This essay discusses the effect of technical change on wage inequality. I argue that the behavior of wages and returns to schooling indicates that technical change has been skill-biased during the past sixty years. Furthermore, the recent increase in inequality is most likely due to an acceleration in skill bias. In contrast to twentiethcentury developments, much of thr technical change during the early nineteenth century appears to be skill-replacing. I suggest that this is because the increased supply of unskilled workers in the English cities made the introduction of these technologies profitable. On the other hand, the twentieth century has been characterized by skillbiased technical change because the rapid increase in the supply of skilled workers has induced the development of skill-complementary technologies. The recent acceleration in skill bias is in turn likely to have been a response to the acceleration in the supply of skills during the past several decades.

This paper investigates the determination and consequences of organizational changes (OC) in a panel of British and French establishments. Organizational changes include the decentralization of authority, delayering of managerial functions and increased multi-tasking. We argue that OC and skills are complements. We offer support for the hypothesis of “skill biased ” organizational change with three empirical findings. First, organizational changes reduce the demand for unskilled workers in both countries. Second, OC is negatively associated with increases in regional skill price differentials (a measure of the relative supply of skill). Third, OC leads to greater productivity increases in establishments with larger initial skill endowments. Technical change is also complementary with human capital, but the effects of OC are not simply due to technological change but have an independent role. Key words, organizational change, skills, technology, panel data. JEL classification: L2, J3, O32

This paper identifies and evaluates rationales for team participation and for the effects of team composition on productivity using novel data from a garment plant that shifted from individual piece rate to group piece rate production over three years. The adoption of teams at the plant improved worker productivity by 14 % on average. Productivity improvement was greatest for the earliest teams and diminished as more workers engaged in team production, providing support for the view that teams utilize collaborative skills, which are less valuable in individual production. High productivity workers tended to join teams first, despite a loss in earnings in many cases, suggesting non-pecuniary benefits associated with teamwork. Finally, more heterogeneous teams were more productive, holding average ability constant, which is consistent with explanations emphasizing mutual team learning and intra-team bargaining.

This paper analyzes the productivity of information technology in emergency response systems. "Enhanced 911" (E911) is information technology that links caller identification to a location database and so speeds up emergency response. We assess the impact of E911 on health outcomes using Pennsylvania ambulance and hospital records between 1994 and 1996, a period of substantial adoption. We find that, as a result of E911 adoption, patient health measured at the time of ambulance arrival improves, suggesting that E911 enhances the timeliness of emergency response. Further analysis using hospital discharge data shows that E911 reduces mortality and hospital costs.

suggestions. We are also deeply indebted to the many administrators, scientists, managers, and entrepreneurs who agreed to be interviewed. Martha Cobb and Melissa

Much of the existing theory of incentives describes a static relationship that lasts for just one transaction. This static assumption is not only unrealistic, but the resulting predictions appear to be at odds with many work organizations. The current paper introduces possible long-term interaction among agents, and studies how the design of explicit incentives and work organizations can exploit, and interact with, the implicit incentives generated by the repeated interaction of hc agents. The-optimal incentive scheme is shown to display many observed features of the increasingly popular "teams," such as low-powered, group incentives, and the use of self monitoring and decentralization of authority among team members.

This paper has not undergone formal review or approval of the faculty of the ILR School. It is intended to make results of Center research available to others interested in preliminary form to encourage discussion and suggestions. Page 1Managing Customer Services WP 00-07 This study examines the relationship between human resource practices, employee quit rates, and organizational performance by drawing on a unique nationally representative sample of 354 customer service and sales establishments in the telecommunications industry. Multivariate analyses show that quit rates are lower and sales growth is higher in establishments that emphasize high skills, employee participation in decision-making and in teams, and HR incentives such as high relative pay and employment security. Quit rates partially mediate the relationship between human resource practices and sales growth. These relationships also are moderated by the customer segment that frontline employees serve.

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We analyze empirically the system of allocation of rights and monetary incentives in a sample of automobile franchise contracts. We find that the contracts create an asymmetric assignment of decision rights: while they substantially restrict the decision rights of dealers, they grant manufacturers extensive implementation and enforcement powers, converting the manufacturers, de facto, in a sort of quasi-judiciary instance. We also find that the variation in the system of rights assignment and monetary incentives responds to efficiency considerations. In particular, when the cost of dealer moral hazard is higher and the risk of manufacturer opportunism is lower, manufacturers enjoy larger discretion in both determining the desired performance from the dealers in their network and in using mechanisms such as monitoring, termination and monetary incentives to ensure this performance is provided. We also explore the existence of interdependencies between the different elements of the system. We find that the evidence does not support the conclusion

While many theories about the relationship between information technology (IT) and organizational design have been proposed, there is little empirical evidence on the issue. We examine the influence of organizational design on the demand for IT and the productivity of IT investments, using data from approximately 380 US firms. We find greater demand for IT in firms with greater decentralization of decision rights (especially the use of self-managing teams), and greater investments in human capital, including training and screening by education. In addition, IT has a greater contribution to output in firms that adopt a more decentralized and human capital-intensive work system. This relationship is robust to alternative measures of IT and of work systems, as well as alternative specifications for demand and for productivity. These findings lend support to the idea that organizational practices are important determinants of IT demand and productivity.