The Economic Consequences of Cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Examines how three scenarios for budget cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would affect food industry jobs in each state and whether combining cuts in SNAP and federal income tax cuts would increase consumption and offset job losses

Prioritizing Approaches to Economic Development in New England: Skills, Infrastructure, and Tax Incentives

Jeffrey Thompson presents evidence that investing in state infrastructure and building the skills of the current and future workforce are among the most effective ways to create jobs in New England. Prioritizing Approaches to Economic Development in New England provides ample evidence that infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, energy transmission systems, drinking water, and the like) and education are effective approaches for creating jobs and generating economic growth. By necessity, infrastructure repairs employ local workers and use local materials. These activities would also meet an increasingly urgent need: evidence reviewed by Thompson shows that 40% of bridges in the region are structurally deficient; 80% of the region’s dams present significant hazard; most of our roads are in poor or mediocre condition; and our drinking water infrastructure is in need of $12 billion worth of repairs and renovations. Thompson describes how, instead of making these investments, state policymakers are too often turning to corporate tax breaks to lure businesses to their state and public subsidies for employers who promise to hire workers in the state. These policies have been tried for decades, but Thompson presents the clear evidence that these tax subsidies don’t work to create jobs or revitalize state economies.

The Interaction of Metropolitan Cost-of-living & the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit: One Size Fits All?

This paper explores the interaction between the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the cost-of-living faced by single mothers. After the 1993 EITC expansion, we identify up to a 10 percentage point increase in labor force participation for single mothers in the lowest cost areas but no discernable response in the highest cost areas. We conclude that the EITC’s welfare-enhancing properties are undermined by the interaction of the program’s fixed national rules and geographic variation in wages and cost-of-living. In addition, our findings suggest that the EITC does little to reduce joblessness in many of the nation’s largest cities.EITC; Cost-of-Living; Tax reform; Labor supply

The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees in New England

The authors demonstrate that the average state or local government worker earns higher wages than the average private-sector worker—but only because they are, on average, older and substantially better educated. More than half of state and local government employees in New England have a four-year college degree or more, and 30% have an advanced degree. By contrast, only 38% of private-sector workers have a four-year college degree or more; and only 13% have an advanced degree. The wage gap becomes more significant at higher-paid professional levels. The lowest paid government workers do earn slightly more than their private counterparts, but for high-wage workers, the wage penalty for working for a New England state or local governments rises to almost 13%.�And while state and local workers on average do indeed receive more valuable benefits than private-sector workers, the difference only reduces the wage penalty for the average state and local government worker.

Generating Jobs through State Employer Tax Credits: Is there a Better Way? (Revised)

Revised April 13, 2010The Governors of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and several other states have recently proposed employer tax credits as measures to fight high unemployment in their states. Such policies are also being considered at the federal level. In the Working Paper, Jeff Thompson and Heidi Garrett-Peltier present evidence that such policies, in fact, do little to increase aggregate demand, and instead only modestly reduce the after-tax cost of labor in an economy with high unemployment, falling wages, and weak demand They suggest a more effective approach to creating jobs in the states: increasing spending in labor-intensive sectors and programs that are matched by federal funds, such as Medicaid. These expenditures would be particularly effective if they were financed through temporary high-income tax increases.State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue, state and Local Budget and Expenditures, State and Local Government, Health, Education, and Welfare, Business Taxes and Subsidies,Labor Demand, Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun Drug-eluting Nanofibers from Polycaprolactone/Chitosan Blends

Electrospinning has emerged as a widely accepted technique with ability to produce nanofibers that can be employed in many biomedical applications. In particular, drug-eluting nanofibers have become very popular in controlled release of small molecule drugs. In this study, nanofibers from blends of polylactocaprone (PCL) and chitosan (CHI) were electrospun with the ability to load a model drug, acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), at 10 wt%. PCL/CHI fibers exhibited smooth surface morphology at polymer compositions ranging from 100/0 to 40/60 with or without the incorporation of ASA. Mechanical properties suggested a brittle failure mechanism for fibers loaded with drug. In vitro drug release study displayed a controlled release profile of ASA up to 48 h. Our study aims to explore the drug-polymer interactions and their effects on fiber structure, mechanical properties and drug release profile.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Recent Trends in the Distribution of Income: Labor, Wealth and More Complete Measures of Well Being

>The impact of the great recession on inequality is unclear. Because the crises in the housing and stock markets and mass job loss affect incomes from across the entire distribution, the overall impact on inequality is difficult to determine. Early speculation using a variety of narrow measures of earnings, income and consumption yield contradictory results. In this paper, we develop new estimates of income inequality based on ‘more complete income’ (MCI), which augments standard income measures with those that are accrued from the ownership of wealth. We use the 1989-2007 Surveys of Consumer Finances, and also construct MCI measures for 2009 based on projections of assets, income, and earnings. We investigate the level and trend in MCI inequality and compare it to other estimates of overall and ‘high incomes’ in the literature. Compared to standard measures of income, MCI suggests higher levels of inequality and slightly larger increases in inequality over time. Several MCI-based inequality measures peaked in 2007 at their highest levels in twenty years. The combined impact of the “great recession” on the housing, stock, and labor markets after 2007 has reduced some measures of income inequality at the top of the MCI distribution. Despite declining from the 2007 peak, however, inequality remains as high as levels experienced earlier in the decade, and much higher than most points over the last twenty years. In the middle of the income distribution, the declines in income from wealth after 2007 were the result of diminished value of residential real estate; at the top of the distribution declines in the value of business assets had the greatest impact. We also assess the level and trend in the functional distribution of income between capital and labor, and find a rising share of income accruing to real capital or wealth from 1989 to 2007. The recent economic crisis has diminished the capital share back to levels from 2004. Contrary to the findings of other researchers, we find that the labor share of income among high-income groups declined between 1992 and 2007.

Reforming and privatizing Hungary's road haulage

The Volan units (previously unitary but now formally dismembered) provide public transport services for both passengers and freight, and make up the largest enterprise in Hungary's road transport industry. Immediately after separation in 1989, the Volan group of units employed 67,000 persons and operated 12,672 trucks and 8,010 buses. In 1989 Volan carried 34 percent of Hungary's professional road haulage tonne-kilometers. This report focuses on options for restructuring the Volan group. It therefore also considers the content and implementation of Hungary's overall road transport policy as well as related questions of finance and taxation, all of which define the conditions under which the Volan successor enterprises, however transformed, will have to prove themselves.Roads&Highways,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry

Reforming and privatizing Poland's road freight industry

This study explores options for the restructuring and the privatization of PKS, Poland's main state-owned enterprise for road transport of passengers and general freight. As regards privatization, the focus of the study is on road freight haulage operations of PKS and not on its passenger operations by bus. Privatization of road haulage (trucking) is intended to raise the productivity of resources employed in transport and to thereby assist in the recovery of the economy and of employment. The key to this outcome is the creation of a competitive environment and, equally, the introduction of management by, or under the control of, owners with a clear right to the net income from the business. The process of privatization must therefore allow wide scope for the development of commercially alert and market-oriented management. The scope and form of feasible privatization depend also on how road haulage will be regulated and on financing possibilities for private buyers, investors or tenants. The study therefore also analyzes the general organization of Poland's road haulage, the operations of its different segments, and discusses transport regulation, financing and taxation.Roads&Highways,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry