HEY Statistics: Foster Youth Employment in SF Bay Area

San Francisco has some excellent services to help youth find and keep jobs. In order to remain relevant and successful, these programs use evidence based service models. Not only do they serve foster youth using successful methods, but also keep detailed data in order to self improve and inform other programs. The successes of these organizations prove that it is possible to provide education and training to help foster youth find and retain employment. However, the foster care community can only continue to succeed when we share best practices and other data. These HEY Statistics show best practices in serving current and former foster youth, and highlight successful programs in the Bay Area

Addressing Childhood Obesity in Early Head Start Population in Philadelphia through Early Intervention and Food Buying Clubs

Aims: To implement a food buying club model to increase access to fresh and healthy foods for families whose children (ages 2-5) participate in Early Head Start and the Maternity Care Coalition. Compare four potential food distributors: Philadelphia SHARE, Asociacion Puertorriquenos in Marcha (APM), The Common Market, and JETRO to find the organization that can best implement a feasible food buying club run through Early Head Start to fit the families needs.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/cwicposters/1022/thumbnail.jp

Relatedness and Performance: A Reexamination of the Diversification-Performance Link

Empirical studies of firm diversification suggest the existence of a positive relationship between the relatedness of diversification and firm performance. Using evidence from the food manufacturing sector, we find that this relationship is weak at best and that market share appears to be a more powerful predictor of firm performance.Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

The role of cognitive skills in economic development revisited.

Students’ test scores at ages 9 to 15 are a measure of their skills as workers five to 55 years later. Using historic data on test scores and school attendance, I calculate the share of workers in 2005 that could have scored above 400 and above 600 in 45 countries. I find that the share above 400 and average schooling attainment cause national income, while the share above 600 and the share with post-secondary schooling do not. Implicitly the best long-term development strategy for poor countries is to increase the share of students who complete primary and secondary schooling.Students’ test scores at ages 9 to 15 are a measure of their skills as workers five to 55 years later. Using historic data on test scores and school attendance, I calculate the share of workers in 2005 that could have scored above 400 and above 600 in 45 countries. I find that the share above 400 and average schooling attainment cause national income, while the share above 600 and the share with post-secondary schooling do not. Implicitly the best long-term development strategy for poor countries is to increase the share of students who complete primary and secondary schooling

Corporate Governance, Ownership Structures and Investment in Transition Economies: the Case of Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan

In this paper we analyze interrelations between ownership structures, corporate governance and investment in three transition countries: Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. In contrast to most empirical papers on corporate governance, we study companies with very little exposure to public financial markets. Our empirical analysis is based on two years of data obtained through large-scale surveys of firms. Ukrainian companies appear to have the best corporate governance practices, while Russian companies – the worst. We find that the relationship between ownership concentration and corporate governance is non-linear. In Russia, the relationship between the share of the largest non-state shareholder and corporate governance is either positive or insignificant when the blockholder’s stake is below a certain threshold; however, a further increase in the blockholder’ share is associated with worsening corporate governance. We find a similar effect in Ukraine, but only for managerial ownership. In both countries, corporate governance improves as the combined share of small shareholders grows. No robust effects of the ownership structure are found for Kyrgyz firms. Further we show that the market for corporate control seems to have little relationship to the firms’ corporate governance practices. We find no link between the quality of corporate governance and either the need for outside finance or actual investments financed with outside funds in either of the three countries.corporate governance, transition, ownership structure, investment

The political economy of fixed regional investment shares with an illustration for Belgian railway investments.

Many local public goods are allocated by federal governments using fixed regional shares: every region is entitled a fixed share of the total budget for a particular type of public good. This paper compares this fixed regional sharing rule with two alternative allocation rules: first best and common pool allocation. We find that the fixed regional sharing rule performs relatively well if the regional shares are reasonable. Legislative bargaining theory is used to study the determination of the fixed regional shares.

Homeownership is Still Out of Reach for Millions of Households

Homeownership has long been the leading source of household wealth in the U.S. However, the most recent housing crash stripped many Americans of much of their wealth, as home values plummeted and millions of homes went into foreclosure. These losses were especially painful for homeowners of color, who lost a greater share of wealth in the crash and have rebuilt their wealth more slowly in the recovery. Now, as the housing market recovers and interest rates remain low, many Americans find themselves without the savings or access to credit necessary to be able to purchase a home. Although homeownership is not the best option for every household, many Americans who could greatly benefit from it are still excluded