Economic and Social Development

Behavioral economics and workforce development: A review of the literature from labor economics and the broader field

Report
Juniper, C., Prince, H. (2016). Behavioral Economics and Workforce Development: A Review of the Literature from Labor Economics and the Broader Field, Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, University of Texas, Austin, February, 2016.

This review of current literature on the topic is intended to explore the strengths and limitations of applying tools of behavioral sciences to increase the participation and completion rate of training for lower-wage, frontline incumbent workers in ways that benefit both workers and sponsoring firms.

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development

The failed promise of the Texas miracle

Report
Prince, H., Boggess, B. (2016). The failed promise of the Texas miracle. Workers Defense Project, Austin, TX, February 2016.

In order to verify how well current job creation programs were benefiting working Texas families, the Workers Defense Project and the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources examined tax subsidy programs and other economic incentives utilized at the state and local level to spur economic development and job growth in Texas.

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development

Connecting workers to credentials: The promise and pitfalls of awarding academic credit for prior learning

Book Chapter
Prince, H. (2015). Connecting Workers to Credentials: The Promise and Pitfalls of Awarding Academic Credit for Prior Learning. In C. V. Horn, T. Edwards, T. Greene (Eds.), Transforming U.S. Workforce Development Policies for the 21st Century. Kalamazoo, MI: Upjohn Institute Press.

The practice of awarding academic credit for learning gained outside the classroom is not new. For decades, postsecondary institutions have established credit equivalency for skills or experience students have gained elsewhere. Add to this the longstanding practice of awarding academic credit via the Defense Activities Non-traditional Education Support (DANTES) system, or the College Level Examination Program (CLEP), and it becomes clear that postsecondary institutions, to various degrees, have long been attempting to avoid penalizing students by requiring them to sit through courses that they may have already mastered.
What is new for postsecondary institutions, however, is the rapid growth of this practice. One indication has been the evolution in the terminology used to refer to the practice, reflecting the debates around competency-based assessment that have expanded commensurate with the growth in its use: prior-learning assessment, most frequently associated with the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning's Learning-Counts.org initiative, gave way to competency-based education as the term du jour among proponents. More recently still, direct assessment more closely reflects the current discussions, as well as the direction in which the practice appears to be heading.

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development

Macro-level drivers of multidimensional poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Measuring change in the Human Poverty Index

Article, Refereed Journal
Prince, H. (2014). Macro-level drivers of multidimensional poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: Explaining change in the Human Poverty Index. African Evaluation Journal, 2(1): 1-11. doi:10.4102/aej.v2i1.73

Poverty is increasingly recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon in the development literature, encompassing not only income, but also a range of factors related to broadening an individualrsquo;s freedoms to live a life of their own choosing. Poverty so understood suggests that alternative approaches to poverty measurement reflecting this multidimensionality may point toward alternative policies for poverty alleviation. The imperative to reinforce pro-poor policy development in sub-Saharan Africa with evaluation findings that reflect improvements in well-being, rather than solely improvements in national economies, has become self-evident as, despite decades of market-led development policies, much of the subcontinent remains mired in deprivation. As recognized by the 2014 African Evaluation Association's biannual conference, fresh thinking and new evaluation metrics are required in order to create policies that more effectively increase well-being. This article explores the factors that may account for changes in one metric of multidimensional poverty in developing countries, the United Nation Development Programrsquo;s Human Poverty Index (HPI), and will be primarily concerned with measuring the effects on the HPI of policies and activities that relate to, or are explicitly meant to encourage, economic growth, increased literacy and improved health. The study focuses on the outcomes of a panel data set, created for the purpose of this study, of HPI scores for a set of 47 sub-Saharan countries, between 1990 and 2010, and a range of indicators that the development literature and theory suggest should have an effect on income poverty, asking, what is the relationship between these indicators and multidimensional poverty? A parallel set of models has been developed to measure the response of household consumption expenditure to changes in economic growth and human capabilities indicators. All models are estimated using fixed effects estimators and cluster robust standard errors in Stata 12. Consistent with the development literature, household expenditure appears to be significantly and positively related to changes in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. However, when the HPI is regressed on GDP per capita, no statistically significant relationship is observed, even when controlling for a range of other indicators, calling into question the relationship between economic growth and well-being in much of sub-Saharan Africa. This finding suggests that development policies that focus primarily on economic growth as a means to addressing multidimensional deprivation may be misplaced.

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development

Assessing the resident opportunities for self-sufficiency program of the Housing Authority of the City of Austin

Report
O’Shea, D., Prince, H. (2013). Assessing the Resident Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency Program of the Housing Authority of the City of Austin, Year Three Process Analysis Report, City of Austin, November 1, 2013.

The Ray Marshall Center conducted a detailed process analysis of the Resident Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) Program that connects public housing residents with workforce development and supportive services available through community-based partnerships for the Housing Authority of the City of Austin (HACA). The evaluation examines client flow, services, partnerships, and outcomes, as well as forms and procedures for client intake, initial assessment, case management, and program performance measurement.

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development

Macro-level drivers of multidimensional poverty in developing countries: Measuring change in the Human Poverty Index

Dissertation
Prince, P. (2013). Macro-level Drivers of Multidimensional Poverty in Developing Countries: Measuring Change in the Human Poverty Index (Doctoral dissertation). The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.

pThis study explores the factors that may account for changes in one metric of multidimensional poverty in developing countries, the United Nation Development Programrsquo;s Human Poverty Index, and will be primarily concerned with measuring the effects on the HPI of policies and activities that relate to, or are explicitly meant to encourage, economic growth, increased literacy and improved health, and asset development. There is a theoretical basis for suggesting that there is a relationship between the variables selected for this analysis and income- or consumption-based metrics of poverty. The question motivating this study, however, is how does this relationship hold up when, instead of using income poverty, poverty is measured using a multidimensional metric?/p

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development

Increasing college attainment in the United States: Variations in returns to states and their residents

Article, Refereed Journal
Crellin, M., Kelly, P., Prince, H. (2012). Increasing College Attainment in the United States: Variations in Returns to States and their Residents. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 44(4): 35-41.

General acceptance of the strong relationships between education, income, and public economic strength is at the core of all of college attainment goals at the national and state levels. The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) have collaborated to develop online tools for each state (and the nation) to estimate how many additional college graduates would be needed in order to meet certain levels of college attainment, what levels of postsecondary performance it would take to produce them, the investment needed from the state to do so, and the returns to individuals and the state as a result. Using publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, and a few other sources, the authors then set out to estimate the financial returns the U.S. and each of the 50 states would experience as a result of increasing the numbers of college graduates they produce. The authors have focused on financial gains such as increases in personal income and state and federal tax revenues, as well as reductions in health and corrections expenditures. This article summarizes some of the key findings of this work and describes the interactive models made publicly available by NCHEMS and CLASP.

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development
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