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MIT Sloan School of Management 100 Main Street, E62-369 Cambridge, MA 02142-1347
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Research“A Theory of Dual Job Search and Sex-Based Occupational Clustering”Alan Benson [Download] [Replication Tools] [A Brief Introduction]
I present a theory of couples’ job search whereby women sort into lower-paying geographically-dispersed occupations due to expectations of future spouses’ geographically-clustered occupations and (thereby) inability to relocate for work. Results confirm men segregate into geographically-clustered occupations, and that these occupations involve more-frequent early career relocations for both sexes. I also find that the minority of the men and women who depart from this equilibrium experience delayed marriage, higher divorce, and lower earnings. Results corroborate the theory’s implication that marriage and mobility expectations foment a self-fulfilling pattern of occupational segregation with individual departures deterred by earnings and marriage penalties.
“Re-Thinking the Two-Body Problem: The Segregation of Women into Geographically-Flexible Occupations, 1980-2010”Alan Benson
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Research on the family cites couples’ tendency to relocate for husbands’ careers as evidence household economic decisions are not made in a gender-neutral fashion. I find this pattern is better-explained by the sorting of women into geographically-dispersed occupations in advance of marriage rather than the prioritization of husbands’ careers. I find that, even among never-married workers, women relocate for work less-often than men due to segregation into dispersed occupations. While most two-earner families feature wives in the more-dispersed occupation, families are no-more-likely to relocate for work when it does not. I conclude future research in household mobility should treat occupational selection, rather than gender bias, as the primary setting of the two-body problem’s effects.
“The (New) Economics of Staffing Registered Nurses”Alan Benson [Download] [Replication Tools] This paper uses public, proprietary, and survey data to examine recent demographic and market trends for registered nurses in the United States. Surveys conducted in 2008 and 2010 show how hospital nursing officers are adapting recruitment, retention, training, and supplementation strategies to new market conditions. Since beginning of the recession, nursing unemployment remained about one-fourth the national average, rising above 2% in 2009. In the same period, the mean vacancy rate for surveyed hospital administrators dropped from 7.2% to 4.2%. Expanding non-overtime employment from domestic entrants and re-entrants exceeds the contraction in foreign labor and overtime labor, resulting in a 1.4% growth in total RN hours in 2009, down from about 5% in previous years. Surveyed hospital administrators report reductions in bonuses for new recruits, overtime, turnover, budgeted vacancies, tuition support, and overall perception of a shortage. Findings suggest how nurse recruitment, retention, training, and utilization adapt to economic conditions. “Firm-Sponsored General Education and Mobility Frictions: Evidence from Hospital Sponsorship of Nursing Schools and Faculty”Alan Benson [Download] [Replication Tools]* Using a unique data set of hospitals’ direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty in 2008 and 2010, this paper finds that firms may pay for technologically-general skill training that is made de facto-specific by search frictions. Because this support is clearly general, clearly paid by the firm, and information asymmetries appear minimal, it overcomes the typical dilemmas of empirical research in firm-sponsored general education. Interviews and existing studies suggest hospitals extract rents on incumbent nurses, and an oligopsony model is proposed whereby hospitals sponsor training when they employ a sufficient share of local nurses. Consistent with the model, surveys conducted in 2008 and 2010 find that hospitals employing a greater share of its MSA’s registered nurses are indeed more likely to financially support local schools and faculty, net of size and other institutional controls. Implications for human capital theory, monopsony, and nursing manpower are discussed.
*Replication tools include verbatim survey questions and command lines used for statistical analysis. However, I cannot upload the data, which includes proprietary hospital data and confidential survey responses. E-mail me for more information.
“The Long-Haul Effects of Interest Arbitration: The Case of New York State’s Taylor Law.” Industrial & Labor Relations Review 64(4): 565-84.Thomas Kochan, David Lipsky, Mary Newhart, and Alan Benson
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The authors use experiences with interest arbitration for police and firefighters under New York State’s Taylor Law from 1974 to 2007 to examine the central debates about the effects of this form of arbitration on collective bargaining. They draw on old and new data to compare experience with interest arbitration in the first three years after it was adopted with experiences from 1995 to 2007. They find that no strikes have occurred under arbitration, rates of dependence on arbitration declined considerably, the effectiveness of mediation prior to and during arbitration remained high, the tripartite arbitration structure continued to foster discussion of options for resolution among members of the arbitration panels, and wage increases awarded under arbitration matched those negotiated voluntarily by the parties. Econometric estimates of the effects of interest arbitration on wage changes in a national sample suggest wage increases between 1990 and 2000 in states with arbitration did not differ significantly from those in states with non-binding mediation and factfinding or states without a collective bargaining statute. The length of time required to complete the arbitration process increased substantially and several critical employment relations issues facing the parties have not been addressed within the arbitration system. The authors suggest these findings should be considered by both critics and supporters of proposals to include a role for interest arbitration in national labor policy.
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