This research utilizes new data to track the earnings effect of the National Supported Work experiment (NSW) on the youth and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) target groups for 8 years following training. The research indicates that the NSW's effect on the AFDC recipients ranged from $375 to $525 in 1978 dollars during the years 1982-86. The sum of the estimated earnings effects for the AFDC treatments over the observed posttraining period more than offset the costs of the training program. The NSW was found to have no discernible effect on the earnings of the youth target group.

A test of the hypothesis that estimates of the interest elasticity of personal and private saving may be biased downward by a failure to control for behavior related to defined benefit pension programs fails to reject existence of a positive interest elasticity of private saving. Correcting for pension funding bias, the estimated interest elasticity of private saving is 0.04, well below Michael J. Boskin's (1978) estimate of 0.4 obtained with a different data set and different estimation procedures. The estimated interest elasticity of personal saving is 0.28. Copyright 1989 by MIT Press.

Earnings losses of Connecticut workers affected by mass layoff are calculated using administrative data. Estimated reductions are initially more than 30 percent and six years later, as much as 15 percent. The Connecticut estimates are smaller than comparable ones from Pennsylvania administrative data but similar to those from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and Department of Workforce Services (DWS). Earnings reductions in Connecticut and Pennsylvania are concentrated among Unemployment Insurance recipients. An unusually high proportion of Unemployment Insurance beneficiaries in Pennsylvania explains the larger estimated losses relative to other studies. Fixed-effects, random growth, and matching estimators produced similar earnings loss estimates suggesting each is relatively unbiased in this context.

We estimate the employment effects of federal minimum wage increases using monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) data from 1979 through 1997. We find that the empirical differences in the new minimum wage literature based on CPS data primarily can be traced to alternative methods of controlling for macroeconomic conditions. We argue that the macroeconomic controls commonly included in models where no employment impact is found are inappropriate. We consistently find a significant but modest negative relationship between minimum wage increases and teenage employment using alternative controls or allowing employer responses to the policy to occur with some delay.

A microeconomics principles course employing random assignment across three sections with different teaching models is used to explore learning outcomes as measured by a cumulative final exam for students who participate in traditional face-to-face classroom instruction, blended face-to-face and online instruction with reduced instructor contact time, and a purely online instructional format. Evidence indicates learning outcomes were reduced for students in the purely online section relative to those in the face-to-face format by 5 to 10 points on a cumulative final exam. No statistically significant differences in outcomes are observed for students in the blended relative to the face-to-face section.