This volume, the fourth to result from a remarkably productive collaboration between the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Japan Center for Economic Research, presents a selection of thirteen high-caliber papers addressing issues in the employment practices, labor markets, and health, benefit, and pension policies of the United States and Japan.

After an opening chapter assessing the recent ascendance of the U.S. economy, papers diverge to tackle a range of specific issues. Focusing less on international comparison than on the assembly of high-quality research, contributors hone in on a variety of individual topics. Chapters delve into issues of youth employment, participatory employment, information sharing, fringe benefits, and drug coverage in Japan, as well as the dynamics of medical savings accounts, private insurance coverage, and benefit options in the U.S.

Like previous volumes stemming from NBER/JCER collaboration, this book represents a valuable mass of empirical data on some of the most notable employment and benefits issues in each nation, information that will both anchor and provoke scholarly analysis of these topics well into the future.

Measuring costs of labor as a portion of total production costs has never before been treated so thoroughly or so thoughtfully. Moreover, contrary to most recent labor research, this book focuses on the demand side—the employer's point of view—and the behavior studied is employer behavior.

An introductory essay by the editor provides a useful guide to current thought in the analysis of labor cost. Other papers give new insights into problems encountered in accounting for the nonwage elements of labor compensation, the effect of pensions and other benefits, and the wage-measurement questions raised by incomes policies. In addition, there is a wealth of valuable new data on labor costs in the United States.

Labor economists, statisticians, econometric modelers, and advisers to government and industry will welcome this up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of the costs of production.