The role of demographic data in the operation of public policy: a case study of the job training partnership act

To work at the state and local levels, the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) requires specific kinds of demographic data. Unemployment figures, poverty information, occupational supply and demand data, wage structure, and many other types of data are used in planning and operating JTPA programs, and in modifying the performance standards by which the programs are evaluated. The decennial census provides some key data and thus some significant types of information become less timely as the decade progresses. Furthermore, the framers of the Act had little or no knowledge of the forms in which data are collected and thus definitions given in the Act do not always agree with definitions used in the demographic data which are available. The policymakers for future government benefit programs could learn from this mistake: before writing legislation which is so heavily dependent on demographic data, they should ascertain what types of data are available or can be generated for use in the program.     

Modelling heterogeneity of survival in band-recovery data using mixtures

Finite mixture methods are applied to bird band-recovery studies to allow for heterogeneity of survival. Birds are assumed to belong to one of finitely many groups, each of which has its own survival rate (or set of survival rates varying by time and/or age). The group to which a specific animal belongs is not known, so its survival probability is a random variable from a finite mixture. Heterogeneity is thus modelled as a latent effect. This gives a wide selection of likelihood-based models, which may be compared using likelihood ratio tests. These models are discussed with reference to real and simulated data, and compared with previous models.     

Unions and Employment Growth: Evidence from State Economic Recoveries

We test the hypothesis that in an economic recovery, unionization negatively affects job creation. We examine state-level job growth following two recent recessions, those with troughs in November 1982 and March 1991. In the five years following the troughs, we assess whether variations across states in union membership and right-to-work laws affect the rate of job growth. We find evidence that links union influence to slower job growth during an economic recovery, a finding consistent with previous studies reporting that unions negatively affect average employment and employment growth.