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Articles 211 - 240 of 336
Full-Text Articles in Economics
Estimated State And Local Fiscal Effects Of The Nurse Family Partnership Program, Timothy J. Bartik
Estimated State And Local Fiscal Effects Of The Nurse Family Partnership Program, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This short paper estimates the state and local fiscal benefits of the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) program. NFP provides nurse home visiting services to low-income first-time mothers. In addition to social benefits, NFP provides state and local fiscal benefits by reducing costs of social services, welfare, and crime, and increasing tax receipts due to increased earnings of mothers and former child participants when they grow up. Based on previous studies, this paper estimates that the present value, in 2007 dollars, of these state and local fiscal benefits is a little over $15,000 per NFP case.
Methodology For Adjusting Gpra Workforce Development Program Performance Targets For The Effects Of Business Cycles, Timothy J. Bartik, Randall W. Eberts, Wei-Jang Huang
Methodology For Adjusting Gpra Workforce Development Program Performance Targets For The Effects Of Business Cycles, Timothy J. Bartik, Randall W. Eberts, Wei-Jang Huang
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration issued Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 09-08 Change 1 on June 5, 2009. This guidance letter revises the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance measures for federal workforce development programs to take into account the effect of the recession on participants' labor market and educational outcomes. As described in the TEGL, the performance targets of the various workforce development programs have been developed for use for the years PY2008 through PY2010. They are intended to be used for PY2009 performance target negotiations and will appear in the President's Budget …
Lessons Learned From A State-Funded Workplace Literacy Program, Kevin M. Hollenbeck, Bridget F. Timmeney
Lessons Learned From A State-Funded Workplace Literacy Program, Kevin M. Hollenbeck, Bridget F. Timmeney
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Findings from an evaluation of a workplace literacy program funded by the State of Indiana are presented. Working with employers, providers were given considerable latitude to design their own training regimens. The state awarded certificates to workers who achieved certain levels of proficiency in reading, math, critical thinking, problem solving (assessed by CASAS), and computer literacy (certified by IC3). The evaluation relied on qualitative and quantitative data. Multiple site visits were undertaken and a survey of participants (n = 1800), learning gains, and earnings histories were quantitatively analyzed. Key findings include a significant interest in college attendance by incumbent workers, …
What Proportion Of Children Stay In The Same Location As Adults, And How Does This Vary Across Location And Groups?, Timothy J. Bartik
What Proportion Of Children Stay In The Same Location As Adults, And How Does This Vary Across Location And Groups?, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper provides new information on what proportion of individuals spend their adult work lives in their childhood metropolitan area or state. I also examine how this proportion varies across different demographic groups, and with the size and growth rate of the metropolitan area. I find that the proportion of individuals who spend most of their adulthood in their childhood metropolitan area is surprisingly high. Furthermore, this proportion does not go down as much as one might think for smaller or slower-growing metropolitan areas, or for college-educated persons. These findings imply that state and local investments in children may pay …
Estimating A Performance Standards Adjustment Model For Workforce Programs That Provides Timely Feedback And Uses Data From Only One State, Timothy J. Bartik, Randall W. Eberts, Kenneth J. Kline
Estimating A Performance Standards Adjustment Model For Workforce Programs That Provides Timely Feedback And Uses Data From Only One State, Timothy J. Bartik, Randall W. Eberts, Kenneth J. Kline
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodology for adjusting performance standards for workforce programs offered by local workforce areas (LWAs). By performance standards adjustment, we mean a model that uses a statistical approach to attempt to better measure the relative performance of different local workforce areas in providing workforce system customers with "value added" in terms of the system's desired outcomes. Our paper's approach has four distinguishing features. First, the performance standards are based on the common measures proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor, which include short- and longer-term employment outcomes. Second, the model is estimated …
The Revitalization Of Older Industrial Cities: A Review Essay Of Retooling For Growth, Timothy J. Bartik
The Revitalization Of Older Industrial Cities: A Review Essay Of Retooling For Growth, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This review essay debates the policy issues raised by the book Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas, edited by Richard M. McGahey and Jennifer S. Vey (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). I argue that the main rationale for adopting policies to revitalize older industrial cities is to improve the per capita earnings of urban residents. Therefore, urban economic development policy should be seen as urban labor market policy. Increasing city residents' earnings requires progress on two fronts: increasing metropolitan labor demand; increasing the quantity and quality of the effective labor supply of city residents …
Sensitivity Testing Of Net Impact Estimates Of Workforce Development Programs Using Administrative Data, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
Sensitivity Testing Of Net Impact Estimates Of Workforce Development Programs Using Administrative Data, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper addresses the question of whether administrative data sources, such as performance monitoring data, can be used for program evaluation purposes. It argues that under certain circumstances, such data can be used. In particular, program performance data that are routinely gathered and monitored by administrators of many workforce development programs meet these circumstances. The paper goes on to demonstrate the point by using administrative data from the state of Washington to examine the net impact on earnings and employment of services provided to adults under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). Because of a lack of consensus about appropriate net …
Is There A Role For Public Support Of Incumbent Worker On-The-Job Training?, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
Is There A Role For Public Support Of Incumbent Worker On-The-Job Training?, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
States have begun to use training subsidies as a policy tool for employment retention and business competitiveness. This paper summarizes a survey of states concerning their investments in incumbent worker training. Altogether, states are investing about $550 to $800 million, which is perhaps one percent or less of total private sector training costs. The paper further discusses a study conducted for one state in which we found significant fiscal returns implying that underinvestment of public funds for incumbent worker training may be occurring. In this state, primary sector jobs were created or retained at a public cost of less than …
Displacement, Asymmetric Information, And Heterogeneous Human Capital, Luojia Hu, Christopher Taber
Displacement, Asymmetric Information, And Heterogeneous Human Capital, Luojia Hu, Christopher Taber
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In a seminal paper, Gibbons and Katz (1991) develop and empirically test an asymmetric information model of the labor market. The model predicts that wage losses following displacement should be larger for layoffs than for plant closings, which was borne out by data from the Displaced Workers Survey (DWS). In this paper, we take advantage of many more years of DWS data to examine how the difference in wage losses across plant closings and layoffs varies with race and gender. We find that the differences between white males and the other groups are striking and complex. The "lemons effect" of …
Outsourcing, Offshoring, And Productivity Measurement In U.S. Manufacturing, Susan N. Houseman
Outsourcing, Offshoring, And Productivity Measurement In U.S. Manufacturing, Susan N. Houseman
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
I discuss reasons why manufacturing productivity statistics should be interpreted with caution in light of the recent growth of domestic and foreign outsourcing and offshoring. First, outsourcing and offshoring are poorly measured in U.S. statistics, and poor measurement may impart a significant bias to manufacturing and, where offshoring is involved, aggregate productivity statistics. Second, companies often outsource or offshore work to take advantage of cheap (relative to their output) labor, and such cost savings are counted as productivity gains, even in multifactor productivity calculations. This fact has potentially important implications for the interpretation of productivity statistics. Whether, for instance, productivity …
Higher Education, The Health Care Industry, And Metropolitan Regional Economic Development: What Can "Eds & Meds" Do For The Economic Fortunes Of A Metro Area's Residents?, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek
Higher Education, The Health Care Industry, And Metropolitan Regional Economic Development: What Can "Eds & Meds" Do For The Economic Fortunes Of A Metro Area's Residents?, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper examines the effects of expansions in higher educational institutions and the medical service industry on the economic development of a metropolitan area. This examination pulls together previous research and provides some new empirical evidence. We provide quantitative evidence of the magnitude of economic effects of higher education and medical service industries that occur through the mechanism of providing some export-base demand stimulus to a metropolitan economy. We also provide quantitative evidence on how much higher education institutions can boost a metropolitan economy through increasing the educational attainment of local residence. We estimate that medical service industries pay above …
Temporary Help Service Firms' Use Of Employer Tax Credits: Implications For Disadvantaged Workers' Labor Market Outcomes, Sarah Hamersma, Carolyn J. Heinrich
Temporary Help Service Firms' Use Of Employer Tax Credits: Implications For Disadvantaged Workers' Labor Market Outcomes, Sarah Hamersma, Carolyn J. Heinrich
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Temporary help services (THS) firms are increasing their hiring of disadvantaged individuals and claiming more subsidies for doing so. Do these subsidies-the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW)-create incentives that improve employment outcomes for THS workers? We examine the distinct effects of THS employment and WOTC/WtW subsidies using administrative and survey data. Results indicate that WOTC/WtW-certified THS workers have higher earnings than WOTC-eligible but uncertified THS workers. However, these workers have shorter job tenure and lower earnings than WOTC/WtW-certified workers in non-THS industries. Panel estimates suggest that these effects do not persist over time.
Reemployment And Earnings Recovery Among Older Unemployment Insurance Claimants, Christopher J. O'Leary, Randall W. Eberts
Reemployment And Earnings Recovery Among Older Unemployment Insurance Claimants, Christopher J. O'Leary, Randall W. Eberts
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The rate of involuntary job loss among older workers has increased in recent years. Previous research has found that after job separation older workers take longer to get back in jobs, and experience bigger earnings declines than younger prime age workers. These studies were based on surveys targeted at older and dislocated workers, which rely on retrospective interviews of strategic samples from the general labor force. Previous studies have not explicitly accounted for the availability of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits between jobs. This paper compares the adjustment to involuntary unemployment of older and younger prime age UI claimants, using a …
Ownership And Wages: Estimating Public-Private And Foreign-Domestic Differentials With Leed From Hungary, 1986-2003, John S. Earle, Álmos Telegdy
Ownership And Wages: Estimating Public-Private And Foreign-Domestic Differentials With Leed From Hungary, 1986-2003, John S. Earle, Álmos Telegdy
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
How do state, domestic, private, and foreign ownership of firms differ in average wages? We address these questions using linked employer-employee panel data containing 1.35mln worker-year observations for 21,238 firms from 1986 to 2003 in Hungary. Our econometric methods exploit the long panel together with the presence of 3,700 switches of ownership type in the postsocialist Hungarian transition to estimate these wage differentials.
Manufacturers' Outsourcing To Employment Services, Matthew Dey, Susan N. Houseman, Anne E. Polivka
Manufacturers' Outsourcing To Employment Services, Matthew Dey, Susan N. Houseman, Anne E. Polivka
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We estimate the effects of manufacturers' use of employment services—comprised primarily of temporary help and professional employer organizations—on measured employment and labor productivity in manufacturing between 1989 and 2004. A major contribution of the paper is the construction of panel data on employment by occupation and industry from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. We use these data to document the dramatic rise of production and other manual occupations within the employment services sector and, in conjunction with information from the Contingent Worker Supplements, to estimate the number of employment services workers assigned to manufacturing over the period. Although measured employment …
Local Market Scale And The Pattern Of Job Changes Among Young Men, Christopher H. Wheeler
Local Market Scale And The Pattern Of Job Changes Among Young Men, Christopher H. Wheeler
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In finding a career, workers tend to make numerous job changes, with the majority of 'complex' changes (i.e., those involving changes of industry) occurring relatively early in their working lives. This pattern suggests that workers tend to experiment with different types of work before settling on the one they like best. Of course, since the extent of economic diversity differs substantially across local labor markets in the U.S. (e.g., counties and cities), this career search process may exhibit important differences depending on the size of a worker’s local market. This paper explores this issue using a sample of young male …
How Do The Effects Of Local Growth On Employment Rates Vary With Initial Labor Market Conditions?, Timothy J. Bartik
How Do The Effects Of Local Growth On Employment Rates Vary With Initial Labor Market Conditions?, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper examines how the effects of increased employment growth on a metropolitan area's employment to population ratio varies with the initial tightness of the metropolitan area's labor market. This examination is relevant to evaluating the benefits of local economic development policies in different metropolitan areas. Much of the benefits of such policies are in higher employment rates. The empirical estimates suggest that the effectiveness of employment growth in increasing the employment to population ratio is lower in metropolitan areas with "tight" labor markets. In addition, some estimates suggest that growth has the greatest long-run effects on the employment to …
Retiree Health Benefits And Retirement, James Marton, Stephen A. Woodbury
Retiree Health Benefits And Retirement, James Marton, Stephen A. Woodbury
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Employer-provided health benefit coverage for workers who retire before age 65 has fallen over the last decade. We examine a cohort of male workers from the Health and Retirement Survey to examine questions about the dynamics of retiree health benefits and the relationship between retiree health benefits and retirement behavior, which is important for the debate over increasing health coverage for older Americans without reducing work incentives. On dynamics, we find that between 1992 and 1996, 24 percent of full-time workers who had retiree health benefits lost their coverage, while 15 percent of full-time workers who lacked coverage gained it. …
Complementarity And Custom In Wage Contract Violation, John S. Earle, Klara Sabirianova Peter
Complementarity And Custom In Wage Contract Violation, John S. Earle, Klara Sabirianova Peter
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We analyze a model of wage delay in which strategic complementarity arises because each employer's costs of violating its contracts decrease with the arrears in its labor market. The model is estimated on panel data for workers and firms in Russia, facilitating identification through fixed effects for employees, employers, and local labor markets, and instrumental variables based on policy interventions. The estimated reaction function displays strongly positive neighborhood effects, and the estimated feedback loops - worker quits, effort, strikes, and legal penalties - imply that costs of wage delays are attenuated by neighborhood arrears. We also study a nonlinear case …
Wages, Layoffs, And Privatization: Evidence From Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Volodymyr Vakhitov
Wages, Layoffs, And Privatization: Evidence From Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Volodymyr Vakhitov
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates the effects of privatization on worker separations and wages using retrospective data from a national probability sample of Ukrainian households. Detailed worker characteristics are used to control for compositional differences and to assess types of observable "winners" and "losers" from privatization. Preprivatization worker-firm matches are used to control for unobservables in worker and firm selection. The results imply that privatization reduces wages by 5 percent and cuts the layoff probability in half. Outside investor ownership reduces separations but leaves wages unaffected. Winners from privatization tend to be higher-skilled employees of larger firms, but there is no discernible …
Nonstandard Forms And Measures Of Employment And Unemployment In Transition: A Comparative Study Of Estonia, Romania, And Russia, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Vladimir Gimpelson, Rostislav Kapeliushnikov, Hartmut Lehmann, Álmos Telegdy, Irina Vantu, Ruxandra Visan, Alexandru Voicu
Nonstandard Forms And Measures Of Employment And Unemployment In Transition: A Comparative Study Of Estonia, Romania, And Russia, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Vladimir Gimpelson, Rostislav Kapeliushnikov, Hartmut Lehmann, Álmos Telegdy, Irina Vantu, Ruxandra Visan, Alexandru Voicu
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper looks behind the standard, publicly available labor force statistics relied upon in most studies of transition economy labor markets. We analyze microdata on detailed labor force survey responses in Russia, Romania, and Estonia to measure nonstandard, boundary forms and alternative definitions of employment and unemployment. Our calculations show that measured rates are quite sensitive to definition, particularly in the treatment of household production (subsistence agriculture), unpaid family helpers, and discouraged workers, while the categories of part-time work and other forms of marginal attachment are still relatively unimportant. We find that tweaking the official definitions in apparently minor ways …
The Incidence And Cost Of Job Loss In The Ukrainian Labor Market, Hartmut Lehmann, Norberto Pignatti, Jonathan Wadsworth
The Incidence And Cost Of Job Loss In The Ukrainian Labor Market, Hartmut Lehmann, Norberto Pignatti, Jonathan Wadsworth
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We examine the effects of economic transition on the pattern and costs of worker displacement in Ukraine, using the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (ULMS) for the years 1992 to 2002. Displacement rates in the Ukrainian labor market average between 3.4 and 4.8 percent of employment, roughly in line with levels typically observed in several Western economies, but considerably larger than in Russia. The characteristics of displaced workers are similar to those displaced in the West, in so far as displacement is concentrated on the less skilled. Around one third of displaced workers find re-employment immediately while the majority continues into …
The Effect Of Minimum Wages On The Employment And Earnings Of South Africa's Domestic Service Workers, Tom Hertz
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Minimum wages have been in place for South Africa's one million domestic service workers since November of 2002. Using data from seven waves of the Labour Force Survey, this paper documents that the real wages, average monthly earnings, and total earnings of all employed domestic workers have risen since the regulations came into effect, while hours of work per week and employment have fallen. Each of these outcomes can be linked econometrically to the arrival of the minimum wage regulations. The overall estimated elasticities suggest that the regulations should have reduced poverty somewhat for domestic workers, although this last conclusion …
Temporary Agency Employment As A Way Out Of Poverty?, David H. Autor, Susan N. Houseman
Temporary Agency Employment As A Way Out Of Poverty?, David H. Autor, Susan N. Houseman
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The high incidence of temporary agency employment among participants in government employment programs has catalyzed debate about whether these jobs help the poor transition into stable employment and out of poverty. We provide direct evidence on this question through analysis of a Michigan welfare-to-work program in which program participants were randomly allocated across service providers ('contractors') with different job placement practices. We draw on a telephone survey of contractors and on administrative program data linked with wage records data on all participants entering the program over a three-and-a half-year period. Our survey evidence documents a consensus among contractors that temporary …
Refundable Tax Credits For Health Insurance: The Sensitivity Of Simulated Impacts To Assumed Behavior, David W. Emmons, Eva Madly, Stephen A. Woodbury
Refundable Tax Credits For Health Insurance: The Sensitivity Of Simulated Impacts To Assumed Behavior, David W. Emmons, Eva Madly, Stephen A. Woodbury
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We replicate and extend a simulation model developed by Jonathan Gruber with the goals of illuminating Gruber's modeling of health insurance coverage under a tax credit and examining the sensitivity of the results to changes in the model's key parameters. The replications suggest that a refundable tax credit of $1,000 for a single individual or $2,000 for a family for private health insurance would reduce the number of uninsured individuals by between 17.5 and 28 percent and require new government expenditures of between $16.6 and $44 billion, of which about $7.4-$9.7 billion would be for coverage of previously uninsured individuals. …
Welfare Reform, Saving, And Vehicle Ownership: Do Asset Limits And Vehicle Exemptions Matter?, James X. Sullivan
Welfare Reform, Saving, And Vehicle Ownership: Do Asset Limits And Vehicle Exemptions Matter?, James X. Sullivan
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper examines whether AFDC/TANF asset tests affect the asset holdings of low-educated single mothers, exploiting variation in asset limits and exemptions across states and over time. There are important reasons to examine vehicle assets in this context. For example, vehicles make up a very significant share of total wealth for poor families, and the variation in vehicle exemptions over time and across states far exceeds the variation in asset limits. Consistent with other recent research, I find little evidence that asset limits have an effect on the amount of liquid assets that single mothers hold. However, I find evidence …
Do Job Search Rules And Reemployment Services Reduce Insured Unemployment?, Christopher J. O'Leary, Stephen A. Wandner
Do Job Search Rules And Reemployment Services Reduce Insured Unemployment?, Christopher J. O'Leary, Stephen A. Wandner
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper summarizes state unemployment insurance job search policies based on a recent survey of states by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. It then reviews research results on the effects of reemployment services on durations of insured unemployment. The paper documents how state administrative practices have changed and questions whether these changes may have affected monitoring of claimant compliance with work search requirements. Since state policies on job search and service referral can affect insured durations of unemployment, these policies can also affect the measured total unemployment rate.
Evaluating Job Training In Two Chinese Cities, Benu Bidani, Chor-Ching Goh, Niels-Hugo Blunch, Christopher J. O'Leary
Evaluating Job Training In Two Chinese Cities, Benu Bidani, Chor-Ching Goh, Niels-Hugo Blunch, Christopher J. O'Leary
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Recent years have seen a surge in the evidence on the impacts of active labor market programs for numerous countries. However, little evidence has been presented on the effectiveness of such programs in China. Recent economic reforms, associated massive lay-offs, and accompanying public retraining programs make China fertile ground for rigorous impact evaluations. This study evaluates retraining programs for laid-off workers in the cities of Shenyang and Wuhan using a comparison group design. To our knowledge, this is the first evaluation of its kind in China. The evidence suggests that retraining helped workers find jobs in Wuhan, but had little …
Asynchronous Risk: Unemployment, Equity Markets, And Retirement Savings, Jason S. Seligman, Jeffrey Brian Wenger
Asynchronous Risk: Unemployment, Equity Markets, And Retirement Savings, Jason S. Seligman, Jeffrey Brian Wenger
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The link between unemployment and pension accumulations is conceptually straightforward; periods of unemployment lead to lower pension contributions, and thus to lower accumulations. However, impacts on accumulation may differ as a result of the timing and frequency of unemployment spells. We hypothesize that unemployment is more likely during periods in which the equities market experiences greater than average returns, largely due to a lead/lag structure of the stock and labor markets, respectively. This would imply that workers may systematically miss opportunities to purchase equities through DC plans when prices are relatively low. To test this hypothesis, we match historic stock …
Do Government Sponsored Vocational Training Programs Help The Unemployed Find Jobs? Evidence From Russia, Anton Nivorozhkin, Eugenity Nivorozhkin
Do Government Sponsored Vocational Training Programs Help The Unemployed Find Jobs? Evidence From Russia, Anton Nivorozhkin, Eugenity Nivorozhkin
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The study estimates the employment effect of vocational training programs for the unemployed in urban Russia. The results of propensity score matching indicate that training programs had a non-negative overall effect on the program participants relative to non-participants.