Copyright (c) 2009 Cornell University ILR School All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu Recent documents in DigitalCommons@ILR en-us Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:31:35 PST 3600 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/workingpapers/102 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/workingpapers/102 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:12:35 PST [Excerpt] According to the latest figures, today an estimated 3.1 billion people still live in absolute poverty, essentially all of them in the low- and middle-income countries of Asia, Latin America, and Africa and none of them in what are traditionally called the "developed economies" of North America (excluding Mexico), Western Europe, and selected parts of Asia and Oceania. This book is about how the poor live and work and what actions the world community could take to improve poor people's earning opportunities as a central component of a multifaceted program aimed at ending the scourge of absolute economic misery. Gary S. Fields http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/workingpapers/101 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/workingpapers/101 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:06:16 PST [Excerpt] The literature on income and earnings mobility falls into three categories: 1. Macro mobility studies address the entire economy. They ask the question, how much income mobility and/or earnings mobility is there in the economy? 2. A second group of studies, micro mobility studies, examines patterns of income and earnings change over time for different individuals or groups. They ask the questions, which individuals or households experience movements of what magnitudes, and what are the correlates and determinants of these movements? 3. Within the micro mobility studies are a number of studies that look specifically at poverty dynamics. These studies ask the question, how many households move into and out of poverty within a certain time frame and what are the correlates and determinants of these movements? The current project asks the following questions about earnings mobility: * Who benefits the most from the growth process, and how much do they benefit? * Who is left behind or made more vulnerable? * Who is hurt when economic decline takes place and by how much (and who can withstand or even see income gains in such environments)? * What are the forces behind these changes and behind the experiences of different groups of individuals? Given these questions, this literature review focuses on studies of micro earnings mobility. This review excludes a number other literatures: studies that present transition matrices across income classes; studies of macro mobility; studies of poverty dynamics, which necessarily are based on data on household incomes from all sources and/or household consumption; studies that use pseudo-panels rather than true panels or retrospective data; and studies using data from one or a very small number of villages, cities, or occupational groups. Gary S. Fields http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/briefs/53 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/briefs/53 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:59:58 PST [Excerpt] Given the extraordinary scope of the current economic crisis, no single policy can fully address the challenge of job creation. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has spurred job creation substantially, but the deterioration in economic prospects since it was passed demands a renewed focus on job growth in the near term. A well-designed temporary federal job creation tax credit should be an integral part of the effort to boost job growth. Besides having broad-based, bipartisan political support, the best argument for a job creation tax credit is simply that it will create almost 3 million jobs in 2010 and over 2 million in 2011. Moreover, it will stimulate the entrepreneurial character of Americans by giving 6.5 million employers and millions more aspiring entrepreneurs a limited-time offer to expand their production or start new endeavors, at a discount. Because choices about whom to hire and what work they should do are left to independent decision makers who can act immediately, the credit will have just as quick an impact. This paper outlines a version of this credit that aims to induce increases in payroll--either through adding new jobs or by increasing the hours or wages of current workers--and estimates its economic impact: A job creation tax credit that refunded 15% of new wage costs in 2010 and 10% of new wage costs in 2011 could create 5.1 million additional jobs in the U.S. economy over these two years. The net cost of the tax credit would be roughly $27 billion, or about $5,400 per new full-time-equivalent job created over these two years. John H. Bishop http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/260 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/260 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:51:40 PDT Excerpt] The New Jobs Tax Credit (NJTC) offers a tax credit of fifty percent of the first $4200 of wages per employee for increases in employment of more than two percent over the previous year. Economic theory predicts that such a tax credit should stimulate employment, decrease hours worked per week, and reduce product prices of the subsidized industries. A time series analysis of the construction, retailing, and wholesaling industries finds strong support for these hypotheses. Our results suggest that the NJTC was responsible for 150,000-670,000 of the more than 1-million increase in employment that occurred between mid-1977 and mid-1978 in the construction and retailing industries. Similar analysis indicates that by June 1978, NJTC had produced roughly a 1 percentage point reduction in the margin between retail and wholesale prices of commodities that saved consumers $1.9-$3.6 billion over the course of the previous year. John H. Bishop http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/259 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/259 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:48:03 PDT [Excerpt] This chapter examines the employment models founders use as they begin to construct new firms. The empirical setting is a sample of emerging technology firms in Silicon Valley. This chapter focuses on two questions: (1) Why are new firms founded under different conceptual models? and (2) What are the factors that lead a founding team to espouse a particular employment model? M. Diane Burton http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/258 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/258 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:44:31 PDT [Excerpt] This chapter examines the impact of corporate restructuring and global outsourcing on employment in the Commonwealth and the shifts in production from workplaces in Massachusetts to other countries. In particular we focus on global outsourcing, the shifting of work from Massachusetts offshore to countries in Europe and Asia, and nearshore to Canada and countries in Latin America. Given the huge media attention that outsourcing and nearshoring have garnered, and the increasing trend they represent toward corporate restructuring and capital mobility with lasting repercussions for workers, families, unions, and communities in the Commonwealth, it is important to assess their relative impact on job loss in the state. Stephanie Luce http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/257 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/257 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:41:01 PDT [Excerpt] Free societies with industrialized economies such as Canada and the United States are characterized by certain unique features. Among these is the fact that they both allow their citizens to come and go across their borders with few restrictions and they annually permit millions of noncitizens to travel, to conduct business, to visit, and to study in their countries with only minimal regulation. Both nations also allow some non-citizens to enter their countries and to work in competition with their citizen work-force for temporary periods under specific conditions. Furthermore, they regularly allow a generous number of non-citizens to immigrate or to take refuge as permanent residents and eventually to become citizens. It is primarily these latter situations, where work and residence issues arise, that pose the question whether years of experience have generated any principles that can guide policy makers when debates re-surface? Or, is it always simply a matter of political power and special interests at the moment that determine immigration policy on an ad-hoc basis? Vernon M. Briggs http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/256 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/256 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:36:59 PDT [Excerpt] As the 21st Century commences, immigration has once again become a major source of the nation's labor force growth. The public policies that enable mass immigration to occur do more than simply increase the size of the nation's labor force; they also affect such key compositional matters as its human capital, demographics, and geographic attributes. Immigration policy, however, has more than just immediate economic consequences; it also helps to mold the nation's future as long-term citizenship obligations are usually involved. Vernon M. Briggs http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/key_workplace/673 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/key_workplace/673 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:14:32 PDT [Excerpt] The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader have pledged to take up comprehensive immigration reform legislation at some point in the 111th Congress. Efforts to enact broad immigration reform in the 109th and 110th Congresses were unsuccessful. It is unclear what the components of any immigration reform proposals that the 111th Congress may consider will be. In the past, comprehensive bills have addressed border security, enforcement of immigration laws within the United States (interior enforcement), employment eligibility verification, temporary worker programs, permanent admissions and, most controversially, unauthorized aliens in the United States. The 111th Congress has considered various immigration issues and has enacted a number of targeted immigration provisions. It has passed legislation (P.L. 111-8, P.L. 111-9, P.L. 111-68) to extend the life of several immigration programs--the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system, the Immigrant Investor Regional Center Program, the Conrad State J-1 Waiver Program, and the special immigrant visa for religious workers--all of which are currently authorized until October 31, 2009. With respect to these programs, the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010 (H.R. 2892), include different provisions to further extend E-Verify. The Senate-passed bill also would extend the other three programs. Among the other subjects of legislation enacted by this Congress are refugees (P.L. 111-8) and border security (P.L. 111-5, P.L. 111-32). This report discusses these and other immigration-related issues that have seen legislative action or are of significant congressional interest. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations are addressed in CRS Report R40642, Homeland Security Department: FY2010 Appropriations, and, for the most part, are not covered here. This report will be updated as legislative developments occur. Andorra Bruno http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/perbcontracts/3762 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/perbcontracts/3762 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:59:48 PDT