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Studies show that the percentage of female senior managers in large corporations continues to grow slowly. I consider a firm that initially has an entirely male management structure. If this firm suddenly shifts its behavior and begins to hire male and female managers in equal numbers and treats them equally, then the gender composition of the firm's managers will change over time. Using well-established mathematical methods. I derive equations that show how rapidly this change will occur. Using data from previously published studies to establish parameter bounds, I draw random samples for parameter values and use these to investigate how quickly the gender composition of a firm's management structure can change. I find that the gender composition at lower management levels changes quickly, compared to the upper management levels. (JEL J71), 1. INTRODUCTION The glass ceiling that many women face as they attempt to move into top corporate positions has been studied extensively. The 1995 Report of the Glass Ceiling Commission [...] more...

Previous theoretical work examining labor tournaments concluded that an affirmative action program will always reduce the effort supplied by agents, thereby reducing output and profit for the tournament administrator; however, experimental results sometime contradict this conclusion. In the context of a labor tournament I demonstrate that there exists an affirmative action program that induces both types of agents to provide greater effort. In some instances the effort maximizing affirmative action program will also give both types of agents an equal chance of winning the tournament. Keywords Affirmative action * Tournaments more...

We employ vector autoregressive techniques to determine the current state of the labor queue. Unemployment rate differentials have narrowed in recent years, potentially due to a change in the queue ordering, though a tight labor market and a stable queue would yield similar results. We find no evidence that the queue ordering has changed, which brings into question the resiliency of gains made by minority groups. We employ the same techniques to reveal the state of the queue across geographic regions and find that substantial differences exist across regions, implying variation in the relative labor force status of demographic groups., I. Introduction Much has been written on the unemployment rate gaps among demographic groups and their potential underlying causes, such as discrimination and differences in human capital. Clearly some groups [...] more...

I. Introduction Over the past decade, state governments have begun to acknowledge an implicit relationship between states in the tax-setting process. The recent taxation literature suggests that differences in tax [...] more...

Majority-in-unit (MIU) and method of majority decision (MMD) voting rules are investigated to determine their impact on the outcome of union elections. A theoretical foundation is established to explain why voters may rationally chose not to vote in these settings. Numerical simulations are employed to compute the probability that the population majority wins the election. The results for these two methods are compared to see which one is most likely to ward the election to the true population majority. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.) more...

JAMES R. FAIN [*] If employers have different Becker-type discrimination coefficients for different demographic groups, then the implementation of affirmative action may have a differential impact on those groups. We [...] more...

Using simulation methods I explore some of the properties of the new economic geography model using a complex landscape. I introduce landscape complexity by allowing the existence of limited pathways that can be traversed at a lower cost than most other paths. I also introduce a river that may be crossed at limited points and may be used to transport goods. I find that adding complexity substantially alters how many cities form and where they form. Compared with a simple landscape, complex landscapes produce a distribution of city sizes that more closely resemble the actual distribution of city sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...