Labor Statistics Measurement Issues

Rapidly changing technology, the globalization of markets, and the declining role of unions are just some of the factors that have led to dramatic changes in working conditions in the United States. Little attention has been paid to the difficult measurement problems underlying analysis of the labor market. Labor Statistics Measurement Issues helps to fill this gap by exploring key theoretical and practical issues in the measurement of employment, wages, and workplace practices.

Some of the chapters in this volume explore the conceptual issues of what is needed, what is known, or what can be learned from existing data, and what needs have not been met by available data sources. Others make innovative uses of existing data to analyze these topics. Also included are papers examining how answers to important questions are affected by alternative measures used and how these can be reconciled. This important and useful book will find a large audience among labor economists and consumers of labor statistics.

John C. Haltiwanger is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a research associate of the NBER.

Murray F. Foss is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Marilyn E. Manser is assistant commissioner for economic research at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Allan H. Young is chief statistician at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Robert H. Topel is the Isidore Brown and Gladys J. Brown Professor in Urban and Labor Economics in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He is coeditor of The Welfare State in Transition and Labor Market Data and Measurement, both published by the University of Chicago Press.