Barnow, Trutko, and Piatak focus on whether persistent occupation-specific labor shortages might lead to inefficiencies in the U.S. economy. They describe why shortages arise, the difficulty in ascertaining that a shortage is present, and how to assess strategies to alleviate the shortage.

Eberts and Stone create dynamic models of labor supply and demand behavior for metropolitan labor markets. They use these models to simulate wage, employment, and personal income responses to local economic change, including changes brought about by governmental policy.