Labor Economics Commons^™

Statistical Targeting To Support Reemployment Services, Christopher J. O'Leary, Scott Gibbons, Cheryl Atkinson, Gary Gonzalez

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

State And Regional Variation In The Effects Of Trade On Job Displacement In The Us Manufacturing Sector, 1982-1999, Roger White

Economics

Worker-level data from the 1984–2000 Displaced Worker Surveys are employed to examine the effects of trade on manufacturing workers’ probabilities of job displacement. Observed changes in import and export penetration rates yield increases in displacement probabilities for the North Central, Middle Atlantic and South Central regions yet lower displacement probabilities for the Plains/West and Pacific regions. Changes in import and export price indexes lead to increases in displacement probabilities for the Pacific, Southeast and Northeast regions and decreases for the South Central and Middle Atlantic regions. However, while the influences of imports and exports on job displacement vary considerably across …

America’S Biggest Low-Wage Industry: Continuity And Change In Retail Jobs, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly

Center for Social Policy Publications

For those concerned with job quality in the United States, the retail industry commands attention. Retail is not only the largest low-wage industry in the country’s economy; it is the largest industry, period. It generates numerous entry level jobs for those with limited formal training. Hourly wages of nonsupervisory workers in retail languish at about three-quarters the national average. Retail is a very important employer of young workers. Its workforce is also disproportionately female. Women are concentrated in particular retail sub-sectors and some minority groups seem to remain employed in retail over time. At the same time, retail jobs—at least, …

Disability Insurance And Female Labor Supply, Rania Malik

All Theses

This paper studies the household characteristics where husbands receive disability income. It tries to analyze the characteristics of the married men based on age, race, education and wage. This paper also concentrates on the labor supply pattern of married women in the disabled households and tries to find whether women in these households work more in response to the disability income received by the husbands.

The Wagner-Peyser Act And U.S. Employment Service: Seventy-Five Years Of Matching Job Seekers And Employers, Christopher J. O'Leary, Randall W. Eberts

Reports

This paper provides an overview of the public labor exchange system in the United States, how it came to be, and where it is going. The paper begins by offering a brief history of the development of the U.S. Employment Service, emphasizing the federal-state partnership that has evolved over time and highlighting the differing priorities Congress has placed on the services funded under Wagner-Peyser Act. It then examines the ways workers search for jobs and employers recruit employees. It also shows the role the ES plays in this job matching process. The complementarity between ES services and the broader workforce …

Washington Pension System Review, Peter S. Barth, Heather Grob, Henry George Harder, H. Allan Hunt, Michael Silverstein

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

The purpose of this study is to analyze the incidence of Total Permanent Disability (TPD) pensions in Washington State's workers' compensation program. Concerns exist at both the legislature and in the Department of Labor and Industries as there appears to have been a sharp upturn in the number of pensions awarded since late in the 1990s. This report examines the factors that may be causally related to any upsurge in such awards. Our task is to evaluate pension incidence for both the state fund and the self-insured populations, with a view towards identifying causes of the trend in both sectors, …

Fits & Starts: The Difficult Path For Working Single Parents, Rebecca Loya, Ruth J. Liberman, Randy Albelda, Elisabeth Babcock

Center for Social Policy Publications

With dramatic shifts in the economy in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for families to move into or stay in the middle class without access to higher education and skills training. Government-sponsored work supports help by providing direct assistance to working families to meet basic needs, such as child care, food, and housing. Yet, many supports do not reach low-wage working families in Massachusetts because of low eligibility thresholds, inadequate funding, limited availability, limited awareness, and numerous barriers to accessing such supports. Even for low-wage workers who do receive key work supports, such as subsidized child care and …

The Revitalization Of Older Industrial Cities: A Review Essay Of Retooling For Growth, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This review essay debates the policy issues raised by the book Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas, edited by Richard M. McGahey and Jennifer S. Vey (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). I argue that the main rationale for adopting policies to revitalize older industrial cities is to improve the per capita earnings of urban residents. Therefore, urban economic development policy should be seen as urban labor market policy. Increasing city residents' earnings requires progress on two fronts: increasing metropolitan labor demand; increasing the quantity and quality of the effective labor supply of city residents …

The U.S. Economic Crisis And A Revised New Jobs Tax Credit, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

An efficacious economic stimulus to help the U.S. economy recover from its current recession is the revival of the New Jobs Tax Credit. Unlike the original credit utilized by the federal government in 1977– 1978, the new version should be a refundable credit but at a lower current dollar value. My 2001 book, Jobs for the Poor: Can Labor Demand Policies Help? proposed a permanent version f the New Jobs Tax Credit that would be automatically triggered when the unemployment rate is high. My estimates, updated to 2008, suggest that such a revised credit might increase aggregate U.S. employment by …

Schooling And Political Participation Revisited, Davin Chor, Filipe R. Campante

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate how the link between individual schooling and political participation is a ected by country characteristics which determine the relative productivity of human capital in political versus production activities. In our model, individuals face an e ort-allocation decision over the use of their human capital. Focusing on the role played by country factor endowments, we show that the abundance of a factor that is used in the least (respectively most) human capital-intensive sector will increase (respectively decrease) both: (i) the level of individual political participation; and (ii) the responsiveness of individual political participation to increases in human capital. We …

Strategies For Improving Economic Mobility Of Workers, Maude Toussaint-Comeau

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Flavor Of Money: The Vanilla Industry And The Economy Of Antalaha, Elizabeth Packer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The objectives of my research were to understand how the vanilla exporting business has changed in Antalaha in recent years, to assess the impact of cash crops on people’s livelihoods, to examine the benefits and drawbacks associated with vanilla cultivation, and to explore the economic impact of the vanilla industry on the town of Antalaha and its inhabitants. Through my research, I wanted to understand how the fruit of an orchid becomes the flavoring of ice cream, to look at the many processes and people involved in the vanilla supply chain. I was also interested in getting to know how …

The Labor Market Of Italian Politicians, Antonio Merlo, Vincenzo Galasso, Massimiliano Landi, Andrea Mattozzi

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyze the career profiles of Italian legislators in the post-war period. Using a unique, newly collected dataset that contains detailed information on all the politicians who have been elected to the Italian Parliament between 1948 and 2008, we address a number of important issues that pertain to their career paths prior to election to Parliament, their parliamentary careers, and their post-Parliament employment. Our data span two institutional regimes: Italy's First Republic (1948-1994) and the Second Republic (1994-present), characterized by different electoral rules and party structures. We first present a brief overview of the Italian political system. We then provide …

Economic Impact Of Businesses Assisted By Southwest Michigan First, George A. Erickcek, Randall W. Eberts

Reports

This report estimates the contribution to the Kalamazoo-Portage MSA's economy by businesses that have received substantial assistance from Southwest Michigan First (SMF), a private, not-for-profit economic development agency serving the greater Kalamazoo region. The report examines the trends in employment, gross regional product, and wages and salaries generated by the 105 firms that SMF staff identified as receiving substantial assistance from SMF between 2000 and 2008. The estimates extend through the year 2012 in order to capture the employment projections offered by some of the assisted firms. The study also provides upper bound estimates of the benefit-cost ratio of the …

Older And Out Of Work: Jobs And Social Insurance For A Changing Economy, Randall W. Eberts Editor, Richard A. Hobbie Editor

Upjohn Press

The chapters in this volume, originally presented at a conference organized by the National Academy of Social Insurance, come from a group of policy experts who advance our understanding of the labor market experiences of older workers while pointing out that current workforce programs often leave this growing population underserved.

Panel Ii: The Clean Energy Economy, Hilda Solis, Dina Titus, Dan Reicher, Edward Mazria

National Clean Energy Summit

Panel discussion Moderator: Steve Colwell, Executive Director, Sea Change Foundation

Employment-Based Health Insurance And The Minimum Wage, Laura Bucila

All Dissertations

This dissertation contains a detailed picture of the employment-based health insurance coverage in the past twenty years, and it provides new estimates of the effects of increased federal and state minimum wages on the coverage of low-wage workers by this type of health insurance. I use March Current Population Surveys collected from IPUMS, for 1988 to 2005. Previous studies have found no significant evidence that increased minimum wages reduce fringe benefit receipt (Beeson Royalty 2000; Simon and Kaestner 2003). In contrast to these studies, I use a difference-in-difference approach and I define treatment groups as being individuals in the lowest …

Who Really Made Your Car?: Restructuring And Geographic Change In The Auto Industry, Thomas H. Klier, James M. Rubenstein

Upjohn Press

The authors present the key characteristics of the vast network of auto parts suppliers and describe the changing geography of U.S. motor vehicle production at the local, regional, national, and international levels.

For Love, Money Or Flexibility: Why People Choose To Work In Consumer-Directed Homecare, Candace Howes

Economics Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of wages and benefits (relative to other jobs available to workers), controlling for personal characteristics, on the recruitment and retention of providers working in a consumer-directed home care program.

This article was written as part of a project titled ‘‘Building a High Quality Homecare Workforce: Wages, Benefits and Flexibility Matter,’’ which was supported by a research grant from the Better Jobs Better Care Program and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (#049213) and Atlantic Philanthropies (#12099) with direction and technical assistance provided by the Institute for the Future of …

Net Impact Evaluation Of Michigan's Jet (Jobs, Education, And Training) Program, Randall W. Eberts

Reports

The purpose of this study is to estimate the net impact of Michigan's JET (Jobs, Education, and Training) program. JET marks a change in the way the State of Michigan provides services to increase the economic opportunities of its low-income residents. In 2004, directors of the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Department of Labor and Economic Growth (DLEG) created the Workforce Action Network (WAN), a group representing workforce development professionals, educators, advocacy organizations, human services agencies, and state and local government staff. The directors charged WAN with developing a set of comprehensive recommendations to strengthen the state's Work …

A Study Of The Marginal Revenue Product Of Lebron James, Jared Taylor

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this paper is to determine if LeBron James has made the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team a more profitable business since joining the team in 2003. The principles of labor economics will be applied in determining the marginal revenue product of LeBron James and its relationship to the profits of the Cavaliers. It is the premise of this paper that proper utilization of one input can positively affect a firm’s profitability. An understanding of such a concept can be very useful in showing firm’s how to manage and employ labor in their pursuits of increased revenues.

A Study Of Craft Worker Length Of Employment At Select Missouri Construction Companies, Richard D. Bruce

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Craft worker retention is a constant concern of construction firms who selfperform portions of projects. These companies must maintain an understanding oftheir work force. A methodology is presented in this study for studying information in readily available employee databases to gain such an understanding. Using a sample of 10 of Missouri's 17 largest contractors, that employ 5,277 craft workers; this study examined the employee databases to identify differences in mean length of employment based on hire age, craft, union affiliation, and company size. The analysis of variance statistical technique was utilized to test four null hypotheses. Based on the test …

Essays On Wage Inequality And Economic Growth, Jin-Tae Hwang

All Dissertations

This thesis is about the relationship between wage inequality and minimum wage, and then about parental choice and the impact of this on economic growth. First, it empirically examines the relation between wage inequality and the federal minimum wage. Then it develops a theory of how a parent of children with heterogeneous abilities makes choices on (a) investments in education for her children and (b) on the number of children she will have. Parental choices on these margins are shown to affect the rate of economic growth.
Chapter 1 briefly introduces my studies for the dissertation. In Chapter 2, I …

Skilled And Unskilled Wages In A Globlizing World, 1968-1998, Davin Chor

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper constructs a data set on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) adjusted skilled and unskilled wages in 139 countries for the period 1968-1998, based on the International La- bor Organization's (ILO) annual October Inquiry and the Freeman and Oostendorp (2000) Occupational Wages Around the World (OWW) le. It nds strong evidence for the ex- istence of well-integrated markets for skilled and unskilled labor, justifying the approach of constructing a skilled wage series and an unskilled wage series. Several signi cant re- sults emerged from an analysis of a representative subset of 67 countries which provided unbroken coverage for 1970-1994: (i) there is …

Are Two Carrots Better Than One? The Effects Of Adding Employment Services To Financial Incentive Programs For Welfare Recipients, Philip K. Robins, Charles Michalopoulos, Kelly Foley

Economics Articles and Papers

The Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) was a social experiment conducted in two Canadian provinces during the 1990s that tested a generous financial incentive program for welfare recipients. A little-known subsidiary experiment, called SSP Plus, had a three-way design that tested the incremental effect of adding employment services to the generous financial incentive program. Employment services are viewed by many welfare analysts as an important component of an overall strategy for helping welfare recipients escape poverty and achieve stable employment. This paper presents the results of the SSP Plus experiment. Adding employment services encouraged more people to take up the earnings supplement, …

Taxation Causes Kentucky To Lag Tennessee In Growth, Stephen E. Lile

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reminiscences: Impact Of Textiles And Apparel Technology On Our Lives, Ann Beth Presley, Martha C. Jenkins

Applied Human Sciences

Women's perceptions of technological changes in textiles and apparel and how the changes have affected daily life were examined using the transmissive reminiscence technique. Technological advances do contribute to use of less time and effort and offer a greater variety of products, but the products often have a shorter life expectancy or are kept in inventory for a shorter time because it is more expedient to replace rather than repair or recycle textile and clothing items. Care must be taken to cultivate cohesive relationships within the family and teach values that were once inherent in textiles/ apparel tasks. Otherwise advances …

Continuity And Change In Low-Wage Work In U.S. Retail Trade, Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly, Brandynn Holgate

Center for Social Policy Publications

Retail work is undergoing significant change in the United States. To explore these changes, and their impacts in terms of turnover, skill levels, and other key workforce variables, we conducted 18 case studies of retail businesses. We spoke to employees from top corporate executives to frontline employees, visited stores, and reviewed HR statistics. This paper summarizes major findings from the study.

We start by stating the study’s key questions, principal findings from public data sources, and the study design. We then review field findings on patterns in job quality across four dimensions (schedules, compensation, duties, and turnover/training/mobility). We identify two …

Who Really Made Your Car?, Thomas H. Klier, James M. Rubenstein

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Labor Hoarding Contracts And Coordination Fictions, Nicolas L. Jacquet, Serene Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers a directed search model with risk-neutral firms and risk-averse workers. Although each firm has only one job to fill, firms can hire as many workers as they wish, and the wage a worker is paid can be contingent on the queue length at the firm and his position in the queue. We first show that, contrary to standard directed search models, the application subgame does not necessarily have a unique symmetric solution; although uniqueness is guaranteed if all firms post Flat-Wage Contracts (FWCs), i.e., contracts where firms commit to employ a fixed number of workers at a …