How Can California Spur Job Creation?

Analyzes the costs, effectiveness, and short- and long-term implications of implementing hiring credits for employers and a state Earned Income Tax Credit as policy options to boost job creation. Makes policy recommendations for maximizing impact

Alternative Labor Market Policies to Increase Economic Self-Sufficiency: Mandating Higher Wages, Subsidizing Employment, and Raising Productivity

The principal means by which individuals and families achieve economic self-sufficiency is through labor market earnings. As a consequence, it is natural for policy makers to look to interventions that increase the ability of individuals and families to achieve an adequate standard of living from participating in the labor market – a goal that has become even more prominent in the post-welfare reform era in the United States. This paper discusses some key policies that are used or can be used to increase economic self-sufficiency by increasing earnings, including mandating higher wages, subsidizing work, and increasing skill formation. Specifically, it reviews evidence on some of the main policies currently in place in the United States, including minimum and living wages, the Earned Income Tax Credit, wage subsidies, and school-to-work programs. Finally, it considers alternative policies that have recently been proposed.minimum wages, living wages, earned income tax credit, wage subsidies, school-to-work

Age Discrimination Legislation in the United States

Legislation prohibiting age discrimination in the United States dates back to the decade of the 1960s, when along with the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act barring discrimination against women and minorities, the U.S. Congress passed the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Many critical issues regarding the rationale for or effectiveness of age discrimination legislation have been addressed, and continue to be studied, by researchers in both economics and law, while many questions remain. These questions are likely to become increasingly important as rapidly aging workforces in the United States and other industrialized countries threaten to vastly increase the social costs of any barriers to older workers' employment. This paper provides a summary, critical review, and synthesis of what we know about age discrimination legislation. It first traces out the legislative history and the evolving case law, and discusses implementation of the law. It then moves on to review the existing research on age discrimination legislation research that addresses the rationale for the legislation, evidence on its effectiveness, and criticisms of age discrimination legislation.

Minimum Wage Effect in the Longer Run

Exposure to minimum wages at young ages could lead to adverse longer-run effects via decreased labor market experience and tenure, and diminished education and training, while beneficial longer-run effects could arise if minimum wages increase skill acquisition. Evidence suggests that as individuals reach their late 20s, they earn less the longer they were exposed to a higher minimum wage at younger ages, and the adverse longer-run effects are stronger for blacks. If there are such longer-run effects of minimum wages, they are likely more significant than the contemporaneous effects on youths that are the focus of research and policy debate

Do California's Enterprise Zones Create Jobs?

Examines how the state's enterprise zone program, which offered incentives in economically distressed areas, affected job and business creation in 1992-2004. Considers elements of relative success such as marketing and outreach and suggests improvements

Minimum Wage Effects in the Longer Run

Exposure to minimum wages at young ages may lead to longer-run effects. Among the possible adverse longer-run effects are decreased labor market experience and accumulation of tenure, diminished education and training, and lower current labor supply because of lower wages. Beneficial longer-run effects could arise if minimum wages increase skill acquisition, or if initial wage increases are long-lasting. We estimate the longer-run effects of minimum wages by using information on the minimum wage history that workers have faced since potentially entering the labor market. The evidence indicates that even as individuals reach their late 20's, they earn less and perhaps work less the longer they were exposed to a higher minimum wage at younger ages. The adverse longer-run effects of facing high minimum wages at young ages are stronger for blacks. From a policy perspective, these longer-run effects of minimum wages are likely more significant than the contemporaneous effects of minimum wages on youths that are the focus of most research and policy debate.

Relative Income Concerns and the Rise in Married Women's Employment

We ask whether women's decisions to be in the labor force may be affected by the decisions of other women in ways not captured by standard models. We develop a model that augments the simple neoclassical framework by introducing relative income concerns into women's (or families') utility functions. In this model, the entry of some women into paid employment can spur the entry of other women, independently of wage and income effects. This mechanism may help to explain why, over some periods, women's employment appeared to rise faster than could be accounted for by the simple neoclassical model. We test the model by asking whether women's decisions to seek paid employment depend on the employment decisions of other women with whom relative income comparisons might be important. In particular, we look at the effects of sisters' employment on women's own employment. We find strong evidence that women's employment decisions are positively related to their sisters' employment decisions. We also take account of the possibility that this positive relationship arises from heterogeneity across families in unobserved variables affecting the employment decision. We conduct numerous empirical analyses to reduce or eliminate this heterogeneity bias. We also look at the relationship between husbands' relative income and wives' employment decisions. In our view, the evidence is largely supportive of the relative income hypothesis.

Minimum Wage Effects in the Longer Run

Exposure to minimum wages at young ages may lead to longer-run effects. Among the possible adverse longer-run effects are decreased labor market experience and accumulation of tenure, lower current labor supply because of lower wages, and diminished training and skill acquisition. Beneficial longer-run effects could arise if minimum wages increase skill acquisition, or if short-term wage increases are long-lasting. We estimate the longer-run effects of minimum wages by using information on the minimum wage history that workers have faced since potentially entering the labor market. The evidence indicates that even as individuals reach their late 20's, they work less and earn less the longer they were exposed to a higher minimum wage, especially as a teenager. The adverse longer-run effects of facing high minimum wages as a teenager are stronger for blacks. From a policy perspective, these longer-run effects of minimum wages are likely more significant than the contemporaneous effects of minimum wages on youths that are the focus of most research and policy debate.

Does Local Business Ownership Insulate Cities from Economic Shocks?

We assess a prominent argument for local economic policies that favor locally-owned businesses – namely, that locally-owned firms are more likely to internalize the costs to the community of decisions to reduce employment and hence help to insulate cities from adverse economic shocks. We test this argument by examining how establishment-level employment responses to economic shocks are affected by establishment ownership. We find evidence hat some types of local ownership do insulate regions from economic shocks, although the clearest benefits do not come from small, independent businesses, but instead from corporate headquarters and, to a lesser extent, from small, locally-owned chains.employment stability, employment shocks, local ownership

Training and the Growth of Wage Inequality

Shifts in the incidence of various types of training over the 1980s favored more-educated, more-experienced workers. Coupled with the fact that this training is associated with higher wages, these shifts suggest that training may have contributed to the growth of wage inequality in this period. However, the shifts were apparently too small, or the returns to training too low, for training to have played a substantial role in this increase. The estimated changes in wage differentials associated with schooling and experience are at best only slightly smaller once we account for changes in the distribution of training across schooling and experience groups, as well as changes in the returns to training and in the length of training programs.