JENNIFER SCHULTZ, University of Minnesota - Duluth
Email: JENNIFER.S.SCHULTZ-2@TC.UMN.EDU
DAVID J. DOORN, University of Minnesota - Duluth
Email: ddoorn@d.umn.edu

The link between rising employer costs for health insurance benefits and demand for part-time workers is investigated using non-public data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey- Insurance Component (MEPS-IC). The MEPS-IC is a nationally representative, annual establishment survey from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Pooling the establishment level data from the MEPS-IC from 1996-2004 and matching with the Longitudinal Business Database and supplemental economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a reduced form model of the percent of total FTE employees working part-time is estimated. This is modeled as a function of the employer health insurance contribution, establishment characteristics, and state-level economic indicators. To account for potential endogeneity, health insurance expenditures are estimated using instrumental variables (IVs). The unit of analysis is establishments that offer health insurance to full-time employees but not part time employees. Conditional on establishments offering health insurance to full-time employees, a 1 percent increase in employer health insurance contributions results in a 3.7 percent increase in part-time employees working at establishments in the U.S.

STEVEN NYCE, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Email: steven.nyce@watsonwyatt.com
SYLVESTER J. SCHIEBER, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Email: SYL_SCHIEBER@WATSONWYATT.COM

In summer 2009, health care reform seems almost within reach. President Barack Obama is urging the Congress to pass bills, and both the House and Senate are trying to deliver. Everyone agrees on the necessity of reform, but that’s where the agreement ends. Most of the ongoing discussions about who should pay for health care legislation have proposed employer coverage mandates, limitations on health benefit tax preferences, taxation of health insurers and 'play-or-pay' provisions, all of which would distribute the costs of expanded coverage among employers and, through them, to their workers in the form of slower wage growth. An important - but often overlooked - point in these discussions is that health costs paid by employers are part of the compensation paid to workers. Compensation includes wages, employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare, the cost of any health insurance coverage for workers and their dependents, and contributions to any pension plans, 401(k) plans and other capital accumulation programs. While many of the proposals for health reform are looking to employers to fund much of the cost, there has been little focus on the links among wages, compensation and the cost of employer-sponsored health and retirement benefits. No one has talked much about how higher health benefit costs to employers would affect the paychecks workers bring home. The analysis in this report projects five scenarios that illustrate the importance of controlling health costs. In our baseline scenario, we manage to cut health benefit cost inflation rates roughly in half and do not expand health insurance coverage. In that scenario, wage growth rates are projected to be roughly equivalent to those of the 1990s for the next couple of decades. Under an assumption that we control health cost inflation but expand coverage by means of an employer play-or-pay mandate, the effect on wage growth patterns would be negative at the bottom of the earnings distribution and mildly negative in the middle of the earnings distribution for a while. But after 2015, wage growth rates would return to the healthier levels of the 1990s. Bringing health costs under control allows more resources for expanded coverage. If we expanded health insurance coverage but our current health cost inflation rate continued unabated, the higher overall costs would result in falling wages at the bottom of the earnings spectrum and very slow wage growth on up the earnings distribution. These dismal wage outcomes would persist over at least the next couple of decades, possibly longer. The next scenario considers the real possibility that health inflation increases as a result of expanded insurance coverage offered under reform. Looking back at the implementation of Medicare, this is exactly what happened. This scenario combines expanded health care coverage with accelerated health inflation rates. In this case, the higher costs would drive disposable wages downward across most of the earnings spectrum, although the declines would be steepest for lower-earning workers. These depressed conditions would persist over the entire projection period. Fixing what is broken in our health care system is about more than expanding health insurance coverage or deciding whether taxing employer-sponsored health benefits is good or bad policy. No matter how health care reform is financed - whether by employers, who pass the costs on to workers, or taxpayers - the bill will be unaffordable unless costs are brought under control. Our current health care system is embedded with incentives that encourage providers to dispense an ever-expanding menu of treatments and medications, even where there is little evidence of their efficacy. Our health care system already costs 40 percent to 100 percent more than its counterparts in other developed countries and is growing twice as fast.

MARC STEFFEN RAPP, Technische Universität München - Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies
Email: mail@m-s-rapp.de
PHILIPP SCHALLER, Technische Universität München - Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies
Email: philipp.schaller@cefs.de
MICHAEL WOLFF, University of Karlsruhe (TH)
Email: wolff@ibu.uni-karlsruhe.de

We examine performance implications of stock-based incentive programs. While agency theory makes a strong case for stock-based incentives, empirical evidence of the effect on firm performance so far is mixed. Using a novel hand-collected data-set of German Prime Standard firms, we also find that on average stock-based long-term incentives do not improve firm performance. However, when we take a closer look at the design of the incentive structures, we find that ill-designed programs go along with poor post performance, while ambitious programs boosts firm performance. We confirm these findings by using different performance measures, addressing endogenity concerns, and controlling for various governance mechanisms like ownership and board structures, as well as other design dimensions of the stock-based incentive plans.

DR.P PALANIVELU, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: palanivelu_ku@yahoo.com
ESWARI MUTHUSAMY, Dr NGP Arts and Science College

In this paper an attempt has been made to identify the factors that influence the job satisfaction by the women nurses in Coimbatore city. For this purpose a field survey method was employed to collect first hand information from 500 sample respondents. The respondents have been chosen randomly from the different parts of the study area. The data thus collected were arranged into simple tabular form. The level of satisfaction perceived by the selected sample respondents in their job is considered as the dependent variable. The Independent variables selected for the study are Age, Nativity, Educational qualification, and Family members, Nature of family, Monthly income, Staying Place, Marital Status, Working Experience and Working environment. The data were analyzed by using simple statistical tools like Percentage, Average, Range, Standard Deviation, Two-way tables and Chi-Square test.

CHARLES BELLEMARE, University of Laval - Département d'Économique, Centre interuniversitaire sur le risque, les politiques économiques et l'emploi (CIRPÉE), Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Email: Charles.Bellemare@ecn.ulaval.ca
BRUCE SHEARER, University of Laval - Département d'Économique, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Email: BRUCE.SHEARER@ECN.ULAVAL.CA

We investigate the economic relevance and the composition of gifts within a firm where output is contractible. We develop a structural econometric model that identifies workers’ optimal reaction to monetary gifts received from their employer. We estimate the model using data from two separate field experiments, both conducted within a tree-planting firm. We use the estimated structural parameters to generalize beyond the experiment, simulating how workers would react to different gifts on the part of the firm, within different labour-market settings. We find that gifts have a role to play within this firm, increasing in importance when the workers’ outside alternatives deteriorate. Profit-maximizing gifts would increase profits within slack labour markets by up to 10% on average and by up to 17% for certain types of workers. These gifts represent significant increases in worker earnings; the average gift paid to workers attains 22% of average expected earnings in the absence of gifts. We find that gifts should be given by setting piece-rates above the market-clearing level rather than through fixed wages.

KIMBERLY CARLSON, Center for Public Policy and Administration
Email: kimbaker97@vt.edu

As the baby boomers begin to retire, organizations in all sectors are shifting their attention to succession planning to meet this impending demand for employees. Decisions regarding the type of employee training and development found in succession plans often times are based on the human resource managers’ beliefs regarding emerging personnel. The beliefs that we hold act as a foundation on which we base our daily decisions. Anderson and Page (1995) state that we are surrounded by information and stories that help us make sense of our lives. These stories 'serve as invisible frames for the way [we] think about [our] practice and the actions [we] take' (Anderson & Page, 1995, p. 125). As such, administrators, including human resource managers, make policy decisions based on their belief sets; what they believe to be true informs the type of policies and programs they develop.

Working from a constructivist viewpoint, this research focuses on those beliefs and stories that have become reality for human resources managers. Reinhardt (2004) says that 'metanarratives act as foundational stories that try to legitimate discourses and lock society in restrictive systems of thought; (p. 24). These beliefs, or meta-narratives, are so prevalent in the U.S. culture that they can inform decision making even if the HR manager does not consciously recognize them. If the metanarratives that constitute our knowledge base have become invisible frames that legitimate our practices and discourses, then it follows that a major thrust of administrator preparation should serve to bring these metanarratives to the surface for analysis. By acknowledging these stories, we begin to understand how human resource managers have developed their programming. This understanding can then be used for developing future programming needs for younger generations, a more pragmatic application of this study.

This paper explores the existing metanarratives about younger age cohorts, in particular 'Generations X and Y' (those born between 1965 and 1997), to shed light on the type of stories that are being propagated. There is a long list of popular books and literature in which the authors seek to set the record straight about the myths of the generations, to detail what managers can expect from these generations, and to offer advice for how managers can work within these expectations while also getting the most from their employees. While literature such as this is enlightening, it may perpetuate the stereotypes of generations X and Y, reinforcing the human resource managers’ beliefs about how to work with younger administrators. The goal of this paper is to begin a conversation among administrators to acknowledge the influence of beliefs within the planning for future employment needs. Although many agree that they need to develop new succession planning practices for future generations, there is currently limited scholarly literature related to the knowledge base and stories that inform those practices. If one is conscious of these thought processes, then one can make better informed decisions, especially if the most appropriate decision to be made for the organization goes against one’s own personal beliefs.