Labor Economics Commons^™

Home Ownership In City Core Neighborhoods, Val Gipper

Reports

This analysis employs a traditional methodology to reproduce American Community Survey (ACS) data as those data would be if neighborhoods within the city of Kalamazoo were recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau. By aggregating publicly available ACS information from recognized census geographies, rates of home ownership and home values within three city neighborhoods are estimated. Home ownership rates by race are approximated. Rates of homeownership in the Eastside neighborhood are similar to those across Kalamazoo County and the state of Michigan. While all three neighborhoods have lower average values of owned homes relative to their county and state neighbors, home …

Getting The Workforce Into Good Jobs Requires Place-Based Policies, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Economic Analysis Of Conflicts And Peace In Autocratic And Democratic Regimes In Africa, Oluwole Owoye

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

This paper uses conceptual economics to explain how conflicts and peacebuilding are linked to economic growth/development in Africa. Both conflicts and peace have contagion effects in many countries worldwide, and in some cases, conflicts have morphed into regional and international problems. Conceptually, the monotonicity of conflicts and peace functions are invariant with respect to autocratic and democratic forms of governance in Africa. One of the main assertions of this study is that whether or not we have stable autocratic and/or democratic forms of governance, protracted conflicts have negative impact on sustainable economic growth in Africa. In addition, we found that …

Equity In Unemployment Insurance Benefit Access, Christopher J. O'Leary, William E. Spriggs, Stephen A. Wandner

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

The Labor And Educational Effects Of Daca: Evidence From California, Oscar A. Alonso Guerra

Master's Theses

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, implemented in 2012, has been a subject of intense debate. While much research has examined the early effects of DACA, this study contributes to the literature by analyzing more recent data on the labor and educational outcomes of DACA recipients in California. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I aim to uncover significant changes in the labor market and educational outcomes of DACA recipients over time. I find those eligible for DACA experienced noteworthy effects compared to those who were ineligible. Specifically, they exhibit a significant 3.1 percentage point increase in the likelihood of …

Benefits And Costs Of An Incentive Project Or Program For State Residents: A Model For Flexible Use In Any State, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To The Bartik Benefit-Cost Model Of Business Incentives, Timothy J. Bartik

Reports

This short report provides an introduction to a new model of the benefits and costs of business incentives to promote state economic development. This model provides potential users—anyone interested in evaluating an incentive project or incentive program in their state—with a model that can be used for practical evaluation purposes, such as deciding whether or not a project should be undertaken, whether or not to expand or terminate a current incentive program, or how an incentive program could be improved by reforms to have higher net benefits. What is most distinctive about the model is that it focuses on how …

Bartik Benefit-Cost Model Of Business Incentives: A User’S Guide, Timothy J. Bartik

Reports

This “user’s guide” explains a model for evaluating state or local business incentives. These incentives include tax breaks provided by state and local governments to business, to encourage local job growth. The model is intended to be used by state legislative audit bureaus, state and local economic development agencies, university centers for business research, economic development consulting firms, or any group that wants to evaluate an overall economic development program, or individual economic development projects. Users provide information on the incentives provided, and the incented jobs, and the model then produces estimates of the effects of the program on jobs, …

Three Essays In The Economics Of Child Development And Health Inequities, Travis Whitacre

Economics Theses and Dissertations

In chapter 1, I assess the long-term education and labor market effects of missed ADHD diagnoses. Doing so is challenging for two reasons. First, a person's true ADHD status is unobserved; only their diagnosed status is known. Second, even if diagnostic errors are observed, they are likely akin to non-classical misclassification errors and therefore endogenous. To overcome these empirical challenges, I use and extend on a partial observability model with genetic data from Add Health. Through the lens of the partial observability model. I recover an estimate of true ADHD status, and the probability of underdiagnosis. Then, I estimate their …

America Without A Minimum Wage: Why The Federal Minimum Wage Should Be Abolished, Zachary Cary

Helm's School of Government Conference

Minimum wage policy may be the greatest economic policy issue where the common man has a strong opinion. Nearly every person has a view of how minimum wage policy should be enacted, whether it be in raising the federal minimum wage, changing the scope of authority in the federal government, or another policy. However, in discussing any kind of policy, the key details of the policy must be discussed in the framework of both how it would be affected and how it would impact its stakeholders. In this policy analysis, the Iron Triangle of Public Policy – the key executive …

Stringency In Occupational Licensing Requirements: Explanations And Effects, Nicholas Hall

Honors Scholar Theses

In this paper, I explore explanations for and effects of variation in stringency in occupational licensing requirements across states. Focusing on data on cosmetology, I first analyze the effect of characteristics of the professional licensing board, including its membership composition and department within the state government, on the regulations the board implements. I find evidence that the department of a board impacts its licensing fees, with health-based departments requiring lower fees than commerce- and general licensing-based departments. I then examine the effects of stringency on wages and the number of practitioners in an area. I find evidence that the number …

Analyzing The Impact Of Automation On Employment In Different Us Regions: A Data-Driven Approach, Thejaas Balasubramanian

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Automation is transforming the US workforce with the increasing prevalence of technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. As a result, it is essential to understand how this shift will impact the labor market and prepare for its effects. This culminating experience project aimed to examine the influence of computerization on jobs in the United States and answer the following research questions: Q1. What factors affect how likely different jobs will be automated? Q2. What are the possible effects of automation on the US workforce across states and industries? Q3. What are the meaningful predictors of the likelihood of …

Heterogenous Retirement Decisions During The Post Covid-19 Era By Individuals' Level Of Education, Natalie Sophia Varga

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Two Essays In Human Capital, Illia Polovnikov

All Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of two essays on human capital. I analyze how early-life human capital boost shapes micro-level outcomes among disadvantaged children in the US. In the second chapter, I study the productivity convergence among OECD countries and evaluate to what extent the labor force’s sectoral allocation (due to different human capital profiles across countries) contributes to it. In the first chapter, which is joint work with Jorge Garc´ia and William Dougan, we analyze a large-scale trial of an early-childhood education program targeting premature, low-birthweight children, thereby oversampling twins. We find that failing to account for this oversampling obscures …

Understanding Romania's Poverty: A Historical Overview Of Economics And Politics And Their Implications On Poverty Today, Benjamin Bucur

Senior Honors Theses

Romania is a country with a high-income economy that is experiencing considerable growth following its economic reforms of earlier decades. With growth, tendencies for an unequal society are prevalent. Therefore, appropriate economic policies that are specifically targeted toward bottlenecks are essential. This thesis seeks to outline the major types of poverty in Romania while also offering actionable entrepreneurial and educational insights that practically combat poverty at its roots.

Essays On Labor Market Size And Job Match Quality, Lan Lan

All Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of two essays that delve into the construction of a major-related labor market and its correlation with college graduates’ job match quality. Investigating the job match quality of college graduates for different majors in large cities is crucial, as it provides evidence on which majors tend to yield better job matches. This contributes to the study of the return on major while also shedding light on how city size impacts individuals’ ability to find jobs that align with their educational level and major, thereby enriching the study of the benefits of agglomeration.

The first chapter examines …

The Effect Of Yearly Labor Earnings On Commute Time To Work In South Carolina, Peter Trela

All Theses

In this paper, I attempt to ascertain the effect of labor earnings on commute time to work for individuals in South Carolina by using ACS 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample Estimates. First, I use standard linear regression models with controls to determine the direction and magnitude of the association between yearly labor earnings and commute time to work. I later use standard linear regression models with limited controls to determine how the association between yearly labor earnings and commute time changes before and during the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. There exists a positive relationship between yearly labor earnings and …

The Parental Labor Gap: The Impact Of Daycare Access On The Parental Labor Force During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Acacia Wyckoff

Honors Theses

At the height of World War II, the United States government passed the Lanham Act, implementing publicly funded childcare programs across the country to encourage women to join the workforce while their husbands were at war. This program accomplished exactly what it intended – women joined the labor force rapidly. But when the war ended, so did the public preschools [6]. Decades later, no national progress has been made to bring these preschools back. In the United States Congress, a Democrat has introduced a bill creating a universal preschool program every Congressional session since 1999 [11]. Every single one of …

Why Are Unemployment Insurance Claims So Low?, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline, Thomas A. Stengle, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

In this paper, we examine the reasons why unemployment insurance (UI) claims have declined so dramatically over the past three decades. The fall in the UI claims rate is concerning because it suggests a reduced countercyclical effectiveness of the UI program. Additionally, weekly initial UI claims are regarded as an important leading indicator of aggregate economic activity, so their meaning has changed. We use a Oaxaca (1973) decomposition approach to identify the main factors for the decline in claims. The procedure suggests what the level of claims would have been later in the period, had values of variables or parameters …