From the traditional craft hiring hall to the Web site Monster.com, a multitude of institutions exist to facilitate the matching of workers with firms. The diversity of such Labor Market Intermediaries (LMIs) encompasses criminal records providers, public employment offices, labor unions, temporary help agencies, and centralized medical residency matches. Studies of Labor Market Intermediation analyzes how these third-party actors intercede where workers and firms meet, thereby aiding, impeding, and, in some cases, exploiting the matching process. By building a conceptual foundation for analyzing the roles that these understudied economic actors serve in the labor market, this volume develops both a qualitative and quantitative sense of their significance to market operation and worker welfare. Cross-national in scope, Studies of Labor Market Intermediation is distinctive in coalescing research on a set of market institutions that are typically treated as isolated entities, thus setting a research agenda for analyzing the changing shape of employment in an era of rapid globalization and technological change.

First published in 1981, Labour Market Economics develops the basic economic theory of introductory courses within the context of labour market analysis and applies it both to particular features and special problems of the subject. The author begins by outlining the nature of the area and the structure of the UK labour market at the time, and proceeds to explain and elaborate the tools of theoretical analysis. These are then applied in subsequent chapters to a variety of issues, including the economic analysis of trade unions, collective bargaining and the effects of unions, unemployment, wage inflation and the inequality of pay. Throughout the book, emphasis is placed on the economic theory of the labour market and the role of empirical work in testing its predictions, and wherever available, evidence from studies of the UK labour markets is cited.

The papers in this volume present an excellent sampling of the best of current research in labor economics, combining the most sophisticated theory and econometric methods with high-quality data on a variety of problems. Originally presented at a Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research conference on labor markets in 1978, and not published elsewhere, the thirteen papers treat four interrelated themes: labor mobility, job turnover, and life-cycle dynamics; the analysis of unemployment compensation and employment policy; labor market discrimination; and labor market information and investment. The Introduction by Sherwin Rosen provides a thoughtful guide to the contents of the papers and offers suggestions for continuing research.

This volume brings together a massive body of much-needed research information on a problem of crucial importance to labor economists, policy makers, and society in general: unemployment among the young. The thirteen studies detail the ambiguity and inadequacy of our present standard statistics as applied to youth employment, point out the error in many commonly accepted views, and show that many critically important aspects of this problem are not adequately understood. These studies also supply a significant amount of raw data, furnish a platform for further research and theoretical work in labor economics, and direct attention to promising avenues for future programs.