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What's New at IRPIn 2008: Winter-Spring 2007–08 | Spring 2008 | Fall 2008 Fall 2008
Timothy Smeeding is New DirectorOn August 1, 2008, Timothy M. Smeeding became IRP’s eleventh Director, taking over for Maria Cancian, who served for 4 years. An internationally known scholar, Smeeding is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the UW–Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs and founder and Director Emeritus of the Luxembourg Income Study. He comes to Madison from Syracuse University, where he was Director of the Center for Policy Research. A UW alumnus and student of Robert Haveman (economics, 1975), Smeeding has been an IRP research affiliate since 1980. His research interests include the economics of public policy, especially social policy and at-risk populations; poverty and income distribution; income transfers; socioeconomic mobility; tax policy; and health economics. Visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/aboutirp/directormessage.htm for
further information about Smeeding and his vision for IRP. On September 4,
he launched the 2008–09 seminar series with a discussion of his research
goals and expectations for IRP.
The presentation can be found online at http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/seminars/Presentations/Smeeding_9_4_08.pdf
Summer-Event SummarySummer Research Workshop: June 16–19, 2008, organized by Robert Moffitt, John Karl Scholz, Robert Hauser, and Jeffrey Smith. Visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/workshops/2008/srw2008agenda.htm to see the participants and agenda. Robert J. Lampman Lecture: June 18, 2008, presented by Robert Haveman, John Bascom Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Affairs, “What Does It Mean to be Poor in a Rich Society?” Visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/other/lampman/HavemanLampmanLect2.pdf to see presentation slides. A State of Agents? Conference: July 24–25, 2008, organized by Carolyn Heinrich, Director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and IRP Associate Director of Research and Training. Visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/conferences/stateofagents.htm for a description of the conference and the agenda. Applied Microeconometrics Workshop: August 4–6, 2008,
hosted and co-sponsored by IRP and taught by Guido Imbens and Jeffrey Wooldridge;
other co-sponsors were the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, the
UW Center for Demography and Ecology, the University of Southern California
(USC) Institute for Economic Policy Research, and the USC Southern California
Population Research Center. Visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/workshops/appliedmicroeconometrics/appliedmicroeconometrics.htm for
further information.
Three New Seminar Series LaunchedIRP’s thematic seminar series this year will focus on Healthy Families: Assessing the Role of Public Policies and will feature talks by James Kemple of MDRC; Andrew Sum, Northeastern University; Kathryn Edin, Harvard Kennedy School; Kristin Anderson Moore, Child Trends; Maria Cancian, UW–Madison; and Sara McLanahan, Princeton University (see schedule below for dates and times). Another new seminar series, the Visiting Scholars seminar series, will feature the 2008–09 IRP Visiting Scholars: Rodney J. Andrews, RWJF Scholar in Health Policy, Harvard University; Udaya Waglé, Asst. Professor of Public Affairs and Administration, Western Michigan University, and Local Research Affiliate, National Poverty Center; Fernando Antonio Lozano, Pomona College and National Poverty Center Postdoctoral Fellow; and Angel Harris, Asst. Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Princeton University, and Faculty Associate of the Princeton Office of Population Research (see schedule below for dates and times). IRP has also established the Meet
the New IRP Affiliate seminar series, which will feature
(at this writing; more may be added): Zhen Zeng, Asst. Professor of Sociology,
UW–Madison; Maximilian Schmeiser, Asst. Professor of Consumer Science,
UW–Madison; Roberta Riportella, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Consumer
Science, UW–Madison; Health Policy Specialist, University of Wisconsin-Extension;
and Katherine White, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UW–Madison
(see schedule below for dates and times).
Seminar ScheduleIRP seminars take place on Thursdays from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in room
8417 Sewell Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, unless otherwise
noted. For updates and further details, visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/seminars.htm. Fall SemesterSeptember 4, 2008 September 18 September 25 October 9 October 16 October 23 October 30
Monday, November 10 November 13 November 20 Tuesday, November 25 December 4 December 11 Spring SemesterFebruary 5, 2009 February 12 March 26 April 9 April 16 April 23 May 7
New AffiliatesMarcia (Marcy) J. Carlson, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, UW–Madison. Carlson’s primary research interests center on the links between family contexts and the wellbeing of children and parents, including implications for relevant public policies. Her most recent work is focused on father involvement, co-parenting, union formation, and couple relationship quality among unmarried parents—a demographic group at high risk of poverty. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology (demography) from the University of Michigan in 1999, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University (Center for Research on Child Wellbeing) from 1999 to 2001, and was an Assistant/Associate Professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work from 2001 to 2008. Prior to graduate school, she worked for three years on social policy issues in Washington, DC. John C. Ham, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Associate Director, Southern California Population Research Center. Ham’s research is in the areas of labor economics, health economics, experimental economics and econometrics. He has looked at the effect of different Manpower Training programs on the duration of employment and the duration of nonemployment of disadvantaged women. He has also addressed issues that come up in the policy evaluation of labor market programs using duration models. Ham has examined static and dynamic linear regression models of children’s health insurance take-up across private and public health insurance resulting from expansions in public coverage such as SCHIP. Current research includes an examination of eating disorders among young women and an evaluation of the Kids ‘n’ Fitness program implemented in four California schools. Maximilian (Max) Schmeiser, Assistant Professor of Consumer Science, UW–Madison. Schmeiser’s current research interests are in three main areas: What are the economic causes and consequences of the increasing prevalence of obesity? Which measure of fatness best predicts various health and socioeconomic outcomes? How does the Earned Income Tax Credit alter the economic decisions of low-income families? Zhen Zeng, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UW–Madison.
Zeng’s research includes examination of Asian Americans’ earnings
disadvantage, personality development in late midlife, the contextual determinants
of racial boundaries in adolescent friendship, and a longitudinal analysis
of Asian Immigrants’ earnings assimilation. Zhen
Zeng's home page.
Visiting ScholarsRodney J. Andrews, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University. Andrews received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan in 2007. His dissertation evaluated the impact of legal challenges to affirmative action and the resulting policy responses to minority educational outcomes. He plans to examine the impact of early-onset psychiatric disorders on various labor market outcomes of African-Americans and Caribbean-Americans. The research is intended to shed light on yet another aspect of health disparities. Angel L. Harris, Department of Sociology, Princeton University. Harris' research interests are in understanding the causes of social inequality in the U.S. Since education is the primary formal mechanism for upward socioeconomic mobility within the U.S., he is focused on racial and gender disparities in academic outcomes among adolescents. . Fernando Antonio Lozano, Department of Economics, Pomona College. Lozano has devoted his research to understanding the determinants of labor market and education success by Hispanics in the United States. He argues that there are several mechanisms in which religious participation among Hispanics may be associated with better labor market outcomes and consequently poverty reduction. He believes the labor market performance of Hispanics in the United States will be a key determinant of their future prosperity, and it is imperative to understand what determinants may alleviate poverty among this demographic group. Udaya Waglé, School of Public Affairs and Administration,
Western Michigan University. Waglé has a strong research background and
publication record focusing on economic inequality, poverty, and other
issues experienced by socioeconomically marginalized groups. He is currently
examining changes and determinants of working poverty in the financially
struggling state of Michigan during the 1990s and 2000s using CPS data.
This includes two projects, the role of the Food Stamps Program in increasing
economic security in the US, and the role of population heterogeneity and
social policies in determining poverty outcomes in high-income OECD countries. Julia
B. Isaacs, Child and Family Policy Fellow, Economic
Studies, Brookings Institution, will be a periodic visitor at IRP
in 2008–20009. Isaacs focuses on public investments in children
and how children are affected by national budgetary policies. A former
federal budget analyst, she also researches the economic mobility of
children and families across the income spectrum.
IRP Affiliates’ Awards and HonorsCarolyn Heinrich, UW–Madison Professor of Public Affairs, Department of Economics Faculty Affiliate, and IRP Associate Director of Research and Training, became Director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs on July 1, 2008, taking over for Barbara Wolfe. Pamela Herd, UW–Madison Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Sociology and IRP Affiliate, has won a $30,000 Rockefeller Foundation Innovation Award to Strengthen Social Security for Vulnerable Groups. She will use the award to develop a proposal to improve Social Security benefits for older low-income women who raised children. Selected by the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), Herd and 11 other recipients from across the United States will meet this fall to discuss their proposals. An advisory committee of NASI experts selected the 12 policy scholars after thorough review of a large number of proposals. Timothy Smeeding,
Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty, Arts and Sciences Distinguished
Professor of Public Affairs and Economics, and Director Emeritus of the
Luxembourg Income Study, will be awarded an honorary degree from Stockholm
University in late September 2008. Smeeding is being recognized for his
contributions to the Luxembourg Income Study, a research center and cross-national
data archive located in Luxembourg, which he founded in 1983.
New: Affiliates’ Publications List, 2005–08, OnlineIRP has mounted on its Web site a fully searchable database listing bibliographic
information for the poverty-related journal articles, books, and book chapters
of the Institute’s affiliates from 2005 to early 2008. Visit http://irp.wisc.edu/publications/searchpubs.htm for
search guidelines and a link to the database search engine.
Recent Discussion Papers“The Association between Children’s Earnings and Fathers’ Lifetime
Earnings: Estimates Using Administrative Data” Knowledge of the degree of intergenerational mobility in an economy is essential for assessing the fairness of the earnings distribution. In this paper, we provide estimates of the degree of intergenerational mobility in the United States using administrative earnings data from the Social Security Administration’s records. These data contain nearly career-long earnings histories for a large sample of U.S. fathers, and their children’s earnings around an age that is likely to be a good proxy for lifetime earnings. We examine two different measures of mobility: (1) the association between fathers’ and children’s log earnings (the intergenerational elasticity or IGE) and (2) the association between fathers’ and children’s relative positions in their respective earnings distributions (or the intergenerational rank association or IRA). We show that estimates of the IGE are quite sensitive to choice of specification and sample and range from 0.26 to 0.63 for sons and from 0 to 0.27 for daughters. That is, a 10 percent increase in fathers’ earnings is associated with a 3 percent to 6 percent increase in sons’ earnings and a 0 percent to 3 percent increase in daughters’ earnings. By contrast, our estimates of the IRA are robust to both specification and sample choices and show that a 10 percentile increase in a father’s relative position is associated with roughly a 3 percentile increase in his son’s and roughly a 1 percentile increase in his daughter’s relative earnings positions. Nonparametric estimates of the IRA show relatively more immobility among the children of men below the 10th percentile and above the 80th percentile of lifetime earnings. “Expanding New York State’s Earned Income Tax Credit Program:
The Effect on Work, Income, and Poverty” Given its favorable employment incentives and ability to target the working poor, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has become the primary antipoverty program at both the federal and state levels. However, when evaluating the effect of EITC programs on income and poverty, governments generally calculate the effect using simple accounting, where the value of the state or federal EITC benefit is added to a person’s income. These calculations omit the behavioral incentives created by the existence of these programs, the corresponding effect on labor supply and hours worked, and therefore the actual effect on income and poverty. This paper simulates the full effect of an expansion of the New York State EITC benefit on employment, hours worked, income, poverty, and program expenditures. These results are then compared to those omitting labor supply effects. Relative to estimates excluding labor supply effects, the preferred behavioral results show that an expansion of the New York State EITC increases employment by an additional 14,244 persons, labor earnings by an additional $95.8 million, family income by an additional $84.5 million, decreases poverty by an additional 56,576 persons, and increases costs to the state by $29.7 million. These results emphasize the importance of modeling labor supply behavior when analyzing the impact of the EITC. “Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation” Many empirical questions in economics and other social sciences depend on causal effects of programs or policies. In the last two decades much research has been done on the econometric and statistical analysis of the effects of such programs or treatments. This recent theoretical literature has built on, and combined features of, earlier work in both the statistics and econometrics literatures. It has by now reached a level of maturity that makes it an important tool in many areas of empirical research in economics, including labor economics, public finance, development economics, industrial organization and other areas of empirical micro-economics. In this review we discuss some of the recent developments. We focus primarily on practical issues for empirical researchers, as well as provide a historical overview of the area and give references to more technical research. “Expanding Wallets and Waistlines: The Impact of Family Income on the
BMI of Women and Men Eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit” The rising rate of obesity has reached epidemic proportions and is now one of the most serious public health challenges facing the US. However, the underlying causes for this increase are unclear. This paper examines the effect of family income changes on body mass index (BMI) and obesity using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort. It does so by using exogenous variation in family income in a sample of low-income women and men. This exogenous variation is obtained from the correlation of their family income with the generosity of state and federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program benefits. Income is found to significantly raise the BMI and probability of being obese for women with EITC-eligible earnings, and have no appreciable effect for men with EITC-eligible earnings. The results imply that the increase in real family income from 1990 to 2002 explains between 10 and 21 percent of the increase in sample women’s BMI and between 23 and 29 percent of their increased obesity prevalence. “Long-Term Effects of Public Low-Income Housing Vouchers on Work, Earnings,
and Neighborhood Quality” The federal Section 8 housing program provides eligible low-income families with an income-conditioned voucher that can be used to lease privately owned, affordable rental housing units. This paper extends prior research on the effectiveness of housing support programs in several ways. We use a quasi-experimental, propensity score matching research design, and examine the effect of housing voucher receipt on neighborhood quality, earnings, and work effort. Results are presented for a wide variety of demographic groups for up to five years following voucher receipt. The analysis employs a unique longitudinal dataset that was created by combining administrative records maintained by the State of Wisconsin with census block group data. The results of our propensity score matching procedure show voucher receipt to have no effect on neighborhood quality in the short-term, but positive long-term effects. Furthermore, the results indicate that on average voucher receipt causes lower earnings in the initial years following receipt, but that these negative earnings effects dissipate over time. Finally, we find that recipient responses to voucher receipt differ substantially across demographic subgroups. “On-the-Job Search, Minimum Wages, and Labor Market Outcomes in an
Equilibrium Bargaining Framework” We look at the impact of a binding minimum wage on labor market outcomes and welfare distributions in a partial equilibrium model of matching and bargaining in the presence of on-the-job search. We use two different specifications of the Nash bargaining problem. In one, firms engage in a Bertrand competition for the services of an individual, as in Postel-Vinay and Robin (2002). In the other, firms do not engage in such competitions, and the outside option used in bargaining is always the value of unemployed search. We estimate both bargaining specifications using a Method of Simulated Moments estimator applied to data from a recent wave of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Even though individuals will be paid the minimum wage for a small proportion of their labor market careers, we find significant effects of the minimum wage on the ex ante value of labor market careers, particularly in the case of Bertrand competition between firms. An important futures goal of this research agenda is to develop tests capable of determining which bargaining framework is more consistent with observed patterns of turnover and wage change at the individual level. “Childlessness and the Economic Well-Being of Elders” Using the Health and Retirement Survey, this study examines the
relationship between childlessness and four indicators of elders’ economic
well-being: income, receipt of disability and income-tested benefits, and
wealth. The study estimates separate models for currently married persons,
currently single women, and currently single men using standard OLS and
logit, quantile regression, linear and logit random effects, and two propensity
score models. Compared to married parents, childless married couples tend
to have slightly more income and about 5 percent more wealth. Unmarried
childless men enjoy no income advantage over unmarried fathers, but have
24–35
percent more wealth. Childlessness has the strongest relationship with
unmarried women’s economic well-being. Compared to elderly unmarried
mothers, unmarried childless women have, on average, 13–31 percent more
income and about 35 percent more wealth. The strength of these relationships
tends to increase as one moves up the distribution of income or wealth,
especially for unmarried women. Childless unmarried men are more likely
to use income-tested benefits while childless unmarried women are less
likely to do so.
Spring 2008
Guggenheim Fellowships to Wolfe and DanzigerTwo former IRP directors, Barbara Wolfe (1994–2000) and Sheldon Danziger (1983–1988), received 2008 Guggenheim Fellowships. Wolfe, UW–Madison Professor of Economics, Population Health Sciences, and Public Affairs, and current Director of the La Follette School of Public Policy, was awarded a fellowship to study the tie between income and health disparities. Danziger, University of Michigan Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, and co-director of the National Poverty Center, will examine four decades’ of antipoverty policies. Wolfe and Danziger were among the 190 Fellows named on April 3 by the
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation as 2008 awardees. The Fellows were selected
from a pool of more than 2,600 scholars, scientists, and artists, with
awards totaling $8,200,000. Winter-Spring 2007-08
Focus 25:2: Pathways to Self-SufficiencyThe latest issue of Focus was recently published and is available in full text on IRP’s Web site, at http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus.htm. It features articles drawn from some of the papers presented at IRP’s fall 2007 Pathways to Self-Sufficiency conference and a brief essay by conference organizers Carolyn Heinrich and John Karl Scholz. The other articles in this issue are: “Effects of Welfare and Antipoverty
Programs on Participants’ Children” by Greg J. Duncan, Lisa Gennetian,
and Pamela Morris; “Improving Educational Outcomes for Disadvantaged
Children” by David N. Figlio; “The Employment Prospects of Ex-Offenders” by
Steven Raphael; and “The Growing Problem of Disconnected Single Mothers” by
Rebecca Blank and Brian Kovak.
Measuring the Role of Faith In Program Outcomes ConferenceIn April 2008 IRP will hold a working conference that brings together faith-based service providers, policymakers, and evaluators interested in faith-based services for hard-to-serve populations. The conference's overall goal will be to outline issues important to the evaluation of these programs. This working conference is being organized by Jennifer Noyes and Maria Cancian,
Institute for Research on Poverty, with support from the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, and from the Bradley Foundation.
Changing Poverty ConferenceIRP is hosting a small working conference May 29 and 30, 2008, to discuss a new set of commissioned papers that consider trends and determinants of poverty and inequality, the evolution of poverty-related policy, and the consequences of poverty for families and children. A book based on the conference to be published by the Russell Sage Foundation will continue the seminal book series on poverty policy and research, which includes Fighting Poverty (1986), Confronting Poverty (1994), and Understanding Poverty (2001). The book will be edited by Maria Cancian and Sheldon Danziger, with financial
support from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and from the Russell Sage Foundation.
Summer Research Workshop IRP will again host the annual workshop at which invited social scientists
present recent research on topics affecting low-income individuals and families.
Workshop organizers are Robert Moffitt, John Karl Scholz, Robert Hauser,
and Jeffrey Smith.
A State of Agents? ConferenceIn summer 2008 IRP will host a research conference, A State of Agents? Third Party Governance and Implications for Human Services, that will address important issues raised by public policy and management scholars regarding the burgeoning number of third-party entities that play increasingly central roles in the design, management, and execution of public policy. A central goal of this conference is to advance new ideas and theoretical arguments for research and generate new empirical evidence that sharpens the debate over the extent and impact of the increasing use of agents of the state to implement public policy. This conference is being organized by Carolyn Heinrich, with financial support
from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services; and from the University of Arizona,
School of Public Administration and Policy; Eller College of Management University
of Washington; and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs University
of Southern California, School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
IRP Hosts Applied Microeconometrics Workshop August 4-6, 2008, IRP will host an Applied Microeconometrics Workshop taught In this workshop Guido Imbens and Jeffrey Wooldridge will discuss developments in micro-econometrics over the last decade and a half. The focus will be on methods that are relevant for, and ready to be used by, empirical researchers, and the workshop is aimed exactly at such researchers. In contrast to much of the published literature in the more technical econometrics and statistics journals, we focus on practical issues important in implementation of the methods and for reading and understanding of the literature. There will be little discussion of technical details, for which we will refer to the literature. Visit IRP’s Web site at www.irp.wisc.edu for
syllabus and registration information and forms. This workshop
is being organized with financial support from the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Co-Sponsors include the University of Wisconsin Center for Demography
and Ecology, the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the University
of Southern California IEPR/SCPRC.
SeminarsIRP seminars take place on Thursdays from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in room 8417 Sewell Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive. For updates and further details, visit http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/seminars.htm. February 21 February 28 March 12 April 21 May 5 May 8
2008 New Perspectives in Social Policy Seminar Charles Karelis, author of The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of
the Well-Off Can’t Help the Poor (2007, Yale University Press) and
Research Professor of Philosophy, The George Washington University, will
present the 2007-2008 lecture in the IRP “New Perspectives in Social
Policy” seminar series April 3, 2008, 8417 Social Science Building.
Daniel M. Hausman, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy, UW-Madison,
will be the discussant.
2008 Robert Lampman Lecture Robert Haveman will deliver the 2008 Lampman Lecture June 18 at 4-6 p.m.
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Pyle Center.
New AffiliatesMarkus Gangl, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, focuses much of his research on social stratification, with a particular focus on analyses of labor markets, unemployment, poverty, and income inequality; the social consequences of economic inequality; and the relationship between educational policies and educational inequality in Western societies. Katherine J. Curtis White, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, focuses her research on racial and gender inequality among participants of the Great Migration; racial inequality in early twentieth-century Puerto Rico; and U.S. poverty and racial inequality in the South, 1970-2000. Roberta Riportella,
Associate Professor of Consumer Science, School of Human Ecology, Health Policy
Specialist - Family Living Program, University of Wisconsin-Cooperative Extension,
is an applied medical sociologist/health services researcher and focuses her
work on consumer health education; improving access to health care coverage;
and public-health policy evaluation.
Visiting ScholarOscar Mitnik is an Assistant Professor at the Economics Department of the University of Miami. He will be in residence at IRP from March 3 through March 14, 2008. On March 6, he will present a seminar at IRP. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mitnik’s interests include labor economics, applied econometrics, and applied microeconomics. His recent research has focused primarily on the determinants and effects of policies oriented to help welfare recipients (and low-income individuals in general) to become self-sufficient, and on the econometric methods for program evaluation. A recent publication is "Nonparametric Tests for Treatment Effect Heterogeneity," with R. K. Crump, V. J. Hotz, & G. W. Imbens, 2007, forthcoming in The Review of Economics and Statistics. IRP’s Visiting Scholar program began in 1998 and IRP invites applications
from U.S.-based social science scholars from underrepresented racial and ethnic
groups to visit IRP, interact with its faculty in residence, and become acquainted
with the staff and resources of the Institute. Applications are currently being
accepted for 2008-09, see details at http://www.irp.wisc.edu/initiatives/funding/vscholars.htm.
IRP Affiliates’ Awards And HonorsThe Russell Sage Foundation announced support for a project to study how poverty may affect brain development and what lies behind the income gradient of health, “Toward Improving Our Understanding of the Tie between Income and Health,” which was submitted by Barbara Wolfe, IRP Affiliate, Director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, former IRP Director, and Professor of Economics and Population Health Sciences, UW-Madison. Wolfe and investigators—Seth Pollack, Professor of Psychology and Letters
and Science Distinguished Professor, UW-Madison; William N. Evans, Professor,
Department of Economics and Econometrics, University of Notre Dame; and Teresa
E. Seeman, Professor, Division of Geriatrics, Geffen School of Medicine at
UCLA—will analyze a new longitudinal database of children in the United
States, the NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development, to explore the relationship
between socioeconomic status, the development of the human brain, and aspects
of cognitive functioning related to children’s school readiness. Additional
support will be provided by IRP.
New Discussion PapersIRP Discussion Papers “Temporary Help Service Firms’ Use of Employer Tax Credits: Implications
for Disadvantaged Workers’ Labor Market Outcomes” Temporary Help Services (THS) firms are increasing their hiring of disadvantaged individuals and claiming more subsidies for doing so. Do these subsidies—the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit (WtW)—create incentives that improve employment outcomes for THS workers? We examine the distinct effects of THS employment and WOTC/WtW subsidies using administrative and survey data. Results indicate that WOTC/WtW-certified THS workers have higher earnings than WOTC-eligible but uncertified THS workers. However, these workers have shorter job tenure and lower earnings than WOTC/WtW-certified workers in non-THS industries. Panel estimates suggest that these effects do not persist over time. “Welfare Reform: The U.S. Experience” The reform of the cash-based welfare program for single mothers in the US which occurred in the 1990s was the most important since its inception in 1935. The reforms imposed credible and enforceable work requirements into the program for the first time, as well as establishing time limits on lifetime receipt. Research on the effects of the reform have shown it to have reduced the program caseload and governmental expenditures on the program. In addition, the reform has had generally positive average effects on employment, earnings, and income, and generally negative effects on poverty rates, although the gains are not evenly distributed across groups. A fraction of the affected group appears to have been made worse off by the reform. “Human Services Systems Integration: A Conceptual Framework” It is generally believed that the human services structure is most accurately described as an array of potentially related programs that deliver distinct benefits or services to narrowly defined target populations. As a whole, the configuration of services available to support and assist families in their efforts to become self-sufficient can be complex, confusing, redundant, and incoherent. The opposite of this approach to organizing and delivering human services is often coined ‘systems integration.’ Building on lessons learned from the field, the authors provide a conceptual framework for understanding the systems integration concept and approach to human services delivery. “The Stability of Shared Child Physical Placements in Recent Cohorts
of Divorced Wisconsin Families,” Lawrence M. Berger, Patricia R. Brown,
Eunhee Joung, Marygold S. Melli, and Lynn Wimer This paper describes the living arrangements of children in Wisconsin families with sole mother and shared child physical placements following parental divorce and explores the stability of these arrangements during (approximately) the next three years. Contrary to prior research in this area, results provide little evidence that children in shared placement spend less time in their father’s care about three years after a divorce than they did at the time of the divorce. In contrast, children with sole mother placement appear to progressively spend less time in their father’s care in the years following a divorce, and a considerable proportion of these children spend little or no time in their father’s care about three years after divorce. Brookings Institution Discussion Paper “Employment-Based Tax Credits for Low-Skilled Workers,” John Karl
Scholz, IRP Affiliate and former Director and a Visiting Fellow in Economic
Studies at Brookings Institution in 2007-2008, recently released a discussion
paper which introduces policy recommendations designed to address interrelated
problems faced by families in low-income communities. The paper is part of
a series of Hamilton Project discussion papers published by the Brookings Institution.
A Decade of ‘W-2’: An Interview Are Wisconsin’s low-income families better off or worse off since the
state launched its welfare reform initiative called Wisconsin Works (W-2) ten
years ago? Bob Jacobson of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF)
posed this question in fall 2007—W-2’s tenth anniversary—to
two Wisconsin Works experts. The
interview, of IRP Researcher Jennifer Noyes, a former Wisconsin Department
of Workforce Development administrator, and Pam Fendt, Director of the Good
Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods Coalition, was published in WisKids Journal,
a WCCF publication. |
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| Questions and comments email irpweb@ssc.wisc.edu Posted: 25 January, 2007 Last Updated: 23 September, 2008 |