Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jay Stewart Author-Name-First: Jay Author-Name-Last: Stewart Title: Early to Bed and Earlier to Rise: School, Maternal Employment, and Children’s Sleep Abstract: School-age children need 10-11 hours of sleep per night. It has been well-documented that lack of sleep leads to diminished cognitive performance and that people who sleep less are more likely to be overweight or obese. I use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to examine two factors that can potentially influence the amount of time children sleep: school and maternal employment. I find that school-age children sleep less when school is in session than during the summer, and that they get less sleep on school nights than on non-school nights. Children go to bed about 38 minutes earlier on school nights, but wake up about 72 minutes earlier on school days. This translates into about 34 minutes less sleep on school nights compared with non-school nights, and implies that these children have a cumulative sleep deficit of over two-and-a-half hours by the time they arrive at school Friday morning. In addition to the lost sleep time, the earlier wake-up times on school days appear to disrupt children’s natural sleep cycles. Maternal employment affects children’s sleep time in the summer, because children wake up earlier on days that their mothers work. But during the school year, maternal employment effects are dominated by school effects. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130010.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 461 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:461 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: William D. Passero Author-Name-First: William D. Author-Name-Last: Passero Author-Name: Thesia I. Garner Author-Name-First: Thesia I. Author-Name-Last: Garner Author-Name: Clinton McCully Author-Name-First: Clinton Author-Name-Last: McCully Title: Understanding the Relationship: CE Survey and PCE Abstract: For the United States, there are currently two federal series of data that refer to household expenditures. One is produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE), and the other is produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Weights for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) are based on CE data. However, over the years, suggestions have been made to use PCE rather than the CE as the source of weights for the CPI. Much research had been conducted to reconcile differences in scope and definitions in the CE and PCE. Included in this paper is a review of these differences along with aggregate estimates that result when one accounts for the differences. Such an exercise is important; however, to compare trends in CE and PCE over time, a concordance of comparable items in both the CE and PCE is desirable. Independently, the BLS divisions responsible for the CE and CPI have produced concordances of the CE to PCE data; staff members at BEA have also produced their own concordances. These three independent exercises have resulted in three different concordances. In this paper, a new joint concordance, developed by staff in the BEA and BLS, is presented. Using this concordance, similarities and differences in the CE and PCE are highlighted along with trends in ratios of aggregate CE and PCE over the 1992 to 2010 time period. Aggregate expenditures and ratios of CE to PCE are produced for durables, non-durables, and services Results suggest that non-durables are most alike for the CE and PCE with about 93 percent of total non-durable expenditures identified as comparable within the CE and within the PCE. Regarding trends over time and focusing on comparable goods and services only, CE to PCE ratios have steadily decreased. For total comparable goods and services, CE to PCE ratios decreased from 84 percent for 1992 to 74 percent for 2010. The greatest decline in CE to PCE ratios is for durables, with a decrease of 24 percentage points. Ratios for comparable services dropped the least, with a percentage decrease of 10 percentage points. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130020.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 462 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:462 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Kevin E. Cahill Author-Name-First: Kevin E. Author-Name-Last: Cahill Author-Name: Michael D. Giandrea Author-Name-First: Michael D. Author-Name-Last: Giandrea Author-Name: Joseph F. Quinn Author-Name-First: Joseph F. Author-Name-Last: Quinn Title: New Evidence on Self-Employment Transitions Among Older Americans with Career Jobs Abstract: How have post-career transitions into and out of self-employment been impacted by the Great Recession? Research from the 1990s and 2000s has shown that the prevalence of self employment increases substantially later in life, partly because self employment provides older workers with opportunities and flexibility not found in wage-and-salary jobs. Post-career transitions into and out of self employment have also been identified as an important pathway to retirement among older Americans. This paper examines post-career self-employment transitions during the recent recession that began in late 2007 and during the ensuing lackluster recovery. We utilize the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset of older Americans, to investigate the role of self-employment in the retirement transitions of HRS Core respondents over nearly two decades, from 1992 to 2010, with particular emphasis on the most recent years. We find that post-career transitions into and out of self employment remain common in the face of the Great Recession, and that health status, occupation, and financial variables continue to be important determinants of switches from wage-and-salary career employment to self-employed bridge jobs. The latest evidence confirms that self employment continues to be an important pathway to retirement even during recessionary times. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130030.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 463 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:463 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Maury Gittleman Author-Name-First: Maury Author-Name-Last: Gittleman Author-Name: Morris M. Kleiner Author-Name-First: Morris M. Author-Name-Last: Kleiner Title: Wage Effects of Unionization and Occupational Licensing Coverage in the United States Abstract: Recent estimates in standard models of wage determination for both unionization and occupational licensing have shown wage effects that are similar across the two institutions. These cross-sectional estimates use specialized data sets, with small sample sizes, for the period 2006 through 2008. Our analysis examines the impact of unions and licensing coverage on wage determination using new data collected on licensing statutes that are then linked to longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2010. We develop several approaches, using both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, to measure the impact of these two labor market institutions on wage determination. Our estimates of the economic returns to union coverage are greater than those for licensing requirements. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130040.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 464 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:464 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Gregory Kurtzon Author-Name-First: Gregory Author-Name-Last: Kurtzon Title: Occupational Hierarchy by Learning Costs and the Equal Elasticity of Labor Demand Puzzle Abstract: Empirical studies that show an elastic labor demand from supply shocks such as immigration and an inelastic labor demand from wage shocks such as changes in the minimum wage contradict the typical model?s prediction of an equal elasticity. This paper explains this apparent contradiction by generalizing the typical model of complementarity between skill groups and endogenizes that complementarity. Agents choose among complementary occupations on a hierarchy of heterogeneous learning costs. The new choices of low skilled workers to higher cost/wage occupations offset the effects of low skilled supply and wage shocks, making the effects more and less elastic respectively. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130050.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 460 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:460 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Maury Gittleman Author-Name-First: Maury Author-Name-Last: Gittleman Author-Name: Brooks Pierce Author-Name-First: Brooks Author-Name-Last: Pierce Title: Pay for Performance and Compensation Inequality: Evidence from the ECEC Abstract: It is well known that earnings inequality in the United States has been on the rise over the last three decades. Compensation inequality, while much less studied, has been moving upward as well. Motivated in part by an attempt to explain a widening of inequality in the upper part of the distribution, Lemieux, MacLeod and Parent (2009) investigated the relationship between the use of performance pay schemes and wage inequality using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Viewing such a contractual arrangement as a channel through which rising demand for skill is translated into increased inequality, they estimated that pay for performance accounts for about one-fifth of the growth in the variance of male wages between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, and for almost all of the increase in wage inequality in the top quintile during the same period. In this paper, we also assess the relationship between performance pay and inequality, making a number of different contributions to the literature. First, the dataset we use, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employee Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), allows us to look at a much broader concept of pay than that used by LMP, which consists largely of hourly earnings inclusive of performance pay (bonuses, piece-rates and commissions). It is important to relate methods of pay to total compensation because any effects noted on wages may be offset or amplified when one moves to broader definitions of compensation. Second, there are numerous types of bonuses, not all of which fall under the rubric of pay for performance. While LMP are forced by the limitations in the PSID to treat all types of bonuses as being the same, in some of our analyses, we are able to distinguish among them. Third, while the LMP analysis ends in the mid-1990s, our investigation is of a more recent time period, 1994 to 2010. Finally, allowing greater precision in our estimates, our dataset is significantly larger than the PSID. Our results suggest that while the presence of performance pay jobs is associated with higher levels of inequality, such jobs have made only a modest contribution toward an increase in inequality in the period under study. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130060.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 465 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:465 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Kenneth W. Robertson Author-Name-First: Kenneth W. Author-Name-Last: Robertson Title: A Working Paper Presenting a Profile of Revisions in the Current Employment Statistics Program Abstract: The Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a large monthly survey of businesses that produces timely estimates of employment, hours, and earnings by industry and geographic area. The survey produces estimates about three weeks after the week that includes the 12th of the month, and then produces revised estimates for the same reference period as additional responses for that reference period are collected over the next two months. This paper examines the distribution of response by several characteristics, and provides profiles of monthly revisions at the national, state, and metropolitan area level. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130070.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 466 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:466 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Mina Kim Author-Name-First: Mina Author-Name-Last: Kim Author-Name: Deokwoo Nam Author-Name-First: Deokwoo Author-Name-Last: Nam Author-Name: Jian Wang Author-Name-First: Jian Author-Name-Last: Wang Author-Name: Jason Wu Author-Name-First: Jason Author-Name-Last: Wu Title: International Trade Price Stickiness and Exchange Rate Pass-through in Micro Data: A Case Study on US-China Trade Abstract: The interaction between the exchange rate regime, trade firms' price-setting behavior, and exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is an important topic in international economics. This paper studies this using a goods-level dataset of US-China trade prices collected by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. We document that the duration of US-China trade prices has declined almost 30% since China abandoned its hard peg to the US dollar in June 2005. A benchmark menu cost model that is calibrated to the data can replicate the documented decrease in price stickiness. We also estimate ERPT of RMB appreciation into US import prices between 2005 and 2008. Goods-level data allows us to estimate that the lifelong ERPT is close to one for goods that have at least one price change, but less than one-half when all goods are included. This finding can be attributed to the fact that around 40% of the goods in never experience a price change, and supports the hypothesis that price changes that take the form of product replacements may bias ERPT estimates downwards. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130080.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 467 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:467 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Kevin E. Cahill Author-Name-First: Kevin E. Author-Name-Last: Cahill Author-Name: Michael D. Giandrea Author-Name-First: Michael D. Author-Name-Last: Giandrea Author-Name: Joseph F. Quinn Author-Name-First: Joseph F. Author-Name-Last: Quinn Title: Are Gender Differences Emerging in the Retirement Patterns of the Early Boomers? Abstract: Controlling for career employment later in life, the retirement patterns of men and women in America have resembled one another for much of the past two decades. Is this relationship coming to an end? Recent research suggests that the retirement patterns of the Early Boomers—those born between 1948 and 1953—have diverged from those of earlier cohorts. Gender differences appear to be emerging as well in the way that career men and women exit the labor force, after nearly two decades of similarities. This paper explores these gender differences in detail to help determine whether we are witnessing a break in trend or merely a short-term occurrence. We use data on three cohorts of older Americans from the nationally-representative, longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS) that began in 1992. We explore by gender the types of job transitions that occur later in life and explore, in particular, the role of four potentially relevant determinants: the presence of dependent children; a parent in need of caregiving assistance; occupational status on the career job; and self-employment status. We find that, among career men and women, child and parental caregiving are not significant drivers of the retirement transitions of the Early Boomers, all else equal. Gender differences that may exist with respect to these characteristics are therefore unlikely to lead to persistent gender differences in retirement patterns. In contrast, self employment continues to be a statistically significant determinant of bridge job transitions and phased retirement. This finding, combined with the fact that men are much more likely than women to be self employed later in life, could lead to some differences by gender going forward, though the impact is likely to be limited given that the large majority of older workers are in wage-and-salary employment. Older Americans—both men and women—are responding to their economic environment by working later in life and exiting the labor force gradually. While some determinants of these decisions likely impact men and women differently, gender differences with respect to the retirement patterns of the Early Boomers appear to be the result of broader macroeconomic forces. The evidence to date suggests that gender differences may dissipate as the recovery ensues. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130090.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 468 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:468 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Paul Sullivan Author-Name-First: Paul Author-Name-Last: Sullivan Author-Name: Ted To Author-Name-First: Ted Author-Name-Last: To Title: Job Dispersion and Compensating Wage Differentials Abstract: hThe empirical literature on compensating wage differentials has a mixed history. While there have been some successes, much of this literature finds weak support for the theory of equalizing differences. We argue that it is dispersion in total job values or "job dispersion" that leads to biased compensating wage differential estimates. We begin by demonstrating how job dispersion can lead to biased hedonic estimates. Then we take a partial equilibrium on-the-job search model with utility from non-wage job characteristics, structurally estimate it and then simulate a dataset. Using our simulated dataset, we conduct a detailed analysis of the sources of bias in hedonic wage estimates. While worker heterogeneity and job dynamics are important sources of job dispersion, a significant proportion of the variation in jobs can only be explained by the inherent randomness of job offers. Creation-Date: 2013 File-URL: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2013/pdf/ec130100.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 469 Handle: RePEc:bls:wpaper:469