Question: Suppose the quantity of capital is fixed

> Explain why “pay comparability” legislation requiring that the public sector remunerate government employees at wages equal to private sector counterparts might create excess supplies of labor in public sector labor markets.

> Use Equation (9.1) to explain the likely effect of each of the following on the present value of net benefits from migration: (a) age, (b) distance, (c) education, (d) marital status, and (e) the discount rate (interest rate). Equation 9.1:

> Assuming that income includes both private and public goods and that leisure is a normal good, explain how a major reduction in governmentally provided goods might increase a person’s optimal number of hours of work.

> Explain why a voluntary army may be less expensive to society than an army composed of draftees. Which will likely be less expensive to taxpayers?

> How is the pure union wage advantage defined? If in a given labor market the wage rate would be $16 without a union and $20 with a union, then what is the pure union wage advantage? Explain how, and in what direction, each of the following might cause th

> Assume that the official national unemployment rate rises from 4 percent to 8 percent because of a major recession. What impact do you predict this would have on (a) The African-American to white unemployment rate ratio, (b) The labor force participat

> How might labor mobility and migration affect the degree of monopsony power (Chapter 6) in labor markets?

> Complete the following table for a single firm operating in labor market A and product market AA: a. What, if anything, can one conclude about the degree of competition in labor market A and product market AA? b. What is the profit-maximizing level of

> Referring back to Figure 7.8, explain why wage differentials resulting exclusively from efficiency wage payments (shirking model and turnover model) will persist rather than erode over time. Figure 7.8 SL W2 W DL2 DLI O2 Quantity of labor Wage rate

> Under what elasticity of labor demand conditions could a union restrict the supply of labor—that is, shift the supply curve leftward—and thereby increase the collective wage income (wage bill) of the workers still employed?

> Critically evaluate each of these statements: a. “The relative decline of the American labor movement can be explained by the shift from goods-producing to service-providing industries and by the closely related shifts from blue- to white-collar occupati

> Discuss: “Many of the lowest-paid people in society—for example, short-order cooks—also have relatively poor working conditions. Hence the theory of compensating wage differentials is disproved.”

> Describe the expected effects that college scholarships based on (a) Student ability and (b) Student need are likely to have on the distribution of earnings.

> Identify and explain a separate common problem associated with each of the following pairs of compensation plans: a. Piece rates; bonuses tied to individual performance. b. Bonuses applied to team performance; profit-sharing plans.

> Use Table 9.1 to determine the impact of wage-induced labor migration on; a. The combined output of the two regions. b. Capital versus wage income in the destination region. c. The average wage rate in the origin region. d. The total wage bill for the na

> Is labor demand (a) elastic, (b) unit elastic, or (c) inelastic over the $4 to $12 wage rate range of DL in Figure 5.11(b)? Explain by referring to the total wage bill rules (Figure 5.7) and the midpoint formula for elasticity [Equation (5.4)]. Figu

> Use the production data shown here on the left and the labor supply data on the right for a single firm to answer the following questions. Assume that this firm is selling its product for $1 per unit in a perfectly competitive product market. a. How ma

> Explain why it may be in a worker’s short-term best interest to have job titles restated to add status: say, becoming a mixologist rather than a bartender or being referred to as a sanitation engineer rather than a garbage worker. Why may such title chan

> Answer the following questions on the basis of the table shown here. QB is type B labor, and VMPBx and VMPBy are the industry values of the marginal products of this labor in producing x and y, the only two goods in the economy. a. If the supply price

> Predict the impact of each of the following on the equilibrium wage rate and level of employment in labor market A: a. An increase in labor demand and supply in labor market A. b. The transformation of labor market A from a competitive to a mono-psonis

> The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has estimated that the tax-exempt status of fringe benefits such as pensions and group insurance reduced tax revenue to the Treasury by about $350 billion in 2014. Some economists have suggested that the federal

> Use the total wage bill rules and the labor demand schedule in Question 4 to determine whether demand is elastic or inelastic over the $6 to $11 wage rate range. Compute the elasticity coefficient using Equation (5.4). Equation 5.4: Ed = change in

> Explain how each of the following would affect the demand schedule you derived in Question 4: (a) An increase in the price of a gross substitute for labor, (b) A decrease in the price of a pure complement in production with labor, (c) A decrease in t

> What effect will each of the following have on the market labor demand for a specific type of labor? a. An increase in product demand that increases product price. b. A decline in the productivity of this type of labor. c. An increase in the price of a

> Suppose marginal productivity tripled while product price fell by half in Table 5.2. What would be the net impact on the location of the short-run labor demand curve in Figure 5.2? Figure 5.2 TABLE 5.2 (1) Units of (4) Product (5) Total (6) MRP (

> “It would be incorrect to say that an industry’s labor demand curve is simply the horizontal sum of the demand curves of the individual firms.” Do you agree? Explain.

> By referring to Figure 5.11(a), explain the impact of the increase of the price of labor on the cost-minimizing quantity of capital. What can you conclude about the relative strengths of the substitution and output effects as they relate to the demand fo

> Use a work–leisure diagram that includes non-labor income to portray an individual who is maximizing utility by working, say, eight hours per day. Now compare the labor supply effects of imposing; (a) a lump-sum tax (a tax that is the same absolute amou

> Given the data in Table A, complete the labor demand schedule shown in Table B. Contrast this schedule to the value of marginal product schedule that would exist given these data. Explain why the labor demand and VMP schedules differ. C

> Floyd is now working in a job that pays $18,000 per year. He is contemplating a one-year automobile mechanics course that costs $1,000 for books and tuition. Floyd estimates that the course will increase his income to $23,000 in each of the three years f

> Why must the concepts of supply and demand as they pertain to product markets be modified when applied to labor markets?

> What are the major features or assumptions of the economic perspective?

> What is the college wage premium? Can you explain why the premium (a) Declined in the 1970s and (b) Increased since the 1980s?

> What has happened to the aggregate labor force participation rate in the post–World War II period? To the participation rates of males and females?

> Indicate in each of the following instances whether the specified circumstances will cause a worker to want to work more or fewer hours: a. The wage rate increases and the substitution effect is greater than the income effect. b. The wage rate decreases

> “Empirical evidence for the United States suggests that labor force participation varies directly with unemployment.” Do you agree? Explain in terms of the discouraged-worker and added-worker effects.

> Use a work–leisure diagram to demonstrate that; (a) if African-Americans have labor market opportunities that are inferior to those of whites and (b) non-labor income is available in the form of, say, disability benefits, African-Americans will have lo

> Why are most labor unions—whose constituents receive wages substantially above the minimum wage—strong supporters of the minimum wage? Why might unions composed of skilled workers who are pure complements in production with raw materials produced by low-

> Suppose Lauren is given two options by her employer. First option: She may choose her own hours of work and will be paid the relatively low wage rate implied by budget line HW1 shown in the accompanying diagram. Second option: She can work exactly HR hou

> In 2014 the United States had a population of 319 million, of which 71 million were either under 16 years of age or institutionalized. Approximately 156 million people were either employed or unemployed but actively seeking work. What was the participati

> The accompanying diagram restates the basic work–leisure choice model presented in Chapter 2. Use this diagram to explain the declining workweek occurring in the pre–World War II period, making explicit the assumptions

> Briefly compare the “old” and “new” labor economics.

> The “supply-side” economics of the Reagan administration (1981–1988) presumed that income tax cuts would stimulate incentives to work and thereby increase economic growth. Demonstrate this outcome with a work–leisure diagram. What does this outcome assum

> Indicate whether each of the following statements pertains to microeconomics or macroeconomics: a. The unemployment rate in the United States was 6.2 percent in 2014. b. Workers at the Sleepy Eye grain elevator are paid $10 per hour. c. The productivity

> One way of aiding low-income families is to increase the minimum wage. An alternative is to provide a direct grant of non-labor income. Compare the impact of these two options on work incentives.

> If an income maintenance program entails a $3,000 basic benefit and a benefit reduction rate of .30, what will be the size of the subsidy received by a family that earns $2,000 per year? What will be the family’s total income? What breakeven level of inc

> Indicate the implications of each of the following for estimates of the rate of return on a college education: (a) The screening hypothesis, (b) The possibility that a portion of one’s expenditures on college should be considered as consumption rat

> In the accompanying diagram, WH is the budget line resulting from labor market work. Describe the characteristics of the income maintenance programs implicit in budget lines HBW′, HBYW, and HBW. Given an individual’s w

> Explain how each of the following would affect the probability that a job searcher will accept the next wage offer and thus affect the expected length of his or her unemployment: (a) A decline in the rate of inflation below the expected one and (b) A

> Use the following data to calculate (a) The size of the labor force, (b) The official unemployment rate, and (c) The labor force participation rate for a hypothetical economy: population = 500; population 16 years or older and noninstitutionalized =

> What is the basic problem in measuring consumers’ intentions about future behaviors?  

> What are three ways to assess awareness? What is the basic difference between measures of recall and measures of recognition?

> How might a researcher combine different methods of communication in the same project? Give an example.

> How do personal interviews, telephone interviews, paper-based surveys, and online surveys differ with respect to the following: a. sampling control b. information control c. administrative control

> What is validity? What are two contributing factors to decreases in validity?

> What is reliability? What information does it contribute to determining if a measure is accurate?

> What are some factors that may produce systematic errors? What factors may produce random errors?

> What are the major ways that have been used to measure attitudes? How do they differ?

> Why are online surveys such a popular choice for collecting communication data?

> How do in-bound surveys work? When are they especially useful?

> What is the difference between regression analysis and correlation analysis?

> What are two situations in which the use of disguise would be advisable?

> What is a disguised questionnaire? What are the ethical considerations in using disguise?

> What are the general advantages and disadvantages of obtaining data by communication? By observation?

> What is an attitude? Why do marketers care about attitudes?

> What are some of the available types of mechanical observation?

> What are the primary advantages and disadvantages of working in a natural setting as contrasted with a contrived setting?

> What is the key ethical issue with the use of disguise in observation research? How this issue is typically remedied in disguised marketing research projects?

> What are mystery shoppers? What is their purpose?

> What does a high degree of structure look like in an observational study?

> What types of primary data interest marketing researchers most? What are the differences between the types of data?

> What is the proper procedure for testing the influences of two different independent variables on a single continuous dependent variable simultaneously?

> What is a sample survey? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

> What are the two basic forms of panels? How do they differ?

> What are the main types of descriptive studies, and what do their differences mean?

> What are the six specifications of a descriptive study?

> What are the basic uses of descriptive research?

> What is market testing? What are the three basic types of test markets?

> What is an A/B test? What is the general structure for performing such a test?

> What is the difference between internal validity and external validity? Which form of validity is more important?

> What is the difference between a lab study and a field study?

> What is an experiment?

> What is a pictogram?

> Is it possible to establish that one thing causes another? Why or why not?

> What is the general sequence in which the three basic types of research are employed?

> Why is exploratory research considered to be a basic type of primary data research?

> What are the three basic types of research used to collect primary data? What is the basic purpose of each?

> How might a company assess the success of its online advertising?

> How are portable people meters used to assess radio listenership?

> How are people meters used to assess television viewership?

> Why can the effect of scanners on standardized marketing information be described as “profound”?

> How does a diary panel work?

> Given that companies know their revenues, why do they also need standardized information about product sales and market share?

> What is a bar chart? For what kinds of problems is it effective?

> What is the purpose of geodemography?

> What does it mean to “profile” customers or prospects? Why would a company need this information?

> What is “standardized” about standardized marketing information?

> Why should researchers look for published sources of secondary data before searching for standardized marketing information?

> What is the basic point of projective methods? What are some popular approaches?

> What are two common approaches to the use of case analyses?