Applying for Entitlements: Employers and the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit

The Targeted Jobs Tax Credit is probably the most outstanding example of a generous entitlement program with very low participation rates. Only about 10 percent of eligible youth are claimed. The causes of the low participation rate were analyzed by estimating a poisson model of the number of TJTC eligibles hired and certified during 1980, 1981 and 1982. Information costs, both fixed and variable, were found to be key barriers to TJTC participation. The cost effectiveness of TJTC is low because the stigma and recruitment costs of hiring additional TJTC eligibles are very high. Employers find it relatively cheap to passively certify eligible new hires who would have been hired anyway so this mode of participating in TJTC predominates

Why Are Wage Profiles so Flat During the First Year on a Job?

This paper presents evidence that productivity net of general training costs rise 4 or 5 times more rapidly than wage rates during the first 2 years on a job. This occurs for three reasons. First, sorting, high job search costs and the reputational damages that result from premature separations cause workers to prefer front loaded compensation packages which reduce the likelihood of involuntary terminations. Second, due to progressive income taxation and poor access to credit, workers discount the future more heavily than employers. Front-loading compensation is, therefore, a relatively cheap way for employers to attract top quality new hires. Finally, the minimum wage and union contracts also tend to force flat wage profiles

Do Some Employers Share the Costs and Benefits of General Training?

[Excerpt] One of the central propositions of the human capital theory of on-the-job training is that workers pay all the costs and receive all the benefits of general training (see Ehrenberg and Smith 1996, Filer, Hammermesh and Rees 1996, Borjas 1996, Kaufman 1986). Since general training raises a worker\u27s ability to be productive in other organizations as well as the one providing the training, the training firm must pay a wage commensurate with the trained worker\u27s new higher level of productivity if they are to prevent the loss of their trained workers. Since the workers, not the firm, get the benefits of the training, firms [will] provide general training only if they [do] not have to pay any of the costs (Becker 1962 p. 13). Since the training is of value to prospective trainees, equilibrium in the training market requires that employees pay for general on-the-job training by receiving wages below what could be received elsewhere (Becker 1962 p. 13) in a job offering no training. Is this correct? Do Workers pay all the costs of training in skills that are technically general (i.e. useful at other firms)--WPAC for short? Do workers receive all the benefits of general training ( WRAB for short)

Vocational and Academic Education in High School: Complements or Substitutes

[Excerpt] A number of blue ribbon-panels have called for increases in the number academic courses required for graduation from high school and for lengthening the school day and the school year. Most states have adopted the first of these recommendations but not the second. With the amount of time a student spends in school remaining constant, increases in the number of required academic courses force reductions elsewhere. Which activities should be reduced? Should the reduction be made in study halls, music and fine arts,physical education, and life skills courses or should it come in vocational education? The answer to this question will not be the same for every student. High school graduates who do not want to go to college and plan to work immediately after graduating probably have very different feelings about course selection than a student who aspires to being an artist

Applying for Entitlements: Employers and the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit

The Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) is probably the most outstanding example of a generous entitlement program with a very low participation rate. Only about 10 percent of eligible youth hired are claimed as a tax credit by their employers. The causes of the low participation rates are analyzed by estimating a Poisson model of the number of TJTC-eligibles hired and certified during 1980, 1981, and 1982. Information costs, both fixed and variable, are found to be key barriers to TJTC participation. The cost- effectiveness of TJTC is low because of the stigma attached and the very high recruitment costs of hiring additional TJTC-eligibles. Because employers find it relatively cheap to certify after the fact eligible new employees who would have been hired anyway, this passive mode of participating in TJTC predominates

Passive scalar anisotropy in a heated turbulent wake: new observations and implications for LES

The effects of passive scalar anisotropy on subgrid-scale (SGS) physics and modeling for Large-Eddy Simulations are studied experimentally. Measurements are performed across a moderate Reynolds number wake flow generated by a heated cylinder, using an array of four X-wire and four cold-wire probes. By varying the separation distance among probes in the array, we obtain filtered and subgrid quantities at three different filter sizes. We compute several terms that comprise the subgrid dissipation tensor of kinetic energy and scalar-variance and test for isotropic behavior, as a function of filter scale. We find that whereas the kinetic energy dissipation tensor tends towards isotropy at small scales, the SGS scalar-variance dissipation remains anisotropic independent of filter scale. The eddy-diffusion model predicts isotropic behavior, whereas the nonlinear (or tensor eddy diffusivity) model reproduces the correct trends, but overestimates the level of scalar dissipation anisotropy. These results provide some support for so-called mixed models but raise new questions about the causes of the observed anisotropy.Comment: accepted by JFM Fast-track, 10 page