Does the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit Create Jobs at Subsidized Firms?

This paper uses the results of a survey of more than 3,500 private employers to determine whether use of the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) alters the level of a firm\u27s employment and/or whom the firm hires. We estimate that each subsidized hire generates between .13 and .3 new jobs at a participating firm. Use of the program also appears to induce employers to hire more young workers (age 25 and under). Our results suggest, however, that at least 70 percent of the tax credits granted employers are payments for workers who would have been hired even without the subsidy. Such payments represent mere transfers to employers

Share Repurchases and Acquisitions: An Analysis of Which Firms Participate

Firms can transmit cash to shareholders either by paying dividends or by purchasing shares. The share purchases can be either the firm's own securities or those of another firm. Recent evidence suggests that there has been a dramatic increase in the use of these nondividend payments to shareholders. This paper reviews the theories which have been offered regarding the motivation of nondividend payments. These include taxation advantages, adjustment towards optimal debt-equity ratios, anti-takeover strategies, free cash flow (agency) considerations, signaling, and habit formation or learning. From these theories, we derive and investigate econometrically potential characteristics which predict participation in the above actions for roughly 2.000 firms in 1976 and 1984. We find the variables suggested by the various hypotheses collectively have substantial power in predicting participation in share repurchase and acquisitions. The free cash flow and habit forming arguments prove most consistent with our findings. Tests for structural change across time confirm an intercept shift consistent with dramatic increases in these activities, and fail to reject that the characteristic determinants of these actions are unchanged.

An SEA Guide for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The law focuses on using research evidence to improve teaching and learning and at the same time passes considerable authority from federal to state policymakers. This means that responsibility largely falls on states and localities to effectively make sense of and use research evidence in their decisions around school improvement, teacher preparation, principal recruitment, and family engagement. With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation, the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has developed Guides for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement

Spring Break: The Economic, Socio-Cultural and Public Governance Impacts of College Students on Spring Break Host Locations

Spring Break, which has been transformed from a rather mild mid-winter vacation to a cultural rite over the past seventy-years, allows students to bring their values en masse to the host locations they visit. While only visiting these locales for a short time, college students nonetheless significantly impact the economic, public governance and socio-cultural processes of their Spring Break host locations. This dissertation explores the process of how and why students choose these locations and the impacts that occur as a result. A quantitative approach is used to determine the level of impact on a host location\u27s economic, socio-cultural and public governance processes and what role city policies have in affecting these impacts. The data comes primarily from public sources – national, state and local – between 1995 and 2005. This investigation helps to answer the question ‘Is Spring Break worth the cost of the student impacts?\u27 In doing so, it will allow for current Spring Break cities in the U.S. to determine what role the event plays in their future and provides potential Spring Break locations with the information necessary to determine whether or not to court the next generation of Spring Breakers

Bandwidth enhancement : correcting magnitude and phase distortion in wideband piezoelectric transducer systems

Acoustic ultrasonic measurements are widespread and commonly use transducers exhibiting resonant behaviour due to the piezoelectric nature of their active elements, being designed to give maximum sensitivity in the bandwidth of interest. We present a characterisation of such transducers that provides both magnitude and phase information describing the way in which the receiver responds to a surface displacement over its frequency range. Consequently, these devices work efficiently and linearly over only a very narrow band of their overall frequency range. In turn, this causes phase and magnitude distortion of linear signals. To correct for this distortion, we introduce a software technique, which considers only the input and the final output signals of the whole systemwhich is therefore generally applicable to any acoustic system. By correcting for the distortion of the magnitude and phase responses, we have ensured the signal seen at the receiver replicates the desired signal. We demonstrate a bandwidth extension on the received signal from 60-130 kHz at -6dB to 40-200 kHz at -1dB in a test system. The linear chirp signal we used to demonstrate this method showed the received signal to be almost identical to the desired linear chirp. Such systemcharacterisation will improve ultrasonic techniques when investigating material properties by maximising the accuracy of magnitude and phase estimations

LOTHIAN (Reino Unido). Escocia. Región. Mapas generales. 1763. 1:32500

Dedicatoria : "To The Right Honourable Charles Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Most Worshipful Grand Master Marson of Scottland ; The Grand Lodge thereof, And all the Members of the Most Antient and honourable Society of Free & Accepted Masons Therein"Escala gráfica de 2 millas estatutarias [= 9'9 cm]. Coordenadas referidas al meridiano de Edimburgo (O 0°24'--E 0°21'/N 55°59'--N 55°41'). Red geográfica de 1' en 1'. Orientado lis en rosa de ocho vientos y círculo con mención nominal de los puntos cardinalesOrografía por normales y puntos acotadosNota referente a la utilización, para otros mapas, de los puntos acotados en éste indicados, al ser la primera vez que el relieve era representado mediante este método (1745)Dedicatoria enmarcada en cartela rococóInserta : "Southmost Point of the Country : Scale and situation the same with the general Plan. Coordenadas referidas al meridiano de Edimburgo (E 0°22'--E 0°15'/N 55°44'--N 55°39°) ; Punto más occidental del condado. Escala [ca. 1:32500]. Coordenadas referidas al meridiano de Edimburgo (O 0°24'/N 55°51'--N 55°48'