Best Selling Books by Alan B. Krueger

This paper reinvestigates the evidence on the impact of the minimum wage on employment in Puerto Rico. The strongest evidence that the minimum wage had a negative effect on employment comes from an aggregate time series analysis. The weakest evidence comes from cross-industry analyses. The main finding of the paper, however, is that the statistical evidence of a negative employment effect of the minimum wage in Puerto Rico is surprisingly fragile.

"This article responds to Peterson and Howell''s (PH''s) defense of their voucher research. We show that PH''s rationales for excluding some 815 students, more than 40% of their sample, because they lacked baseline data in a randomized experiment are unconvincing"--P. 718.

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 015 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 uses Current Population Survey data on a large sample of workers to estimate the determinants of participation in state workers'' compensation programs in the United States. The principal finding is Chat higher workers'' compensation benefits are associated with greater participation in the workers'' compensation program, after accounting for worker characteristics, state fixed effects, and other aspects of the workers'' compensation law. Moreover, this result holds for both manufacturing and non-manufacturing workers. Workers'' compensation benefits, however, have an insignificant effect on program participation for the sample of women. Overall, a 10% increase in benefits is associated with a 6.7% increase in program participation. In addition, the results show that the waiting period that is required before benefit payments begin has a substantial negative effect on participation in the workers'' compensation program. Finally, the parameters of the cross-sectional model are used to simulate the aggregate workers'' compensation incidence rate from 1969 to 1987. The growth in workers'' compensation claims in the 1970s appears to correspond reasonably well co the growth in real benefits that occurred during this time period.

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.

The average wage differential between black and white men fell from 40 percent in 1960 to 25 percent in 1980. Much of this convergence is attributable to a relative increase in the rate of return to schooling among black workers. It is widely argued that the growth in the relative return to black education reflects the dramatic improvements in the quality of black schooling over the past century. To test this hypothesis we have assembled data on three aspects of school quality -- pupil teacher ratios. annual teacher pay. and term length for black and white schools in 18 segregated states from 1915 to 1966. The school quality data are linked to estimated rates of return to education for Southern-born men from different cohorts and states. measured in 1960. 1970. and 1980. Improvements in the relative quality of black schools explain 20 percent of the narrowing of the black-white earnings gap between 1960 and 1980.

This paper examines the effect of technological change and other factors on the relative demand for workers with different education levels and on the recent growth of U.S. educational wage differentials. A simple supply-demand framework is used to interpret changes in the relative quantities, wages, and wage bill shares of workers by education in the aggregate U.S. labor market in each decade since 1940 and from 1990 to 1995. The results suggest that the relative demand for college graduates grew more rapidly on average during the past 25 years (1970-95) than during the previous three decades (1940-70). The increased rate of growth of relative demand for college graduates beginning in the 1970s did not lead to an increase in the college/high school wage diffe- rential until the 1980s because the growth in the supply of college graduates increased even more sharply in the 1970s before returning to historical levels in the 1980s. The acceleration in demand shifts for more-skilled workers in the 1970s and 1980s relative to the 1960s is entirely accounted for by an increase in within-industry changes in skill utilization rather than between- industry employment shifts. Industries with large increases in the rate of skill upgrading in the 1970s and 1980s versus the 1960s are those with greater growth in employee computer usage, more computer capital per worker and larger investment as a share of total investment. The results suggest that the spread of computer technology may `explain'' as much as 30-50% of the increase in the rate of growth of the relative demand for more-skilled workers since 1970.

This paper uses a new administrative micro-data set to examine the effect of a legislated increase in the minimum and maximum workers'' compensation benefit on the duration of workplace injuries in Minnesota. As a result of legislation, workers in some earnings groups received higher benefits if they were injured after the effective date of the benefit increase, while workers in other earnings groups received the same benefit regardless of when they were injured. The analysis compares the change in mean log injury duration for workers who were affected by the benefit increase to that of workers who were not affected by the benefit increase. The findings indicate that the duration of injuries increased by 8 percent more for the group of workers that experienced a 5 percent increase in benefits than for the group of workers that had no change in their benefit. Additional findings suggest that employees of self-insured firms who are injured on the job tend to return to work faster than employees of imperfectly experience rated firms who incur similar injuries.

We use a demand/supply framework to analyze 1) the decline in union membership since 1977 in the United States and 2) the difference in unionization rates between the United States and Canada. We extend earlier work on these problems by analyzing new data for 1991 from the General Social Survey and for 1992 from our own household survey on worker preferences for union representation. When combined with earlier data for 1977 from the Quality of Employment Survey and for 1984 from a survey conducted for the AFL-CIO, we are able to decompose changes in unionization into changes in demand and changes in supply. We also analyze data for 1990 from a survey conducted for the Canadian Federation of Labor on the preferences of Canadian workers for union representation. We find that virtually all of the decline in union membership in the United States between 1977 and 1991 is due to a decline in worker demand for union representation. There was almost no change over this period in the relative supply of union jobs. Additionally, very little of the decline in unionization in the U.S. can be accounted for by structural shifts in the composition of the labor force. Next, we find that all of the higher unionization rate in the U.S. public sector in 1984 can be accounted for by higher demand for unionization and that there is actually more frustrated demand for union representation in the public sector. Finally. we tentatively conclude that the difference in unionization rates between the U.S. and Canada is accounted for roughly in equal measure by differences in demand and in supply.

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, mobility bonuses and unemployment benefits. Reviews of previous literature suggest that job training programs have small effects on wages and re-employment in Sweden, but precise inferences are difficult because of small sample sizes. The authors 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 a cross-country analysis is presented showing that the extent of a country''s active labor market program is positively associated with the national unemployment rate.

This paper considers the likely impact that European Union (EU) will have on the labor compact. It is argued that, despite increased economic integration in Europe, countries will still be able to maintain distinct labor practices if they are willing to bear the cost of those practices. The incidence of many social protections probably already falls on workers. In addition, it is argued that imperfect mobility of capital, labor, goods and services will limit the pressure that integration will place on the labor compact. Evidence is presented suggesting that labor mobility among EU countries has not increased after the elimination of remaining restrictions on intra-EU labor mobility in 1993. Moreover, immigration from non-EU countries, which is much larger than intra-EU migration, has declined since 1993. Evidence is also reviewed suggesting that the demand for social protection rises when countries are more open, and therefore subject to more severe external shocks. This finding suggests that increased economic integration and European Monetary Union could lead to greater demand for social protection. The U.S. experience with state workers'' compensation insurance programs is offered as an example of enduring differences in labor market protections in highly integrated regional economies with a common currency.

This paper reports the results of surveys of specialists in labor economics and public economics at 40 leading research universities in the United States. Respondents provided opinions of policy proposals; quantitative best estimates and 95% confidence intervals for economic parameters; answers to values questions regarding income redistribution, efficiency versus equity, and individual versus social responsibility; and their political party identification. We find considerable disagreement among economists about policy proposals. Their positions on policy are more closely related to their values than to their estimates of relevant economic parameters or to their political party identification. Average best estimates of the economic parameters agree well with the ranges summarized in surveys of relevant literature, but the individual best estimates are usually widely dispersed. Moreover, economists, like experts in many fields, appear more confident of their estimates than the substantial cross-respondent variation in estimates would warrant. Finally although the confidence intervals in general appear to be too narrow, respondents whose best estimates are farther from the median tend to give wider confidence intervals for those estimates.

In 1988, the wage distribution in East Germany was much more compressed than in West Germany or the U.S. Since the collapse of Communism and unification with West Germany, however, the wage structure in eastern Germany has changed considerably. In particular, wage variation has increased, the payoff to education has decreased somewhat, industry differentials have expanded, and the white collar premium has increased. Although average wage growth has been remarkably high in eastern Germany, individual variation in wage growth is similar to typical western levels. The wage structure of former East Germans who work in western Germany resembles the wage structure of native West Germans in some respects, but their experience-earnings profile is flat.

Two-stage-least-squares (2SLS) estimates are biased towards OLS estimates. This bias grows with the degree of over-identification and can generate highly misleading results. In this paper we propose two simple alternatives to 2SLS and limited-information-maximum-likelihood (LIML) estimators for models with more instruments than endogenous regressors. These estimators can be interpreted as instrumental variables procedures using an instrument that is independent of disturbances even in finite samples. Independence is achieved by using a `leave-one-out'' jackknife-type fitted value in place of the usual first-stage equation. The new estimators are first-order equivalent to 2SLS but with finite-sample properties superior to those of 2SLS and similar to LIML when there are many instruments. Moreover, the jackknife estimators appear to be less sensitive than LIML to deviations from the linear reduced form used in classical simultaneous equations models.

A reduction in trade barriers generally will affect the environment by expanding the scale of economic activity, by altering the composition of economic activity, and by bringing about a change in the techniques of production. We present empirical evidence to assess the relative magnitudes of these three effects as they apply to further trade liberalization in Mexico. In Section 1. we use comparable measures of three air pollutants in a cross-section of urban areas located in 42 countries to study the relationship between air quality and economic growth. We find for two pollutants (sulfur dioxide and "smoke") that concentrations increase with per capita GDP at low levels of national income, but decrease with GD? growth at higher levels of income. Section 2 studies the determinants of the industry pattern of U.S. imports from Mexico and of value added by Mexico''s maquiladora sector. We investigate whether the size of pollution abatement costs in the U.S. industry influences the pattern of international trade and investment. Finally, in Section 3, we use the results from a computable general equilibrium model to study the likely compositional effect of a NAFTA on pollution in Mexico

Germany has experienced a high and rising rate of anti-foreigner violence during the early 1990s. To analyze the determinants of crime against foreigners we assembled a new data set on the number and nature of such crimes at the county level based on newspaper reports. We find significant differences in the patterns of violence in the eastern and western parts of the country. The incidence of anti- foreigner crime is higher in the east and rises with distance from the former west German border. Economic variables like unemployment and wages matter little for the level of crime once location in the east is taken into account. The relative number of foreigners in a country has no relationship with the incidence of ethnic crimes in the west, whereas in the east it has a positive association with the number of crimes per resident and a negative association with the number of crimes per foreign resident.

一篇被熱烈轉傳的演講稿，歷經多年增訂，終於出版問世。 經濟學里程碑之作，普林斯頓大學教授克魯格揭開全新成功法則： 贏者全拿的趨勢不會改變，但從尾端晉升頂端的方法已經改變。 忘掉富人與窮人，現在是有槓桿與無槓桿！ 7大搖滾經濟學原理，就是助你撐起工作與生活最強有力的槓桿原理。 ★從樂壇巨星到商業頂尖人士，最厲害的1%都是搖滾經濟學原理的實踐者！ ★柯林頓、歐巴馬首席經濟顧問重磅力作 ★解開決策、行銷與市場的奧祕，席捲各大媒體推薦書榜 為什麼突然間人們都在聽同一首歌，追同一部劇，瘋同一款球鞋？ 為什麼音樂已經變得比水更易取得，演唱會票價卻不降反而飆升？ 為什麼巨星們得意於票房秒殺，天后泰勒絲卻拉長售票時間、推粉絲認證？ 為什麼沒賣過一張實體唱片的獨立音樂人，卻逆勢名利雙收、贏得葛萊美獎？ 為什麼很多音樂人就像被詐欺一樣，不斷遭到所屬公司的不公平對待？ 被譽為「真正改變經濟學」的克魯格教授，帶你進入有趣的搖滾經濟學世界， 到音樂產業後台轉一轉，你也可以擁有巨星思維，在人生重要時刻，做出更好決策。 名列世界前50大經濟學家、普林斯頓大學教授克魯格在一次演講中首次提出「搖滾經濟學」的概念，他發現當今市場的變化與音樂產業的發展趨勢非常相似，正走向超級巨星主導一切，從音樂產業的創新重生，有助了解經濟與科技力量如何影響我們的生活、工作與商業運作，並從中領悟全新的生存與成功之道。克魯格當時的頂頭上司歐巴馬總統相當欣賞他的論點，並對身邊的人說：「你們每個人都應該讀一讀。」如今，這篇被熱烈轉傳的演講稿，歷經多年增補修訂，終於出版問世。本書囊括經濟學所有關鍵原理，精闢解讀既酷且殘酷的巨星市場與暢銷商品背後的真實邏輯，幫助我們看懂這個複雜世界。 從樂壇天后泰勒絲到商業巨擘貝佐斯， 最厲害的1%都是搖滾經濟學原理的實踐者！ ♪ 供需原理很重要，情感等其他相關因素也有玄機 ♪ 規模經濟與不可替代性，是打造超級巨星兩大要素 ♪ 成功需要運氣，而運氣是創造出來的 ♪ 活用鮑伊定理，最能開創互補商品利益者勝出 ♪ 善用心理因素差別訂價，是獲利泉源 ♪ 小心鮑莫爾成本病，別讓成本吞沒一切 ♪ 錢不是一切，活著的目的是為了得到快樂 本書採訪上百個天團、巨星，將滿足樂迷們的崇拜癮頭，更是一堂有趣實用、讓人大開眼界的經濟學大師課。 好評推薦 「搖滾經濟學不是一個抽象的理論，而是一種讓人們生活得更好的方法。」—前美國總統歐巴馬 「克魯格在過去30年是最重要的勞工經濟學家之一，也是真正改變經濟學的人。」―哈佛經濟學家凱茲 （Lawrence Katz） 「作者向我們闡釋了當今市場的變化與音樂產業的發展趨勢有多麼相似。不管是音樂人或一般人，每個人都想要有一份值得投入且報酬豐厚的工作、有足夠存款以備未來不時之需，以及追求幸福的生活。這些挑戰對所有人都至關緊要，了解並戰勝這些挑戰所需的基本知識，你在搖滾經濟學裡都能找到。」―《金融時報》 「音樂產業揭示當代經濟的奧祕。對於想要進入音樂產業或是已在這個產業的人，以及任何人來說，這本書都將讓你大開眼界。」―《經濟學人》 「音樂產業的重生，以及在數位時代獲取利潤的方法，可供其他產業借鏡。」―《華爾街日報》

“Müzik Kütüphanesi”nin ilk kitabı mart ayının başında çıktığında, 2020 yılının dünyayı durduracak bir salgınla “taç”lanmak üzere olduğunun farkında değildik. Yüz binlerce insanın hayatına mal olan küresel salgın, müzik endüstrisini de kökünden değiştirecek gibi görünüyor: Canlı müzik bir daha eskisi gibi olacak mı? Bu dönemde insanların ne kadarı bir araya gelerek eğlenmek isteyecek? Evden yapılan canlı yayınlar ve bu yayınların çoğunlukla “bedava” olması, dinleyicinin/izleyicinin kafasında performansın anlam ve önemine dair bir erozyona yol açacak mı? Müzisyenler, teknisyenler, ışıkçılar nasıl para kazanacak? Müzik, dünyanın en ucuz şeyi olmaya devam mı edecek, yoksa daha da mı ucuz olmalı? Peki müziksiz bir dünyayı birkaç gün deneyimlemek, acaba toplumun geri kalanına başka bir fikir verir miydi? Ve herkesi farklı farklı vuran bu salgın sırasında, müziğin bize nasıl güç, şifa ve dayanma gücü verdiğini bir kez daha görmedik mi? Müzik sektörünün dertleri giderek büyüyor ve dünya müzik çevreleri bu dertleri toplumun gündemine getirmenin yeni yollarını arıyor. Elinizde tuttuğunuz kitap, çok sıra dışı bir yazarın, çok yeni ve bu konular açısından çok önemli bir kitabı. Obama döneminin ekonomi başdanışmanı, iktisat profesörü Alan B. Krueger, Müzikonomi’de müzik endüstrisinin çeşitli yönleriyle fotoğrafını çekerken, buradaki eşitsizliklerden yola çıkarak dünya ekonomisine dair teşhis ve önerilerde bulunuyor.

Una de las cuestiones de política económica más debatidas en los últimos tiempos ha sido la de la fijación y el aumento del salario mínimo. David Card y Alan B. Krueger, dos de los economistas más reconocidos de las últimas décadas, adquirieron una gran notoriedad precisamente por desmontar los mitos que la ciencia económica mantenía acerca de esta cuestión. Con sus rompedoras investigaciones en el campo de la economía laboral, Card y Krueger desafiaron la creencia general de que un salario mínimo más alto implica reducir las oportunidades laborales para los trabajadores de bajos ingresos. Tal cuestionamiento de la teoría económica establecida es el que se recoge por primera vez en español en Mito y medición. El estudio, que tiene importantes implicaciones para las políticas públicas y para la orientación de la investigación económica, se sirve de abundante evidencia empírica y se nutre de experiencias recientes en Estados Unidos. Para cada uno de los casos, los economistas presentan una colección de datos que demuestran que los incrementos en el salario mínimo produjeron aumentos en los ingresos, pero no implicaron pérdidas de puestos de trabajo. Card y Krueger, mediante métodos empíricos importados de las ciencias naturales, revisan críticamente toda la literatura existente sobre el salario mínimo y nos brindan una nueva batería de argumentos para defender la pertinencia de esta política.