This paper examines how US immigration-induced labor mobility frictions affect entrepreneurship and firm monopsony. I exploit a natural experiment in the US immigration system that unexpectedly increased Green Card (GC) related job-switching frictions for Indian and Chinese immigrants in October 2005. Using matched employee-employer data from LinkedIn, I confirm that this shock reduced inter-firm employee mobility for Indian and Chinese employees.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, two large infrastructure-related bills have been enacted. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law in November 2021, provides funding for a wide range of activities including roads, rail, transit, broadband, water and electrical infrastructure.
Long depicted as a global melting pot, the United States is home to a collection of sharply divergent geographies, regions and cultures. An overlooked measure of our diversity, however, is economic. While national statistics tell a story of averages, they fail to account for the true drivers of economic expansion and contraction. It is only upon examining America’s microeconomies – our cities, towns, suburbs and rural communities – that we can begin to appreciate the myriad and complex determinants of broader U.S., and sometimes even global, economic trends.
Productivity is the single most important determinant of a society’s standard of living. But how can you gauge it, and why does it matter? In this second report from the American Growth Project, we examine the productivity levels of the 50 largest microeconomies in the United States along with how those productivity levels have shifted during the last 15 years.
To date, our work on the American Growth Project has focused on the United States’ most populous urban areas. Our previous analyses of growth and productivity in the 50 largest Extended Metropolitan Areas (EMAs) have served to illustrate the tremendous amount of economic diversity to be found within the United States, revealing stark variations in economic trends, major industries and migration patterns in the country’s largest cities. We turn now to the task of measuring and analyzing economic activity in the next largest set of EMAs: the top 100 midsize cities.
In kicking off the new year, we at the Kenan Institute want to highlight five topics we anticipate will be top of mind for business leaders and policymakers during the 12 months ahead. Although some of these challenges – such as the recession we expect – can be painful, they also present opportunities. To help you navigate this rapidly evolving economic landscape, the Kenan Institute will work to provide solutions-focused analysis on the following as well as related issues throughout 2023.
As we move into 2023, the state of the economy remains highly uncertain following a volatile year that included both strong job growth and persistent inflation. Unfortunately, our economic models don’t bear particularly glad tidings for the new year, as we expect the U.S. economy will enter a recession in the second half of 2023 or early 2024. What is more, the economic pain caused by this downturn will be felt unevenly across the country: Our work in the American Growth Project has revealed significant divergence across regional economies in the United States that is too often left out of analysis focusing on national statistics alone.
North Carolina’s phenomenal migration-driven population growth masks a troubling trend: high rates of death and dying prematurely which, left unchecked, can potentially derail the state’s economic growth and prosperity in the years ahead. On average, 246 North Carolinians died each day during the 2010s, increasing to 317 daily between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2022. COVID-19 and the substance abuse crisis have played a major role in premature deaths of prime working age citizens of the state. Both people-based and place-based strategies and interventions are urgently needed to address the state’s death crisis.
We reassess whether and to what degree the hiring, development, and promotion decisions of S&P 500 companies has led to misrepresentation of and bias against their minority executives. Instead of the US population benchmark that has conventionally been used to measure misrepresentation, and from such misrepresentation attribute the presence and magnitude of racial bias and discrimination, we measure misrepresentation in US executives using the benchmark of the racial/ethnic densities (RAEDs) of their college cohort peers. Our key result is that the differences between US executive RAEDs and the RAEDs of their college peers are far smaller than those found using the US population, typically by an order of magnitude or more.
We describe an experimental curriculum innovation that creates a safe space for students to engage in courageous conversations—to openly share diverse thoughts and opinions as well as vigorously debate politically charged issues of critical business importance.
This paper explores the ups and downs of innovation and productivity growth in the US economy and potential connections to the ups and downs of business dynamism and entrepreneurship over the last few decades.
This work examines the effects on worker psychological well-being and productivity of highly publicized negative identity-related societal events, such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd, mass shootings like the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that targeted LGBTQ+ individuals, and the 2021 Atlanta area Spa shootings that targeted individuals of Asian descent.
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) tools necessitates the development of human skills that allow workers to use these new technologies to create value that AI tools cannot on their own.
Pay transparency policies are increasingly popular among governments in the United States and around the world.
COVID-19 exacerbated existing shortages in the labor market, causing business leaders to revise corporate strategies designed to recruit and retain the workforce needed to compete in at the state, national, and global level. We must recognize and support the critical role our community colleges serve in meeting employers’ post-pandemic workforce demands if we are to close the skills gap in the current labor market.
Immigration is one of the most contentious policy issues, and Congress has for decades failed to make any significant legislative progress. The result is an incoherent policy landscape and serious operational challenges on the ground. At the same time, immigration and immigrant integration are critical to U.S. workforce growth, government fiscal solvency, and innovation. I discuss key findings from the economics literature and their implications for where to focus immigration reform efforts.
In 2022, in-migration slowed, and out-migration accelerated, reducing the role of net migration in North Carolina statewide population growth, according to recently released Census data. For the Tarheel state, we document changes in gross and net migration flows between 2021 and 2022, highlight possible drivers, and offer anecdotal evidence as to why the revealed changes may foreshadow a longer- term shift in migration’s role in statewide population change.
Supreme Court decisions on reproductive rights and affirmative action inadvertently afford the nursing profession a propitious opportunity to capitalize on the nation’s rich mosaic of iceberg demographic identities—inherited and acquired traits that may not be visibly apparent—to address pressing worker shortages and other workplace conundrums.
New business formation plays a crucial role in predicting economic activity in North Carolina. Research shows that business starts positively impact county GDP growth and job creation, with larger effects in highly populated counties. The impact is smaller but still significant in less populated counties. Employment growth also varies by sector—new businesses in goods-producing industries create jobs after a delay, while service-sector businesses contribute to job growth more quickly. This research was done in collaboration with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s Office and the North Carolina Collaboratory.