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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Attracting People And Potential To Missouri And The Region By Metro Status, William H. Rogers
Attracting People And Potential To Missouri And The Region By Metro Status, William H. Rogers
Center for Applied Economics
This report summarizes the Heartland’s recent economic performance relative to the rest of the United States. I focus on two key economic indicators: total population change since 1969 and net domestic migration measured using earning capacity instead of population. I find that the Heartland’s metropolitan areas are significantly lagging the entire rest of the nation in working-age population and working-age earning capacity growth. I also find that the Heartland’s non-metropolitan areas are in absolute decline when viewed through the lens of working-age population and earning capacity. Unlike the metropolitan performance, however, there is nothing exceptional about the non-metropolitan decline. My …
The Best Of Both Skills: U.S. Immigration, Work Visas, And Local Labor Shortages In Missouri, Adriano Udani
The Best Of Both Skills: U.S. Immigration, Work Visas, And Local Labor Shortages In Missouri, Adriano Udani
Center for Applied Economics
In spite of political rhetoric condemning immigrants’ contributions to the United States, scholars have persistently demonstrated positive social and economic contributions of immigrants. Studies such as these pose important policy implications for Missouri. To what extent does immigration contribute to recent Missouri economic outcomes? How are immigrant workers distributed across Missouri? Are there positive economic outcomes associated only with immigration of high-skilled workers? My analysis shows that higher per capita personal income and higher employment in certain industrial sectors are not solely attributed to high-skill workers. The results here suggest that economic productivity in Missouri is attributed to having a …
Recent Research On The Minimum Wage: Implications For Missouri, Jonathan Meer
Recent Research On The Minimum Wage: Implications For Missouri, Jonathan Meer
Center for Applied Economics
The minimum wage has long been a contentious policy issue, but particularly so in Missouri in recent years. When St. Louis raised its city minimum wage in 2015, with increases planned to $11 per hour by 2018, legal battles held up implementation and a state law eventually overrode the local ordinance. This essay delves into the sources of this policy dispute, first by examining the theoretical issues involved, then focusing on recent research, particularly regarding outcomes other than the traditional focus on employment outcomes. Using minimum wage increases as an anti-poverty policy is not likely to succeed. While the empirical …
Labor Market Freedom And Economic Prosperity: How Does Missouri Compare?, Dean Stansel
Labor Market Freedom And Economic Prosperity: How Does Missouri Compare?, Dean Stansel
Center for Applied Economics
Government restrictions on workers and employers tend to have a dampening effect on their ability to thrive. There have been numerous studies of the relationship between state labor market restrictions and labor market outcomes (as well as economic outcomes in general). As theory would imply, that literature generally has found a positive relationship between labor market freedom and various measures of positive economic outcomes. After a discussion of the concept of economic freedom and how it is measured in labor markets, this paper briefly reviews that literature. It also provides a detailed examination of how Missouri compares to its neighboring …
Reforming Educator Compensation, Michael Podgursky
Reforming Educator Compensation, Michael Podgursky
Center for Applied Economics
While compensation accounts for roughly 90 percent of K-12 instructional costs, there is little evidence of efficient or strategic design in these systems. Rigid salary schedules reward factors generally unrelated to effectiveness, induce field shortages, and encourage inequitable allocation of professional staff. Deferred compensation systems impose sharp penalties on mobility, promote early retirement and generate large unfunded liabilities. Serious attempts to bring greater efficiencies to K-12 spending and raising teacher quality must confront the dysfunctional compensation system.
The State Of The Missouri Economy And Workforce, Timothy J. Gronberg, Dennis W. Jansen, Lori L. Taylor
The State Of The Missouri Economy And Workforce, Timothy J. Gronberg, Dennis W. Jansen, Lori L. Taylor
Center for Applied Economics
This article presents an overview of the state of the Missouri economy. We begin by assessing measures of economic output. Compared to the nation and to neighboring states, Missouri’s economy has hardly grown over the past 20 years. We identify several sources for this lackluster record. Perhaps one of the most important is the observation is that productivity in Missouri—output per worker—is lower than the national average. This poor productivity record quite possibly stems from two sources. One is problematic trends in labor force quality. A key factor here is a lack of commitment by the state to a higher …
The Missouri Quality Jobs Program: Rearranging The Deck Chairs (And Throwing Some Overboard), Howard J. Wall
The Missouri Quality Jobs Program: Rearranging The Deck Chairs (And Throwing Some Overboard), Howard J. Wall
Center for Applied Economics
According to the Missouri Department of Economic Development (DED), the Missouri Quality Jobs Program (MQJP) will create 118 new jobs by 2020 for each $1 million dollars in tax credits awarded under the program. The claimed sources of these job gains are the direct increase in employment at the firms receiving the credits, and indirect increases at other firms due to spinoff and multiplier effects. Unfortunately, the DED’s estimates for these effects are based more on faith than on evidence. First, the DED rather naively assumes that all of the job gains at the firms receiving tax credits occur only …