Subject: NBER/CRIW Call for Papers, Labor in the New Economy
From: Carl Beck (cbeck@nber.org)
Date: Wed Apr 26 2006 - 14:38:08 EDT
Call for Papers (text here and attached as pdf)
Labor in the New Economy
Sponsored by the NBER Conference on Research in Income and Wealth
Popular press accounts commonly report on ways in which today's labor
market is believed to differ from that of earlier decades. Themes explored
in these accounts include the changing demographics of the labor force, the
increased prevalence of flexible and alternative employment arrangements,
declining job stability, increased wage inequality, the demise of defined
benefit pension plans, and, more generally, the fear that good jobsare
disappearing. This CRIW conference aims to examine what we know and dont
know about today's labor market and how it has changed. The goals of the
conference are to document significant labor market trends, to explore the
causes and consequences of these trends, and to shed light on important
issues regarding the measurement of key trends and their effects.
The conference will take place November 16-17, 2007 in Washington DC, with
a pre-conference for the paper presenters tentatively planned for July 2007
as part of the NBER Summer Institute. The program committee consists of
Katharine Abraham (University of Maryland), Mike Harper (Bureau of Labor
Statistics), and Jim Spletzer (Bureau of Labor Statistics). We expect the
proceedings from this NBER-CRIW conference to be published in an edited volume.
The program committee welcomes submissions of abstracts for inclusion in
the program. Topics of interest include the following:
Labor Inputs
Demographic trends and changing labor force participation rates for groups
such as young men, women, and persons of retirement age;
Trends in the level and composition of immigration, the effects of
immigration on wages and productivity, and the types of jobs held by
immigrants;
Trends in worker skills, including trends in education and experience, the
growth of community colleges, employer-provided training, and the returns
to skill investments.
The Employment Relationship
Alternative employment arrangements, broadly defined to include temporary
help services, contingent work, contracting out, outsourcing, employee
leasing, professional employment organizations, independent contractors,
and off-the-books employment;
Alternative and flexible work schedules, such as telework, flexiplace,
shift work, and off-hours work;
Self-employment and entrepreneurship.
Wages, Benefits, and Compensation
Trends in inequality of wages and benefits;
Pensions and the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension
plans;
Trends in health care costs and the implications of these trends for the
labor market;
The restructuring of pension and health plans, and the effects of such
restructuring on workers and firms;
Alternative methods of pay, such as stock options, profit sharing, and
incentive pay;
The quality of new jobs.
Labor Market Structure
Globalization and the effects of offshoring on workers and employers;
The effects of technological change on productivity and wages;
The effects of business practices and the composition of businesses
(births, deaths, and mergers) on labor market measures;
Turnover, broadly defined to include hires, separations, job-to-job flows,
job creation and job destruction, and job stability; and empirical
implications of recent theoretical advances in the analysis of turnover;
New analyses and new themes resulting from new data, such as longitudinal
linked employer-employee microdata, time-use data, or linkages of
confidential data across statistical agencies under CIPSEA.
To be considered for the conference program, abstracts should be submitted
by July 15th 2006 WITH THE WORDS CRIW LABOR IN THE SUBJECT LINE to:
Conference Department, NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 12138
Email: <mailto:confer@nber.org>confer@nber.org
