In this paper, we analyze employer demand for ex-offenders. We use data from a recent survey of employers to analyze not only employer preferences for offenders, but also the extent to which they check criminal backgrounds in the presence of very imperfect information about the job applicants...

This article examines the effect of the Massachusetts workforce development system on the earnings of disadvantaged adults using nonexperimental data from the late 1990s. The authors construct a comparison sample for program participants using individuals who apply for and are offered services...

We assess the degree to which the mentally ill who would have been in mental hospitals in years past have been transinstitutionalized to prisons and jails. We also assess the contribution of deinstitutionalization to growth in the U.S. prison population. We find no evidence of...

Employers became more willing to hire a range of disadvantaged workers during the 1990s boom-including minorities, workers with certain stigmas (such as welfare recipients), and those without recent experience or high school diplomas. The wages paid to newly hired less-skilled workers also...

Recent studies have consistently found that in the United States, black job applicants are hired at a greater rate by establishments with black hiring agents than by those with white hiring agents. The results of this examination of data from the 1992–94 Multi-City Employer Survey suggest...

This paper presents some evidence on the magnitudes and determinants of job vacancy rates in U.S. firms based on data from a survey in 1980 and 1982. The results show low overall vacancy rates but substantial variation across firms, occupations, industries, and local areas. Local unemployment,...

This paper uses job applications data to investigate the relationship between job queues and wage differentials. The main finding is that openings for jobs that pay the minimum wage attract more job applicants than jobs that pay either slightly more or slightly less than the minimum wage. This...

This article presents a search model which shows that search method choices should be related to their costs and expected productivities as well as to nonwage income and wage offer distributions. The empirical evidence then shows that the most frequently used search methods (i.e., friends and...