There has been a wide variety of research on worker-hours substitution and the effects of various costs on the speed and extent to which labor demand adjusts. Much of this literature, though, confuses various types of fixed costs and fails to provide a guide for identifying how changes in labor-cost structures affect static relative demands for workers and hours and the paths by which they adjust. This study presents a typology of labor cost market policies in OECD countries are pigeonholed by their effects on labor costs are view of the evidence indicates clearly that there is some slight substitution between workers and hours along a constant effective-labor isoquant. The evidence is clear that employers adjust the demand for hours more rapidly than that for workers and that both adjust fairly rapidly. It also shows that a major effect of cost-increasing policies designed to induce substitution from hours to workers is a reduction in the total amount of worker-hours demanded. Original analysis demonstrates that lags in the adjustment of employment in response to changes in demand lengthened in most OECD countries during the 1970s.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
2056.
Length: Date of creation: Oct 1986 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2056
Note: LS Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Jacob Mincer & Boyan Jovanovic, 1982.
"Labor Mobility and Wages,"
NBER Working Papers
0357, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Jacob Mincer & Boyan Jovanovic, 1981.
"Labor Mobility and Wages,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Studies in Labor Markets, pages 21-64
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)