Layoffs and Lemons

In this paper we provide theoretical and empirical analyses of an asymmetric-information model of layoffs in which the current employer is better informed about its workers' abilities than prospective employers are. The key feature of the model is that when firms have discretion with respect to whom to lay off, the market infers that laid-off workers are of low ability. Since no such negative inference should be attached o workers displaced in a plant closing, our model predicts that the postdisplacement wages of otherwise observationally equivalent workers will be higher for those displaced by plant closings than for those displaced by layoffs. An extension of our model predicts that the average postdisplacement unemployment spell of otherwise observationally equivalent workers will be shorter for those displaced by plant closings than for those displaced by layoffs. In our empirical work, we use data from the Displaced Workers Supplements in the January 1984 and 1986 Current Population Surveys. We find that the evidence (with respect to both re-employment wages and postdisplacement unemployment duration) is consistent with the idea that laid off workers are viewed less favorably by the market than are those losing jobs in plant closings. Our findings are much stronger for workers laid off from jobs where employers have discretion over whom to lay off.

Strategies to Support Employer-Driven Initiatives to Recruit and Retain Employees with Disabilities

Across the United States, a growing number of employers have established initiatives to increase the participation of workers with disabilities within their companies. These employers typically establish partnerships with local workforce and disability service organizations to source for talent. Coordinated by a single agency (or small number of agencies), employers are provided assistance and support services for recruitment, training, and job retention for employees with disabilities. This research brief presents four profiles that highlight innovative practices among employers operating warehouse distribution centers in the U.S

Stretching the Safety Net to Serve Undocumented Immigrants: Community Responses to Health Needs

Examines the ability of communities to provide health care for both legal and undocumented immigrant patients. Looks at community diversity, political climate, and advocacy groups. Based on site visits to twelve nationally representative communities

Price Ceiling: The Charitable Status of Fee-Charging Nonprofits

Is a fee-charging nonprofit legally “charitable” if it effectively excludes poor people from its services by charging high fees? This paper compares and contrasts how the English and U.S. legal systems answer this question. The question itself draws attention to the difference between what “charity” and “charitable” mean for laypersons as opposed to lawyers versed in the “common law” i.e., the body of judge-made law that originated in England and was adopted by the U.S. and other former British colonies. In ordinary usage, charity means relief of the poor. Under the common law, however, “charity” can describe any nonprofit entity that (inter alia) advances education (e.g., schools), promotes health (e.g., hospitals) or relieves poverty. These purposes are free-standing: a school can be “charitable” without relieving poverty, and a poverty relief agency can be charitable without advancing education. In Anglo-American common law, the fact that a nonprofit hospital, school, etc., charges fees for its services does not automatically make it non-charitable. Yet what is the upper limit of this principle? In the U.S., nonprofit hospitals must provide charity care to the uninsured and underinsured or risk losing their tax-exempt status. In England, expensive nonprofit private schools can be legally “charitable” even if they offer no financial aid, so long as they at least consider the needs of the poor. Why do the English and U.S. legal systems disagree on the charitability of fee-charging nonprofits? The answer, this paper argues, lies in whether a legal system’s definition of “charitable” is singular or multiple. English law uses the same definition of “charitable” for both common law and tax-exempt purposes, while U.S. law does not. As a result, the U.S. legal system has more flexibility to gradate the fiscal and other advantages it confers upon nonprofits to better reflect the amount of public benefit they provide. For example, it can deem a nonprofit hospital a “charity” for common law purposes (e.g., if “charitable,” a trust can endure indefinitely; private trusts by contrast must expire within a generation or two), while at the same time rejecting the hospital’s charitableness not for tax-exempt purposes. This analysis lays the foundation for drawing normative conclusions, such as “which is better, and why.

Medical Malpractice Litigation Under National Health Insurance: Essential or Expendable?

Identification of time-continuous models from sampled data is a long standing topic of discussion, and many approaches have been suggested. The Maximum Likelihood method is asymptotically and theoretically superior to other methods. However, it may suffer from numerical inaccuracies at fast sampling and it also requires reliable initial parameter values. A number of efficient and useful alternatives to the maximum-likelihood method have been developed over the years. The most important of these are State-Variable filters, combined with Instrumental Variable methods, including the simplified refined IV method. In this contribution we perform unpretentious numerical experiments to comment on these methods, and their mutual benefits.CADIC

On Science and Social Science

There are many definitions of science, and these are commonly based on literary and social usage rather than on the technical problem of distinguishing different areas of scholarship. To evolve an adequate definition we shall attempt to extract common elements from physics, biology, chemistry, geology, and astronomy, from those fields which are commonly called sciences. Any acceptable definition of science must be equally applicable to all of these, to all the natural sciences. To speak in the usual metaphor, we shall attempt a scientific definition of science

The Pairing Effect in Nuclei and Isomerism

Previous workers have shown from an analysis of the energetics of alpha and beta decay that the pairing energy of protons is greater than that of neutrons. It is here postulated that this effect is responsible for the absence of odd-proton isomers for 5