"In evaluating incentives, everything depends on the details: how much in incentives it takes to truly cause a firm to locate or expand, the multiplier effects, the effects of jobs on employment rates, how jobs affect tax revenue versus public spending needs. Do benefits of incentives exceed...

In this paper, estimates are presented on short-run effects of demand shocks on a local labor market's employment to population ratio (employment rate). Based on the estimates, commuting zones (CZs) better define a local labor market than counties, because both employment and employment rate...

This paper estimates that long-run changes in a county's prime-age employment rate are significantly affected by labor demand shocks to both the county and its overlying commuting zone (CZ). The overall benefits of labor demand shocks are due more to CZ demand shocks than county demand shocks. A...

This paper provides estimates that lead to better U.S. labor market definitions. Current U.S. labor market definitions-for example, metropolitan areas and commuting zones-are unsatisfactory because they are ad hoc and usually do not correspond to commonly used local planning areas. This paper...

Despite tremendous recent interest in the subject of student debt by both researchers and policy makers, little is known about how the distribution of college graduate debt has been evolving and what factors can explain it. We use National Postsecondary Student Aid Study data from 1990 through...

Under more and more fiscal scrutiny because of shrinking state and local budgets, workforce development programs are being asked to estimate their return on investment (ROI). This paper introduces basic concepts of ROI in workforce development programs. It distinguishes ROIs estimated for...

Previous studies have estimated the "human capital depreciation" of women re-entering the work force after voluntary, lengthy interruptions. Those studies have found reduced real wages and furthermore the decrease is positively related to the length of the interruption. Upon re-entry, however,...