Rural Pennsylvania Underemployment And Its Determinants

This paper investigates the impact of age distribution and educational attainment on the level of underemployment in Appalachian regions of the United States.  Furthermore, this study shows the similarities and differences at the state and county levels for Pennsylvania.  Following the methodology of Price and Wail (2005) linear regression models are used to estimate the marginal impacts of general economic conditions measured by the unemployment rate, as well as age and educational attainment, on the level of underemployment in the state.  In rural Appalachia, younger workers and those with some post-baccalaureate education are more likely to find themselves underemployed.  Keywords: rural economics, Appalachian studies, unemployment, underemployment, measurement issues

Estimating Core Unemployable And Workforce Non-Participants: A Study Of Rural Pennsylvania's Labor Force

Rural unemployment rates persistently have run higher than the national average for many years.  In addition, multiple studies have established that rural underemployment also remains a long-running problem. Unfortunately, it is not yet fully understood how the various factors contributing to rural unemployment and underemployment interact to adversely affect rural labor markets.  The contribution of this paper is to gain insight as to the amount of slack labor force at the county level, focusing on the application to the labor force of rural Pennsylvania. By comparing the actual number of working-age adults presently not in a county’s labor force (using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census) against an estimated number of core unemployable and workforce non-participants (Core NPW) individuals in the county we can generate estimates of the potential up-swing in employment for the regional labor market if participation rates were to become among the best in their national peer group. The study’s methodology and findings provide guidance to policy makers in identifying regions most likely in need of greater assistance as to how to best spend scarce public dollars across various programs aimed at improving local labor markets.

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

West Africa’s Evolving Competitive Exposure in U.S. Import Markets

Competitive exposure, U.S. imports, African export competitiveness, F41, F15, C32,