Economics Commons^™

The Impact Of Weather Shocks On Employment Outcomes: Evidence From South Africa, Harriet Margaret Brookes Gray, Vis Taraz, Simon Halliday

Environmental Science and Policy: Faculty Publications

Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, such as drought and heat waves. In this paper, we assess the impact of drought and high temperatures on the employment outcomes of working-age individuals in South Africa between 2008 and 2017. We merge high-resolution weather data with detailed individual-level survey data on labor market outcomes, and estimate causal impacts using a fixed effects framework. We find that increases in the occurrence of drought reduce overall employment. These effects are concentrated in the tertiary sector, amongst informal workers, and in provinces with a higher reliance on tourism. Taken together, our …

An Anomaly In Unemployment Rates: A Comparative Analysis Of Federal Governments’ Responses To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Trent Arney

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom experienced extremely low unemployment rates compared to similarly developed nations. As a result of the ensuing national recessions, the United States’ and Canada’s Phillip’s Curves shifted, while the United Kingdom’s remained steady. Each of these three nations pursued relatively similar monetary and fiscal policies; however, the United Kingdom’s government-supported wage policy had different requirements and specifications than that of the United States’ and Canada’s. The United Kingdom’s government-supported wage policy prioritized saving jobs while the United States’ and Canada’s policies prioritized saving firms, leading to the disparity in national unemployment rates observed during …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Employment Characteristics, Eliana Shatkin

Theses and Dissertations

The following study examines ways in which COVID-19 has disrupted the United States labor market. My findings present disproportionately negative effects of COVID-19 on employment, labor force participation, worker absence, and weekly working hours for the female population in my sample, as well as veterans, disabled persons, and racial minorities.

Nevada Job Gains/Losses, January 2020 - January 2022, Hira Ahmed, Joshua Padilla, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet displays county-level job gains and losses for 17 counties in Nevada, as reported in the March 2022 The Daily Yonder article “Most Recent Jobs Data Shows Rural Employment Is Nearly Back to Pre-Pandemic Level.”

Does The Okun's Law Hold In The Brics Countries And Nigeria?, U. Aminu, A. Abel, A. R. Garba

Economic and Financial Review

The unemployment-output nexus is a topical issue in developing countries, particularly with some evidence against the trade-off suggested by Okun’s law. This study, therefore, investigates the validity of Okun’s law in the BRICS countries and Nigeria, based on annual data between 1993 and 2020, using the Panel ARDL model. We validate the Okun’s law with evidence of an inverse relationship between output and unemployment in the BRICS countries and Nigeria. We, therefore, recommend that policymakers should boost both nominal and potential output by fully diversifying the economy to enhance productivity and reduction in the unemployment rate. We also recommend that …

Gendered Labor Market Outcomes During Covid-19: Evidence From Early Withdrawal Of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, Nicholas Di

Economics Honors Projects

Despite their importance in the social safety net, Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits are expected to increase unemployment duration. I find that males, on average, face a greater drop in unemployment than females when (UI) is no longer offered in their respective state. Male’s unemployment rate dropped more by a magnitude of 0.7 percent compared to female’s which consists of about 11.5 percent of male unemployment during UI. Females who were married, were in lower family income brackets, or had children saw smaller changes in unemployment when UI programs were exhausted.

The Prisoner Plateau: How Prisons Affect Rural Economies, Andi Ellis

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

For the last several decades, rural communities in the United States have struggled to keep their economies afloat. In an effort to revitalize such economies, local leaders have bid on being the host communities for prisons– both federal and private. Do these prison facilities actually affect rural economies? Equally, how do these prison hosting communities differ from neighboring counties that do not have prisons? By examining various rural prison counties from across the country, as well as their non-prison county counterparts, I argue that, despite an undeniable uptick in jobs, the quality of life in these communities is often unchanged, …

Reemployment Services And Eligibility Assessments (Resea) In Maryland—Formative Evaluation, Program Year 2019, Christopher J. O'Leary, Gabrielle Pepin, Ting Zhang, Conrad Helms

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

Unemployment insurance (UI) exists to provide temporary partial wage replacement during periods of involuntary unemployment while beneficiaries are actively seeking reemployment. The reemployment effort required of UI beneficiaries, which balances the work disincentive of income replacement, ensures that UI is social insurance rather than social welfare.

In 2017, Congress appropriated funding to provide reemployment services and eligibility assessments (RESEA) to UI beneficiaries. The legislation also required that states receiving RESEA conduct annual evaluations to produce causal evidence that reemployment services and eligibility assessments are effective.

In this formative evaluation, we produce the first causal effect estimates of the Maryland RESEA …

Top Boomtowns In The Mountain West, Ally M. Beckwith, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Cities & Metros

This fact sheet highlights data on the top boomtowns in the Mountain West region in 2019 and 2021. The original SmartAsset report includes data on the rapid economic growth and prosperity in boomtown cities through new employment opportunities and residents.

The Effects Of Corporate Tax Rates And Foreign Investment On Unemployment In Tax Haven Nations, Timothy M. Campbell

Honors Theses and Capstones

Corporate tax haven nations are infamous for offering corporations lower tax rates so that they can operate at lower costs and increase their profits. How the tax policies of tax havens impact the citizens of those nations is seldom discussed. This paper aims to determine if the policies undertaken by tax havens to increase foreign investment benefit the welfare of the citizens of those nations in terms of employment rate. Using a small preliminary sample of havens and non-havens, an inverse relationship is observed between corporate tax rate and foreign direct investment, and corporate tax rate and employment. A larger …

Search, Technology Choice, And Unemployment, Constantine Angyridis, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

Technology variations among countries account for a significant part of their income differences. In this paper, a firm's technology choice is embedded in a search theoretic framework for unemployment. More advanced technology is assumed to have a higher setup cost, but it is more productive. The model is tractable and the following results are derived analytically. An increase in the unemployment benefit leads to an increase in the equilibrium wage rate, giving an incentive to firms to choose a more advanced technology. Thus, this result regarding unemployment insurance in models with wage posting carries through with Nash bargaining as well. …

The Impact Of Immigration On Unemployment And Wages In The United States: Evidence From Seven States, Carol Ohenewa Bruce-Tagoe

Masters Theses

Immigration and Immigration policies have been a source of debate for political parties in the United States, especially its impact on the labor market. This research investigates how immigration affects unemployment and wages in the U.S. by using a balanced panel dataset of seven states from 2007 to 2019. The states (California, New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, and Massachusetts) sampled recorded the highest immigrant population and contain key gateway cities. I estimate two models: unemployment growth rate, and wages growth rate. The results of the pooled OLS estimation confirm that immigration has a trivial impact on the U.S. …

Do Economic Conditions Affect Climate Change Beliefs And Support For Climate Action? Evidence From The Us In The Wake Of The Great Recession, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

I show that climate skepticism increases with negative economic shocks and that the effects are concentrated among individuals in the labor force. I primarily employ a panel of US individuals in the period following the Great Recession, but also find consistent results with an alternative instrumental variables strategy. Among labor force participants, a one‐percentage point increase in the local unemployment rate leads to a three to five percentage point decrease in the probability of believing climate change is real and requires action. I conclude that support for climate change policies could depend on labor market conditions.

Does Technological Innovations Affect Unemployment In Nigeria?, Ebunoluwa O. Oyegoke, Wasiu A. Yusuf

Bullion

The study examines the effects of technological innovations on unemployment in Nigeria using annual time series data 1980-2018, Autoregressive Distributed Lag and cointegration bound testing approach, Technological innovations was provided by the inflow of FDI; importation of Machinery and Equipment as indicator for process innovation (ETC), Patent represents product innovation, while Total Factor Productivity serves as the exogenous technical progress in line with Solow. The result shows that the coefficient of the inward Foreign Direct Investments (INFDI) is positive (3.85), which is significant at 5%, indicating a strong positive effect of process innovation on Unemployment, Machinery and Equipment was also …

Reemployment Services And Eligibility Assessments (Resea) In Maryland: Process Analysis Report, Christopher J. O'Leary, Gabrielle Pepin, Ting Zhang, Conrad Helms

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Recreational Cannabis Access On Labor Markets: Evidence From Colorado, Avinandan Chakraborty, Jacqueline Doremus, Sarah Stith

Economics

Recreational cannabis markets possibly increase labor demand through investments in facilities for growing, processing, and retail sales of cannabis, as well as through other industries such as manufacturing, leisure, and hospitality. However, this increase in labor demand may vary substantially across counties within a state as most states with legal recreational canna-bis allow individual counties to ban commercial cannabis sales. Meanwhile, labor supply may change through positive and negative effects from cannabis use. Using county-level Colorado data from 2011 to 2018 and exploiting variation across counties in the existence and timing of the start of dispensary sales, we test for …

The Impact Of The Pandemic On U.S. Labor Markets: Past, Present And Future Concerns, Michael Horrigan

Presentations

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Examination Of The Impact Of Economic Structural Change On Income Inequality: Dynamic Heterogeneous Panel Approach, Maha Elhini, Rasha Hammam

Economics

This paper employs structural growth perspective to the analysis of income inequality in 43 countries over the period 2003-2017.The study utilizes two different panel estimation techniques. First, the panel least squares regression examines the relevance of Kuznets effect of the different economic sectors; agriculture, manufacturing and services on income inequality. Second, the pooled mean group (PMG) estimation of dynamic heterogeneous panels gauges the long run impact of the change in sectoral value added as a proxy for structural change on inequality. PMG presents short run adjustments to be country-specific due to the widely different impacts of macroeconomic conditions and vulnerability …

Place-Based Jobs Policies: We Need To Boost Employment Rates In Distressed Places, But: One Size Does Not Fit All, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 And Nevada Counties: Employment Data, May 2019 And May 2021, Joshua Padilla, Katie M. Gilbertson, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet displays county-level employment data and unemployment rates for 17 counties in Nevada, as reported by The Daily Yonder article “Rural Employment Grew in May, but Fewer People Are Seeking Jobs” in July 2021. Bill Bishop and Tim Marema compiled data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for each county in the United States for May 2019 and May 2021.

Financial Stress In Mountain West Cities And Townships, 2020, Saha Salahi, Kristian Thymianos, Eshaan Vakil, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This factsheet highlights financial stressors facing 16 cities in four Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado Nevada, and New Mexico. The data included are reported in the 2020 “SmartAsset Study” by Ben Geier.

Covid-19: Creative Class Job Loss In The Mountain West, Katie M. Gilbertson, Kelliann Beavers, Peter Grema, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet summarizes Mountain West data on creative economy job losses in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, as reported in a recent Brookings report “Lost Art: Measuring COVID-19’s Devastating Impact on America’s Creative Economy.” Richard Florida and Michael Seman discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on job losses in “creative industries, which are comprised of firms and establishments that produce goods and services relating to music, film, design, advertising, fashion, art, and more.”

Covid-19: Projected Employment Change In The Mountain West, 2019 - 2029, Peter Grema, Madison Frazee-Bench, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet summarizes a report by Mark Muro and Yang You of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution titled, “In some cities, the pandemic’s economic pain may continue for a decade.” Using February 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) economic baseline data, the original report projects employment change for states and metros from prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to 2029. This fact sheet summarizes the findings for Mountain West states (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) and the major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in each state.

“You Never Know” Work And Precarity In Las Vegas Before And During Covid-19, Richard Reeves, Morgan Welch, Hannah Van Drie

Policy Briefs and Reports

In this brief we examine work and work-based policies in Las Vegas, Nevada – a theme that emerged strongly from focus group data collected in the fall of 2019. The middle-class Americans we talked with were concerned about upward mobility, the changing landscape of work as a result of automation and skills training, scheduling uncertainty, and employee benefits like time off and paid leave. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated these pre-existing issues for many workers. Much of the policy agenda in the last year has been understandably reactionary, as policymakers addressed immediate issues such as unemployment insurance, keeping workers …

Battling Youth Unemployment In France: Can Macron Put Young People To Work?, Adriana C. Bolivar

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

High unemployment has been a persistent struggle for the French economy, especially over the last 30 years under presidents Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, and now Macron. In recent years, this problem has particularly plagued young workers making them the “lost generation” of Europe. This paper studies the history of youth unemployment in France and assesses the impact of government policies and cultural norms on young workers. Additionally, it highlights the trade-off between workers’ rights and economic growth in an attempt to draw attention to the importance of culture and context in development.

The factors that have driven French structural youth …

Asymmetric Analysis Of Okun’S Law: The Case For Turkey, Pınar Deniz, F. İrem Dogan

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

This paper revisits Okun’s law under an asymmetric approach for Turkey applying structural threshold regression model that allows for endogeneity of the threshold variable that separates the dataset into low and high regime periods according to economic growth. Moreover, the theory is investigated taking subcategories of unemployment rate into account, such as age, education and gender. Empirical findings suggest that only the overall unemployment rate and female unemployment rate reflect significantly negative impacts in both periods. During deep recessions, unemployment rates are more responsive to economic growth. In order to consider nonlinearities, Kourtellos et al. (2016) structural threshold regression (STR) …

Bankruptcy And The Debt-Unemployment Relationship: Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Gina C.M. Jouaneh

Senior Honors Projects

This paper examines the effect of a change in bankruptcy law on the relationship between household debt and longer-run unemployment in the United States. In consumer bankruptcy cases, filers can be eligible for two different types of bankruptcies: Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 frees filers from debt repayment by liquidating their assets and using those proceeds to pay creditors, while Chapter 13 allows filers to enter a debt repayment plan of three to five years rather than discharge debt altogether. In 2005, Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which greatly increased the difficulty …

Community Health Assessment: Van Buren County, Kathleen Bolter, Jim Robey, Gerrit Anderson, W.E. Upjohn Institute For Employment Research

Reports

No abstract provided.

Community Health Assessment: Kalamazoo, Kathleen Bolter, Jim Robey, Gerrit Anderson, W.E. Upjohn Institute For Employment Research

Reports

No abstract provided.

Measuring The U.S. Employment Situation Using Online Panels: The Yale Labor Survey, Christopher Foote, Tyler Hounshell, William D. Nordhaus, Douglas Rivers, Pamela Torola

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This study presents the design and results of a rapid-fire survey that collects labor market data for individuals in the United States. The purpose is to test online panels for their application to social, economic, and demographic information as well as to apply this approach to the U.S. labor market. The Yale Labor Survey (YLS) used an online panel from YouGov to replicate statistics from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the government’s official source of household labor market statistics. The YLS’s advantages included its timeliness, low cost, and ability to develop new questions quickly to study unusual labor market patterns …