We use unique data from the Medicaid program of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to examine the duration of Medicaid spells. The data set consists of a one-in-ten sample of all Medicaid recipients in Kentucky on July 1, 1986, and a similar sample of all new spells between July 1, 1986, and June 30, 1987. Because the beginning date of Medicaid recipiency is known for all spells, this mixed "stock" and "flow" sample allows us to identify the duration of Medicaid spells for up to twenty years. This is in contrast to other studies using short panels of new spells. We find significant differences in hazard functions across program eligibility categories, suggesting that the cost of expanding Medicaid or the savings from contracting it would vary depending on the eligibility group affected by the change in policy.

Mark C. Berger, Dan A. Black, Child Care Subsidies, Quality of Care, and the Labor Supply of Low-Income, Single Mothers, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Nov., 1992), pp. 635-642

The existence of counteroffers can lead to a variety of important labor‐market features. This article develops a model of the selective use of counteroffers in which a firm decides whether to extend counteroffers after a worker informs the firm of an alternative offer. We outline factors that can influence the employer’s net value of making a counteroffer and, thus, affect the likelihood of a counteroffer. We provide a new empirical analysis that examines whether proxies for these factors do, in fact, influence the likelihood that a firm would consider a counteroffer to an employee with a competing offer.

This article compares various measures of on-the-job training, from a new source that matches establishments and workers, allowing the authors to compare the responses of employers and employees to identical training questions. Establishments report 25 percent more hours of training than do workers, although workers and establishments report similar incidence rates of training. Both establishment and worker measures agree that there is much more informal training than formal training. Further, informal training is measured about as accurately as formal training. Finally, the authors show that measurement error reduces substantially the observed effect of training, in particular the effect of training on productivity growth.

Implicit markets capture compensation for intraurban and interregional differences in amenities and yield differences in housing prices and wages. These pecuniary differences become preference-based weights in a quality of life index. Hedonic equations are estimated using micro data from the 1980 Census and assembled county-based amenity data on climatic, environmental, and urban conditions. Ranking of 253 urban counties reveals substantial variation within and among urban areas.

Implicit markets capture compensation for intraurban and interregional differe nces in amenities and yield differences in housing prices and wages. These pecuniary differences become preference-based weights in a qual ity-of-life index. Hedonic equations are estimated using microdata fr om the 1980 Census and assembled county-based amenity data on climati c, environmental, and urban conditions. Ranking of 253 urban counties reveals substantial variation within, as well as among, the 185 urba n areas. The quality-of-life differences across counties within one S MSA is almost one-half of the difference between the top- and bottom- ranked counties in the nation.

We examine the effect of the Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services system. This program “profiles” Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants to determine their probability of benefit exhaustion and then provides mandatory employment and training services to claimants with high predicted probabilities. Using a unique experimental design, we estimate that the program reduces mean weeks of UI benefit receipt by about 2.2 weeks, reduces mean UI benefits received by about $143, and increases subsequent earnings by over $1,050. Most of the effect results from a sharp increase in early UI exits in the treatment group relative to the control group.