Economics Commons^™

The Role Of Manufacturing In A Jobs Recovery, Susan N. Houseman

External Papers and Reports

No abstract provided.

Mountain Monitor - 4th Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor finds that the pace of economic recovery in the Mountain West region’s major metropolitan areas converged toward that of the rest of the nation in the last quarter of 2013.

While quarterly performance on the Monitor’s four indicators of economic recovery—employment, output, the unemployment rate, and house prices—varied considerably across the 10 major metro areas of the region, their combined performance broadly slowed to track with the rate of national economic recovery. The quarter’s average job growth remained unchanged in the region at 0.4 percent as the national economy caught up. The gap between the national …

The Minimum Wage And Crime, Andrew Beauchamp, Stacy Chan

Economics Faculty Publications

Does crime respond to changes in the minimum wage? A growing body of empirical evidence indicates that increases in the minimum wage have a displacement effect on low-skilled workers. Economic reasoning provides the possibility that disemployment may cause youth to substitute from legal work to crime. However, there is also the countervailing effect of a higher wage raising the opportunity cost of crime for those who remain employed. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort to measure the effect of increases in the minimum wage on self-reported criminal activity and examine employment–crime substitution. Exploiting changes in state …

Interstate Migration Among Latinos And The Foreign‐Born Latino Population In Nevada, 2007‐2011, Jaewon Lim, John P. Tuman, David F. Damore

Brookings Mountain West Publications

Over the past two decades, Nevada’s foreign‐born Latino population has grown dramatically. As a consequence, by the end of 2011, approximately 42% of Latinos residing in Nevada had emigrated from Latin America, with over three‐fourths of the foreign‐born Latino population originating from Mexico. In part, Nevada has been attractive to Latin American immigrants (and Latinos more generally) because of the relative abundance of jobs in the state that require relatively low levels of skill and educational attainment, as well as the state’s close proximity to Arizona and California. Prior to 2008, Latino employment was concentrated in Nevada’s hospitality, construction, and …

The Minimum Wage And Teen Unemployment: A Study Of The Effect Of The Fair Minimum Wage Act Of 2007, Alexander Pino

Pepperdine Policy Review

The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 increased the national minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. We attempt to evaluate the impact of this statute on low-skill labor. We do so by analyzing the effect of the law on the teen unemployment rate in the five states with no state minimum wages (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee). Using the adult unemployment rate as a control in a difference-in-differences analysis we find that the 2007 minimum wage increase had a negative effect on teen employment in these states.

The Youth Unemployment Crisis Facing Welfare Regimes: How States Develop New Social Policy, Andrew C. Campbell

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Mountain Monitor - 3rd Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor marks the four-year anniversary of Brookings Mountain West's quarterly tracking of the uneven pace of recovery across the major metro areas of the Intermountain West and it finds that, although the region continues to outperform the national economy the rate of recovery slowed moderately in the region’s metro areas.

As a group, Mountain region metro areas advanced on all four indicators of economic recovery tracked by the Monitor—employment, output, unemployment, and house prices—but their progress was more restrained in the third quarter of 2013 than it was in the second.

Beneath the regional headline of moderating …

The Impact Of The Great Recession On Nevada’S Latino Community, John P. Tuman, David F. Damore, Maria J.F. Agreda

Brookings Mountain West Publications

The emergence of the Great Recession of 2008 had a profound impact in Nevada. The economic downturn generated high unemployment levels and led to turbulence in many sectors, particularly residential home construction and the hospitality industry. In the wake of the crisis, median home prices in Nevada plunged, while the residential foreclosure rate increased and remains one of the highest rates in the country. By 2009, it was evident that a tightening of commercial bank lending for new mortgages, combined with the impact of rising joblessness and plunging housing values, was hampering recovery efforts in the housing sector and Nevada’s …

Simulation Analysis Of The Louisiana Unemployment Insurance Tax System: Final Report, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

Unemployment insurance (UI) is a federal-state program designed to provide adequate partial income replacement to workers during temporary periods of involuntary joblessness. The UI system acts as an automatic macroeconomic stabilizer, increasing spending during recessions and reducing aggregate spending during recoveries. The program helps prevent recipients from slipping into poverty during unemployment.

This report reviews the recent history of financing regular UI benefits in Louisiana, assesses the adequacy of financing, and suggests areas where the financing system could be improved. The project aims to identify possible system reforms that will 1) assure long-term financial stability, 2) increase tax equity, and …

Mountain Monitor - 2nd Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Economic recovery progressed steadily across the metropolitan Mountain West in the second quarter of 2013. Many of the region’s major metro areas counted among the strongest economic performers nationally, but output growth slowed over the quarter and the region‘s unemployment recovery looked to be stagnating. Moderate job growth and a fast and accelerating housing recovery buoyed the Mountain West economy in the second quarter.

Unemployment Insurance, Stephen A. Woodbury

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Unemployment insurance (UI) provides temporary income support to workers who have lost their jobs and are seeking reemployment. This paper reviews the origins of the federal-state UI system in the United States and outlines its principles and goals. It also describes the conditions for benefit eligibility, the benefits themselves, and their financing through the UI payroll tax. The UI system is complex and includes many interested parties, including employers, worker advocates, state UI administrators, and the federal government. These parties’ differing views have led to controversies over benefit eligibility, adequacy, and whether the states or federal government should bear primary …

Mountain Monitor-1st Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Economic recovery gained strength across the major metro areas of the Mountain West in the first quarter of 2013. Multiple metro areas achieved long-awaited full employment recoveries in the first quarter and regional production surpassed pre-recession levels of output for the first time. The region’s strong housing rebound continued to be a boon. Additionally, a special supplement to the Monitor shows that the healthcare sector has been an outsized contributor to recovery throughout the region. Despite progress on multiple fronts, though, many Mountain metro areas remain scarred with high unemployment rates, severely depressed house prices, and daunting jobs deficits.

Predictors Of Employment Growth And Unemployment In U.S. Central Cities, 1990-2010, Laura Wolf-Powers

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper considers employment growth and unemployment from 1990-2010 in a cross-section of cities in light of practical tools that city governments have at their disposal to provide relief. In particular, I test educational attainment (both initial levels and growth over time) and public capital investment as influences on job growth and changes in unemployment rates in 83 central cities in the United States. Change in educational attainment over time is suggestive of causing higher job growth and lower unemployment. The implication is that initiatives to attract and retain college-educated professionals and investments in increasing college attainment among incumbent residents …

Jobs Don’T Grow On Trees, Nicholas Johnson

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2013

Most contemporary macroeconomic models account for unemployment by making the simplifying assumptions that 1) there is an equilibrium level of unemployment and that 2) when the economy is not at that level it will tend towards equilibrium. Implicit in these models is also the assumption that the actual behavior of unemployment does not affect the equilibrium level. This paper joins a growing number of economists pointing out that such assumptions are false: the equilibrium does depend on past behavior, a trait called hysteresis. This paper considers the hysteresis hypothesis by using an iterated version of OLS to construct a series …

Responding To The Needs Of Workers During The Great Recession, Randall W. Eberts, Stephen A. Wandner

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Education On Unemployment In Kentucky, Christopher R. Bollinger

Issue Brief on Topics Affecting Kentucky’s Economy

No abstract provided.

Mountain Monitor-4th Quarter 2012, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Indicators of economic recovery depicted continued progress in the major metropolitan areas of the Mountain West in the fourth quarter of 2012. The region’s employment recovery gained momentum, and solid home-price increases in the region contributed to the nation‘s broader housing recovery. Such inroads bode well for further advances in 2013. At the same time, the region’s output recovery slowed and unemployment refused to budge.

U.S. Employment Outlook For 2013, Randall W. Eberts

Periodical Articles

No abstract provided.

2013-4 Three Revolutions In Macroeconomics: Their Nature And Influence, David Laidler

Economic Policy Research Institute. EPRI Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Tackling Unemployment: The Legislative Dynamics Of The Employment Act Of 1946, Ruth Ellen Wasem

Upjohn Press

Wasem examines the impacts and implications of the Employment Act of 1946 and discusses how provisions of the Act might be useful for today's policymakers.

The Role Of Expectations: An Application To Internal Migration, Robert Baumann, Justin Svec, Francis Sanzari

Economics Department Working Papers

This paper examines the impact of unemployment on migration. In a theoretical model, we show that unemployment, per se, does not affect migration. Rather, migration only occurs when unemployment shocks force residents to update their expectations of the area's unemployment rate. Once these expectations change, migration reallocates labor to bring the economy back to equilibrium. To test this theory, we devise an empirical strategy using state level data in the U.S. from 2000 to 2010, we find strong empirical evidence that unemployment shocks outside of expectations have a far greater impact on migration than unemployment shocks that are within expectations.

Mountain Monitor-3rd Quarter 2012, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The major metropolitan areas of the Intermountain West finally put the housing bust behind them in the third quarter of 2012 and in most places made solid progress. House prices rose in all 10 major metropolitan markets in the months from June to September for the first time since the recession began. Likewise, output growth accelerated and the unemployment rate continued to fall. Unfortunately none of this prevented the region’s already feeble jobs recovery from slowing.

The Pros And Cons Of Outsourcing, Angela Smith

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Outsourcing has become increasingly popular to the public since the mid-20th century and has become more controversial in the last decade. The United States economy has been under the microscope for the last 4 years due to an economic recession. Outsourcing has been a subject of interest that has been brought up numerous times by economists. Offshore outsourcing is the main type of outsourcing that is of concern in relation to the United States economy. This topic is highly debated because of the unemployment rate in America.

Wages And Informality In Developing Countries, Costas Meghir, Renata Narita, Jean-Marc Robin

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

It is often argued that informal labor markets in developing countries promote growth by reducing the impact of regulation. On the other hand informality may reduce the amount of social protection offered to workers. We extend the wage-posting framework of Burdett and Mortensen (1998) to allow heterogeneous firms to decide whether to locate in the formal or the informal sector, as well as set wages. Workers engage in both off the job and on the job search. We estimate the model using Brazilian micro data and evaluate the labor market and welfare effects of policies towards informality.

Mountain Monitor-2nd Quarter 2012, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Data for the second quarter of 2012 reveal that the large metropolitan areas of the Mountain region were undergoing some of both the strongest and weakest economic recoveries in the nation—even as the pace of recovery across the region as a whole slackened. The result is a new geography. Crash-blasted Boise and Phoenix, along with Utah’s metropolitan areas, are now recovering relatively strongly while Colorado’s metropolitan areas and Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and Tucson struggle.

Financial And Labor Market Determinants Of Mortgage Delinquency Rates: Mclean County, Il, 1985-2011, Jake Mann

Honors Projects

This study examines the relationship between labor and financial market factors and the mortgage delinquency rate in McLean County, Illinois, between January 1985 and December 2011. The mortgage delinquency rate is defined as the ratio between the number of defaulting mortgages and the number of mortgages issued. The volume of defaulting mortgages is measured through the number of lis pendens notices filed with the Recorder’s Office. A lis pendens notice informs the grantee of a mortgage loan that the grantor's payments are three months overdue. The issuance of this notice starts a foreclosure process. As labor market indicators we consider …

Do Pennsylvania Casinos Cannibalize Pa State Lottery Revenues?, Andrew J. Economopoulos, William Stolle

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

The first Pennsylvania casino opened its doors in 2006. Studies of other states, and nationally, indicate that casinos cannibalize lottery revenues as consumers substitute lottery spending for casino spending. Pennsylvania time-series data and cross-sectional data for each county suggests that higher casino wagering leads to lower lottery spending. Unlike the other studies, Pennsylvania's rate of cannibalization is relatively low where state lottery revenues decline by five to fifteen cents for each dollar of casino revenue gained. About half of the cannibalization takes place in the counties where the casino resided.

Social And Economic Factors Leading To Differences In Us State Unemployment, Taylor Neighbours

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper dives into the socio-economic factors that lead to differences in U.S. State unemployment rates. The study will look at and evaluate prior economic literature, including regression analysis, comparative statistics, and raw data from the BLS and Census Bureau. Further, it will take select parts from past models to create and analyze an economic regression model. The data to be found below is a cross-sectional interpretation of each of the 50 states for the years 2000 & 2010. The root causes for fluctuations in unemployment can help economists better understand how to monitor and manage unemployment levels on a …

G-20 Summit And Debt Crisis Of Europe, Badar Alam Iqbal

Business Review

Europe is under debt threat, facing the biggest crisis of uncertainty. If Euro fails, Europe fails. Since the Second World War, this is the hardest hour for Europe. One of the biggest limitations of global integration of EU is that small and weak countries could not fall in line with strong economies. This crisis is the example in this regard. The recent summit at Cannes has failed in giving concrete solution to the debt crisis especially in case of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. The crisis in Greece and ltaly cost the resignations of two popular Prime Ministers. The …

Including Jobs In Benefit-Cost Analysis, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Public policies may affect employment by directly creating jobs, facilitating job creation, or augmenting labor supply. In labor markets with high unemployment, such employment changes may have significant net efficiency benefits, which should be included in benefit-cost analyses.
The research literature offers diverse recommendations on measuring employment benefits. Many of the recommendations rely on arbitrary assumptions. The resulting employment benefit estimates vary widely.
This paper reviews this literature, and offers recommendations on how to better measure employment benefits using estimable parameters. Guidance is provided on measuring policy-induced labor demand, estimating the demand shock’s impact on labor market outcomes, and translating …