Work, Economy and Organizations Commons^™

Improving Veteran Access; Status Of Operations Of The United States Department Of Veteran Affairs Work-Study Program, Kirk Allen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The usage status of The U.S. Department Veterans Affairs Work-Study Program is examined. Beneficiary numbers from the Global, Unites States, State, and Local/County perspective are reviewed. While of essential value, the program suffers from a lack of scholarly research and government oversight, and is further hindered by restrictive administrative rules lived first-hand. Research suggests that the program is operating outside of accountability to the taxpayer, presents as unnecessarily/overly-restrictive in accessibility, and is underutilized. The program appears to not be serving all veterans to full potential.

The Work-Study Program is codified in Veterans Benefits', Title 38 United States Code, Part III, …

Futurological Fodder: On Communicating The Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, And Employment, Michael E. Samers Dr

Geography Faculty Publications

This article examines the debate concerning the employment implications of the so-called ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (FIR) or the increasing presence of artificial intelligence and robotics in workplaces. I analyze three ‘genres’ associated with this debate (academic studies including neo-classical and heterodox/post-human approaches, the ‘gray literature’, and popular media) and I argue that together they represent ‘futurological fodder’ or discourses and knowledges that ‘perform’ the FIR and its purported consequences. I contend further that these genres involve a complex mix of ethics and politics, and I conclude with a reflection on the political implications of the FIR debate.

Are Participants Good Evaluators?, Jeffrey A. Smith, Alexander Whalley, Nathaniel T. Wilcox

Upjohn Press

Managers of workforce training programs are often unable to afford costly, full-fledged experimental or nonexperimental evaluations to determine their programs’ impacts. Therefore, many rely on the survey responses of program participants to gauge program impacts.

Smith, Whalley, and Wilcox present the first attempt to assess such measures despite their already widespread use in program evaluations. They develop a multidisciplinary framework for addressing the issue and apply it to three case studies: the National Job Training Partnership Act Study, the U.S. National Supported Work Demonstration, and the Connecticut Jobs First Program.

Each of these studies were subjected to experimental evaluations that …

Challenges To Social Mobility In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Marcus Kheng Tat Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore had achieved impressive economic growth together with a high level of upward mobility since her independence in 1965. However, the growth process might have become more uneven, in addition to diminishing growth for a matured economy like Singapore, which is also a highly open city state subject to competitive forces from other economies. Singapore has fared well recently,
evident from the 2020 social mobility findings reported by the World Economic Forum and the decline in Gini coefficients for the past decade. We discuss the education system in Singapore and the recently formed National Jobs Council, both important institutions for …

From Tasks To Riches: A Task-Based Approach To The Determinants Of Wages, Samantha Baradas, Aileen Co, Brian Daguman, Martha Delos Santos

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

An empirical investigation of the effects of occupational skills, human capital, and other worker characteristics on labor market outcomes is examined in this study. Using the PSA Labor Force Survey and Philippine Standard Occupational Classification (PSOC), the group offers a task-based measure as a proxy for occupational skills. Such problems in measuring skills arise when skill endowments of workers are underivable in a survey dataset. With this, the analysis includes comparing and contrasting models with task-based measures of occupational skills and Mincerian wage models with occupational dummies. Regression analysis found consistent statistically significant positive returns on a change in computational, …

“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 …

The Impact Of Temperature On Labor Quality: Umpire Accuracy In Major League Baseball, Eric Fesselmeyer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Using data from Major League Baseball, I compute an objective measure of the home plate umpire's work quality-the accuracy of his ball and strike calls during a game-and measure how it varies with temperature. I find that an increase in game-time temperature from between 70 and 80 degrees F to above 95 degrees F decreases an umpire's accuracy by a little less than a percentage point, which is a 5.5% increase in the pitch-calling error rate when evaluated at the mean error rate of 13.3%. Restricting the sample to borderline pitches increases the magnitude of the hot-weather effect on accuracy …

The Impact Of Temperature On Labor Quality: Umpire Accuracy In Major League Baseball, Eric Fesselmeyer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Using data from Major League Baseball, I compute an objective measure of the home plate umpire's work quality-the accuracy of his ball and strike calls during a game-and measure how it varies with temperature. I find that an increase in game-time temperature from between 70 and 80 degrees F to above 95 degrees F decreases an umpire's accuracy by a little less than a percentage point, which is a 5.5% increase in the pitch-calling error rate when evaluated at the mean error rate of 13.3%. Restricting the sample to borderline pitches increases the magnitude of the hot-weather effect on accuracy …

Budgetary Obstacles To Police Reform: The Case Of San Francisco, Hayden Anderson

Master's Projects and Capstones

In response to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement issued a statement calling on cities to Defund the Police. The event sparked a nationwide reckoning that has reshaped the narratives and strategies for remedying the racial bias and police brutality apparent in the criminal justice system. The shift in police reform efforts embraces notions guiding police budgeting decisions. Today's advocates are transforming their approach to police reform to include budgeting decisions by promoting a municipal practice known as police budget reform. This Capstone explores the feasibility of successful police budget reform under current …

Untold Stories Of The African Diaspora: The Lived Experiences Of Black Caribbean Immigrants In The Greater Hartford Area, Shanelle A. Jones

University Scholar Projects

The African Diaspora represents vastly complex migratory patterns. This project studies the journeys of English-speaking Afro-Caribbeans who immigrated to the US for economic reasons between the 1980s-present day. While some researchers emphasize the success of West Indian immigrants, others highlight the issue of downward assimilation many face upon arrival in the US. This paper explores the prospect of economic incorporation into American society for West Indian immigrants. I conducted and analyzed data from an online survey and 10 oral histories of West Indian economic migrants residing in the Greater Hartford Area to gain a broader perspective on the economic attainment …

Studying Successful Ageing: A Showcase Of The Singapore Life Panel, Jee Yuen Yew, Jia Wei Gwee, Anirudh Srivathsan

ROSA Research Briefs

In this special issue of the ROSA Research Brief Series, we showcase two aspects of the work being done at the Centre for Research on Successful Ageing (ROSA). Firstly, we showcase the capabilities of the Singapore Life Panel (SLP) and the data that the SLP is able to obtain and measure on a monthly basis. Secondly, we showcase the amazing work of the SGUnited Traineeship Programme’s Research Assistants at ROSA who have proven themselves to be incredible assets in helping further ROSA’s aims of enabling successful ageing in Singapore. ROSA aims to measure well-being among older adults holistically in order …

Socializing Vacancy: An Architectural Thesis, Greg Winawer

Architecture Senior Theses

A large portion of office space has been left vacant, and thus provides no beneficial program to its remaining occupants or the local urbanity it is surrounded by. When considering what can be done with this vacant space, the primary motivation should be to integrate a program which does the opposite: a program which positively disrupts its existing context to hybridize and improve the current outdated programmatic arrangement. To insert a residential program into an existing office tower both disrupts and enhances the rigorous flows of our working and our domestic lives. The predefined universal concept of the ‘working-day’ is …

Barriers To Post-Secondary Success, Douglas Swanson, Najeana Henderson, Maritza Sloan

Dissertations

This study reviews factors that prior studies have identified or failed to consider as barriers to post-secondary success. The three main areas include academic success for Latinx students after high school, organizational systems and their impact on African-American students’ postsecondary readiness, and what workers think of their high school education with regards to career preparedness.

Five factors are identified as major barriers for Latinx students to continue in a higher education system. A survey of former students from Saint Louis, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, metroplex area identified 56 Latinx students that participated in an initial survey. This led to a …

The Case For Public Investment In Higher Pay For New York State Home Care Workers: Estimated Costs And Savings, Isaac Jabola-Carolus, Stephanie Luce, Ruth Milkman

Publications and Research

This report explores one potential solution to the mounting home care labor shortage in New York State: substantially raising wages for the state's home care workers. The analysis presents detailed projections, based on the best available data, of the economic effects of such an intervention, estimating the costs and benefits that would result. We find that public funding to raise home care wages would require significant resources, but those costs would be surpassed by the resulting savings, tax revenues, and economic spillover effects. The net economic gain would total at least $3.7 billion. Lifting wages would also help fill nearly …

The Productivity Wage Gap, Monopsony, And Labor Share Decline: An Analysis Of Wage Suppression Perpetuated By Power, Alexandra Coulter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that wage suppression along with the decline in the labor share is caused by a rise in monopsony power realized as a significant increase in the profit share. It attributes the rise in monopsonistic behavior to the development and expansion of the modern corporation. This thesis investigates the reasons for wage suppression, identifies causes of the declining labor share left as exogenous in mainstream models, examines traditional economic wage determination and search models, and evaluates the political economy implications. This work reviews literature on imperfect competition, the corporation, contracts, search and match models, and the motivation of …

The Effects Of Racial Capitalism On Poor White Laborers, Amy Whittaker

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

While always remembering that racial capitalism’s very nature ensures that non-white Americans suffer incomparable racial oppression, this paper will endeavor to expose the devastation caused to American society as a whole by explaining the ways in which racial capitalism destroyed poor white labors ability to participate fully in the economic system and strangled its chances of living the American dream. It is my hope that by discussing the missing piece of the poor white laborers’ experience under racial capitalism will unite poor white laborers and poor black laborers to work together to end racial capitalism, policing, and the carceral system. …

Working Joblessness: Young People Deploying 21st Century Skills In Post-Conflict Liberia And Sierra Leone, Frances Fortune

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In Liberia, state economic development policies based on the resource extractive industry's short-term needs have produced too few job opportunities for young people. The development policies have failed to grow the private sector to create jobs, recognize the importance of urbanization, or expand the informal economy's contribution to employment in urban areas. As a result, young people are obliged to use their creativity and digital connections to make a living outside of the normative models of work using an organic social process of bricolage. Bricolage is a type of entrepreneurship or a form of action which can occur in resource-scare …

Financial Literacy For Latino Immigrants: A Guidebook For Esl Teachers, Anna Braden

Master's Projects and Capstones

Latino immigrants face many financial challenges in the United States. Language barriers exclude them from jobs as well as financial and consumer markets. Lack of familiarity with the U.S. financial system or bad experiences with financial systems in their home countries can create mistrust and lead to Latino immigrants being unbanked or underbanked. Consumer vulnerabilities may also be exploited as immigrants turn to nonbank financial services such as predatory lenders (check cashers, payday lenders, etc.). Lack of access to jobs and marketplaces results in lower income and less wealth accumulation. Over time this results in wealth inequality between Latino immigrants …

Between Lives And Economy: Optimal Covid-19 Containment Policy In Open Economies, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hsuan-Chih Luke Lin, Yang Han

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies optimal containment policy for combating a pandemic in an open-economy context. It does so via quantitative analyses using a model that incorporates a standard epidemiological compartmental model in a multi-country, multi-sector Ricardian model of international trade with full-fledged input-output linkages. We devise a novel approach in computing optimal national policies in the long run, and contrast these policies with a baseline in which countries maintain their current policies until vaccine availability. The welfare gains under optimal policies are asymmetric as the gains for the set of countries which should tighten up the containment measures are much larger …

Providing Child Care, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong

Research Collection School Of Economics

Women’s economic empowerment has been hailed as one of the most remarkable revolutions in the past 50 years (Dunlop, 2010). Access to affordable childcare is one of the key determinants of fertility and maternal employment, with grandparents and governments often stepping up to provide much needed support to families. This chapter proposes a synthesis of the state of knowledge on child care and discusses policy relevant issues applicable to the Singapore context. Selected policies are documented and lessons from the international landscape are discussed. The chapter discusses how child care costs may affect fertility and maternal labour supply in Section …

Women Workers In The Informal Sector Of The Textiles Industry In Pakistan: A Grounded Theory Approach, Shafi Erum

Student Works (2020-2029)

Post liberalisation firm-level strategic decisions are an issue of concern in developing markets, particularly since the post Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) phase of the textile industry. The issue of workers’ well-being, the post ATC phase, is well documented in terms of the employment and wage aspects for women workers. There is, however, a dearth of knowledge in understanding women workers’ experiences following from firms’ strategic decisions in the informal labour market setting, despite the rise in informal women workers. Further, the position of informal women workers, which is where they “fit” given their “voice” with their employers, has …

Job Duration And Match Characteristics Over The Business Cycle, Ismail Baydur, Toshihiko Mukoyama

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the cyclical behavior of job separation and the characteristics of matches between workers and jobs. We estimate a proportional hazard model with competing risks, distinguishing between different types of separations. A higher unemployment rate at the start of an employment relationship increases the probability of job-to-job transitions, whereas its effect on employment-to-unemployment transitions is negative. We then build a simple job ladder model to interpret our empirical results. A model with two-dimensional heterogeneity in match (job) characteristics has the same qualitative features as the data. Once the model is extended to include cyclicality in the offered match …

Morocco’S Informal Economy: The Role Of Rotating Savings In Rabat, Grace Lamendola, Hicham Ait Mansour

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

This research project is a case study concerned with how the practice of Rotational Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) function within Rabat, Morocco. Research was guided by the following questions: Why is this form of money management utilized? Who is the typical participant in ROSCAs? What sort of purchases are financed through this practice? And what does the changing popularity of ROSCAs mean for future generations? In order to begin answering these questions I collected considerable qualitative data throughout my four-month long stay in the Medina of Rabat during Fall of 2019. I also supplemented this data with secondary research …

El Ingreso Familiar De Emergencia En Argentina: Una Exploración Cualitativa Preliminar De La Suficiencia Relativa Y El Acceso / Emergency Family Income In Argentina: A Qualitative And Preliminary Exploration Of Relative Sufficiency And Access, Seamus Mcwilliams

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El gobierno argentino ha promulgado docenas de nuevas protecciones sociales y varios de apoyo financiero para limitar la devastación económica causada por la pandemia del coronavirus. Una de estas medidas es el Ingreso Familiar de Emergencia (IFE), un estímulo de 10.000 pesos dirigido a familias del sector informal. Esta población tiene poca capacidad para resistir un período indefinido sin ingreso, y simultáneamente es difícil de alcanzar con los otros programas de ingresos debido a la naturaleza de la informalidad. A través de un análisis del ecosistema de apoyo gubernamental y dos entrevistas con profesionales familiarizadas con el sector informal, este …

La Importancia De Los Espacios: Conociendo Los Espacios En Línea Creado Por Los Haitianos Y Organizaciones Haitianas En Chile, Juan Avilez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The state of Haitian migrants in Chile has often been studied through a lens of understanding the reasons for migratory flows and their effects on labor markets within the context of the Chilean state. Notable studies such as that of Pedemonte in 2015 studying the matrixes of exclusion of Haitian migrants in Chilean culture and that of Tijoux in 2015 studying the effects of racism and a neoliberal system on migrants, have adopted to explore the adoption of Haitian migrants to Chilean culture and detail the challenges and ways of community building that the Haitian population in Chile has adapted. …

A Comparison Of Entrepreneurship: Uganda And The United States Of America, Jordan Killen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In this preliminary research assignment I compared and contrasted entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur or small business owner in the United States and Uganda as well as offer suggestions that could potentially strengthen the Ugandan economy using American business practices and solutions. I utilized both secondary sources and my own experiences and knowledge about small businesses and entrepreneurs in Uganda. This data is compared to both my own experiences in the United States as well as information provided by scholarly articles to provide a more complete and well-rounded comparison of the two countries. Uganda, being a …

Are The Goals Of Sustainability Interconnected? A Sociological Analysis Of The Three E’S Of Sustainable Development Using Cross-Lagged Models With Reciprocal Effects, Matthew Thomas Clement, Nathan Pino, Patrick Greiner, Julius A. Mcgee

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conceptual discussions of sustainability emphasize the interdependent relationship between relevant social and environmental factors. Yet, traditional quantitative analyses of the topic have tended to estimate the exogenous or direct/indirect effects a predictor variable has on a particular measure of sustainability. We examine the endogenous, interdependent relationship between the three E’s of sustainability (economy, equity, and ecology), incorporating country-level data for 1990 through 2015 into cross-lagged structural equation models with reciprocal and fixed effects. Results from these longitudinal models suggest that over time, at the country level, increasing economic inequality reduces renewable energy consumption, with no evidence of reciprocal feedback. Keeping …

The Future Of Work In The Mountain West, Ember Smith, Caitlin Saladino, William E. Brown

Economic Development & Workforce

This Fact Sheet highlights the potential net job growth in the Mountain West states (Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado) and automation employment implications in each county in the region as detailed in The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

Basel Iii B: Basel Iii Overview, Christian M. Mcnamara, Michael Wedow, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-09, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) faced the critical task of diagnosing what went wrong and then updating regulatory standards aimed at preventing it from occurring again. In seeking to strengthen the microprudential regulation associated with the earlier Basel Accords while also adding a macroprudential overlay, Basel III consists of proposals in three main areas intended to address 1) capital reform, 2) liquidity standards, and 3) systemic risk and interconnectedness. This case considers the causes of the 2007-09 financial crisis and what they suggest about weaknesses in the Basel regime …

Citizen-Consumers Wanted: Revitalizing The American Dream In The Face Of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012, Gokcen Coskuner-Balli

Business Faculty Articles and Research

This article brings sociological theory of governmentality to bear on a longitudinal analysis of American presidential speeches to theorize the formation of the citizen-consumer subject. The 40-year historical analysis which expands through four economic recessions and the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Hussein Obama, illustrates the ways in which the national mythology of American Dream myth has been linked to the political ideology of the state to create the citizen-consumer subject in the United States. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data demonstrates first, the consistent emphasis on responsibility as a …