Labor Economics Commons^™

The Responsiveness Of Migration To Labor Market Conditions, Preston M. Brashers

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation explores how migration responds to economic conditions, particularly differences in responsiveness for various segments of the population. After a brief introduction and motivation of my work in Chapter One, Chapter Two estimates the responsiveness of households’ interstate migration to origin state labor market conditions and surrounding state labor market conditions. Each percentage point increase in origin state unemployment insurance claims leads to a 3.2 percent increase in household’s propensity to migrate interstate and each percentage point increase in the unemployment insurance claims rate of surrounding states reduces interstate migration propensity by 5.2 percent. I then examine how this …

Strategic Responses To Tax And Transfer Policy: Welfare Competition, Tax Competition And The Elasticity Of Taxable Income, Sarah K. Burns

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays focused on identifying the strategic responses of governments and individuals following changes in the tax and transfer system. Two essays contribute to the literature on fiscal competition, focusing on state level polices aimed at redistributing income. A third essay contributes to the literature estimating the responsiveness of individual’s incomes to changing marginal tax rates. A better understanding of these responses contributes to our ability to design an optimal tax and transfer system in a federalist nation.

In essay 1 I employ a spatial dynamic approach to investigate interstate welfare competition across multiple policy instruments …

Three Essays On The Health Insurance Coverage Of Young Adults, David M. Yaskewich

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation examines the health insurance status of young adults during the transition to adulthood. In a series of three essays, I analyze what happens as young adults reach important milestones and the effects of public policies. The first essay is a descriptive study on how insurance status changes after reaching age 19 and graduating from college. The likelihood of becoming uninsured rises sharply once turning age 19 and then peaks at age 23. While the proportion uninsured also increases following college graduation, this increase disappears after one year. The second essay analyzes the effect of a dependent age law …

Essays On Income Volatility And Individual Well-Being, Bradley L. Hardy

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation consists of three essays in which I document trends in earnings and income volatility, estimate potential causal mechanisms for changing volatility, and examine the long-term consequences of parental income volatility for children. In essay 2 I document trends in earnings and income volatility of individuals and families using matched data in the March Current Population survey from 1973 to 2009. Essay 3 advances the literature on volatility, using matched data from the CPS to identify demographic and labor market correlates of earnings volatility within education-birth year cohorts. This study collapses the cross-sectional CPS into a pseudo-panel and then …

Career Interruptions: Wage And Gender Effects, Jill Kearns

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of career interruptions on workers’ wages. In chapter four I examine whether controlling for the type of interruption differently affects men’s and women’s wages and therefore can be used to explain the remaining gender wage differences. The increased participation of married women in the labor force has increased their wages from just 30% of men’s wages in 1890 to nearly 80% as of 2001. Thus, although the gender wage gap has narrowed over time, it has yet to be eliminated. One argument for the persistence of the gender wage gap is that previously researchers have …

Three Essays On The Black White Wage Gap, Nola Ogunro

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the black – white wage gap narrowed significantly, but has remained constant since the late 1980s. The black – white wage gap in the recent period may reflect differences in human capital. A key component of human capital is labor market experience. The first chapter of this dissertation examines how differences in the returns and patterns of experience accumulation affect the black – white wage gap. Accounting for differences in the nature of experience accumulation does not explain the very large gap in wages between blacks and whites. Instead, the wage gap seems to …

Kentucky Labor Supply And Demand Surveys, Mark C. Berger, Paul A. Coomes, Christopher Bollinger, Bruce Gale, Ronald E. Langley, Barry Kornstein, Jonathan M. Roenker, John Perry, Roy Sigafus, Eric C. Thompson

CBER Research Report

Excerpt from the executive summary:

The Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Kentucky (CBER), along with its partners, the Survey Research Center at the University of Kentucky (UK-SRC), the Survey Research Center in the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Louisville (UL-SRC), and the Department of Economics at the University of Louisville, is pleased to present this final report on the findings of the Kentucky labor supply and demand surveys sponsored by the Kentucky Cabinet for Workforce Development. The two universities have put together a consortium including some of the best scholars in the region …