Search Results
Journal Article
Rising tide in the labor market: to what degree do expansions benefit the disadvantaged?
The current U.S. economic expansion is unusually long and strong. Has it served as a "rising tide" to float all boats in the labor market benefiting everyone? To what degree are groups that are typically disadvantaged in the labor market-blacks, women, teens, the less educated-participating in the current prosperity? To investigate the effects of economic expansion (or recession) on various labor market groups, this article presents data that describe the patterns of labor force status by race, sex, education, and age (teens) during recent decades. ; The author finds that while virtually ...
Journal Article
New England approaches the 1990s
Journal Article
School district spending and state aid: why disparities persist
Most decisions about the level of local public school spending are made by local school districts. Their choices are conditioned by local resources and the availability of external funds, mostly from state governments. A major purpose of this substantial state aid is to further the goal of equal educational opportunity by helping to make spending more equal in rich and poor districts. ; This article investigates the link between school spending disparities and state school aid by using data on school finances and community attributes to model the determinants of per-pupil operating spending ...
Journal Article
Job creation and destruction in Massachusetts: gross flows among industries
The Massachusetts economy has experienced wide swings in employment in the 1990s, losing over 10 percent of existing jobs in the 1990-91 recession (which began locally in 1989) and not surpassing its pre-recession job peak until early 1998. Within individual sectors of the economy, the losses and gains have been even greater, with many manufacturing industries losing jobs almost nonstop while some non-manufacturing industries have expanded markedly. This article examines these employment swings and attempts to better understand their dynamic underpinnings by disaggregating them into the ...
Discussion Paper
Wives' work and family income mobility
Over the past 30 years, married women in the United States have significantly increased their labor market activity and become an integral factor in their families? ongoing economic wellbeing. This change raises questions about the economic impact of two-earner families becoming the norm. Do American families now need both a working husband and a working wife to have any hope of getting ahead or to keep from falling behind? How much does a wife?s labor market activity (participation, hours, and earnings) matter in her family?s ability to make income gains, hold its place relative to other ...
Monograph
Labor supply in the new century
To explore the labor-supply trends that will affect economic policymaking in the twenty-first century, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston chose "Labor Supply in the New Century? as the theme for its 52nd Annual Economic Conference held in June 2007. The conference?s six papers and its keynote address by Eugene Steuerle provide a broad overview of the quantity and quality implications of labor-supply trends.
Journal Article
Can local governments give citizens what they want? Referendum outcomes in Massachusetts
Economists and political scientists have long debated the nature of the process that determines government taxation and service levels in a democracy. During the 1980s, the role of referenda in determining city and town property taxes, and hence local spending, increased dramatically in Massachusetts. This article uses recent Massachusetts experience to examine the degree to which citizens "get what they want" from the local public sector and what it is they seem to want. ; The passage of Proposition 21/2 in November 1980 signalled both a shift in statewide voter sentiment against local ...
Journal Article
Effects of state and local public policies on economic development: an overview
The use of state and local public policy as an instrument of economic development is more controversial than ever. Profound technological and political changes have enhanced the geographic mobility of capital and extended firms' geographic range, intensifying competition among states and localities. At the same time, demand for state and local public services continues to rise, while impending reductions in federal aid compound the states' fiscal dilemma.> Caught between conflicting long-run fiscal pressures, state and local policymakers have sought advice on which policies are most ...
Briefing
Long-term inequality and mobility
This brief investigates the mobility and income situation of family heads and spouses who have low long-term incomes, where long-term refers to average family income over a 10-year period. The data show that most of those in the poorest one-fifth of the long-term income distribution during the 1996?2006 period spent all or nearly all of the period?s years in the poorest fifth of the single-year income distribution, and those who escaped did not move far. Moreover, this situation has worsened over time, with the long-term poor more ?stuck? at the bottom in the 1996-2006 period than they were ...
Working Paper
Family characteristics and macroeconomic factors in U. S. intragenerational family income mobility, 1978–2014
Family economic mobility has been a policy concern for decades, with interest heating up further since the 1990s. Using data that tracks individual families? incomes during overlapping 10-year periods from 1978 through 2014, this paper investigates the relationships of factors ? family characteristics and macro influences ? to intragenerational mobility and whether the importance of those factors has changed over time. Family characteristics include both levels of work behavior and family structure and within-period changes in those factors, as well as time-invariant characteristics of the ...