Measures of Active Labor Market Policy - such as training, wage subsidies, public employment measures, and job search assistance - are widely used in European countries to combat unemployment. Little, however, is known about what each country can learn from experiences in other countries. This study provides novel insight on this important policy issue by discussing the role of the European Commission's Employment Strategy, reviewing the experiences made in European states, and giving the first ever quantitative assessment of the existing cross-country evidence, answering the question "what labor market program works for what target group under what (economic and institutional) circumstances?." Using an innovative meta-analytical approach, the authors find that rather than contextual factors such as labor market institutions or the business cycle, it is almost exclusively the program type that matters for program effectiveness: While direct employment programs in the public sector appear detrimental, wage subsidies and "Services and Sanctions" can be effective in increasing participants' employment probability.

David Card and Alan B. Krueger have made substantial contributions to the field of Labor Economics. Their influential work focuses on policy-relevant issues and spans vast and important topics, including: unemployment, minimum wage, migration, measurement error, unions, wage differentials among various groups in the US, labor demand, social insurance, and technological change. Card and Krueger have also been extremely influential in econometrics methodology; they were at the forefront of employing an 'experimental' approach in their research design and implementation. Both of these IZA prize winners have made significant methodological contributions on instrumental variable estimation, measurement error, regression discontinuity methods, and the use of 'natural' experiments. This book provides an overview of their most important work and is divided two main parts: the first section focuses on school quality and the differences in wages across groups in the US; the second part concentrates on the effect of changes in the minimum wage on employment and wage setting. In section introductions, Card and Krueger offer their insight into these two areas and discuss the historical context for their research.

What factors affect the ways individuals participate in labor markets?

"New Developments and Research on Labor Markets" (volume 4B) proposes answers to this and other questions on important topics of public policy. Leading labor economists demonstrate how better data and advanced experiments help them apply economic theory, yielding sharper analyses and conclusions. The combinations of these improved empirical findings with new models enable the authors of these chapters to reveal how labor economists are developing new and innovative ways to measure key parameters and test important hypotheses.

Concentrates on empirical research in specific labor markets, including those defined by age, gender, and race
Reveals how questions and answers about these markets have changed and how models measure them
Documents how conceptual models and empirical work explain important practical issues

Modern labor economics has continued to grow and develop since the first volumes of this Handbook were published. The subject matter of labor economics continues to have at its core an attempt to systematically find empirical analyses that are consistent with a systematic and parsimonious theoretical understanding of the diverse phenomenon that make up the labor market. As before, many of these analyses are provocative and controversial because they are so directly relevant to both public policy and private decision making. In many ways the modern development in the field of labor economics continues to set the standards for the best work in applied economics.
This volume of the Handbook has a notable representation of authors - and topics of importance - from throughout the world.

A guide to the continually evolving field of labour economics. This volume concentrates on the following topics: interactions between the labour market and the macroeconomy; and policy issues within the labour market.

Measures of Active Labor Market Policy - such as training, wage subsidies, public employment measures, and job search assistance - are widely used in European countries to combat unemployment. This study provides novel insight on this important policy issue by discussing the role of the European Commission's Employment Strategy, reviewing the experiences made in European states, and giving the first ever quantitative assessment of the existing cross-country evidence.

What new tools and models are enriching labor economics?

"Developments in Research Methods and their Application" (volume 4A) summarizes recent advances in the ways economists study wages, employment, and labor markets. Mixing conceptual models and empirical work, contributors cover subjects as diverse as field and laboratory experiments, program evaluation, and behavioral models. The combinations of these improved empirical findings with new models reveal how labor economists are developing new and innovative ways to measure key parameters and test important hypotheses.
Investigates recent advances in methods and models used in labor economics Demonstrates what these new tools and techniques can accomplish Documents how conceptual models and empirical work explain important practical issues

David Card and Alan B. Krueger have already made national news with their pathbreaking research on the minimum wage. Here they present a powerful new challenge to the conventional view that higher minimum wages reduce jobs for low-wage workers. In a work that has important implications for public policy as well as for the direction of economic research, the authors put standard economic theory to the test, using data from a series of recent episodes, including the 1992 increase in New Jersey's minimum wage, the 1988 rise in California's minimum wage, and the 1990-91 increases in the federal minimum wage. In each case they present a battery of evidence showing that increases in the minimum wage lead to increases in pay, but no loss in jobs. A distinctive feature of Card and Krueger's research is the use of empirical methods borrowed from the natural sciences, including comparisons between the "treatment" and "control" groups formed when the minimum wage rises for some workers but not for others. In addition, the authors critically reexamine the previous literature on the minimum wage and find that it, too, lacks support for the claim that a higher minimum wage cuts jobs. Finally, the effects of the minimum wage on family earnings, poverty outcomes, and the stock market valuation of low-wage employers are documented. Overall, this book calls into question the standard model of the labor market that has dominated economists' thinking on the minimum wage. In addition, it will shift the terms of the debate on the minimum wage in Washington and in state legislatures throughout the country. With a new preface discussing new data, Myth and Measurement continues to shift the terms of the debate on the minimum wage.

David Card and Alan B. Krueger have made substantial contributions to the field of Labor Economics. Their influential work focuses on policy-relevant issues and spans vast and important topics, including: unemployment, minimum wage, migration, measurement error, unions, wage differentials among various groups in the U.S., labor demand, social insurance, and technological change. Card and Krueger have also been extremely influential in econometrics methodology; they were at the forefront of employing an "experimental" approach in their research design and implementation. Both of these IZA prize winners have made significant methodological contributions on instrumental variable estimation, measurement error, regression discontinuity methods, and the use of "natural" experiments. This book provides an overview of their most important work and is divided two main parts: the first section focuses on school quality and the differences in wages across groups in the U.S.; the second part concentrates on the effect of changes in the minimum wage on employment and wage setting. In section introductions, Card and Krueger offer their insight into these two areas and discuss the historical context for their research.

The rapid rise in the proportion of foreign-born residents in the U.S. since the mid-1960s is one of the most important demographic events of the past fifty years. The increase in immigration, especially among the less-skilled and less-educated, has prompted fears that the newcomers may have depressed the wages and employment of the native-born, burdened state and local budgets, and slowed the U.S. economy as a whole. Would the poverty rate be lower in the absence of immigration? How does the undocumented status of an increasing segment of the foreign-born population impact wages in the U.S.? In Immigration, Poverty and Socioeconomic Inequality, noted labor economists David Card and Steven Raphael and an interdisciplinary team of scholars provide a comprehensive assessment of the costs and benefits of the latest era of immigration to the U.S. As the debate over immigration reform reemerges on the national agenda, Immigration, Poverty and Socioeconomic Inequality provides a timely and authoritative review of the immigrant experience in the United States. With its wealth of data and intriguing hypotheses, the volume is an essential addition to the field of immigration studies.