The Commonwealth of Massachusetts initiated the Extended Care Career Ladders Initiative (ECCLI) as part of a broader Nursing Home Quality Initiative, adopted by the Massachusetts Legislature in 2000. Both acts were a response to high turnover and vacancies among paraprofessionals in long-term...

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts initiated the Extended Care Career Ladder Initiative (ECCLI) as part of a broader Nursing Home Quality Initiative, adopted by the Legislature in 2000. This legislation is a response to high turnover and vacancies among paraprofessionals in long-term care,...

In 1997 Kaiser Permanente (KP) and a coalition of 26 local unions representing nearly 70,000 Kaiser employees created what is now the nation's largest and most ambitious labor-management partnership. In 2000, the parties faced the major challenge of negotiating their first labor agreement under...

We study the diffusion of hybrid vehicles among consumers. Using data on sales of 11 different models over seven years, we identify the effect of the penetration rate – total cumulative hybrid sales per capita – on new hybrid purchases. The penetration rate significantly affects...

Catastrophic risks differ in terms of their natural or human origins, their possible amplification by human behaviors, and the relationships between those who create the risks and those who suffer the losses. Given their disparate anatomies, catastrophic risks generally require tailored...

Eurozone members are supposedly constrained by the fiscal caps of the Stability and Growth Pact. Yet ever since the birth of the euro, members have postponed painful adjustment. Wishful thinking has played an important role in this failure. We find that governments’ forecasts are biased...