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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Rural Wages And Returns To Education: Differences Between Whites, Blacks And American Indians, Jean Kimmel Jun 1994

Rural Wages And Returns To Education: Differences Between Whites, Blacks And American Indians, Jean Kimmel

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Workers in rural areas earn lower wages than nonrural workers and previous evidence has attributed these differences to lower returns to worker characteristics. This paper builds on that data by examining racial and gender differences within the broader group of rural workers. While there is extensive evidence on both the structure of wages and the source of racial wage differentials between Whites and Blacks, there is no such evidence for those in either group living in rural areas. Nor is there much evidence in this literature for American Indians. This paper's contribution to the literature is two-fold. First, it broadens …


Urban Labor Markets, Randall W. Eberts Jun 1994

Urban Labor Markets, Randall W. Eberts

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Urban labor markets are characterized by the spatial proximity of households and businesses, which offers firms and workers advantages that lead to more efficient markets, enhanced productivity, and greater economic success. Nevertheless, the nation's city, while generating a large proportion of the nation's wealth, houses much of the nation's economic disadvantaged workers. This paper describes the current conditions of urban labor markets and outlines a national urban policy agenda that addresses these concerns by taking into account cities' spatial dimension. The paper argues that a national urban labor policy should emphasize the effects of physical and informational proximity on growth, …


Labor Adjustment Under Different Institutional Structures: A Case Study Of Germany And The United States, Susan N. Houseman, Katharine G. Abraham Apr 1994

Labor Adjustment Under Different Institutional Structures: A Case Study Of Germany And The United States, Susan N. Houseman, Katharine G. Abraham

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Like most Western European countries, Germany stringently regulates dismissals and layoffs. Critics contend that this regulation raises the costs of employment adjustment and hence impedes employers' ability to respond to fluctuations in demand. Other German labor policies, however, most especially the availability of unemployment insurance benefits for those on short time, facilitate the adjustment of average hours per worker in lieu of layoffs. Building on earlier work, we compare the adjustment of employment, hours and inventories to demand shocks in the German and U.S. manufacturing sectors. We find that, in the short run, whereas U.S. employers rely principally on the …


What Should The Federal Government Be Doing About Urban Economic Development?, Timothy J. Bartik Mar 1994

What Should The Federal Government Be Doing About Urban Economic Development?, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The federal government should focus its policies towards economic development on areas in which the federal government has some unique advantages. Federal policy should: (1) discourage financial subsidies to specific large firms by state and local governments; (2) expand the federal role in economic development services in which national action has some special advantages, such as developing information on foreign markets, encouraging large national banks to be more involved in economic development, supporting the development of the "Information Superhighway," and encouraging new technology development; (3) provide modest support for state and local efforts to increase business productivity through technology extension …


Evaluating Pooled Evidence From The Reemployment Bonus Experiments, Paul T. Decker, Christopher J. O'Leary Jan 1994

Evaluating Pooled Evidence From The Reemployment Bonus Experiments, Paul T. Decker, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Social experiments conducted in Pennsylvania and Washington tested the effect of offering Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants a cash bonus for rapid reemployment. This paper combines data from the two experiments and uses a consistent framework to evaluate the experiments and determine with greater certainty the extent to which a reemployment bonus can affect economic outcomes. Bonus offers in each of the experiments generated statistically significant but relatively modest reductions in UI receipt. Since the estimated impacts on UI receipt were modest, the reemployment bonuses did not generate the UI savings necessary to pay for administering and paying the bonuses. Hence, …