scholarly journals Slavery versus Labor

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci ◽  
Guilherme de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Equilibrium Price ◽  
Physical Punishment ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
Specific Investments ◽  
Enforcement Costs ◽  
Turnover Costs ◽  
At Will

Abstract Slavery has been a long-lasting and often endemic problem across time and space, and has commonly coexisted with a free-labor market. To understand (and possibly eradicate) slavery, one needs to unpack its relationship with free labor. Under what conditions would a principal choose to buy a slave rather than to hire a free worker? First, slaves cannot leave at will, which reduces turnover costs; second, slaves can be subjected to physical punishments, which reduces enforcement costs. In complex tasks, relation-specific investments are responsible for high turnover costs, which makes principals prefer slaves over workers. At the other end of the spectrum, in simple tasks, the threat of physical punishment is a relatively cheap way to produce incentives as compared to rewards, because effort is easy to monitor, which again makes slaves the cheaper alternative. The resulting equilibrium price in the market for slaves affects demand in the labor market and induces principals to hire workers for tasks of intermediate complexity. The available historical evidence is consistent with this pattern. Our analysis sheds light on cross-society differences in the use of slaves, on diachronic trends, and on the effects of current anti-slavery policies.

Turnover Cost and the Distribution of slave Labor in Anglo-America

1996 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hanes
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Antebellum South ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Deferred Compensation ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
Indentured Servitude ◽  
Rural Enterprises ◽  
Turnover Costs

In the eighteenth-century British Empire and the antebellum South, slaves were concentrated in domestic service and rural enterprises like agriculture and ironworks. I argue that employers in these sectors chose to employ slaves rather than free labor because they faced especially high turnover costs—that is, costs of searching for a worker and going without labor when a free worker quit or was fired. In the absence of slavery, these sectors were marked by other institutions designed to deal with turnover costs: indentured servitude, employment agencies, and deferred compensation.

scholarly journals Pay Transparency and Labor Market Justice

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
Daniel Halliday
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
Equilibrium Price ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Ideal

I argue that a general initial case for pay transparency can be made given the role played by transparency of information about prices in bringing markets closer to the ideal of competition or equilibrium price. This initial case might then be limited or enhanced depending on more specific considerations about the status of information about pay in particular. Privacy considerations seem to count against pay transparency, but I argue here that the context of pay information lacks some features present in other contexts in which appeals to privacy have force. Building on work by Estlund, Moriarty, Caulfield, and others, I argue that pay transparency may be favoured by considerations relating to personal autonomy in labour markets. Finally, I argue that pay transparency may contribute towards the realization of conditions of publicity, particularly relating to the value of citizens’ assurance about each other’s tax compliance.

scholarly journals The Competition of Slave and Free Labor in Artisanal Production: Buenos Aires, 1770–1815

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyman L. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
High Wage ◽  
Labor Economic ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors ◽  
The City ◽  
Artisanal Production

SummaryBetween 1770 and 1815 the population of Buenos Aires nearly doubled. Despite this impressive growth, the city and its hinterland suffered from a chronic labor shortage. Efforts to expand artisanal production were undermined by the resultant high wage levels. Similar problems affected the countryside where slaves and the forced labor of Indians and convicts failed to meet harvest needs. This paper examines the competition among these forms of labor. Economic, social and cultural factors that helped determine the allocation of labor types are also analyzed. Finally, since scores of slaves and Indian laborers gained freedom and entered the labor market each year, the economic and cultural factors that facilitated this movement are examined.

The Eight-Hour Day and the Legitimacy of Wage Labor

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Jentz ◽  
Richard Schneirov
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
Wage Labor ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
National Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Recognition

This chapter discusses the eight-hour movement. National in scope, the movement for an eight-hour workday prompted the first public recognition of how capitalism—commonly called the “wages system” after its most obvious aspect—was affecting American social life. This public recognition came amid a generation-long national debate about slavery, free labor, and the roles of both in defining the social and economic order desired by Americans. The chapter then addresses the question of “whether time was a property that could be alienated from the self.” Those who answered “Yes” accepted the legitimacy of the labor market, at least to the point of trying to organize institutions and social life within it. People who answered “No” rejected the legitimacy of the labor market, even if they struggled to survive within it until they established an alternative to it.

On the Road to a Free Labor Market

1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 27-46
Author(s):  
I. Zaslavskii
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
The Road ◽  
On The Road

Pure-Chance Jobs versus a Labor Market: The Impact on Careers of a Random Serial Dictatorship for First Job Seekers

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 470-475
Author(s):  
Ashna Arora ◽  
Leonard Goff ◽  
Jonas Hjort
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Level Variation ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Pure Chance ◽  
Choice Sets ◽  
First Job ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Serial Dictatorship

Do workers' first jobs affect their careers? Do such first-job effects (FJEs) vary across worker types? If so, can policy improve upon a “free” labor market by altering initial worker-employer matches? We study these questions using Norway's pre-2013 system of assigning doctors to their first job–residencies–through a random serial dictatorship. This generated individual-level variation in workers' choice sets over employers, which we use as instrumental variables to estimate FJEs. We then decompose workers' preferences over first employers into FJEs-on-earnings and employer “amenity value” components, showing how matches and worker welfare changed in the post-2013 decentralized labor market.

scholarly journals Necessities and Ways of Combating Dissatisfactions at Workplaces Against the Job-Hopping Generation Y Employees

2020 ◽  
pp. 097215092092696
Author(s):  
MD Mahamudul Hassan ◽  
Manimekalai Jambulingam ◽  
Elangkovan Narayanan Alagas ◽  
Md. Uzir Hossain Uzir ◽  
Hussam Al Halbusi
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Generation Y ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Gen Y ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Turnover Costs

The vital role of the private sector in the overall development of a country is crucial as proven by private tertiary industries. Despite its phenomenal success all over the world, private sectors are facing enormous challenges due to frequent turnover of Generation Y (Gen Y). Such phenomena cause massive overt and covert losses. Gen Y workers are optimistic, practical and often have attrition tendencies at workplaces. Extensive literature indicates the turnover problem of Gen Y remains unresolved. Frustration acts as the most crucial factor contributing to frequent turnover. The employers state similar effects. Turnover studies have been performed in the Western sense, though turnover problems exist all over the world, which include a developing country like Bangladesh. Another problem is the turnover rate in the public sector is lower than the private sector. Since each company strives to achieve the best output and lower turnover to avoid brain drain, they refrain from high turnover costs and maintaining competent staff. This quantitative study discovers that there is an urgent need to establish retention-friendly approaches to mitigate Gen Y frustration and retain them in the workplace. Gen Y retention approaches, management initiatives, soft HRM, work–life balance and employee satisfaction are vital resources for Gen Y retention in the private sector.

scholarly journals Labor Contracts, Equal Treatment, and Wage-Unemployment Dynamics

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 98-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Snell ◽  
Jonathan P Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Labor Contracts ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Productivity Data ◽  
Sectoral Productivity ◽  
Post War ◽  
At Will

This paper analyses a model in which firms cannot pay discriminate based on year of entry. It is assumed that workers can costlessly quit at any time, while firms are committed to contracts. We solve for the dynamics of wages and unemployment, and show that real wages display a degree of downward rigidity and do not necessarily clear the labor market. Using sectoral productivity data from the post-war US economy, we assess the ability of the model to match the actual unemployment series. We also show that equal treatment follows from the assumption of at-will employment contracting in our model. (JEL E24, E32, J31, J41)

The employment of people with special needs within hotels in Dubai

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-336
Author(s):  
Alia Al Fardan ◽  
Stephanie Morris
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Hospitality Industry ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Employment Practices ◽  
Individuals With Disabilities ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Turnover Costs ◽  
Disabled Tourists

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges and benefits of hiring individuals with special needs in the hospitality industry in Dubai; understand management, colleague and customer perspectives concerning the integration of individuals with special needs in the workforce; emphasize the need for awareness, communication and training when introducing special needs employees to hotel properties in Dubai; recognize laws and policies in respect to introducing the special needs workforce in hotels in Dubai; and classify the requirements needed to facilitate accessibility and integration of special needs employees in the workforce. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative research was conducted to better comprehend the benefits, challenges, policies/legalities and perceptions developed when considering employment practices of individuals with disabilities. Interviews with HR directors/managers in hotels in Dubai were conducted using a snowball sampling approach. Findings This study suggests that hotels in Dubai must increase their efforts to accommodate the special needs market through the provision of accessible areas, changes in perceptions and enactment of coherent laws and policies to prepare for the inflow of disabled tourists during Expo 2020. Further, that these efforts can be better accomplished by employment of individuals with special needs. Originality/value High turnover costs and shortages of labor in the hospitality industry have led to the need for the non-traditional labor force to fill the demand created by the upcoming Expo 2020. As the UAE won the bid for Expo 2020, there has been early construction of hotels to adapt to the increased demand in jobs by and influx of tourists including individuals with disabilities.

Why Apprenticeship Persisted in Britain But Not in the United States

1989 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Elbaum
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Labor

During the nineteenth century, under free labor market contracting, apprenticeship persisted in Britain but declined in the United States. This article argues that apprenticeship endured in Britain because of its efficiency advantages and because of customs, inherited from the guilds, that favored training certification for entry into skilled jobs. By contrast, within the United States guild traditions were weaker, occupational certification was seldom required, and, as a result, indenture obligations were hard to enforce. Understandably, U.S. employers refrained from making training investments in potentially mobile apprentices.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document