Peter Philips
  • Professor, Economics Department

Publications

  • Peter Philips & Emma Waitzman (2021). Do Project Labor Agreements Reduce the Number of Bidders on Public Projects? The Case of Community Colleges in California. Public Wroks Management and Policy. Vol. Vol 26, Issue 4, 2021. Published, 09/03/2021.
    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1087...
  • Li, Zhi & Zhi Li1, Chimedlkham Zorigtbaatar, Gabriel Pleités, Ari Fenn, and Peter Philips (2018). The Effect of Prevailing Wage Law Repeals and Enactments on Injuries and Disabilities in the Construction Industry . Public Works Management & Policy. Vol. Volume 24, Issue 4, 1– 17. Published, 09/07/2018.
    https://doi.org/10.1177/1087724X18822600
  • Ari Fenn & Gabriel Pleites, Zhi Li, Chimedlkham Zorigtbaatar, Peter Philips (2018). The Effect of Prevailing Wage Repeals on Construction Income and Benefits . Public Works Management & Policy. Vol. Volume 23, Issue 4, 346-364. Published, 02/20/2018.
    http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/sgIxf3kPpB22jER...
  • Emma Waitzman & Peter Philips (2017). Project Labor Agreements and Bidding Outcomes: The Case of Community College Construction in California . University of California. Published, 01/09/2017.
  • Betony Jones, Peter Philips & Carol Zabin (2016). The Link Between Good Jobs and a Low Carbon Future. University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center. Published, 01/12/2016.
  • Betony Jones, Peter Philips, and Carol Zabin, Job Impacts of California’s Existing and Proposed Renewables Portfolio Standard, University of California, Berkeley, Donald Vial Center on Employment in the Green Economy, August 28, 2015. Published, 08/28/2015.
    http://irle.berkeley.edu/vial/publications/job-imp...
  • Peter Philips, Environmental and Economic Benefits of Building Solar in California, Don Vial Center on Employment and the Green Economy, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley, 2014. Published, 11/10/2014.
    http://irle.berkeley.edu/vial/publications/buildin...
  • Kevin Duncan, Peter Philips and Mark Prus,"Prevailing Wage Regulations and School Construction Costs: Cumulative Evidence from British Columbia," Industrial Relations, Vol. 53, No. 4 (October 2014). Published, 10/30/2014.
  • JaeWhan Kim and Peter Philips, "Remuneration and absenteeism on a large construction site," Construction Management and Economics, October, 2014 Vol. 32, No. 10, 983–999. Published, 10/06/2014.
  • JaeWhan Kim, Kuo-Liang Chang and Peter Philips, "The Effect of Prevailing Wage Regulations on Contractor Bid Participation and Behavior: A Comparison of Palo Alto, California with Four Nearby Prevailing Wage Municipalities" Industrial Relations, Vol. 51, Issue 4, pp. 874-891, October, 2012. Published, 10/01/2012.
    http://constructionacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/...
  • Kevin Duncan, Peter Philips and Mark Prus, "Using Stochastic Frontier Regression to Estimate the Construction Cost Inefficiency of Prevailing Wage Laws," Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 19 Iss: 3, pp.320 - 334. Published, 05/02/2012.
    http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?article...
  • Sheng Li and Peter Philips, "Construction Procurement Auctions: Do Entrant Bidders Employ More Aggressive Strategies than Incumbent Bidders?," Review of Industrial Organization Volume 40, Number 3, 191-205,. Published, 04/06/2012.
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/am7876807r1197...
  • JaeWhan Kim and Peter Philips, "Socio-Economic Factors Influencing the Failure to Measure the Blood Pressure of Children During Routine Clinical Examinations." Journal of Clinical Hypertension. Published, 08/04/2011.
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-...
  • JaeWhan Kim and Peter Philips, "Determinants of quits and dismissals on a long-lasting, unionized, industrial construction project." Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 138(5), 661–669. Published, 07/25/2011.
    http://ascelibrary.org/coo/resource/1/jcemxx/v1/i1...
  • Kim, Jaewhan and Philips, Peter, "Effect of Multiemployer Collective Bargaining on Employer-Provided Health Insurance in the Construction Industry," Journal of Labor Research. Published, 07/12/2010.
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/0747364537q84g...
  • Kim, Jaewhan and Philips, Peter, "Health Insurance and Worker Retention in the Construction Industry," Journal of Labor Research, 2010, Volume 31, Number 1, 20-38. Published, 02/24/2010.
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/60656065515x84...
  • “Opportunity Out of Crisis,” Forward to Jackie Cornejo, et al., Building Opportunity, Investing in Our Future through a Port Construction Careers Policy, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, June, 2009. Published, 06/01/2009.
    http://www.laane.org/whats-new/2009/09/14/building...
  • Duncan, Kevin, Philips, Peter and Prus, Mark, “The Effects of Prevailing Wage Regulations on Construction Efficiency in British Columbia,” International Journal of Construction Education and Research, 1550-3984, Volume 5, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 63 – 78. Published, 12/01/2009.
    http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a...
  • Construction Careers for Our Communities, UCLA Labor Center, 2009. Published, 01/01/2009.
    http://constructionacademy.org/wordpress/wp-conten...
  • Li, Sheng and Peter Philips, “Analysis of the Impacts of the Number of Bidders upon Bid Values: Implications for Contractor Prequalification and Project Timing & Bundling," Journal of Public Works Management & Policy, Vol. 12, No. 3, 503-514 (2008) . Published, 12/01/2008.
    http://pwm.sagepub.com/content/12/3/503.abstract
  • Sinclair, Cory and Philips, Peter, “The NBA in Black and White: Changing Fan Reaction to the Presence of Blacks in Profession Basketball—1951 to 1997,” Labor and Employment Relations Series, Annual Research Volume, Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting, 2008. Published, 12/01/2008.
  • Construction Research at NIOSH: Reviews of Research Programs of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2008 (16 co-authors). Published, 12/01/2008.
    http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12530&pa...
  • Prevailing Wage Laws, Productivity and Construction Efficiency?” (Kevin Duncan, Peter Philips, and Mark Prus) CME25 Conference. Proceedings of the Inaugural Construction Management and Economics, “Past, Present, and Future.” Edited by Will Hughes. First Published 2008, pp 1411-1418. ISBN 978-0-415-46059-0 (3 vols). Published, 2008.
  • Project Labor Agreements, with Dale Belman, Matthew M. Bodah, Electri International (2007). Published, 01/01/2007.
  • “Construction Unions in the Midwest,” (with Mark Price) in The American Midwest: an interpretive encyclopedia, Richard Sisson, Christian K. Zacher, Andrew Robert Lee Cayton, eds., Indiana University Press, 2007,. Published, 01/2007.
  • Prevailing Wage Legislation and Public School Construction Efficiency: a Stochastic Frontier Approach,” (with Kevin Duncan and Mark Prus) Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 24 (June 2006) pp. 625-634. Published, 2006.
    http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~co...
  • LESSONS FOR POST-KATRINA RECONSTRUCTION: A high-road vs. low-road recovery, Economic Policy Institute,. Published, 10/2005.
    http://www.epi.org/page/-/old/briefingpapers/166/b...
  • The Economics of Prevailing Wage Laws, co-edited with Hamid Azari-Rad and Mark Prus, Ashgate Publishers, Burlington, VT, 2005, 262 pp. index. Published, 2005.
    http://books.google.com/books?id=_kQMRA9xxLoC&prin...
  • Building for the Rich, Broadcasting to the Poor: How the N.B.A. Responded to a Changing Economy,” Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Sports Economics, Panhellenic Association of Sports Economics and Managers (2004), with Cory Sinclair. Published, 2004.
  • Fatal Injuries to Teenage Construction Workers in the U.S., (with Anthony Suruda, Dean Lillquist and Richard Sesek), American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Volume 44, Issue 5 (November 2003) pp. 510-14. Published, 2003.
    http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15266...
  • Organizational Change and Workers' Safety in the Construction Industry: The Case of Articulated Subcontracting and Extended Division of Labor, (with Hamid Azari and Wendine Thompson-Dawson), Industrial Relations Research Association Series, Annual Research Volume, Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting, Adrienne E. Eaton, ed., 2003, pp. 240-47. Published, 2003.
  • State Prevailing Wage Laws and School Construction Costs,” (with Hamid Azari-Rad and Mark Prus), Industrial Relations, Vol. 42, No. 3, July 2003, pp. 445-457. Published, 07/2003.
  • Race and Prevailing Wage Laws in Construction Industry, Comment on Thieblot,” (with Hamid Azari-Rad) Journal of Labor Research, Vol. XXIV No. 1, Winter 2003, pp161-168. Published, 2003.
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/3f8y5qrr8qmcaj...
  • Introduction, co-authored with Gerhard Bosch, in Building Chaos: An International Comparison of the Effects of Deregulation on the Construction, (co-edited with Gerhard Bosch) Routledge Press, London, 2003, pp. 2-23. Published, 2003.
    http://books.google.com/books?id=0Z87Zcfy45gC&pg=P...
  • A Tale of Two Cities: the High and Low Road to the Development of the US Construction Industry,” chapter 8 in Building Chaos: An International Comparison of the Effects of Deregulation on the Construction, (co-edited with Gerhard Bosch) Routledge Press, London, 2003, pp. 161-187. Published, 2003.
    http://books.google.com/books?id=0Z87Zcfy45gC&pg=P...
  • Samuel Gompers, (with Cory Sinclair) in Joel Moykr, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Oxford University Press, (2003). Published, 2003.
    http://www.oup.com/us/pdf/economic.history/contrib...
  • Building Chaos: An International Comparison of the Effects of Deregulation on the Construction, (co-edited with Gerhard Bosch) Routledge Press, London, 2003, 240pp. index. Published, 01/2003.
  • Building Chaos: An International Comparison of the Effects of Deregulation on the Construction, (co-edited with Gerhard Bosch) Routledge Press, London, 2003, 240pp. index. Published, 2003.
    http://books.google.com/books?id=0Z87Zcfy45gC&pg=P...
  • “Samuel Gompers,” (with Cory Sinclair) in Joel Moykr, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Oxford University Press, (2003). Published, 01/2003.
  • Impact of the OSHA Trench and Excavation Standard on Fatal Injury in the Construction Industry, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 44, No. 10, October 2002, pp. 902-905 with (Anthony Suruda, Brad Thomas Whitaker, Donald Bloswitz and Richard Sesek). Published, 2002.
  • Origin of the Factoid “Prevailing Wage Laws Are Remnant Jim Crow Laws,” Review of Radical Political Economics, (with Hamid Azari-Rad), September 2002, vol. 34, no 3, pp. 275-284. Published, 2002.
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleUR...
  • Azari-Rad, Hamid, Philips, Peter and Prus, Mark, “Making Hay When It Rains—The Effect of Scale Economies, Seasonal and Cyclical Business Patterns, and Prevailing Wage Regulations on School Construction Costs,” Journal of Education Finance, Vol. 27, No. 4, Spring 2002, pp. 997-1012. Published, 04/2002.
  • Prevailing Wage Regulations and School Construction Costs: Evidence from British Columbia, (with Cihan Bilginsoy) Journal of Education Finance, Winter 2000, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 415-432. Published, 03/2000.
    http://www.prevailingwage.org/documents/PWBCfincos...
  • "A Step in the Right Direction Friedman's New Estimates of Union Membership: The United States, 1880-1912," Historical Methods, A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Volume 32, Number 2, Spring 1999, pp. 87-92. Published, 06/1999.
  • "Review of Manufacturing Inequality, Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914-1939” by Laura Lee Downs in the Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XXXV, No. 1, March, 1997. Published, 03/1997.
  • "The Effects of Unionization and State Prevailing Wage Laws on Injuries in Construction, 1976 to 1991" (with Norman Waitzman) Abstracts of the American Public Health Association, 124th Annual Meeting, November 17-21, 1996, New York City, entitled: Empowering the Disadvantaged, Social Justice in Public Health, p. 407. Published, 06/1996.
  • "Women, Technology and the Gender Division of Labor in Manufacturing,” Research in Economic History Vol. 16, 1996 (co-authored with Jens Christiansen and Mark Prus) pp. 103-126. Published, 06/1996.
  • "Construction Safety Put at Risk", New Solutions, A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Fall 1995) pp. 77-83. (with Norman Waitzman). Published, 09/1995.
  • Portable Pensions for Casual Labor Markets: Lessons from the Operating Engineers Central Pension Fund, Quorum Books, 1995 (co-authored with Teresa Ghilarducci, Garth Mangum and Jeff Petersen). Published, 01/1995.
  • "The Effect of the Repeal of Utah's Prevailing Wage Law on the Construction Labor Market" (co-authored with Hamid Azari-Rad and Anne Yeagle) in Sheldon Friedman, Richard Hurd, Ronald L.Seeber and Rudy Oswald, eds. Restoring the Promise of American Labor Law, Cornell University ILR Press, 1994, pp. 207-21. Published, 01/1994.
  • "The Decline of Child Labor in the U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Canning Industry", Business History Review Winter 1992 Vol. 66 pp. 723-770 (co-authored with Martin Brown and Jens Christiansen). Published, 03/1992.
  • "The Transition from Outwork to Factory Production in the Lynn Boot and Shoe Industry, 1850 to 1880," (co-authored with Jens Christiansen) in Sanford Jacoby, ed., Masters to Managers: Historical and Comparative Perspectives on American Employers, 1850 to 1950, Columbia University Press, 1991, pp 21-42. Published, 01/1991.
  • "Small and Large Firms and the Gender Gap in Manufacturing Wages, "(co-authored with Susan Carter) in Katherine Abraham, ed. New Directions in Labor Markets and Industrial Relations, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1991, pp. 213-238. Published, 01/1991.
  • "The Effect of Immigration Law on Industrial Structure and Collective Bargaining in the California Food Processing Industry", Review of Radical Political Economics Winter, 1990 (co-authored with Bill Segal). Published, 03/1990.
  • "Review of The Economic Pursuit of Quality” by Thomas Michael Power in the Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XXVII No. 3, September 1989. Published, 09/1989.
  • "Review of Canning Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950” by Vicki Ruiz, in the Journal of Economic History, March 1989. Published, 03/1989.
  • "Review of Canning Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950” by Vicki Ruiz in Business History Review March 1989. Published, 03/1989.
  • "Doubts Regarding the Human Capital Theory of Racial Inequality," Industrial Relations, Spring, 1988 pp.251-62 (co-authored with David Kiefer). Published, 05/1988.
  • Three Worlds of Labor Economics, (co-edited with Garth Mangum), M.E. Sharpe, N.Y., 1988, ISBN 0-87332-455-2 and 0-87332-456-0 (pbk), 357p. Published, 01/1988.
  • "Review of American Workers, American Unions, 1920-1965” by Robert H. Zeiger in the Journal of Economic History, December, 1987. Published, 12/1987.
  • "Technological Innovation and Payment Systems," Business History Review, Winter 1987 pp. 564-601 (co-authored with Martin Brown). Published, 03/1987.
  • "Competition, Racism and Hiring Practices Among Early California Manufacturers," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, October, 1986 pp. 61-74 (co-authored with Martin Brown). Published, 10/1986.
  • "Craft Labor and Mechanization in Nineteenth Century American Canning," Journal of Economic History, September, 1986, pp. 743-56 (co-authored with Martin Brown). Published, 09/1986.
  • "The Historical Origin of Job Ladders in the U.S. Canning Industry and Their Effects on the Gender Division of Labor," Cambridge Journal of Economics, June, 1986, pp. 129-45 (co-authored with Martin Brown). Published, 06/1986.
  • "Mechanization, Unionization and the Decline of the Piece-Rate System in the California Canneries," Industrial Relations, March, 1986 pp.81-91 (co-authored with Martin Brown). Published, 03/1986.
  • "On the Constancy of the Racial Wage Gap in New Jersey Manufacturing 1901 to 1980," Review of Black Political Economy, Spring 1985, pp. 71-76. Published, 05/1985.
  • "Industrialization, Unionization and the Labor Market Structure in the California Canneries," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April, 1985, pp. 392-407 (co-authored with Martin Brown). Published, 04/1985.
  • "Analytical and Polemical Roots of Human Capital Theory," MidSouth Journal of Economics, Spring 1982. Published, 05/1982.
  • "Gender-Based Wage Differentials in Pennsylvania and New Jersey Manufacturing" Journal of Economic History, May 1982, pp. 181-186. Published, 05/1982.
    http://www.jstor.org/pss/2120515

Research Statement

Philips recent graduate students have done their theses on prevailing wage laws in construction, construction bidding practices, health insurance and labor turnover in construction, and consumer discrimination in professional basketball. Philips is pleased to announce that one of his most recent graduate students, Mark Price, has won honorable mention from the Labor and Employmet Relations Association for his 2006 dissertation on the economic impact or prevailing wage laws.

Philips has also done major work on the safety prequalification of contractors working on refinery and chemical sites and on the economic impact of building and operating pharmaceutical and biotech facilities in California.

Philips is also an experienced forensic economist and has qualified as an expert in the US Court of Claims, Federal Courts in Washington DC and Utah and state courts in Utah, Idaho and California.

Research Keywords

  • project labor agreements
  • prevailing wage laws
  • pensions in the construction industry
  • labor shortages in construction
  • immigrants in construction
  • health insurance in the construction industry
  • economic history of American labor markets
  • construction workplace safety
  • construction labor markets
  • construction bidding practices
  • Hypertension
  • Health Care Economics

Presentations

  • "Prevailing wage research and legislation," Institute of Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley, October 13, 2014. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/13/2014.
  • "The Great Recession: It's Over when It's Over," talk, Western Ice Association, Deer Valley Utah, February 4, 2013. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/05/2013.
  • "Performance and Prospects for Heavy Industrial Construction," keynote address, Western Boilermaker Tripartite Meeting Coure d'Alene, Idaho. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 08/23/2012.
  • "Economic Prospects for Taft Hartley Pension Funds," IUOE Seminar, Oakland California. Presentation, Presented, 08/21/2012.
  • "California's Construction Economy," Northern California Regional Annual IBEW Meeting, keynote address, Roseville California. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 08/18/2012.
  • "Go Faster and It Will Work," International Association of Skateboard Companies Skateboarding Summit, Orange California. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/11/2012.
  • Pray for Snow, Plan for the Economy, Transworld Snow Conference, Sun Valley Idaho. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/14/2012.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd...
  • Testimony before the Utah joint House and Senate business and labor committee on prevailing wage regulations. Presentation, Presented, 09/21/2011.
  • "The Economics of Project Labor Agreements," Atlantic City, New Jersey. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 07/15/2011.
  • "Darwinian Economics," 2011 TransWorld Snow Conference . Presentation, Presented, 03/23/2011.
    http://business.transworld.net/59943/snow-conferen...
  • "The Impact of Government Policies on Business," ACG Utah Intermountain Growth Conference and ACG Capital Connection . Presentation, Presented, 03/11/2011.
    http://www.acg.org/utah/2011growthconference.aspx
  • Testimony regarding prevailing wages before the Connecticut General Assembly's labor and public employees committee. Presentation, Presented, 02/07/2011.
    http://articles.courant.com/2011-02-08/news/hc-bin...
  • "Roots of the American Economic Crisis," Tajik State University of Commerce, Dushambe, Tajikistan. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/19/2010.
  • "Project Labor Agreements as an Innovation in Collective Bargaining in the US and Canada," British Columbia Building and Construction Trades Council Annual Convention. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/01/2010.
  • Altius Capital and GoZonkers!. Role: Author/Speaker. "The Utah Economy and the Road Ahead." . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/23/2010.
  • ACG Utah Growth Conference and Capital Connection. Role: Author/Speaker. "The Economy in Transition." . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/12/2010.
  • TransWorld Snowboarding Industry Conference. Role: Speaker. "It Ain't Over til It's Over." . Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/11/2010.
  • TransWorld Snowboarding Industry Conference: "Recovering but not Recovered: the US Economy and the Next Five Years". Invited Talk/Keynote, Accepted, 03/02/2010.
  • "Prevailing Wage Laws in the US and Iowa," Iowa State Building Trades Annual Convention. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/03/2010.

Languages

  • French, basic.
  • Spanish, functional.

Geographical Regions of Interest

  • Mexico