Using establishment-level data, we shed light on the sources of the changes in the structure of production, wages, and employment that have occurred over recent decades. Our findings are: (1) the between-plant component of wage dispersion is an important and growing part of total wage...

This article quantifies the role of plant construction, expansion, contraction, and closing in generating net and gross changes in U.S. manufacturing employment over the 1963-82 period. A new longitudinal data set, constructed from the plant-level observations collected in the last five Census...

The Appalachian region has experienced persistently higher poverty and lower earnings than the rest of the United States. We examine whether skill differentials or differences in the returns to those skills lie at the root of the Appalachian wage gap. Using census data, we decompose the...

Studies examining welfare-to-work program effectiveness present mixed and sometimes discrepant findings, partly due to research design, data, and methodological limitations. Using administrative data on Missouri and North Carolina welfare recipients, we substantially improve on past estimation...

Using a large data set that links individual Current Population Survey (CPS) records to employer-reported administrative data, we document substantial discrepancies in basic measures of employment status that persist even after controlling for known definitional differences between the two data...

In recent years a large literature has developed that investigates the role of insurance in labor market contracting. Papers in this literature typically assume that workers are completely restricted from borrowing. The authors argue, and to some extent demonstrate, that in many environments...