Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1995

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Economics

Major Professor

Henry W. Herzog, Jr.

Committee Members

Robert Bohm, Thomas Boehm

Abstract

This research developed a methodology for assessing regional structural changes across time based on the labor market outcomes of displaced workers. This inquiry defined displaced workers to be those workers who have lost their jobs because of plant closure, shift elimination, and slack work. The design of this study is not to provide an explanation for these aforementioned causes of displacement. Instead, the investigation of changing regional structure requires that correlation between worker displacement and regional structural change be established. Establishing this connection is crucial, because it is the goal of this investigation to gain insight regarding changing regional structure from the labor market outcomes of displaced workers.

The aforementioned definition of displaced workers is the same definition employed by the Displaced Workers Supplement (DWS) to the Current Population Survey (CPS). The data on displaced workers were taken from the DWS, which contains variables that describe the characteristics of the displaced worker, the characteristics of the displaced worker's job, the characteristics of search, and the timing of displacement.

The DWS data was used to calculate reemployment rates and estimate a series of job-search equations for displaced workers. The estimates were used to decompose the differences in reemployment rates into components that are representative of (1) changes in reemployment linked to changing worker endowments and (2) changes in the reemployment rate linked to changing employer's perceptions about worker endowments or structure.

It was concluded that this methodology provided useful insights about regional structural change, as manifested in the changing reemployment rates of displaced workers over time. Using the results of this study, public policy regarding education and worker retraining, information disclosure by firms, and job matching can be designed at the regional level to better aid those workers who lose their job as a result of structural change.

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