A study examined the impact of recruitment policies on the flow of job applicants and quality of new workers. The process of determining a recruitment and selection strategy appeared to be one of considering the trade-offs between engaging in extensive search (high number of applicants per offer) or intensive search (great amount of time spent per…

Greater use of employment tests for selecting workers will mean that rewards for developing competencies measured by the tests will rise, increasing the supply of workers with the skills. Greater use of tests to select workers will also change the sorting of workers across jobs. The impact on total output will depend on the extent to which the…

A study examined the way in which stockpiling job applications affects a firm's search for a new employee when an opening arises and the extent to which employers make use of applications they have stockpiled. Data on these questions were obtained from a survey of 2,264 employers that was sponsored by the National Institute of Education and the…

A study examined the effect of the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) on a variety of employer- and employment-related outcomes. Data were collected from two databases and a set of case studies. Although most employers report having heard of TJTC, only a small number of firms were actually participating in the program. TJTC did not appear to change…

Employment tests predict job performance because they measure or are correlated with a large set of malleable developed abilities, which are causally related to productivity. Our economy currently under-rewards the achievements that are measured by these tests. Consequently, economic incentives to study hard in high school are minimal, and this…

Wage rates and earnings give misleading signals to public and private policymakers as to the benefits of certain kinds of education and training investments. These misleading signals result from the fact that (1) workers and employers prefer employment contracts that either do not recognize or only partially recognize differences in productivity…