Economics Commons^™

The Heterogeneous Impacts Of The Residential Component Of A Training Program: A Semi-Parametric Analysis, Jun Cai, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Xintong Wang

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Several training programs worldwide are residential, bringing enrollees to live in facilities and thus increasing program costs. In the U.S., the Job Corps (JC) program for disadvantaged youth includes a residential component. Despite extensive literature evaluating JC, the impact of the residential component has received limited attention. We develop and employ a semi-parametric model to estimate the average causal effects of this residential component, accounting for selection into both the program and the residential feature. Our findings indicate that, for JC enrollees, the residential component boosts earnings, employment, and educational degree attainment among adolescents. For other subgroups, the residential component …

Eliciting Information About Teacher Applicants Using Open-Ended Questions, Joseph Aguilar-Bohorquez, Dan Goldhaber, Cyrus Grout, Elton Mykerezi, Prayash Pathak, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Employers commonly use open-ended questions in hiring, but usually responses aren’t recorded, and knowledge about the usefulness of such responses is limited. This study investigates properties of written responses to open-ended questions collected over many years via an application tracking platform that school districts use to hire teachers. We develop a scalable process to discover topics within the corpus of responses to each question and then to classify each response with respect to the topics while preserving interpretability and transparency. It adapts a traditional qualitative topic modeling approach, Inductive Thematic Analysis, to best combine the strengths of researcher judgment and …

Benefits And Costs For Chattanooga Residents Of Incorporating Training Into Economic Development Strategies, Timothy J. Bartik, Iryna V. Lendel, Sevrin Williams

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

This report evaluates the benefit-cost tradeoffs of adding a workforce training component to Chattanooga's economic development incentive packages, using the Bartik Benefit-Cost Model of Business Incentives. Focusing on hypothetical projects across seven industries, the analysis compares the present value of training costs against resulting gains in residents' per capita income over a 20-year horizon. Findings show that training, layered onto existing PILOT-based tax incentives, delivers benefits more than 25 times its costs—driven by training's greater cost-effectiveness in inducing business location decisions and its stronger tendency to direct new jobs toward local residents. While training is not self-financing from a city …

The Columbus Promise: Three-Year Pilot Evaluation Report, Michelle Miller-Adams, Kyle Huisman, Kevin Hollenbeck, Bridget Timmeney

Reports

The Columbus Promise is a place-based, tuition-free college program designed to expand postsecondary access and economic mobility for graduates of Columbus City Schools. Launched with the high school class of 2022, the three-year pilot provides tuition support at Columbus State Community College (CSCC), a $500-per-semester stipend, and dedicated coaching and academic services. This evaluation, conducted by the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, examines outcomes for all three cohorts (2022, 2023, and 2024), using administrative data, a comparison group of Columbus City Schools graduates from 2017–2021, regression-adjusted estimates of academic outcomes, and a synthetic difference-in-differences analysis of overall college enrollment. Findings …

Unpacking Treatment Effect Heterogeneity In A Large-Scale Dropout Prevention Experiment, Thomas Dee, Chloe R. Gibbs, Rebecca Margolit-Chan, Lillian Morrell, James X. Sullivan

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Timely high school completion is a critical step in successful transitions to post-secondary schooling and the labor market. This randomized controlled trial, deployed in two urban, disadvantaged school districts, tests the effectiveness of a mature and comprehensive student-support program on an unusually large scale (n=2,528). While overall effects on graduation rates are small and statistically insignificant, exploratory analyses reveal notable variation by site and over time, mirroring heterogeneity in treatment timing and program implementation. These findings highlight the challenges of scaling interventions and raise concerns about generalizing results from small-scale, single-site evaluations.

20 Years Of The Kalamazoo Promise: A Visual Guide To Selected Highlights, Kathleen Bolter

Reports

No abstract provided.

The Economic Benefits And Costs Of State And Local Incentives For Clean Energy Projects, Timothy J. Bartik, Gerrit Anderson, Brian J. Asquith, Kathleen Bolter, Kyle Huisman, Iryna V. Lendel, Jeremy Morris, Sevrin Williams

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Strong Job Markets Don’T Just Raise Pay, They Improve Job Quality, Brad J. Hershbein, Katherine Lim, Douglas Webber, Mike Zabek

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Do Universities Underpay Professors? Yes, Especially Women, Zhanhan Yu, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Incentive Design Affects The Benefit-Cost Ratio Of Clean Energy Projects, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Work From Home In The Public And Private Sector, Harley Frazis

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Working from home has remained a prominent part of the labor market after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in January 2025 President Trump issued an executive order restricting the use of work from home (WFH) in the federal government. This paper examines trends in WFH by class of worker: private for-profit, private not-for-profit, federal, state, and local government. It evaluates how WFH evolved across different classes after accounting for differences in occupation and education, with a focus on trends for WFH in the federal government, relative to the for-profit class, before and after the restriction in federal WFH. Overall, “hybrid” WFH—working …

Strong Job Markets Don’T Just Raise Pay, They Improve Job Quality, Brad J. Hershbein, Katherine Lim, Douglas Webber, Mike Zabek

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Local Labor Market Tightness And Job Quality: Evidence From Job Changers, Brad J. Hershbein, Katherine Lim, Douglas Webber, Mike Zabek

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Using novel data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, we examine how labor market tightness affects workers’ job quality. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in job vacancies not only increases the probability of changing jobs, it yields an 11–18 percent increase in the (unconditional) probability of switching to a better job overall, and one with greater pay and benefits, interest in the work, and advancement opportunities. Because tight labor markets improve both worker pay and job amenities in roughly the same proportion, their benefits to workers are underestimated when based on pay alone.

How Migrants Fleeing The Mexican Drug War Changed American Labor Markets, Mark Borgschulte, Yuci Chen, Eduardo Medina-Cortina

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Close To Home? Five Key Facts About Child Care Customer And Worker Commutes, Gabrielle Pepin, Jonathan Borowsky, Elizabeth E. Davis, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Parents often cite location and convenience as important factors in choosing a child care provider. We use data on individual mobility from GPS in cell phones to study commutes to each licensed early childhood care and education (ECE) provider in 14 states separately for center customers, center workers, and customers of home-based child care providers. We document five key facts about ECE customer and worker commutes. One, center customers and workers commute farther than home-based customers to ECE providers. Two, substantial shares of customers and workers commute 10+ miles to their ECE provider. Three, commute distances to ECE providers vary …

Bearcat Advantage: Year Two Evaluation Report, Michelle Miller-Adams, Kyle Huisman, Bridget Timmeney, Kevin Hollenbeck

Reports

No abstract provided.

Michigan's Automotive Workforce Transition, Erik Vasilauskas, Michael Horrigan

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

This report examines how changes in automobile production, specifically the shift from internal-combustion-engine (ICE) vehicles toward hybrids and battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), are likely to affect employment in Michigan’s automotive manufacturing and distribution system over the next decade. The goal is to quantify how many jobs in Michigan depend on the automotive supply chain today, how that employment has evolved since the early 2000s, and how it may change through 2030 under alternative production-and-demand scenarios. The results are intended to inform the workforce planning and community transition strategies of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity’s Community and Worker Economic …

The Economic Benefits And Costs Of State And Local Incentives For Clean Energy Projects, Timothy J. Bartik, Gerrit Anderson, Brian J. Asquith, Kathleen Bolter, Kyle Huisman, Iryna V. Lendel, Jeremy Morris, Sevrin Williams

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

This report evaluates the benefits and costs of investment incentives for 50 large clean energy supply chain manufacturing and infrastructure projects. The findings suggest that these incentives generate modest but typically positive economic returns, with a median benefit-cost ratio of 1.47, meaning benefits exceed costs by 47 percent for the typical project. Returns vary significantly across projects—approximately 70 percent of projects produced net positive benefits over a 20-year period, while 30 percent failed to recover incentive costs. Project performance depends heavily on incentive design and local conditions. Excessively large cash incentives reduce returns, while customized services, strong job multipliers, investment …

The Worker Voice Gap: How Much Say Do Workers Want—And How Much Do They Actually Experience?, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Thomas A. Kochan

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

•The worker voice gap—the difference between the influence that workers want and what they experience—is very large. Nearly three-quarters of American workers want more voice at work than they currently have in three key areas: 1) compensation, 2) working conditions, and3) use of new technologies at work.

• The voice deficit is largest for compensation, but majorities of workers also express voice gaps over working conditions and the use of new technologies in their workplaces.

•Although voice gaps are relatively widespread, women tend to report larger voice gaps than men, and younger and middle-aged workers tend to report larger gaps …

Do Universities Underpay Professors? Yes, Especially Women, Zhanhan Yu, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Upjohn Regional Economic Outlook, Iryna V. Lendel, Chloe Wieber, Sevrin Williams, Gerrit Anderson, Lee Adams, Emily Petz

Reports

No abstract provided.

Solving Affordability Challenges In Education, Housing And Childcare, Brad J. Hershbein, Michelle Miller-Adams, Brian J. Asquith, Chloe R. Gibbs

Presentations

These three presentations emphasize that affordability challenges across education, housing, and childcare stem from structural market and policy frictions, and that effective solutions require coordinated public investment, simplified systems, and attention to both supply and demand. The first presentation argues that while college tuition growth has slowed and aid has increased, affordability challenges persist due to complexity, misperceptions, and uneven costs, and it advocates for simple tuition-free programs combined with investments in advising, streamlined pathways, and stronger school-to-work connections. The second presentation highlights a growing housing affordability crisis in the Rust Belt driven by aging housing stock and limited supply, …

The "Missing Self-Employed": How Better Data Change The Picture Of Self-Employment In The United States, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman, Beth C. Truesdale

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

How economically secure are self-employed workers? Accurate answers to this question depend on data that capture the full range of self-employed people, including business owners, independent contractors, and those working on an informal, often cash basis. Using data from the 2025 American Job Quality Study, we demonstrate that, because of the way standard survey questions are worded, a substantial number of self-employed people are likely miscoded as employees in existing surveys. Correctly including these “missing self-employed” increases the share of workers who are self-employed on their main job by nearly 50 percent. Compared to the self-employed captured by standard survey …

How Changes In Mexican Immigration To The United States Affect Mexican Labor Markets, Gonzalo Ares De Parga-Regalado, Marta Prato

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Do Minimum Wages Affect Workplace Injuries?, Michael Davies, R. Jisung Park, Anna Stansbury

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Caregiving For Older Adults: How The Child And Dependent Care Credit Could Help, Gabrielle Pepin, Yulya Truskinovsky

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Monopsony In Academia And The Gender Pay Gap: Evidence From California, Zhanhan Yu, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We investigate monopsony power in a highly skilled labor market made up of tenure-ranked faculty in the University of California system, and analyze differential monopsony power exposure by gender. We infer the campus-level labor supply elasticity by estimating the elasticity of separations utilizing individual-level faculty data and two instruments based on campus revenues and salary scales. We find that the “exploitation rate,” a common measure of monopsony power, is about 7% for tenure-ranked faculty. There is a statistically significant difference in the monopsony power experienced by male and female faculty that appears to account for a relatively small percentage of …

Are The Self-Employed Really Their Own Boss?: Evidence On The Degree Of Autonomy And Control The Self-Employed Have Over Their Work, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman, Beth C. Truesdale

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

Self-employment is commonly equated with being one’s own boss. This implies that, compared to employees, the self-employed have greater freedom to make their own decisions on key aspects of their job, including how they do their work and when they work. In this paper, we use information from a large, nationally representative survey, collected as part of the American Job Quality Study, to examine the degree to which workers in various self-employment arrangements do, in fact, control their own work. We find that while the self-employed are more likely than employees to have a lot of input into how and …

School System Selection Processes And Workforce Diversity In School, Dan Goldhaber, Cyrus Grout, Constance A. Lindsay, Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

To date, there is little evidence about the extent to which teacher and principal diversity is related to the advancement of applicants to teacher and principal jobs through the hiring pipeline. We investigate this issue using novel job application and hiring data from a wide range of school districts and charter organizations. We find that non-White teacher applicants are less likely to advance through the hiring pipeline, particularly Asian applicants. We do, however, see evidence of heterogeneity with charter schools more likely to hire underrepresented minority teacher applicants. We do not find similar differences for principal hiring, but smaller samples …

Workforce Dynamics In Michigan's Upper Peninsula: Trends, Shocks, And Projections Through 2030, Iryna V. Lendel

Presentations

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is navigating a complex economic transition shaped by demographic change, workforce aging, and sectoral concentration. While the region has experienced long-term population decline, its labor force has remained stable due to rising participation among older workers. At the same time, the U.P.’s economy remains highly concentrated in extraction, construction, and production industries. These industries offer strong wages but are sensitive to economic cycles.

This presentation highlights key findings on workforce structure, industry specialization, and the region’s capacity to respond to potential shocks, including major employer closures. Evidence shows substantial skill overlap across industries, creating opportunities for worker …