What We're In For: Projected Economic Impact of the Next Recession

Recent historical experience argues that the labor-market effects of the next recession will last far longer than the formal recession itself. This report uses the experience of the last three recessions to predict labor market outcomes of a recession in 2008

Is the U.S. Unemployment Rate Today Already as High as It Was in 1982?

In 1982, the United States experienced the highest annual unemployment rate since the Great Depression -- 9.7 percent. In principle, that rate is directly comparable to the 8.1 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 2009, and suggests that current unemployment is still not as bad as it was in 1982.The official unemployment rate, however, masks two important differences between the unemployment rate in 1982 and today. The first difference is demographic. In 1982, the US population was substantially younger than it is today. Even in an otherwise identical economy, we would expect a younger population to have a higher unemployment rate than an older population would. The second difference is statistical. The main government survey used to measure the unemployment rate -- the Current Population Survey (CPS) reaches a smaller share of the population today than it did in 1982, and is especially likely to miss people who are not employed. As a result, the official unemployment rate understates the unemployment rate relative to 1982

Methodologies for building robust schedules

COMPASS is the name of a Computer Aided Scheduling System designed and built for NASA. COMPASS can be used to develop schedule of activities based upon the temporal relationships of the activities and their resource requirements. COMPASS uses this information, and guided by the user, develops precise start and stop times for the activities. In actual practice however, it is impossible to know with complete certainty what the actual durations of the scheduled activities will really be. The best that one can hope for is knowledge of the probability distribution for the durations. This paper investigates methodologies for using a scheduling tool like COMPASS that is based upon definite values for the resource requirements, while building schedules that remain valid in the face of the schedule execution perturbations. Representations for the schedules developed by these methodologies are presented, along with a discussion of the algorithm that could be used by a computer onboard a spacecraft to efficiently monitor and execute these schedules

Is the U.S. Unemployment Rate Today Already as High as It Was in 1982?

In 1982, the United States experienced the highest annual unemployment rate since the Great Depression – 9.7 percent. In principle, that rate is directly comparable to the 8.1 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 2009, and suggests that current unemployment is still not as bad as it was in 1982. The official unemployment rate, however, masks two important differences between the unemployment rate in 1982 and today. The first difference is demographic. In 1982, the US population was substantially younger than it is today. Even in an otherwise identical economy, we would expect a younger population to have a higher unemployment rate than an older population would. The second difference is statistical. The main government survey used to measure the unemployment rate – the Current Population Survey (CPS) reaches a smaller share of the population today than it did in 1982, and is especially likely to miss people who are not employed. As a result, the official unemployment rate understates the unemployment rate relative to 1982.unemployment, unemployment rate

Forest Plantation Management

PDF pages: 1

What We’re In For: Projected Economic Impact of the Next Recession

This report uses the past three recessions of the early 1980s, early 1990s and early 2000s to project the effects of a recession in 2008. The report finds that such a recession would result in a significant rise in unemployment and the poverty rate along with a significant decrease in the employment rate and the median family income. These effects would be felt long after financial markets begin to recover with workers feeling the negative effects of the recession for the next three to four years.recession, unemployment, poverty

The Need for an Economic Stimulus Package

This policy proposal outlines a substantial economic stimulus package needed to address the recent downturn in the U.S. economy. This stimulus package details steps to create jobs, provide economic support and lessen the effects of a weakening economy

Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence From a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment

We conducted a natural field experiment to explore the effect of price changes on charitable contributions. To operationalize our tests, we examine whether an offer to match contributions to a non-profit organization changes the likelihood and amount that an individual donates. Direct mail solicitations were sent to over 50,000 prior donors. We find that the match offer increases both the revenue per solicitation and the probability that an individual donates. While comparisons of the match treatments and the control group consistently reveal this pattern, larger match ratios (i.e., $3:$1 and $2:$1) relative to smaller match ratios ($1:$1) had no additional impact. The results have clear implications for practitioners in the design of fundraising campaigns and provide avenues for future empirical and theoretical work on charitable giving. Further, the data provide an interesting test of important methods used in cost-benefit analysis.