Since their inception in 1991, the number of and the student enrollment in charter schools have burgeoned. However, little attention has been paid to their effects on student achievement. Proponents hypothesize direct and indirect positive impacts of charter schools on student achievement. The...

This paper examines linkages between disability and health status and the returns to education and basic skills training. It bases analyses on two separate data sources: wave 3 from the 1993 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the 1992 National Adult Literacy...

Workers in flexible staffing arrangements - including temporary agency, direct-hire temporary, on-call, and contract workers - are much less likely than regular, direct-hire employees to be covered by laws mandating or regulating workplace benefits. Workers in such arrangements, in turn, are...

This paper discusses the role of public policy in the skills development system of the U.S. It further examines the implications of that policy for the skill development and career progression of black workers. The paper describes the current "system" for skills development in the United States...

Policies to regulate and support labor markets in the United States have mainly been an initiative of the federal government. Historically, states and localities were reluctant to act independently to build up worker rights and protections for fear of competitively disadvantaging resident...

A number of empirical studies have tested the spatial mismatch hypothesis by examining the commuting times of blacks and whites. This note points out that the link between spatial mismatch and commuting times may be weak when employment probabilities decline as the distance from job site to...

Using panel data on U.S. MSAs, this paper estimates how a typical MSA's wages of different demographic groups, and prices, are affected by overall MSA unemployment, the distribution of unemployment among different groups, and national prices and wages. MSA unemployment has strong effects on MSA...

This paper examines which employers use flexible staffing arrangements, why they use these arrangements, and their implications for workers and public policy, drawing on a nationally representative survey of private sector establishments. Use of flexible staffing arrangements -- including...

Comparisons among state unemployment insurance (UI) systems can be misleading. Frequently quoted indicators of benefit generosity, tax cost, and adherence to the experience-rating principle are influenced by the relative economic conditions of states. Such comparisons thereby obscure underlying...

Inner-city business development is often proposed as a solution to inner-city poverty. However, research evidence suggests that creating new jobs in the inner city is unlikely by itself to significantly increase the employment or earnings of the inner city poor. Public subsidies for inner city...