Quits, worker recruitment, and firm growth: theory and evidence

The authors use establishment data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) to study the micro-level behavior of worker quits and their relation to recruitment and establishment growth. They find that quits decline with establishment growth, playing the most important role at slowly contracting firms. They also find a robust, positive relationship between an establishment's reported hires and vacancies and the incidence of a quit. This relationship occurs despite the finding that quits decline, and hires and vacancies increase, with establishment growth. The authors characterize these dynamics within a labor-market search model with on-the-job search, a convex cost of creating new positions, and multi-worker establishments. The model distinguishes between recruiting to replace a quitting worker and recruiting for a new position, and relates this distinction to firm performance. Beyond giving rise to a varying quit propensity, the model generates endogenously determined thresholds for firm contraction (through both layoffs and attrition), worker replacement, and firm expansion. The continuum of decision rules derived from these thresholds produces rich firm-level dynamics and quit behavior that are broadly consistent with the empirical evidence of the JOLTS data.Employment (Economic theory)

Does Foreign Aid Increase Foreign Direct Investment?

The notion that foreign aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) are complementary sources of capital is conventional among governments and internationalcooperation agencies. This paper argues that the notion is incomplete. Within the framework of an open economy Solow model we show that the theoretical relationship between foreign aid and FDI is indeterminate. Aid may raise the marginal productivity of capital by financing complementary inputs, such as public infrastructure projects and human capital investment. However, aid may also crowd out productive private investments if it comes in the shape of physical capital transfers. We therefore turn to an empirical analysis of the relationship between FDI and disaggregated aid flows. Our results strongly support the hypotheses that aid invested in complementary inputs draws in foreign capital while aid invested in physical capital crowds out FDI. The combined effect of these two types of aid is small but on average positive.foreign aid; foreign direct investment (FDI); open economy Solow model

What's the Difference? How Foundation Trustees View Evaluation

Trustee Evaluation ToolkitTrustees care deeply about impact. Understanding results is part of their fiduciary duty. As foundations strive to improve performance, advance accountability and share knowledge, their desire for evaluation -- reliable data on organizational effectiveness -- grows. Based on discussions with trustees, we've heard that current evaluation approaches don't always generate useful information. In too many cases, foundation evaluation practices don't align with trustee needs. Trustees across the United States believe there are ways to improve how we determine the effectiveness of social investments. FSG Social Impact Advisors, with funding from the James Irvine Foundation, interviewed dozens of foundation trustees, CEOs and evaluation experts to uncover critical issues and exciting ideas related to evaluation. This "toolkit" shares highlights from these interviews, and explores innovative new approaches

Low-Skilled Unemployment, Capital-Skill Complementarity and Embodied Technical Progress

We construct an intertemporal general equilibrium model with two types of jobs and two types of workers. We allow for job competition between high- and low-skilled segment of the labour market and for on-the-job search. Matching processes are represented by matching functions à la Pissarides. Workers search intensities are endogenous. Biased technological change is introduced via embodied technical progress and a capital-skill complementarity. The model is calibrated and simulated to evaluate the impact of various types of shocks. The model reproduces quite well the unemployment rate changes and the relative wage stability observed over the last two decades. It suggests strong interactions between biased technological change, discouragement effects and job competition.Skill mismatch; equilibrium unemployment; ladder effect; macro dynamics

A Magnified View of the Kinematics and Morphology of RCSGA 032727-132609: Zooming in on a Merger at z=1.7

We present a detailed analysis of multi-wavelength HST/WFC3 imaging and Keck/OSIRIS near-IR AO-assisted integral field spectroscopy for a highly magnified lensed galaxy at z=1.70. This young starburst is representative of UV-selected star-forming galaxies (SFG) at z~2 and contains multiple individual star-forming regions. Due to the lensing magnification, we can resolve spatial scales down to 100pc in the source plane of the galaxy. The velocity field shows disturbed kinematics suggestive of an ongoing interaction, and there is a clear signature of a tidal tail. We constrain the age, reddening, SFR and stellar mass of the star-forming clumps from SED modelling of the WFC3 photometry and measure their H-alpha luminosity, metallicity and outflow properties from the OSIRIS data. With strong star formation driven outflows in four clumps, RCSGA0327 is the first high redshift SFG at stellar mass <10^10 M_sun with spatially resolved stellar winds. We compare the H-alpha luminosities, sizes and dispersions of the star-forming regions to other high-z clumps as well as local giant HII regions and find no evidence for increased clump star formation surface densities in interacting systems, unlike in the local Universe. Spatially resolved SED modelling unveils an established stellar population at the location of the largest clump and a second mass concentration near the edge of the system which is not detected in H-alpha emission. This suggests a picture of an equal-mass mixed major merger, which has not triggered a new burst of star formation or caused a tidal tail in the gas-poor component.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures, accepted to Ap

Policies to promote sustainable consumption: framework for a future-oriented evaluation

Governments are today developing policies to promote sustainable consumption, yet policy makers face many uncertainties about policy impacts. These include uncertainties about how policy instruments influence consumption patterns and about the impact of changes in consumption patterns on ecological, social and economic sustainability. An assessment of such impacts must account for the fact that consumer action is interlinked with the dynamic activities of other market players and the path-creating effects of technologies and systems of consumption and provision