Veterans of World War II are widely believed to earn more than
nonveterans of the same age. Theoretical justifications for the World War
II veteran premium include the subsidization of education and training, and
preference for veterans in hiring. In this paper, we propose and test an
alternative view: that the observed World War II veteran premium reflects
the fact that men with higher earnings potential were more likely to have
been selected into the Armed Forces. An empirical strategy is developed
that allows estimation of the effects of veteran status while controlling
for correlation with unobserved earnings potential. The estimation is
based on the fact that from 1942 to 1947 priority for conscription was
determined in chronological order of birth. Information on individuals’
dates of birth may therefore be used to construct instruments for veteran
status. Empirical results from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 Censuses, along
with two other micro data sets, support a conclusion that World War II
veterans earn no more than comparable nonveterans, and may well earn less.
These results suggest that OLS estimates of the World War II veteran
premium are severely biased by nonrandom selection into military service,
and that the civilian labor market experiences of veterans of World War II
were not very different from the experiences of Vietnam-era veterans.

This paper examines the determinants of outside applicants for federal
job openings using a variety of time-series, cross-sectional and panel
data sets. The main finding is that the application rate for government
jobs increases as the ratio of federal to private sector earnings
increases, but does not appear to be related to the relative level of
fringe benefits. Furthermore, an increase in the federal-private sector
earnings differential is associated with an increase in the average
quality of applicants for federal jobs. The paper discusses the
implications of these findings for wage determination and recruitment in
the federal government.

About 3% of GNP is spent on government labor market programs
in Sweden, compared to 2% in Germany and less than 0.5% in the
U.S. In Sweden these programs include extensive job training,
public sector relief work, recruitment subsidies, youth programs,
mobility bonuses, and unemployment benefits. Using county-level
data, we provide new evidence that public relief workers displace
other workers, especially in the construction sector. Our review
of the previous literature suggests that job training programs
have small effects on wages and re—employment in Sweden, but
precise inferences are difficult because of small sample sizes.
We also investigate alternative reasons for the stability of the
Beveridge Curve in Sweden, and compare regional evolutions of
employment and unemployment in Sweden and the U.S. Lastly, we
present cross-country analysis for 1993 which, contrary to
studies that use earlier data, shows that the extent of a
country's active labor market programs is positively associated
with the national unemployment rate.

We present a survey of the literature on the economic returns to school quality. A
dozen studies conducted over the past 20 years show remarkably consistent estimates of the
effect of school quality on students’ subsequent earnings. A 10 percent increase in school
spending is associated with 1 to 2 percent higher annual earnings for students later in life.
We argue that the similarity of the findings across data sources and research methods suggests
that school quality has a true causal effect on student earnings. Increases in school resources
are also associated with significantly higher educational attainment, although the range of
estimates of the effect is relatively wide.

Since 1979, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has nearly quadrupled the size of the
sample used to estimate monthly employment changes. Although first-reported
employment estimates are still noisy, the magnitude of sampling variability has declined
in proportion to the increase in the sample size. A model of rational Bayesian updating
predicts that investors would assign more weight to the BLS employment survey as it
became more precise. However, a regression analysis of changes in interest rates on the
day the employment data are released finds no evidence that the bond market’s reaction
to employment news intensified in the late 1980s or 1990s; indeed, in the late 1990s and
early 2000s the bond markets hardly reacted to unexpected employment news. For the
time period as a whole, an unexpected increase of 200,000 jobs is associated with about a
6 basis point increase in the interest rate on 30 year Treasury bonds, and an 8 basis point
increase in the interest rate on 3 month bills, all else equal. Additionally, unexpected
changes in the unemployment rate and revisions to past months’ employment estimates
have statistically insignificant effects on long-term interest rates.

In most cities, the taxi industry is highly regulated and utilizes technology developed in the 1940s. Ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, which use modern internet-based mobile technology to connect passengers and drivers, have begun to compete with traditional taxis. This paper examines the efficiency of ride sharing services vis-à-vis taxis by comparing the capacity utilization rate of UberX drivers with that of traditional taxi drivers in five cities. The capacity utilization rate is measured by the fraction of time a driver has a fare-paying passenger in the car while he or she is working, and by the share of total miles that drivers log in which a passenger is in their car. The main conclusion is that, in most cities with data available, UberX drivers spend a significantly higher fraction of their time, and drive a substantially higher share of miles, with a passenger in their car than do taxi drivers. Four factors likely contribute to the higher capacity utilization rate of UberX drivers: 1) Uber’s more efficient driver-passenger matching technology; 2) the larger scale of Uber than taxi companies; 3) inefficient taxi regulations; and 4) Uber’s flexible labor supply model and surge pricing more closely match supply with demand throughout the day.

Some workers bargain with prospective employers before accepting a job. Others could
bargain, but find it undesirable, because their right to bargain has induced a sufficiently
favorable offer, which they accept. Yet others perceive that they cannot bargain over
pay; they regard the posted wage as a take-it-or-leave-it opportunity. Theories of wage
formation point to substantial differences in labor-market equilibrium between bargained
and posted wages. The fraction of workers hired away from existing jobs is another key
determinant of equilibrium, because a worker with an existing job has a better outside
option in bargaining than does an unemployed worker. Our survey measures the
incidences of wage posting, bargaining, and on-the-job search. We find that about a
third of workers had precise information about pay when they first met with their
employers, a sign of wage posting. We find that another third bargained over pay before
accepting their current jobs. And about 40 percent of workers could have remained on
their earlier jobs at the time they accepted their current jobs.

This paper examines the relationship between price growth and
skill intensity across 150 manufacturing industries between 1989
and 1995. There are two main findings. First, wage growth and
intermediate goods price increases are passed through to final
product prices roughly in proportion to their factor shares.
Second, product prices have grown relatively less in sectors that
more intensively utilize less-skilled labor. The latter finding
is consistent with the Stolper-Samuelson theory of expanded trade
with countries that are abundant in less-skilled workers, as well
as with some models of technological change.