Economics Commons^™

The Effect Of Health Insurance On Young Adults' Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From The Affordable Care Act's Dependent Coverage Expansion, Quazi Hassan

Theses and Dissertations

The Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage mandate extended young adults’ parental coverage to age 26. I study the expansion’s impact on young adults’ labor market outcomes using a control function method. Following the expansion, I find dependent coverage lowered labor force participation, lowered incomes, and mixed evidence regarding labor supply.

Still Here: Life In A New York Garment Factory, Veronika Bondarenko

Capstones

After the majority of clothing production jobs left the US for Asia in the 1990s, a new market of smaller factories that employ mostly immigrant women in their forties and fifties to create high-end clothes with a “Made in the USA” label emerged. But as factories struggle to survive in New York, large numbers of workers still endure long hours, on-job injuries, and lack of overtime pay in the name of homegrown fashion — often with little oversight.

http://lifeinanewyorkgarmentfactory.info

Wage Shocks And The Technological Substitution Of Low-Wage Jobs, Daniel Aaronson, Brian Phelan

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We extend the task-based empirical framework used in the job polarization literature to analyze the susceptibility of low-wage employment to technological substitution. We find that increases in the cost of low-wage labor, via minimum wage hikes, lead to relative employment declines at cognitively routine occupations but not manually-routine or non-routine low-wage occupations. This suggests that low-wage routine cognitive tasks are susceptible to technological substitution. While the short-run employment consequence of this reshuffling on individual workers is economically small, due to concurrent employment growth in other low-wage jobs, workers previously employed in cognitively routine jobs experience relative wage losses.

An Empirical Study Of Earnings Of Immigrants And Native-Born Americans In The U.S. Labor Market Given Different Levels Of Educational Attainment, Yuli P. Gomez Bravo

Applied Economics Theses

This paper will compare the Lifetime wage earnings of immigrants and native-born citizens in the U.S. for the years 2000-2010 according to educational attainment using cross-sectional data. The data obtained through IPUMS-CPS Integrated Public Use of Microdata Series, University of Minnesota. The findings of investment in Human Capital of Mincer (1958), the Immigrants earnings distribution of Chiswick and Miller (2006), the Pareto’s law of income distribution, and the immigrants investment in human capital model by Duleep and Regets (1999) are the theoretical basis in which this study will be ruled. The empirical evidence suggests that immigrants who invest in education …

Net Impact And Benefit-Cost Estimates Of The Workforce Development System In Washington State, Kevin M. Hollenbeck, Wei-Jang Huang

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Building Bridges: A Comparative Study Of Women Working In The Construction Industry In India And The Us, Susan Moir Scd

Labor Resource Center Publications

In January 2017, a delegation of women construction workers and advocates from the United States will visit India to meet with labour and civic leaders and share stories and experiences with women working in India’s construction industry. The goal of the delegation is to lay a foundation for an international network by and for women construction workers. This article describes the history and background of the delegation and its purpose.

Endogenous Quality Choice, Signaling, And Welfare, Gea M. Lee, Seung Han Yoo

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a model in which each worker endogenously selects his own type through aprivate investment decision and selects a public signal in the labor market. Signaling thencontributes to social welfare through its influence on the quality choice. We offer a rationalefor the argument that there are too many high-type workers from a welfare perspective,identifying circumstances under which separating equilibrium generates too many high-typeworkers while having to use the incentive-compatible signal and treat high-type workersdifferently in the market. The inefficiency can then be reduced in pooling equilibrium.

Do Foreign Companies Pay Higher Wages Than Their Local Counterparts In Malaysian Manufacturing?, David Lim

Prof. David Lim

This paper shows that foreign companies pay higher wages than their local counterparts in Malaysian manufacturing. Step-wise regression analysis shows that this is due to two factors. The first, and perhaps the more important, is the greater capital intensity of the production processes used by foreign companies. The second is their tendency to pay wages that they consider, or that are considered to be, commensurate with the wages that they pay in their home countries. This may be called the demonstration effect of wage remuneration in less developed countries.

"Sweat Labor" And Wages In Malaysian Manufacturing, David Lim

Prof. David Lim

References have often been made to the presence of "sweat labor" in manufacturing in less developed countries (LDCs) and of the need to introduce minimum-wage legislation to protect the interests of such employees. However, the data on the wages paid to such workers are almost nonexistent, and the discussion so far has been couched in general terms. I shall attempt to provide some of the empirical basis for the discussion in Malaysia.

The Economic Efficacy Of Reintegration Assistance For Former Child Soldiers, Jonathan B. Kaufmann

Undergraduate Economic Review

There is no consensus among scholars on the efficacy of reintegration assistance programs, including how their services affect reintegration outcomes. This research is the first statistical analysis of the economic impacts of reintegration assistance for former child soldiers. Several regression analyses were performed to determine the effect of reintegration assistance on earnings and social capital. The results indicate that no statistically significant relationship exists between reintegration assistance and earnings or social capital. Conversely, societal interventions such as increasing access to education and promoting traditional cleansing ceremonies were effective.

Subjective Well-Being Of Children Of Migrant Families In Schooling Alternatives Of Urban China, Steven D. Silver, Yan Gao

Faculty Publications

Organizational labor forces in countries that include China, the OECD and U.S. continue to be increasingly composed of workers who migrate across country regions or from other countries. Since their children will enter the next generation of labor forces, it is increasingly relevant to assess the educational experience of these children. Background studies of both children and adults indicate the importance of assessing subjective well-being (SW-B) to overall health and human capital. This study reports results of an initial assessment of SW-B in children of migrantfamily in an urban center of China across school type, grade and gender differences.

Workplace Deviance And Recession, Aniruddha Bagchi, Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay

Faculty and Research Publications

We examine the relationship between the incidence of workplace deviance (on-the-job crime) and the state of the economy. A worker's probability of future employment depends on whether she has been deviant as well as on the availability of jobs. Using a two period model we show that the net impact on deviant behavior to changes in unemployment can go either way depending upon the nature of the equilibrium. Two kinds of equilibria are possible. In one, a non-deviant's probability of being employed increases as expected market conditions improve which lowers the incentive to be a deviant. In contrast, in the …

Workplace Deviance And Recession, Aniruddha Bagchi, Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay

Aniruddha Bagchi

Restructuring Social Security: How Will Retirement Ages Respond?, Gary S. Fields, Olivia S. Mitchell

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Budgetary pressures on the Social Security system have increased in recent years, prompting a variety of proposals to restructure the U.S. retirement income program. Most of these proposals ignore the possibility that the retirement patterns of older workers are likely to respond to changes in the incentives to retire. This chapter presents two important pieces of information for policymakers. First, we provide previously unavailable evidence on how changes in the structure of Social Security benefits would alter the economic incentives to retire at different ages. Second, we compute how retirement patterns would change in response to altered incentives to …

Labor Market Analysis Using Sipp, Gary S. Fields, George H. Jakubson

Gary S Fields

This paper examines the potentiality of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for labor market analysis. We consider five areas of analysis: (1) labor force participation, employment, and unemployment; (2) labor market effects of income maintenance programs; (3) earnings; (4) work and retirement of the elderly; and (5) migration. We find that the SIPP is a potentially rich resource for labor market analysis, surpassing much of what is to be found in existing databases. We note some remaining problems and make recommendations for changes.

The Meaning And Measurement Of Income Mobility, Gary S. Fields, Efe A. Ok

Gary S Fields

Income mobility may be seen as arising from two sources: (i) the transfer of income among individuals with total income held constant, and (ii) a change in the total amount of income available. In this paper, we propose several sensible properties defining the concept of income mobility and show that an easily applicable measure of mobility is uniquely implied by these properties. We also show that the resulting measure is additively decomposable into the two sources listed above, namely, mobility due to the transfer of income within a given structure and mobility due to economic growth or contraction. Finally, these …

Rewards For Continued Work: The Economic Incentives For Postponing Retirement, Olivia S. Mitchell, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

This chapter develops empirical measures of the economic incentives for deferred retirement among older workers. Using a new data file on pay and pensions, we construct intertemporal budget sets reflecting income available to workers at alternative retirement ages. The analysis explores how continued labor force attachment is rewarded in terms of net earnings, Social Security benefits, and private pension income.

On-The-Job Search In A Labor Market Model: Ex Ante Choices And Ex Post Outcomes, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

This paper builds a multi-sector labor market model including wage dualism, open unemployment, underemployment, on-the-job search, and expected wage equalization. The innovative feature of this model is the distinction between the ex ante allocation of the labor force among search strategies and the ex post allocation of the labor force among labor market outcomes. Among the findings are: more efficient on-the-job search lowers the equilibrium unemployment rate; in a rational expectations equilibrium, the average rural and urban wages will not be equal; modern sector enlargement may leave labor market conditions in one of the sectors unchanged, even when wages and …

The Effects Of Social Security Reforms On Retirement Ages And Retirement Incomes, Gary S. Fields, Olivia S. Mitchell

Gary S Fields

Recent changes legislated in the U.S. Social Security system have altered the economic incentives to work and retire. Some older workers will respond to these new incentives by retiring at different ages. This paper evaluates the signs and magnitudes of these responses. Four specific changes in the structure of Social Security benefits are examined: raising the normal retirement age, delaying the cost-of-living adjustment, lowering early retirement benefits, and increasing late retirement payments. Behavioral parameters are estimated using an ordered logit model of retirement ages; these are used to predict how retirement behavior might respond to each of the four reforms. …

Income-Generating Functions In A Low Income Country: Colombia, Gary S. Fields, T. Paul Schultz

Gary S Fields

Income generating functions are statistical tools used to explain income inequality and other economic outcomes and behavior. These functions are often associated with a strict human capital framework, but they need not be. Instead, they may be viewed as a reduced form equation summarizing the relationship between income and various personal and locational characteristics. Following this latter interpretation, we develop the regression and analysis of variance approaches to income generating functions and estimate them empirically using micro-economic data from one low income country, Colombia. Proceeding to increasingly parsimonious specifications of income generating functions, insights are gained into the structure of …

Employment, Income Distribution And Economic Growth In Seven Small Open Economies, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Resurgent interest has been manifested among development economists in trickle-down, i.e., the view that the more rapid the rate of economic growth, the more rapid the improvement in employment and income distribution. Throughout this paper, the term ‘income distribution’ will refer to the location and dispersion of the pattern of incomes, i.e., to ‘absolute incomes and poverty’ and to ‘relative income inequality’. Empirical evidence supports trickle-down in some cases, but the evidence is contrary to trickle-down in others.

These data indicate:

1. A high rate of economic growth is neither necessary nor sufficient for inequality to decline.
2. A high rate …

Income Distribution And Economic Growth, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Who benefits how much from economic growth and why? This question is fundamental to today’s development economics. This chapter reviews some of the major lessons learned and major directions for future research in the study of income distribution and economic development.

Employment And Economic Growth In Costa Rica, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Costa Rica’s economic growth in the last 25 years has had favorable labor market and income distribution consequences. Overall, employment growth kept pace with labor force growth, the mix of jobs improved, real wages rose, and relative inequality and absolute poverty fell. But during the economic crisis of 1980-82, when real per capita income plummeted, labor market conditions deteriorated markedly: unemployment doubled, employment composition worsened, and real wages fell by 40%. Growth, labor market conditions, and income distribution have moved together.

Import Competition In The High-Wage Sector And Trade Policy Effects On Labor, Gary S. Fields, Earl L. Grinols

Gary S Fields

This article evaluates the employment and welfare effects of increased trade competition and protection in economies with wage dualism, unemployment, and on-the-job search. A micro-based measure of economy welfare distinguishes between workers and other sectors of the economy is developed to deal with labor market imperfections and distributional issues. For example, increased competition in high-wage sector goods reduces high-wage employment, but may or may not increase overall unemployment. Policy may be chosen to mitigate loss in worker earnings that are partly or wholly offset by gains to consumers of the importable.

Three Essays On Sustainable Development In China: Social, Economic And Environmental Aspects, Ying Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

The first essay focuses on the role of the hukou (i.e. Household Registration System) with full awareness of the economic system it operates under, and the development model it assists. I find that hukou’s main role in the planned economy was to assist socialist industrialization while averting the Lewis development model, a development strategy based on unlimited supply of labors from the rural sector, largely adopted in developing countries. In the market reform period, hukou performed exactly the opposite function, which is to assist the Lewis model based on the unlimited supply of rural surplus labor “released” from the …

Who Wins In An Energy Boom? Evidence From Wage Rates And Housing, Grant D. Jacobsen

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper presents evidence on the distributional effects of energy extraction by examining the recent U.S. energy boom. The boom increased local wage rates in almost every major occupational category. The increase occurred regardless of whether the occupation experienced a corresponding change in employment, suggesting a more competitive labor market that benefited local workers. Local housing values and rental prices both increased, thereby benefiting landowners. For renters, the increase in prices was completely offset by a contemporaneous increase in income. The results indicate that bans on drilling have negative monetary consequences for a large share of local residents.

Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence From Vacancy Postings, Brad J. Hershbein, Lisa B. Kahn

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We show that skill requirements in job vacancy postings differentially increased in MSAs that were hit hard by the Great Recession, relative to less hard-hit areas, and that these differences across MSAs persist through the end of 2015. The increases are prevalent within occupations, more pronounced in the non-traded sector, driven by both within-firm upskilling and substitution from older to newer firms, accompanied by increases in capital stock, and are evident in realized employment. We argue that this evidence reflects the restructuring of production toward more skilled workers and routine-labor saving technologies, and that the Great Recession accelerated this process.

Initiative And Referendum: A Maine Odyssey, Charles A. Scontras

Bureau of Labor Education

Maine is no stranger to the nation’s battles involving the development of the tools of direct democracy and how to use them. Since the citizen initiative and referendum were passed in late 1908, Mainers have used “the power of the people” to vote directly on many laws, bypassing the Legislature. Now, after more than 100 years in use, the initiative process may be facing a test: Gov. Paul LePage is preparing blueprints to use the initiative in an attempt to change the state’s welfare system and reduce the income tax — victories denied to him in the Legislature. It’s a …

Lessons From The American Federal-State Unemployment Insurance System For A European Unemployment Benefits System, Christopher J. O'Leary, Burt S. Barnow

Christopher J. O'Leary

The federal-state system of unemployment insurance (UI) in the United States was established by the Social Security Act of 1935 during the Great Depression. Under the program, states provide temporary partial wage replacement to involuntarily unemployed workers with significant labor force attachment. The federal government induced states to establish UI programs through two means: 1) a uniform federal tax imposed on employer payrolls, with a 90 percent reduction granted in states operating approved UI programs, and 2) grants to states to administer their programs. The system has evolved into a collection of separate state programs adapted to different regional, economic, …

Putting Short-Time Compensation To Work: How Employers Can Avert Layoffs And Reduce Training Costs, David E. Balducchi, Stephen A. Wandner

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.