In response to rising wage inequality and lower real wages for low-skill workers over the last decade, a "new consensus" has emerged that questions the ability of American schools and firms to educate and train workers, especially non-college bound youth. The remedies proposed by proponents of...

This paper analyzes the method of social experiments. The assumptions that justify the experimental method are exposited. Parameters of interest in evaluating social programs are discussed. The authors show how experiments sometimes serve as instrumental variables to identify program impacts....

This paper decomposes the participation process of a prototypical program into eligibility, awareness, application, acceptance and enrollment. With this decomposition, we determine the sources of unequal participation for different groups, and demonstrate that variables often have very different...

This article decomposes the participation process of a prototypical program into eligibility, awareness, application, acceptance, and enrollment. With this decomposition, we determine the sources of unequal participation for different groups and demonstrate that variables often have very...

Policy makers view public sector-sponsored employment and training programs and other active labor market policies as tools for integrating the unemployed and economically disadvantaged into the work force. Few public sector programs have received such intensive scrutiny, and been subjected to...

This paper examines the effect of the Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) system. This program "profiles" UI claimants to determine their probability of benefit exhaustion (or expected spell duration) and then provides mandatory employment and training services to claimants with...

We estimate the effects of the vocational rehabilitation (VR) program run by the Canada Pension Plan Disability Program using administrative data. Identification relies on “selection on observed variables†plus careful comparison group selection and institutional knowledge regarding...

We investigate the allocation of unemployed individuals to different subprograms within Swiss active labour market policy by the caseworkers at local employment offices in Switzerland in 1998. We are particularly interested in whether the caseworkers allocate the unemployed to services in ways...