<p> The first chapter of my thesis explores monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with Markov-switching risk aversion. The second considers the implications for the macroeconomic and financial properties of an RBC model of the presence of habit formation. The third examines the result of adding the ``Tobin constraint" that shares equal the capital stock to a benchmark RBC mdoel. The underlying theme of these endeavors is rendering macroeconomic models more realistic via the introduction of time-varying preferences, non-linear modelling, and financial frictions.</p>

This study examined the multi-level decision making process of the Vocational Rehabilitation Program. The results of these decisions became the basis of a linear probability model to determine expenditures and earnings of clients who completed the vocational rehabilitation program. A further objective was to incorporate into the model a detailed analysis of a specific disability and type of service received. Visual impairment was chosen as the disability and training as the service. Data for the model were provided by the Division of Blind Services, State of Florida for the 1981 fiscal year. / The model consisted of sex equations, two estimated expenditures and four estimated earnings. The explanatory variables chosen were based on three general categories, demographic characteristics, degree of visual acuity and type of post-secondary training. Ordinary least squares regression procedures were utilized to test the model. The results indicated that the explanatory power of the model was stronger for expenditures than for earnings. In comparing the three general categories it was observed that visual acuity and types of training were significant for estimating expenditures, but not for earnings. The demographic characteristics had the reverse situation in which earnings were significant but not expenditures. / Having developed the model it was then possible to estimate social and private returns for several subgroups at various discount rates. The results indicated favorable returns for informal training but not for formal, and favorable returns to the partially and legally blind but not the totally blind. The unfavorable returns were attributed to higher expenditures. The results indicated only monetary returns while the decision of the Division of Blind Services to invest in training may be based on other criteria. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-12, Section: A, page: 3764. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

This research explored the extent to which industrial and occupational labor market segments, labor market institutions, and human capital accumulation impact on a worker's labor market and retirement income. Using data from the older men's cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Work Experience and a path analytic estimation procedure, results supported the hypothesis that labor market segments and labor market institutions exert a powerful impact on labor market earnings and that these influences extend into retirement. Labor market segments exert a more powerful impact on earnings than human capital variables as well as dictate the return on human capital investments while a worker is in the labor market. Labor market segments continue their impact on income once a worker withdraws from the labor force by influencing both the level and source of retirement income. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, Section: A, page: 0827. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The unemployment rate is a key economic indicator but comparing unemployment rates of today to unemployment rates of the past does not give a completely accurate picture of economic performance. One reason is that demographic changes in the labor force can affect the overall unemployent rate. This study examines changes in the demographic composition of the labor force and estimates how demographic factors have affected the unemployment rate from 1950 to 1980. This estimation allows the actual unemployment rate to be corrected for demographic influences. / Using micro census data of population and housing from the four census years 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980 and ordinary least squares analysis the unemployment rate was estimated to have increased from 0.419 to 0.552 percentage points as a result of the changing demographic composition of the labor force. The independent variables used to explain the changes in the natural rate were sex, race, marital status, age, classification of worker, presence of a spouse also in the labor force, and veteran status. / Also estimated was the impact on the natural rate of unemployment from an influx of workers into the labor force over time. That impact was estimated to have increased the unemployment rate by 0.766 percentage points from 1950 to 1980. Those two factors caused the unemployment rate to be 1.185 to 1.318 percentage points higher in 1980 than in 1950. / The dissertation also analyzed the unemployment probabilities of individual subgroups of the economy to see how those probabilities differ. Logit analysis was used on micro census data but for subsamples of whites only and blacks only. It was found that blacks were almost twice as likely to be unemployed than whites for each of the four census years, ceteris paribus. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: A, page: 2688. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

This investigation provided answers to three questions concerning the relative earnings position and progress of black Americans. The first two questions concerned the source and structure of changes in the relative earnings position of black males during the 1960's and 1970's, while the third question addressed the symmetry of that progress between intact and non-intact black families. The aggregate and separate earnings function approach was employed for determining the relative earnings position of males 18 and older, and the two age cohorts 25-34 in 1959 and 1969. In addition, the relative earnings position was ascertained by education cell for males 18 and older, the 25-34 age cohort in 1959, and males 25-34 years old in 1959, 1969 and 1979. The 1960, 1970 and 1980 U.S. Census of Population, One-in-a-Thousand Public Use Samples served as the data base. / The empirical results substantiated positive and significant progress in relative earnings for black males during the 1960's and 1970's through declines in labor market discrimination. The major source of that progress stemmed from the exit of the older victims of discrimination and the entrance of younger black workers, who were both better prepared and faced lower levels of discrimination. However, these promising gains were offset by a decline in the relative distribution of productivity characteristics during the 1970's. / The hypothesis that black married-couple families would achieve a higher relative earnings position than their black all-male counterpart was also tested. This higher relative earnings position was especially pronounced for the intact black family in the two upper educational cells that worked forty or more weeks a year. The higher relative earnings position achieved by black married-couple family was partially explained by the fact that the black wife made a greater contribution to family earnings than the white wife. The evidence also indicated that the disintegration of the black family is one of the factors hindering the relative earnings progress of all black males. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: A, page: 2687. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

This study presents a critique of the social science literature that takes race- and/or sex-based "occupational segregation" as its object of analysis. First, by taking the segregation metaphor as problematic, this study moves beyond "occupational segregation" conceptually by reunifying the inalienable characteristics of race and sex, and by seeing the occupational outcomes of labor power allocation practices as distributional, not segregating. Second, through a sociological deconstruction of existing theories of race- and/or sex-based "occupational segregation," it moves beyond "occupation segregation" theoretically by displacing the conception of writings about "occupational segregation" as theories, to one of ideologies that advocate, legitimate, and authorize specific forms of labor power allocation practices. Finally, I empirically reconstruct labor power allocation practices that have existed and continue to exist in the post-War United States, and demonstrate that, depending where you look, all theories of "occupational segregation" find empirical support in terms of their expected distributional effects. This reconstruction moves beyond "occupational segregation" empirically by displacing the notion of theories of occupational segregation as competing general truth claims, to one that sees them as historically-specific ideological contenders that become actualized in practice through struggle in the political arena. / My work also contains a critique of the form of social practice known as "social science." The provisional alternative form of practice that I begin to work out in this study--in and through my critique and displacement of "occupational segregation"--attempts to avoid the empiricism, forms of reductionism, ahistoricism, passive atomistic view of human action, and view of the social as the aggregation of these atomistic individuals that together plague and fetter the practice known as "social science." / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-03, Section: A, page: 0715. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

As married women have entered market work in increasing numbers, fundamental questions have been raised regarding the effects of the wife's employment on the family and on the family's economic well-being. The entry of the wife into market work increases the family's money income. It is possible, however, that the increase in money income may overstate the associated increment to the family's economic well-being. When the wife takes a market job, her hours of non-market production decline. Some of the goods and services she produced may be purchased in the market in lieu of home production. Other goods and services, however, may not easily be replaced with market purchases. / Four variables were examined to determine if significant differences existed between families where the wife was a homemaker and families where the wife was employed in the market: the monetary value of the family home, the husband's money income, the hours worked by the husband in the market, and the educational attainments of the children as measured by years of completed schooling. / The analysis indicated that when family income and other factors were held constant, the family of the homemaker wife had a home that was more valuable than the home of a family where the wife was employed in the market. Further, the husband whose wife remained at home had a higher income than the husband whose wife was employed in the market when other factors influencing husband's income were held constant. The results did not indicate any significant differences between the hours worked by the husbands of homemakers and the hours worked by husbands whose wives were employed in the market. Similarly, the years of schooling completed by the children did not seem to be affected by the labor force status of the mother. / Implications of these findings regarding the value of the homemaker's non-market economic contributions were discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 3995. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

This study was concerned with the assessment of Saudi youth attitudes towards manual labor, private jobs versus government jobs, work motive, mobility of work, work in rural areas over urban areas, work with stranger employers over relative employers, economic incentive, performance incentive and vocational work. Also, the study analyzed the impact of socio-economic factors (education, region of origin--urban versus rural, socio-economic status and information exposure) on Saudi youth work attitudes. In addition, the study discussed the effects of Saudi youth work attitudes on the process of economic development. / Procedure. A survey consisting of 121 items was developed for the study. A sample of 600 Saudi youth was selected randomly from the student enrollment lists of academic and vocational schools, and illiterate youth were chosen randomly from the dwelling units of each district in each chosen city or village. The sample was distributed equally as 200 from academic students, 200 from vocational students and 200 illiterates. Fifty percent of the sample was selected from urban areas and 50 percent from rural areas. / The SPSS Factor analysis (OBLIQUE PA/2 Procedure) was utilized to ascertain the fit between the conceptual clustering of the work attitudes items and the clustering of the responses patterns. Also, the SPSS cross-tabulation analysis (Gamma and R tests) was used to test the analytical hypotheses. / Findings. In relation to Saudi youth attitudes, the analysis of data revealed that the majority of Saudi youth have low acceptability to manual labor, private jobs, mobility of work, economic incentive, preference of stranger over relative employer, preference of rural over urban work, performance incentive and vocational work. With respect to the impact of socio-economic factors (education, region of origin--urban versus rural, socio-economic status, and information exposure) on Saudi youth work attitudes, the results of the analysis indicated that education and socio-economic status have relatively significant impact, but practically the relationships range from weak to moderate. The results also indicated that the region of origin and information exposure have no significant impact directly on Saudi youth work attitudes. / Conclusions. The study revealed that Saudi Arabia fits to a great extent the rentier state model, where its peoples have modern consumption attitudes and behaviors, but still they have traditional production attitudes and behaviors. Also, the study points out that the economic mobilization in Saudi Arabia does not contribute effectively in developing the human resources towards the ends of national development. / Recommendations. The findings of this study demand a new look at development policies in Saudi Arabia in order to involve the national human resources in the development process in a more effective and efficient pattern. (1) As a point of strategy in approaching development of Saudi youth attitudes, special consideration should be given to all different types of education by reshaping the content and objectives of education for promoting positive work attitudes and skills. (2) The mass media should play an important role in promoting the dignity of manual labor and vocational occupations by utilizing the Islamic work teachings to stimulate Saudi youth to involve in these areas. (3) An extensive public relations program should be initiated to promote the image of vocational education among Saudi youth. (4) Saudi youth should be directed to work in the private sector and the development projects, and employment in government agencies should be controlled. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-11, Section: A, page: 4791. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

This study provides a theoretical framework for multilevel analysis of migration decision-making based on the human capital theory. The main contention of the study is that individuals behave with respect to migration as if they were making a rational calculus of lifetime earnings. Earnings are determined by personal characteristics and macrolevel factors. The multilevel determination of lifetime earnings calls for a multilevel analysis of migration decision-making. The human capital-contextual model is more general than single-level micro models in that no a priori restrictions of 0 coefficients on macrolevel factors are imposed and in that it can incorporate subsequent migration which takes place long after the initial move. / The model was tested using 1980 census data on Puerto Rican return and nonreturn migrants. The empirical analysis supported the following hypotheses: macrolevel factors are important determinants of migration at the microlevel; individuals reevaluate the migration decision each time a change in macrolevel factors occurs; long-term return migrants base their migration decision on more accurate information than short-term return migrants; the "failure prototype" does not accurately characterize long-term return migrants; and migrants who encounter more favorable macrolevel factors at the destination are more likely to have longer duration of residence at the initial location. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-12, Section: A, page: 3825. / Major Professor: Joan Gustafson Haworth. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This dissertation contains two essays. The first essay conducts three empirical tests of the training/turnover theory of deferred compensation, which attempts to explain why wages rise with job tenure in the firm, all else held constant. The first test is generated from a theoretical model which predicts that the returns to job tenure should be lower in jobs in which the risk of permanent layoff is larger. The second test is direct: job tenure is related to the (predicted) degree of wage tilt in the worker's job. The final test examines whether the returns to tenure have increased over 1979-1993, a period in which the returns to skill (training), measured by formal schooling, have increased. The evidence is supportive of the theory in the first and third empirical tests, and contradicts the theory in the second empirical test. / The second essay examines the relative cyclicality of union and nonunion wages and employment over the business cycle, using a large panel data set culled from the Current Population Survey. The evidence indicates that real wages in the union sector are not responsive to cyclical shifts in labor demand (proxied by the unemployment rate), while nonunion wages are procyclical. On the other hand, union real wages are more sensitive to price shocks than nonunion wages are, in the short run. Union hours (employment) are more responsive to both price shocks and real shocks than nonunion hours are, which is consistent with the evidence for wages. This evidence is consistent with a greater degree of nominal or implicit wage contracting in the union sector. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-03, Section: A, page: 1067. / Major Professor: Barry T. Hirsch. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.