Michael D. Robinson

The educational attainment of young women: Role model effects of female high school faculty

To test for the presence of role model effects of female high school faculty and professional staff on young women in high school, we estimate several models of educational attainment for young women using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Exposure to female high school faculty and professional staff has a positive impact on the educational attainment of young women. This result, combined with our finding that female faculty and professional staff have no significant impact on the educational attainment of young men, supports a female role model hypothesis.

Employer Size and Dual Labor Markets

Recently developed effort regulation models argue that labor markets are segmented because of differences in the technology of supervision across firms. primary jobs pay above market clearing wages because these jobs are difficult to monitor. Secondary jobs, in contrast, pose no monitoring difficulties and therefore pay a market clearing wage. If, as the literature suggests, increases in employer size make supervision more difficult, we should observe that wages increase with employer size in primary jobs but not in secondary jobs. We test this hypothesis using a switching regression model. We find evidence of an employer size wage effect in both primary and secondary labor markets. However, consistent with the prediction of effort control models, the size effect on wages is considerably larger in primary than secondary jobs.

What Becomes of Undergraduate Dance Majors

This paper examines the earnings, work patterns, and work histories of individuals employed in the field of dance using data from a survey of graduates of the Five College Dance Department. The respondents to our survey include not only those currently working in dance, but also some who never entered the profession and many others who entered but later left the field. We find that graduate education in dance, age, and prior dance experience are highly correlated with employment in the field of dance. Our findings are similar to those of other studies on artists, in showing that the returns to dance are low and that many of those employed in dance rely on non-dance jobs to supplement their dance earnings.

The Time Allocation and Earnings of Artists

This article presents the results of an investigation into the time allocation and earnings of artists. Artists are unique because they spend substantial amounts of time both at art work and at non-art work while earning the majority of their income from the latter. In order to empirically examine this allocation of time between art and non-art work, we estimate a four-equation system. We find that artists respond to price signals in the directions predicted by economic theory.

The implications of increasing economic openness for real wages in developing countries, 1973-1990

Abstract Our study shows that increasing economic openness is neither necessarily good nor necessarily bad for real wage growth in developing countries. Economic growth, investment share growth, and productivity growth — not export share growth — are the determinants of real wage growth. We also find that the story of wage determination changed in the 1980s compared to the 1970s. This change may be due to the implications of heightened competitive pressures in the world market or it may be the result of the debt crisis. The main policy implication of our findings is that governments who want to promote growth and the living standards of their workers have to focus explicitly and primarily on increasing investment and productivity growth.

A note on union-non-union benefit differentials and size of establishment

Abstract This research note has expanded Podgurskys (1986) results concerning union-non-union differentials to benefits. Explicitly, union impacts on pension and health insurance coverage are obtained by plant size. Our empirical results are based on May 1983 CPS data of random sample of white males. They indicate that the pattern of differentials for health insurance are very similar to those obtained by Podgursky (i.e., the union-non-union differentials are largest in small plants). However, the results for pension coverage indicate a U-shaped union-non-union differential (i.e., the smallest and largest plants are found to have the largest differential).

Union-nonunion compensation differentials across plant sizes: Evidence from CPS 1983

Previous empirical work on the relationship between plant size and union-nonunion differentials has focused either on wages (Podgursky, 1986) or benefits (Bramley, Wunnava, and Robinson, 1989; Freeman, 1981). This note extends this research by simultaneously focusing on both wages and benefits. There are several arguments that can be made in explaining union-nonunion differentials across plant sizes: (1) union threat effects, (2) efficiency wage effects, and (3) wage dispersion effects. Our study focuses on measuring the union-nonunion differential in total compensation. For this end, estimates of total compensation are obtained using Mellows suggestion (1982) for combining hourly wage information with qualitative data on pensions and health insurance, and Rosss imputations (1989) for holidays and vacations benefits. Our results, based on the May 1983 CPS supplemented by BLS data on pensions, health insurance, holidays, and vacation benefits indicate significant union-nonunion total compensation differentials exist only for workers in establishments with less than 500 workers. These results are consistent with Podgurskys wage differential findings.

Measuring Discrimination against Females: Is the “Non-Discriminatory” Wage the Male or the Female Wage?

Typically, when using Oaxacas decomposition to measure discrimination against females, either the wage regression for males or the wage regression for females is used as the “non-discriminatory” wage. The appropriate method for estimating discrimination depends upon whether discrimination consists of a bias against females, a bias for males, or some combination of both. This paper uses a wage frontier approach to estimate the “true” wage regression for both males and females. This approach for measuring discrimination does not require the assumption that the “non-discriminatory” wage is either the male or the female wage.

Plant size, tenure, and discrimination in internal labor markets : Evidence on sex differentials

Abstract This paper examines the link between the operation of internal labor markets and sex differentials. Using 1983 May CPS data, we test whether male/female differences in returns to tenure increase with plant size. Our results indicate that sex differentials in returns to tenure are only significant in plants employing more than 500 employees. These results suggest that the discrimination that may exist within the framework of internal labor markets is most likely to be found in large plants.

GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH AT LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES: SCHOOL RANKINGS

Liberal arts colleges have in recent years placed an increasing emphasis on research. In this environment of increased interest in research at liberal arts colleges we present a ranking of research in geoscience at national liberal arts colleges based upon articles published in GeoRef listed journals. We find that the research activity is highly concentrated among a few schools. We also find that liberal arts faculty are interested in teaching geoscience as measured by the number of publications in the Journal of Geoscience Education and that there is a positive correlation between faculty research at an institution and the undergraduates who go on to receive Ph.D.s in geoscience.