Search Results

Author: Fairlie, Robert W.
Resulting in 18 citations.
1. Beltran, Daniel O.
Das, Kuntal Kumar
Fairlie, Robert W.
Are Computers Good for Children? The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes
Discussion Papers: 576, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 2008.
Also: http://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/research/papers/ceprdpapers/DP576.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Centre for Economic Policy Research, ANU
Keyword(s): Computer Ownership; Computer Use/Internet Access; Crime; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Returns; High School Completion/Graduates; Home Environment; Modeling, Fixed Effects

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although computers are universal in the classroom, nearly twenty million children in the United States do not have computers in their homes. Surprisingly, only a few previous studies explore the role of home computers in the educational process. Home computers might be very useful for completing school assignments, but they might also represent a distraction for teenagers. We use several identification strategies and panel data from the two main U.S. datasets that include recent information on computer ownership among children--the 2000-2003 CPS Computer and Internet Use Supplements (CIUS) matched to the CPS Basic Monthly Files and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997--to explore the causal relationship between computer ownership and high school graduation and other educational outcomes. Teenagers who have access to home computers are 6 to 8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who do not have home computers after controlling for individual, parental, and family characteristics. We generally find evidence of positive relationships between home computers and educational outcomes using several identification strategies, including controlling for typically unobservable home environment and extracurricular activities in the NLSY97, fixed effects models, instrumental variables, and including future computer ownership and falsification tests. Home computers may increase high school graduation by reducing non-productive activities, such as truancy and crime, among children in addition to making it easier to complete school assignments.
Bibliography Citation
Beltran, Daniel O., Kuntal Kumar Das and Robert W. Fairlie. "Are Computers Good for Children? The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes." Discussion Papers: 576, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 2008.
2. Beltran, Daniel O.
Das, Kuntal Kumar
Fairlie, Robert W.
Are Computers Good for Children? The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes
Presented: Chicago, IL, Annual Meetings of the Society of Labor Economists, May 4-5, 2007
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Opinion Research Center - NORC
Keyword(s): Computer Ownership; Computer Use/Internet Access; Crime; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Returns; High School Completion/Graduates; Home Environment; Modeling, Fixed Effects

Although computers are universal in the classroom, nearly twenty million children in the United States do not have computers in their homes. Surprisingly, only a few previous studies explore the role of home computers in the educational process. Home computers might be very useful for completing school assignments, but they might also represent a distraction for teenagers. We use several identification strategies and panel data from the two main U.S. datasets that include recent information on computer ownership among children -- the 2000-2003 CPS Computer and Internet Use Supplements (CIUS) matched to the CPS Basic Monthly Files and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 -- to explore the causal relationship between computer ownership and high school graduation and other educational outcomes. Teenagers who have access to home computers are 6 to 8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who do not have home computers after controlling for individual, parental, and family characteristics. We generally find evidence of positive relationships between home computers and educational outcomes using several identification strategies, including controlling for typically unobservable home environment and extracurricular activities in the NLSY97, fixed effects models, instrumental variables, and including future computer ownership and "pencil tests." Home computers may increase high school graduation by reducing non-productive activities, such as truancy and crime, among children in addition to making it easier to complete school assignments.
Bibliography Citation
Beltran, Daniel O., Kuntal Kumar Das and Robert W. Fairlie. "Are Computers Good for Children? The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes." Presented: Chicago, IL, Annual Meetings of the Society of Labor Economists, May 4-5, 2007.
3. Beltran, Daniel O.
Das, Kuntal Kumar
Fairlie, Robert W.
Do Home Computers Improve Educational Outcomes? Evidence from Matched Current Population Surveys and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997
IZA Discussion Paper No. 1912, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), January 2006.
Also: ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp1912.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Keyword(s): Computer Ownership; Computer Use/Internet Access; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Returns; High School Diploma; Truancy

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Nearly twenty million children in the United States do not have computers in their homes. The role of home computers in the educational process, however, has drawn very little attention in the previous literature. We use panel data from the two main U.S. datasets that include recent information on computer ownership among children - the 2000-2003 CPS Computer and Internet Use Supplements (CIUS) matched to the CPS Basic Monthly Files and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 - to explore the relationship between computer ownership and high school graduation and other educational outcomes. Teenagers who have access to home computers are 6 to 8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who do not have home computers after controlling for individual, parental, and family characteristics. We generally find evidence of positive relationships between home computers and educational outcomes using several estimation strategies, including controlling for typically unobservable home environment and extracurricular activities in the NLSY97, fixed effects models, instrumental variables, future computer ownership and "pencil tests". Some of these estimation techniques, however, provide imprecise estimates. Home computers may increase high school graduation by reducing nonproductive activities, such as truancy and crime, among children in addition to making it easier to complete school assignments.
Bibliography Citation
Beltran, Daniel O., Kuntal Kumar Das and Robert W. Fairlie. "Do Home Computers Improve Educational Outcomes? Evidence from Matched Current Population Surveys and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997." IZA Discussion Paper No. 1912, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), January 2006.
4. Fairlie, Robert W.
Does Business Ownership Provide a Source of Upward Mobility for Blacks and Hispanics?
Presented: Syracuse, NY, Maxwell Policy Research Symposium, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, April 2001.
Also: http://econ.ucsc.edu/~fairlie/papers/mingrowth10.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University
Keyword(s): Earnings; Hispanics; Minority Groups; Mobility; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Racial Differences; Self-Employed Workers; Unemployment

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Academicians and policymakers have argued that self-employment provides a route out of poverty and an alternative to unemployment or discrimination in the labor market. Existing research, however, provides very little evidence from longitudinal data on the relationship between business ownership and economic advancement for disadvantaged minority groups. I use data from the 1979-1998 National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY) to examine the earnings patterns of young black and Hispanic business owners and make comparisons to young black and Hispanic wage/salary workers. Using fixed-effects earnings regressions, I find some evidence suggesting that self-employed Hispanic men experience faster earnings growth than Hispanic men employed in the wage/salary sector. All of the estimated coefficients for this group are large and positive, but only a few are statistically significant. I also find large and positive relative self-employment earnings growth coefficients for black men, but none are statistically significant at conventional levels. The results for black and Hispanic women are less consistent, possibly due to small sample sizes. Finally, I find that minority business owners generally experience more unemployment than wage/salary workers, with the main exception being black male business owners.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Does Business Ownership Provide a Source of Upward Mobility for Blacks and Hispanics?" Presented: Syracuse, NY, Maxwell Policy Research Symposium, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, April 2001.
5. Fairlie, Robert W.
Does Business Ownership Provide a Source of Upward Mobility for Blacks and Hispanics?
In: Public Policy and the Economics of Entrepreneurship. D. Holtz-Eakin and H.S. Rosen, eds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004: pp. 153-179.
Also: http://people.ucsc.edu/~rfairlie/papers/published/mit%202004%20-%20minority%20self-employment%20growth.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: MIT Press
Keyword(s): Earnings; Hispanics; Minority Groups; Mobility; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Racial Differences; Self-Employed Workers; Unemployment

This chapter examines the earnings patterns of young black and hispanic business owners. Date from the NLSY79 are used to examine the long-term earning patterns (1979-1998) of young self-employed blacks and hispanics. Earnings patterns of young black and hispanic wage/salary workers are placed in context with young white self-employed and wage/salary workers. The key question is whether black and hispanic youths who are self-employed early in their careers experience faster earnings growth that their counterparts employed in the wage/salary sector. [Paraphrased from Introduction to the .pdf file]
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Does Business Ownership Provide a Source of Upward Mobility for Blacks and Hispanics?" In: Public Policy and the Economics of Entrepreneurship. D. Holtz-Eakin and H.S. Rosen, eds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004: pp. 153-179.
6. Fairlie, Robert W.
Drug Dealing and Legitimate Self-Employment
JCPR Working Paper 88, Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/University of Chicago, April 1999.
Also: http://www.jcpr.org/wpfiles/fairlie_selfemployment.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Joint Center for Poverty Research
Keyword(s): Crime; Drug Use; Illegal Activities; Self-Employed Workers; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Theoretical models of self-employment posit that attitudes toward risk, entrepreneurial ability, and preferences for autonomy are central to the individual's decision between self-employment and wage/salary work. None of the studies in the rapidly growing empirical literature on self-employment, however, have been able to test whether these factors are important determinants of self-employment. I explore this hypothesis by examining the relationship between drug dealing and legitimate self-employment. A review of ethnographic studies in the criminology literature indicates that drug dealing represents a good proxy for low risk aversion, entrepreneurial ability, and a preference for autonomy. The 1980 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) contained a special section on participation in illegal activities, including questions on selling marijuana and other "hard" drugs. I use the answers to these questions and data from subsequent years of the NLSY to examine the relationship between drug dealing as a youth and legitimate self-employment in later years. Using various definitions of drug dealing and specifications of the econometric model, I find that drug dealers are 11 to 21 percent more likely to choose self-employment than non drug dealers, all else equal. I also find that drug dealers who sold more frequently, used drugs less frequently, or reported receiving income from drug dealing are more likely to choose self-employment than other drug dealers. I interpret these results as providing evidence that low risk aversion, entrepreneurial ability, and a preference for autonomy are important determinants of self-employment. I also provide evidence against a few alternative explanations of the positive relationship between drug dealing and self-employment.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Drug Dealing and Legitimate Self-Employment." JCPR Working Paper 88, Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/University of Chicago, April 1999.
7. Fairlie, Robert W.
Drug Dealing and Legitimate Self-Employment
Journal of Labor Economics 20,3 (July 2002): 538-567.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/339610
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Keyword(s): Attitudes; Drug Use; Employment; Employment, Youth; Risk-Taking; Self-Employed Workers

Theoretical models of self-employment posit that attitudes toward risk, entrepreneurial ability, and preferences for autonomy are central to the individual's decision between self-employment and wage/salary work. I provide indirect evidence on this hypothesis by examining the relationship between drug dealing as a youth and legitimate self-employment in later years using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. I find that drug dealers are 11%-21% more likely to choose self-employment than non-drug-dealers, all else equal. After ruling out a few alternative explanations, I interpret these results as providing indirect evidence supporting the hypothesis.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Drug Dealing and Legitimate Self-Employment." Journal of Labor Economics 20,3 (July 2002): 538-567.
8. Fairlie, Robert W.
Earnings Growth Among Disadvantaged Business Owners
NTIS Report PB2002101029. Sponsored by the Small Business Administration, Washington, DC. 14 Sep 2001
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
Keyword(s): Disadvantaged, Economically; Earnings; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Differences; Gender Differences; Hispanics; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Using data from the 1979-98 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this report examines the long-term earnings patterns of young disadvantaged business owners and makes comparisons to young wage/salary workers. The analysis focuses on several disadvantaged groups -- less educated young men and women, blacks, and Hispanics. All of these groups have relatively low earnings in the labor market, limited financial resources, and low rates of business ownership.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Earnings Growth Among Disadvantaged Business Owners." NTIS Report PB2002101029. Sponsored by the Small Business Administration, Washington, DC. 14 Sep 2001.
9. Fairlie, Robert W.
Earnings Growth among Young Less-Educated Business Owners
JCPR Working Paper 207, Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/University of Chicago, October 2000.
Also: http://www.jcpr.org/wpfiles/fairlie10_2000.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Joint Center for Poverty Research
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Job; Earnings; Economics of Discrimination; Education; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Self-Employed Workers; Wage Growth; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Academicians and policymakers have argued that self-employment provides a route out of poverty and an alternative to unemployment or discrimination in the labor market. Existing research, however, provides little evidence from longitudinal data on the relationship between business ownership and economic advancement for disadvantaged groups. I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY) to examine the earnings patterns of young less-educated business owners and make comparisons to young less-educated wage/salary workers. Using fixed-effects earnings regressions, I find that the self-employed experience faster earnings growth on average than wage/salary workers after a few initial years of slower growth. Simulations based on these estimates indicate that earnings grow by $771 and $1157 more per year for self-employed men and women, respectively, than for their wage/salary counterparts. I also find that a relatively high percentage of less-educated business owners, especially men, experience either rapid earnings growth or large annual losses. For example, 19 percent of self-employed men experience earnings growth of more than $3,000 per year and 16 percent experience losses of $3,000 or more per year. In contrast, only 14 percent of male wage/salary workers experience levels of earnings growth that fall in this range.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Earnings Growth among Young Less-Educated Business Owners." JCPR Working Paper 207, Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/University of Chicago, October 2000.
10. Fairlie, Robert W.
Earnings Growth Among Young Less-Educated Business Owners
Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 43,3 (July 2004): 634-660.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0019-8676.2004.00353.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley
Keyword(s): Education; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Self-Employed Workers; Wage Growth; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), I examine the earnings patterns of young less-educated business owners and make comparisons with young less-educated wage/salary workers. Estimates from fixed-effects earnings regressions indicate that the self-employed experience faster earnings growth on average than wage/salary workers after a few initial years of slower growth. I also find some evidence suggesting that a relatively high percentage of less-educated business owners, especially men, experience either rapid earnings growth or large annual losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Earnings Growth Among Young Less-Educated Business Owners." Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 43,3 (July 2004): 634-660.
11. Fairlie, Robert W.
Entrepreneurship and Earnings among Young Adults from Disadvantaged Families
Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of California - Santa Cruz, June 2003.
Also: http://econ.ucsc.edu/~fairlie/papers/family6.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz
Keyword(s): Disadvantaged, Economically; Earnings; Economic Changes/Recession; Self-Employed Workers

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Academicians and policymakers have argued that entrepreneurship provides a route out of poverty and an alternative to unemployment or discrimination in the labor market. Existing research, however, provides little evidence from longitudinal data on the relationship between business ownership and economic advancement for disadvantaged groups. I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY) to examine the earnings of young business owners from disadvantaged families and make comparisons to young wage/salary workers from disadvantaged families. For young men from disadvantaged families, I find some evidence that self-employed business owners earn more than wage/salary workers. In contrast, I find that for young women from disadvantaged families business owners earn less than wage/salary workers. The results from these earnings comparisons are somewhat sensitive to the use of different measures of income and econometric models.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Entrepreneurship and Earnings among Young Adults from Disadvantaged Families." Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of California - Santa Cruz, June 2003.
12. Fairlie, Robert W.
Entrepreneurship and Earnings among Young Adults from Disadvantaged Families
Small Business Economics 25,3 (October 2005): 223-236.
Also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f816378j56570267/
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Keyword(s): Disadvantaged, Economically; Gender Differences; Self-Employed Workers

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Academicians and policymakers have argued that entrepreneurship provides a route out of poverty and an alternative to unemployment or discrimination in the labor market. Existing research, however, provides little evidence from longitudinal data on the relationship between business ownership and economic advancement for disadvantaged groups. I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to examine the earnings of young business owners from disadvantaged families and make comparisons to young wage/salary workers from disadvantaged families. For young men from disadvantaged families, I find some evidence that self-employed business owners earn more than wage/salary workers. In contrast, I find that for young women from disadvantaged families business owners earn less than wage/salary workers. The results from these earnings comparisons are somewhat sensitive to the use of different measures of income and econometric models.
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Entrepreneurship and Earnings among Young Adults from Disadvantaged Families." Small Business Economics 25,3 (October 2005): 223-236.
13. Fairlie, Robert W.
Self-employment, Entrepreneurship, and the NLSY79
Monthly Labor Review 128,2 (February 2005): 40-47.
Also: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/02/art6exc.htm
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: U.S. Department of Labor
Keyword(s): Earnings; Longitudinal Surveys; Self-Employed Workers

Researchers have used the rich data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the relationship between self-employment and various job and earnings outcomes; future inquiry may afford valuable insights into other interesting consequences of self-employment.

The NLSY79 is an excellent source of data for conducting research on self-employment and entrepreneurship. The wealth of information available in the survey allows one to build rich empirical models of the entrepreneurial process. Measures of previous wage and salary, self-employment, and unemployment experience can be created, and the NLSY79 contains several uncommon variables, such as those associated with detailed asset categories, family background information, data on criminal activities, Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores, and psychological characteristics. Furthermore, a plethora of measures of the dynamics of self-employment may be extracted from the longitudinal data in the survey. For example, measures of transitions to and from self-employment, number of years of self-employment, and whether an individual ever tries self-employment can easily be created. Finally, the returns to self-employment, measured as earnings, job satisfaction, net worth, or other outcomes, can be estimated. Changes over time in labor market status can be used to identify the effects of self-employment, potentially removing biases created by unobserved heterogeneity across individuals. Given these advantages, it is somewhat surprising that more researchers have not used the NLSY79 to study self-employment. In the sections that follow, this article presents estimates of self-employment from the NLSY79, reviews findings from previous studies that used the survey, and discusses some of the merits of the data sets making up the survey.

Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. "Self-employment, Entrepreneurship, and the NLSY79." Monthly Labor Review 128,2 (February 2005): 40-47.
14. Fairlie, Robert W.
Beltran, Daniel O.
Das, Kuntal Kumar
Home Computers and Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY97 and CPS
Economic Inquiry 48,3 (July 2010): 771-792.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2009.00218.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Western Economic Association International
Keyword(s): Computer Use/Internet Access; Crime; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Education; Educational Returns; Family Characteristics; High School Completion/Graduates; Home Environment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Truancy

Although computers are universal in the classroom, nearly 20 million children in the United States do not have computers in their homes. Surprisingly, only a few previous studies explore the role of home computers in the educational process. Home computers might be very useful for completing school assignments, but they might also represent a distraction for teenagers. We use several identification strategies and panel data from the two main U.S. data sets that include recent information on computer ownership among children—the 2000–2003 Current Population Survey (CPS) Computer and Internet Use Supplements matched to the CPS basic monthly files and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)—to explore the causal relationship between computer ownership and high school graduation and other educational outcomes. Teenagers who have access to home computers are 6–8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who do not have home computers after controlling for individual, parental, and family characteristics. We generally find evidence of positive relationships between home computers and educational outcomes using several identification strategies, including controlling for typically unobservable home environment and extracurricular activities in the NLSY97, fixed effects models, instrumental variables, and including future computer ownership and falsification tests. Home computers may increase high school graduation by reducing nonproductive activities, such as truancy and crime, among children in addition to making it easier to complete school assignments (JEL I2).
Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W., Daniel O. Beltran and Kuntal Kumar Das. "Home Computers and Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY97 and CPS." Economic Inquiry 48,3 (July 2010): 771-792.
15. Fairlie, Robert W.
Woodruff, Christopher M.
Mexican-American Entrepreneurship
B.E. Journals of Economic Analysis and Policy: Frontiers of Economic Analysis and Policy 10,1 (2010).
Also: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=907681
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Berkeley Electronic Press (bpress)
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Immigrants

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We conduct a comprehensive analysis of Mexican-American entrepreneurship. We find that low levels of education and wealth explain the entire gap between Mexican immigrants and non- Latino whites in business formation rates; together with language ability, these factors explain nearly the entire gap in business income. Legal status represents an additional barrier for Mexican immigrants, reducing business ownership rates by 0.7 percentage points. Human and financial capital deficiencies limit business ownership and business success among second and third-generation Mexican-Americans to a lesser extent. These findings have implications for the debates over the assimilation of Mexican-Americans in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Editor's note:] Synthetic control groups are created using Census, CPS and the NLSY data for comparison to undocumented Mexican immigrants in the LPS [Legalized Population Survey] data.

Bibliography Citation
Fairlie, Robert W. and Christopher M. Woodruff. "Mexican-American Entrepreneurship." B.E. Journals of Economic Analysis and Policy: Frontiers of Economic Analysis and Policy 10,1 (2010).
16. Kletzer, Lori G.
Fairlie, Robert W.
Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement Among Young Workers
JCPR Working Paper 87, Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/University of Chicago, June 1999.
Also: http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/jcpr/workingpapers/wpfiles/fairlie_jobdisplace.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Joint Center for Poverty Research
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); College Education; Earnings; High School Completion/Graduates; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Wage Growth; Work Histories

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

One limitation of the recent research on the long-term costs of job displacement is its focus on individuals with established work histories. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), the authors estimate the long-term costs of job displacement for young workers. Similar to a number of recent studies, the authors use a comparison group of nondisplaced workers and regressions that include individual-level fixed-effects to estimate post-displacement earnings losses for this group. The rate of job displacement among this cohort was high during the 1980s and early 1990s. The authors find that the earnings costs of job loss for young workers are substantial and persistent, as others have shown for older and more established workers. In the fifth year following job loss, displaced men lose 8.4 percent and displaced women 13.0 percent in annual earnings, relative to expected levels. To improve the understanding of the causes of these long-term costs, the authors also examine the relative contributions of actual earnings losses and losses due to foregone earnings to total earnings losses for young displaced workers. They find a clear contrast between young and older workers in the causes of these losses. Unlike more established workers, young displaced workers do not experience a large decline in earnings following displacement. At the same time, their nondisplaced counterparts experience rapid earnings growth.
Bibliography Citation
Kletzer, Lori G. and Robert W. Fairlie. "Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement Among Young Workers." JCPR Working Paper 87, Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/University of Chicago, June 1999.
17. Kletzer, Lori G.
Fairlie, Robert W.
Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement Among Young Workers
Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of California - Santa Cruz, July 1997
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz
Keyword(s): Earnings; Educational Attainment; Human Capital; Job Turnover; Mobility, Job; Unions

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The earnings costs of job displacement are sizeable and persistent. Recent additions to the literature show that five or more years after displacement, earnings remain from 10 percent to 18 percent below expected levels (see Topel 1990, Ruhm 1991, Jacobson, LaLonde, and Sullivan 1993a,b, Schoeni and Dardia 1996, and Stevens 1997). Evidence of the persistence of earnings losses after job loss has implications for the design of assistance policies, as it raises concerns about the long-term earnings prospects of displaced workers. One limitation of this recent research is its focus on individuals with established work histories. Job loss among young workers has been overlooked in the literature on job displacement. The lack of interest may stem from the presumption that young workers have less to lose from job displacement given their relatively short time to invest in firm-specific human capital. Young workers may also be less likely than older workers to experience losses of industry or union rents following job loss.
Bibliography Citation
Kletzer, Lori G. and Robert W. Fairlie. "Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement Among Young Workers." Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of California - Santa Cruz, July 1997.
18. Kletzer, Lori G.
Fairlie, Robert W.
The Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement for Young Adult Workers
Industrial and Labor Relations Review 56,4 (July 2003): 682-699.
Also: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/ilrreview/vol56/iss4/7/
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Industrial Relations Research Association ==> LERA
Keyword(s): Displaced Workers; Earnings; Gender Differences; Job Turnover; Labor Market Outcomes; Wage Differentials; Wages, Youth

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Using NLSY data, the authors estimate the long-term costs of job displacement for young adults. Earnings and wage losses were large for the first three years following displacement. Compared to earnings losses found by other studies for more mature workers, however, earnings losses for these young adults were short-lived, with differences between observed and expected earnings narrowing considerably five years after job loss. At that point, the shortfall in annual earnings (relative to what would have been expected absent job loss) was 9% for men and 12.5% for women, and the shortfall in hourly wages was 21.2% for men. Young workers also apparently differ from more established workers in the composition of total earnings losses: for older workers, total losses largely represent actual, immediate earnings losses, whereas for young workers the loss of opportunities for rapid earnings growth is more important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Kletzer, Lori G. and Robert W. Fairlie. "The Long-Term Costs of Job Displacement for Young Adult Workers." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 56,4 (July 2003): 682-699.