Providing Disadvantaged Workers with Skills to Succeed in the Labor Market

Millions of Americans cannot obtain jobs that pay enough to lift them out of poverty. For many, the principal barrier to obtaining these good jobs is their lack of specialized occupational skills increasingly sought by employers. Research has shown that vocational training can be effective in boosting the earnings of disadvantaged adult workers. This proposal argues that, by helping workers acquire the skills that employers demand, vocational training could be wielded as an effective anti-poverty tool.This paper outlines why Congress should increase funding for vocational training for disadvantaged adult workers. Specifically, we argue that Congress should increase funding for the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult program. We also argue, however, that Congress, and the state and local workforce investment boards that administer the WIA Adult program, should explore ways to improve the vocational training that is available to adult disadvantaged workers

Crop Updates 2002 - Cereals

This session covers thirty one papers from different authors: VARIETIES AND BREEDING 1. Agronomic evaluation of wheat and barley in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia, Peter Burgess1and Gary Fawell2, 1Agritech and 2Farmanco Management 2. Evaluating stress tolerance to terminal drought by Western Australian wheats, Dean Diepeveen and Dr Tim Setter, Department of Agriculture 3. Broadscale wheat variety comparisons featuring Wyalkatchem, Jeff Russell, Department of Agriculture 4. Australian crop accreditation system variety selector, Tony Seymour, Australian Crop Accreditation System 5. Future wheat varieties, Robin Wilson, Iain Barclay,Robyn McLean, Robert Loughman, Jenny Garlinge, Bill Lambe, Neil Venn and Peter Clarke, Department of Agriculture AGRONOMY 6. Beware of wheat variety interactions with row spacing and seed rate, Mohammad Amjad and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 7. Yield and falling numbers of wheat varieties on the South Coast, Mohammad Amjad and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 8. Maximising wheat variety performance through agronomic management, Wal Anderson, Raffaele Del Cima, James Bee, Darshan Sharma, Sheena Lyon, Melaine Kupsch, Mohammad Amjad, Pam Burgess, Veronika Reck, Brenda Shackley, Ray Tugwell, BindiWebb and Steve Penny Jr, Department of Agriculture 9. High impact of soil type and seasonal rainfall on optimum wheat seed rate , Raffaele Del Cima and Wal Anderson Department of Agriculture 10. 101 seasons in one day: Using the ‘WA Wheat’ database to predict wheat yield, James Fisher1, Bill Bowden1, Craig Scanlan1, Senthold Asseng2and Michael Robertson2 1Department of Agriculture, 2CSIRO 11. Economics of improving compact soils, M.A. Hamza1, G. McConnell2and W.K. Anderson1, 1Department of Agriculture, 2Planfarm 12. Reducing the risks in producing durum wheat in Western Australia, Md Shahajahan Miyan and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 13. Taking the Why out of Wyalkatchem – the new widely adopted wheat variety, Steve Penny, Department of Agriculture 14. Influence of nutrition and environmental factors on seed vigour in wheat, Darshan Sharma, Wal Anderson and Daya Patabendige, Department of Agriculture NUTRITION 15. N and K are important for oat yield and quality, Patrick Gethin, Stephen Loss, Tim O’Dea, Ryan Guthrie and Lisa Leaver, CSBP Futurefarm 16. Effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on the grain yield and quality of noodle wheat, Tyrone Henning1, Lionel Martin1and Wal Anderson2 1Muresk Institute of Agriculture, 2Department of Agriculture 17. Assessment of a high input fertiliser regime on the yield and quality of Gairdner barley, Narelle Hill1, Simon Wallwork2and Laurence Carslake2 1Department of Agriculture, 2Wesfarmers Landmark 18. The use of Flexi-N to achieve high yielding, high protein wheat, Darren Hughes1, Lionel Martin1, Wal Anderson2and Stephen Loss3 1Muresk Institute of Agriculture, 2Department of Agriculture, 3CSBP Futurefarm 19. Are liquid phosphorus fertilisers more efficient than solid fertilisers in Western Australia?Stephen Loss, Lisa Leaver, Ryan Guthrie, Patrick Gethin and Tim O’Dea, CSBP Futurefarm 20. Oats respond to phosphorus and potassium, Glenn McDonald, Department of Agriculture PESTS AND DISEASES 21. Cereal disease diagnostics and rust monitoring, Nichole Burges and Dominie Wright, Department of Agriculture 22. Distribution and incidence of aphids and barley yellow dwarf virus in over-summering grasses in the Western Australian wheatbelt, Jenny Hawkes and Roger Jones, Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture and Department of Agriculture 23. Spring sprays for powdery mildew control in cereals, Kith Jayasena1, Kazue Tanaka1, Vanessa Johnson1, Robert Loughman1and Josh Jury2 1Department of Agriculture, 2Wesfarmers Landmark 24. Impact of root lesion nematodes on wheat and triticale in Western Australia, Sean Kelly and Shashi Sharma, Department of Agriculture 25. Cropping options for the management of root lesion nematodes in Western Australia, Sean Kelly, Shashi Sharma and Robert Loughman, Department of Agriculture 26. Cereal rust update 2002 – new stem rust on Camm wheat, Robert Loughman1and Robert Park2 1Department of Agriculture, 2University of Sydney 27. Cereal aphids and direct feeding damage to cereals, Phil Michael, Department of Agriculture 28. A decision support system for control of aphids and BYDV in cereal crops, Debbie Thackray, Jenny Hawkes and Roger Jones, Department of Agriculture and Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture STORAGE 29. Aeration – opportunity for profit, Christopher Newman, Department of Agriculture CLIMATE 30. Financial impact of frost on the Western Australian grains industry, Garren Knell and Kim Povey, ConsultAg 31. Summary of 2001 weather and seasonal prospects for 2002, David Stephens, Department of Agricultur

Managing Customers' Training Choices: Findings from the Individual Training Account Experiment Final Report

Phoenix and Maricopa County were two of the study sites. The others were Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Northeast Georgia; North Cook County, Illinois; and Charlotte, North Carolina

Strikes, Wages and Private Information: An Empirical Study

Private information models of strikes suggest that the strike is used as an information revealing device by the union in the presence of asymmetrical information. A testable prediction of these models is that there is a concession schedule which maps out a negative relationship between wages and strikes. In this paper a concession schedule is estimated using a unique micro data set of about 3000 contracts over the period 1970-1981. Unlike previous wage determination studies, which use the percentage change in nominal wages as the dependent variable, this study uses the average expected real wage over the length of the contract as the dependent variable as this is the wage that is of interest to the negotiating parties. In order to estimate the concession schedule it is necessary to control for all observable variables which effect the level of wages and strike activity. The most important determinants of the real wage are found to be bargaining pair specific fixed effects and a general time trend. Wage settlements at other firms in the sane industry prior to the negotiations were also important. The estimated concession schedule has a negative slope as predicted by the private information models. The concession schedule is fairly flat -¿ the real wage decreases by only 3% after a strike lasting 100 days

Cyclical Fluctuations in Strike Activity

This paper uses a unique data set of contracts and strikes to address the old question of the relationship between the business cycle and strike activity. It also examines the factors that determine when strikes occur and proposes a new test of the recent private information models of strikes. The data set contains over 7000 contracts covering both manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries for the twelve year period 1970 to 1981. Contrary to earlier ¿ndings there is no simple correlation between fluctuations in the business cycle and either the number of strikes, strike incidence or strike duration. However, once speci¿c industry effects are controlled for then strike incidence but not strike duration varies procylically. As suggested by the Total Cost theory of strikes both demand conditions by industry and labor market conditions are important factors in determining strike activity. The level of demand by industry as proxied by the industry producer price index has a negative effect on strike incidence but a positive effect on strike duration. This opposite movement of strike incidence and strike duration which appears in this paper is not predicted by any of the theoretical models of strikes. Higher national unemployment reduces the probability of a strike, but it is regional unemployment and industry speci¿c unemployment that have the greater negative effect on strike incidence. `The recent private information models of strikes suggest that an important determinant of strikes is a variable observable to the ¿nn but unobservable to the union. In this paper I assume that the ¿rm can predict future demand conditions better than the union. In this case the difference between actual realized future prices and the forecasts of those prices made today can be used as a proxy for this unobservable variable. This paper shows that neither the level nor the variance of this residual has any signi¿cant effect on strike activity. However, both the variance of past prices and the variance of past unemployment have a signi¿cant positive effect on strike incidence. This suggests that some form of uncertainty is an important determinant of strikes

Strikes, Wages, and Private Information.

Private information models of strikes suggest that the strike is used as an information revealing device by the union in the presence of asymmetrical information. A testable prediction of these models is that there is a negative relationship between strikes and the unpredicted component of the wage. This paper finds evidence of such a relationship in a large sample of U.S. labor contracts. The real wage falls by about 3 percent after a strike lasting one hundred days. Copyright 1989 by American Economic Association.