Journal Article
Government-subsidized training: a plan for prosperity?
Rollow, Christy D.; Carlstrom, Charles T. (1998-05)
Many analysts believe that the United States should subsidize training to increase its workers' skills because employers don't provide enough. This Commentary asks whether the present level of training is truly insufficient, or whether firms' incentives may already be in synch with the social costs and benefits of training.
Economic Commentary , Issue May

Working Paper
Do returns to schooling differ by race and ethnicity?
Rouse, Cecilia Elena; Barrow, Lisa (2005)
Using data from the U.S. Decennial Census and the National Longitudinal Surveys, we find little evidence of differences in the return to schooling across racial and ethnic groups, even with attempts to control for ability and measurement error biases. While our point estimates are relatively similar across racial and ethnic groups, our conclusion is driven in part by relatively large standard errors. ; That said, we find no evidence that returns to schooling are lower for African Americans or Hispanics than for non-minorities. As a result, policies that increase education among the ...
Working Paper Series , Paper WP-05-02

Journal Article
Getting back on your feet
Wirtz, Ronald A. (2005-09)
Are government job training programs helpful? Are they even necessary?
The Region , Volume 19 , Issue Sep , Pages 28-31, 46-52

Journal Article
Upstairs downstairs: how introducing computer technology changed skills and pay on two floors of Cabot Bank
Levy, Frank; Autor, David H.; Murnane, Richard J. (2002-04-02)
Assessing the differing impacts of a new computer technology on skills and pay in two departments of a large bank.
Regional Review , Volume 12 , Issue Q 2 , Pages 22-30

Working Paper
Learning by doing and the value of optimal experimentation
Wieland, Volker W. (1996)
Research on learning-by-doing has typically been restricted to cases where estimation and control can be treated separately. Recent work has provided convergence results for more general learning problems where experimentation is an important aspect of optimal control. However the associated optimal policy cannot be derived analytically because Bayesian learning introduces a nonlinearity in the dynamic programming problem. This paper characterizes the optimal policy numerically and shows that it incorporates a substantial degree of experimentation. Dynamic simulations indicate that optimal ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 96-5

Journal Article
Effects of personal and school characteristics on estimates of the return to education
Altonji, Joseph (1998-01)
What is the economic return to attending college? The earnings gap between college and high school graduates is large, but college and high school graduates differ in many ways besides education. This article finds that differences in family background and ability explain about one fourth of the gap.
Economic Perspectives , Volume 22 , Issue Q I , Pages 65-79

Journal Article
From public assistance to self-sufficiency: the role for the microenterprise strategy
Servon, Lisa J. (1999-04)
Lisa Servon of the Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy at Rutgers University details research on the benefits of microenterprise training for those making the transition off of public assistance. The number of microenterprise programs in the United States has grown substantially over the past decade. Policymakers at all levels of government are viewing microenterprise development as a potential silver bullet for solving problems with the welfare system. Professor Servon argues that while microenterprise training does provide former public assistance recipients with practical skills, ...
Communities and Banking , Issue Spr , Pages 2-5

Journal Article
The growing wage gap: is training the answer?
Lynch, Lisa M. (1995-01)
Training programs targeted toward lower skilled workers to a much greater extent than is currently the case could play an important role in narrowing the wage gap. Specific strategies would include assisting firms to develop their own programs, improving the school-to-work transition for non-college-bound high school graduates, and providing displaced workers with the skills needed to take new jobs in growing sectors of the economy.
Economic Policy Review , Issue Jan , Pages 54-58

Journal Article
A leaner, more skilled U.S. manufacturing workforce
Orr, James A.; Deitz, Richard (2006-02)
While the U.S. manufacturing sector has contracted sharply since the early 1980s, employment in high-skill manufacturing occupations has risen by an impressive 37 percent. An investigation of the growth in high-skill manufacturing jobs reveals that virtually all of the nation's industries have shared in this trend. Moreover, skill upgrading has occurred in all parts of the country, even those experiencing severe employment losses.
Current Issues in Economics and Finance , Volume 12 , Issue Feb/Mar

Conference Paper
Educating managers and employees
Marcus, Bernard (1984)
Proceedings