Labor Market Analysis and Labor Policy Making in the Nation's Capital

While many economists do policy-relevant research, economists are not trained either in graduate school or as academics on how to contribute to actual policy development or policy formulation. As chief economist (CHECO) at the U.S. Department of Labor, however, I quickly learned that my quantitative skills and economic training were extremely helpful in informing current and future policymaking in three ways.First, during my tenure as CHECO, I found out that descriptive work on previous and current trends in participation, employment, vacancies, turnover, and earnings was key to understanding the basic challenges facing the labor market and to identifying what types of policies were needed to solve these challenges. Second, my knowledge of credible evidence on which specific interventions to address the main challenges currently facing the labor market have and have not worked in the past was crucial to developing policies addressing the pressing needs in the labor market. Third, my knowledge of the labor literature and impact evaluation helped me to identify new areas where research was needed and to set up experiments and research that could help answer those questions