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Briefing
Expanding the Scope of Workforce Development
Workforce development efforts often are geared toward adult workers. But examining workforce development from the perspective of human capital theory suggests that earlier interventions may yield high returns.
Briefing
A More Comprehensive Measure of the Black-White Wealth Gap
In this article, we apply a simple graphical device — the plot of the relative rank distribution — to summarize the Black-White wealth gap. We also introduce the relative rank Gini coefficient — an analog to the standard Gini coefficient — as a summary measure of rank inequality. We find that the rank wealth gap is widest in the middle of the wealth distribution. Black-White rank wealth gaps are higher among college graduates than among other education groups. Households with young or retired heads have higher rank gaps than middle-aged households. We caution that rank gaps are not ...
Briefing
Slowing Growth in Educational Attainment
Research suggests the economy's demand for college-educated workers exceeds the supply, which might be contributing to slower economic growth. Improving students' preparation at the K-12 level could both increase the college completion rate and help those who are not college-bound choose the best paths for themselves.
Working Paper
Incarceration, Earnings, and Race
Briefing
Incarceration's Life-Long Impact on Earnings and Employment
We estimate the impact of incarceration on individuals' earnings and employment prospects using a statistical model that controls for race, gender, education and other factors. The model reveals that first-time incarceration for black men with a high school diploma reduces expected lifetime earnings by 33 percent and employment by 22 percent. For high school educated white men, it reduces expected lifetime earnings by 43 percent and employment by 27 percent.
Briefing
The Prevalence of Apprenticeships in Germany and the United States
The educational systems and labor markets of Germany and the United States take different approaches to preparing young people for the workforce. One feature of Germany's workforce development model that has been of interest to policymakers in the United States is the important role played by employer-financed apprenticeships. The United States instead relies mainly on comprehensive general education, with career training largely taking place in community colleges and other postsecondary institutions. Research has pointed to several factors that may foster apprenticeships in Germany to a ...
Briefing
Who Values Access to College?
A quantitative model of college enrollment suggests that the value of college access varies greatly across individuals. Forty percent place no value on the option to attend despite large public subsidies, while 25 percent would enroll even without the subsidies. In the model, redirecting public funds from those who attend college irrespective of subsidies to those who don’t attend even with subsidies both preserves college enrollment and improves overall outcomes. While these two groups are clearly visible only in the model, and not in the data, this analysis suggests that more-targeted ...
Working Paper
Stock Market Investment: The Role of Human Capital
Portfolio choice models counter factually predict (or advise) almost universal equity market participation and a high share for equity in wealth early in life. Empirically consistent predictions have proved elusive without participation costs, informational frictions, or non standard preferences. We demonstrate that once human capital investment is allowed, standard theory predicts portfolio choices much closer to those empirically observed. Two intuitive mechanisms are at work: For participation, human capital returns exceed financial asset returns for most young households and, as ...
Briefing
How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families?
One of the most striking differences between Black and White households is a large disparity in wealth. A potential source of this gap is differences in transfers of wealth within families through bequests or gifts. In this article, we document who receives such transfers and the distribution of transfers among those who receive them. Black individuals are much less likely to receive any inheritances or gifts. Black recipients receive smaller amounts and have a much lower probability of extremely large transfers.