenticeship programs in the United States, which provide workers with the broad-based skills required for practicing a trade via on-the-job training, are sponsored either unilaterally by employers or jointly by employers and trade unions. A comparison of the attrition and retention rates in these programs shows that program completion is more likely for apprentices in joint programs than for similar apprentices in unilateral programs. Rates of completion are lower for women than for men, and lower for ethnic and racial minorities than for whites. Apprenticeship duration rises with the unemployment rate.

Registered Apprenticeship Training in the US Construction Industry.

Purpose – This paper aims to compare the performance of building trades apprenticeship programs in the USA, sponsored jointly by employers and unions, with those sponsored unilaterally by employers. It reviews enrolment and graduation rates, including participation of women and minorities. The article also looks behind the numbers to examine the operation of apprenticeship. It reviews the evolution of joint programs, including institutional arrangements and recent innovations to cope with the challenging characteristics of construction labor markets.Design/methodology/approach – Statistical comparisons by type of program sponsor are carried out using individual‐level data on registered apprenticeship for the period 1996‐2003. Evolution of apprenticeship programs is discussed in a historical perspective.Findings – Joint programs (with union participation) were found to have much higher enrolments and greater participation of women and ethnic/racial minorities. Joint programs also exhibit markedly better pe...

Delivering Skills: Apprenticeship Program Sponsorship and Transition from Training

Many open-shop contractors in the U.S. construction sector sponsor training cooperatively in unilateral multi-employer apprenticeship programs. Their proponents view these coordinated efforts as an alternative to the training organized jointly by a union and signatory contactors. This paper uses a new data set to compare the performance of these program types in terms of the transition probabilities and durations of apprentices. It shows that in open-shop multiple-employer programs: (1) the completion rate is higher but still lags behind that of the union-management programs; (2) quitters leave training before substantial build-up of skills; (3) graduates complete requirements at a faster pace. While these results are disconcerting in view of the skilled labor shortage in construction, they are consistent with the open-shop sectors preference to rely extensively on semi-skilled workers.

Do Unions Help or Hinder Women in Training? Apprenticeship Programs in the United States

Trade unions are frequently criticised for excluding women from skilled crafts by denying them training. This article examines this argument by estimating the retention and attrition probabilities of men and women in the joint union-management and the unilateral employer-sponsored apprenticeship programs. While men, on average, have higher retention and lower attrition rates than women, joint sponsorship raises womens graduation probability above (and lowers their quit probability below) those of men or women apprentices in unilateral programs.

Still a Wedge in the Door: Women Training for the Construction Trades in the U.S

This paper uses individual-level data on registered apprenticeship for ten largest construction occupations from 31 states in the U.S. to evaluate the variations in the entry and exit of women apprentices, overall and by race/ethnicity, over the 1995-2003 period. We examine how women’s representation among new apprentices, and their attrition and retention rates varies with individual, training program, and occupational characteristics. We find that women’s representation among new trainees is very low and deteriorating. The results confirm previous findings based on data for the early 1990s that program sponsorship has significant impact on women’s representation and retention. Women have better chances of joining the high-skill construction workforce if they enroll in union-contractor joint programs. Joint programs feature higher shares of women in the incoming classes and higher odds of graduation in comparison with the unilateral contractor programs. The union impact on shares of enrollees is the largest for Black women and the lowest for White women, while White women have higher completion rates than Latinas and Black women. We conclude that union sponsorship enhances women’s integration into the skilled trades, but it is not sufficient. Increasing participation of women in apprenticeship and skilled workforce requires major changes in policies, priorities, and behavior of contactors, unions, and the government to actively recruit women and improve working conditions at the construction site.

Inflation, growth, and import bottlenecks in the Turkish manufacturing industry

Abstract This paper argues that in economies heavily dependent on imported inputs, the responsiveness of price and output to cost and demand factors are altered by foreign exchange bottlenecks if the government resorts to non-market allocation of import licenses. A model of price and output determination which captures this stipulation is presented. Estimation results for the Turkish manufacturing industry over the 1952–1980 periods support the hypothesis that price and output elasticities are different between the import crisis and non-crisis periods. Most importantly, monetary expansion is inflationary when there are important bottlenecks but has real output effects otherwise.

Gender and Racial Training Gaps in Oregon Apprenticeship Programs

This study uses microdata to measure three types of training gaps by gender and minority status in Oregon apprenticeship programs: probability of graduation, time to graduation, and the quantity of training acquired by quitters. Apprentices who started training between 1991 and 2002 are tracked through 2007. After adjusting for individual, institutional, and occupational attributes, the authors find that white women apprentices were substantially less likely to graduate than white men, but the duration of training was shorter for the few women who graduated. White women dropouts received a much lower quantity of skills than white men although they stayed in the program as long as the white men did. Minority men did not face significant disadvantages relative to white men. Apprentices in union-management jointly sponsored programs were more likely to complete requirements than those in unilateral employer programs. White women and minority men benefited disproportionately more from training in union programs. However, the time to graduation is shorter in nonunion programs, which suggests that the latter allocate resources more selectively across apprentices. Yet those who quit do not appear to have acquired a sufficient quantity of skills to be able to obtain high-skill jobs.

Cross-sector export 'externalities' in developing countries

Abstract Feders model ( Journal of Development Economics , 1982, 12, 59–73) has been used extensively to measure the externality and productivity enhancing effects of one sector on the whole economy. We argue that the model is misspecified, make three modifications, estimate it for the export vs. non-export sectors, and compare our results with Feders.

Union Wage Gap in the U.S. Construction Sector: 1983–2007

Wage gap decomposition shows that declining union power was the principal force behind the shrinking union wage premium in the U.S. construction industry between the 1980s and the 2000s. This decline was largely offset by changes in returns to workforce attributes and workforce compositions. Without these moderating effects, the decline in the wage gap would have been twice as large (in log points). The patterns were similar in the basic and mechanical trades, but magnitudes of change were larger in the latter.