Search Results
Journal Article
Educational attainment, unemployment, and wage inflation
We investigate the impact of rising educational attainment on wage inflation and the equilibrium (non-inflationary) rate of unemployment. Rising educational attainment may reduce wage pressures by shifting the composition of the labor force towards groups with lower equilibrium unemployment rates, or it may increase wage pressures through increased reliance on groups whose wages are relatively responsive to changes in unemployment. A measure of aggregate unemployment adjusted for changes in the age and education structure of the labor force performs well in Phillips curve estimates of the ...
Working Paper
Larceny in the Product Market: A Hidden Tax?
This paper compares the distortionary impact of larceny theft across different product markets, characterizing such crime as a “hidden tax” on producers or consumers. We estimate the size of this tax and how it is affected by exogenous changes in larceny rates driven by the enactment of higher felony larceny thresholds. Pre-enactment hidden tax rates are small, ranging from 0.1 percent to 0.4 percent. These tax rates rise or fall with enactment, varying by product market. Such exogenous changes in the hidden tax induce state-level annual welfare changes that are minimal, ranging from ...
Briefing
Authorization to Work: The Prevalence of Occupational Licensing in New England
Proponents of occupational licensing—a policy that requires workers to obtain a government-awarded credential before they can legally practice certain professions—argue that it can reduce safety risks to consumers and improve the general quality of goods and services. Opponents argue that, given the mixed evidence of the policy’s benefits to consumers, it may needlessly impede workers’ ability to enter some professions. This Regional Brief examines the prevalence of occupational licensing in New England and considers the implications for the region’s labor markets and product ...
Working Paper
The Impact of Market Factors on Racial Identity: Evidence from Multiracial Survey Respondents
This paper examines the reported race of multiracial persons in the US Current Population Survey (CPS) before 2003, when limited response options exogenously constrained respondents to identify as a single race. Using this survey attribute and the 16-month longitudinal design of the basic monthly CPS, I explore whether market factors help causally determine racial identity. I find that pre-2003 race responds to state-level (1) racial composition, due largely to household composition, and (2) unemployment rates and wages by race. Although these findings suggest potential endogeneity of race, ...
Report
Occupational Licensing and Occupational Mobility in New England
Occupational licensing—mandatory credentialing that allows a worker to practice a particular profession—varies greatly throughout New England and the United States in terms of which occupations require a license in a given state and the scope of the necessary qualifications. Given a growing share of US workers who are licensed, it is increasingly important to understand how these differences in licensing policy affect markets. Such knowledge can then be used to guide how occupational licensing regulations are structured. The research in this report shows that a labor market implication of ...
Working Paper
Does changing employers’ access to criminal histories affect ex-offenders’ recidivism?: evidence from the 2010–2012 Massachusetts CORI Reform
This paper examines how changes in employers? access to job applicants? criminal histories affect ex-offender recidivism. We use extensive state administrative data on individual criminal histories spanning the 2010?2012 Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) Reform, widely regarded as landmark legislation governing access to individuals? criminal information. The CORI Reform: i) banned inquiring about criminal history on initial job applications, and ii) broadened the list of groups eligible to use the state?s criminal records repository while simultaneously restricting ...
Working Paper
The supply side of discrimination: evidence from the labor supply of Boston taxi drivers
This paper investigates supply-side discrimination in the labor market for Boston taxi drivers. Using data on millions of trips from 2010?2015, I explore whether the labor supply behavior of taxi drivers differs by the gender, racial/ethnic, or age composition of Boston neighborhoods. I find that disparities in shift hours due to neighborhood demographics exist even when differences in local earnings opportunities are taken into account. I observe heterogeneity in the amount that drivers discriminate and find that this discrimination is primarily statistical rather than taste-based. As ...
Working Paper
Job Displacement and Sectoral Mobility
This paper combines two components of the US Current Population Survey to characterize the relationship between job displacement and sectoral mobility for long-tenured workers over the 1996–2019 period: (1) the cross-sectional Displaced Worker Survey and (2) the 16-month longitudinal design of the Basic Monthly Survey. While displacement negatively correlates with mobility over time, such job loss has a positive causal impact on mobility for displaced workers compared with similar non-displaced workers. Education and industry structure facilitate post-displacement industry switching, and ...
Report
Sectoral Mobility during the COVID-19 Pandemic
This study uses the longitudinal design of the US Current Population Survey to describe sectoral mobility trends for workers before and after the emergence of COVID-19. We find a small increase in the 15-month rate of workers who switched industries following the onset of the pandemic, likely driven by workers who did not have an unemployment stint following job separation. However, larger changes in sectoral mobility during this time are evident when we examine differences across regions, industries, and individuals who are stratified by characteristics such as sex, age, or education. These ...
Report
Can subsidized housing help address homelessness in New England?
This report examines the scope of homelessness in New England and the potential role of subsidized housing in alleviating homelessness in the region. The report finds that the number of sheltered homeless families in Massachusetts and Vermont is on the rise, driving an increase in measured homelessness in New England. The authors consider three theories for the cause of the increase: the interaction of national market forces and area-specific shelter policies, area-specific market forces, and challenges in accurately measuring the homeless population. The research also explores the extent to ...