PKT message, Re: City of Beijing announces Job Gaurantee

Scott – I forgot to mention also, if you are interested in studies of actual government jobs programs, you should also consult the work of Nancy Rose. She has two books, Put to Work and Workfare or Fair Work?. You might like to start with her C-FEPS seminar paper at http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/sp/sp02/sp02.html

Also, you might take a look at Handler and Hasenfeld (We the Poor People, 1997). From one of my working papers:

Handler and Hasenfeld cite additional successful programs as precedents, such as CETA, the Civil Works Administration, and the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects (1997, p. 102). The CWA had no means tests and included the same health insurance as regular federal employees. CETA also provided direct job creation and though it "acquired an unfavorable reputation as a result of a few isolated but highly publicized incidences of abuse and corruption, a careful review of the research on the effectiveness of the program suggests that such a reputation is unwarranted" (1997, p. 103). YIEPP was a hugely successful program that provided "jobs that were of adequate quality and provided meaningful work experiences, not make work. The program was very effective in attracting minority young people and had a dramatic effect on their unemployment rates ... [and] closed the gap between black and white employment rates" in 11,000 work sites (1997, pp. 104-05). "The project belied the stereotype that minority young people are unmotivated or have unrealistic work expectations. It showed that a major reason for high minority youth unemployment is lack of jobs" (ibid.).

I think that we need to learn from the successes and weaknesses of previous programs. But in my opinion, the former are much less recognized.

Two other quick points on other issues raised in this thread:

1) Warren Mosler is right to insist on an analytical separation between the logic of ELR as “base case” or “minimum” in a modern money economy and details about implementation, etc., some of which are a matter of social policy.

2) I see no a priori or fundamental difference between JG and ELR. They are two names for the same thing. Differences arise from the differences between Australia and U.S. policy context, and some personal preferences (but on the latter there is no more difference between Bill and I than Randy and I, so it is not a JG/ELR thing, it is a personal thing).

-----Original Message-----
From: Whitalone@xxxxxxx [mailto:Whitalone@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 5:55 PM
To: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: City of Beijing announces Job Gaurantee

It will be interesting how Beijing develops their program....However, turning to my original inquiry, I have reviewed much of the info that Matthew Forstater suggested and have visited IFAU site that Sven suggests. Based on the later information, I am wondering if Sven can suggest other recent articles on the Scandinavian experience. I have read the work done by Calmfors et al. and Sianesi. Are there other articles at the site you would recommend. More particularly, I am interested in studies that explore the "crowding out" effect also know as displacement. I have access from my desktop to hundreds of academic journals in English, perhaps you could suggest some further articles in recent publications.

For now I wish to again defer comment. There are some interesting implications of the work provided by IFAU that I would like to comment on later. Perhaps proponents of the elr/jg program have already analyzed these studies and can comment. One problem I find with some of the work, though, is it is cast in general equilibrium analysis which may cast some dispute regarding the methodological approach. But the conclusions seem to stand based on the factual data.

Thanks

Scott Simpson