The passage of minimum wage legislation in 1950 led to one of the odder chapters in the history of French bureaucratic committees. Paul Bacon, Minister of Labor, convened a High Commission on Collective Bargaining in April of that year to measure a model worker’s budget. Over thirty members strong, the meeting assembled major leaders of […]

Recent work suggests that the labor elasticity of supply to the firm is finite. In other words, labor markets are not perfectly competitive. We provide the first estimates of the degree of labor market imperfections over a long period of time with significant variation in the state of the macroeconomy. Using data from the Ford […]

Starting in the 1980s, the Mexican government reduced its participation in the steel industry, a sector which had been one of the engines of national economic growth.The government closed, restructured and privatized large steel plants, including Fundidora Monterrey in 1986, Minera Cananea in 1989, and Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) and Siderúrgica Lázaro Cardenas-Las Truchas […]

Editors Edward Telles, Mark Sawyer and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado willbe joined by distinguished panelists to discuss how African Americans and Latinos relate to each other in contemporary American society and how these social interactions are transforming the US political, cultural and labor landscapes. Just Neighbors? Research on African American and Latino Relations in the US is […]

Cliff Palefsky, a dynamic speaker and leading critic of mandatory arbitration agreements, will provide valuable insights from the plaintiff's perspective on the "hot topic" of employment dispute arbitration. Mr. Palefsky has been in the forefront of the opposition to mandatory arbitration for the past 24 years in both the courts and the legislature. He has […]

After the horse race is over and Election 2012 has been decided, the business of governing is going to get very difficult very quickly. With budget cuts looming and taxes set to rise, voters are struggling to understand competing visions for the future. Is a balanced compromise possible in an atmosphere of extreme partisanship? How […]

California voters face big decisions on the 2012 ballot initiatives. From tax policyto the death penalty to genetically modified food labeling, a lot is at stake on the ballot. Join us for an educational and informative forum to analyze the initiatives.