Human Resource Economics and Public Policy

Cover

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Title Page, copyright

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Contents

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pp. vii-viii

Acknowledgments

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pp. ix-

The editor wishes to thank Stephen Mangum for advice on getting this project started and Kevin Hollenbeck and the Upjohn Institute for taking interest in the volume. He also wishes to thank the authors for their valuable contributions, Richard Wyrwa and Bob Wathen for production and copyediting, Stephen Woodbury for valuable input at critical ...

1 - Introduction

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pp. 1-8

A few weeks before the start of his senior year at the University of Maryland in September 1958, Vernon M. Briggs Jr. took an all-night drive to visit his college roommate’s home in Detroit, Michigan. Arriving with his roommate in downtown Detroit at daybreak, Briggs saw “several blocks where the sidewalks were absolutely filled with ...

2 - Vernon Briggs: Real-World Labor Economist

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pp. 9-24

Vernon Briggs stepped into a wastebasket and launched my career as a labor economist. In the spring of 1969, I was sleepwalking through the undergraduate economics program at the University of Texas and sitting in Dr. Briggs’s labor economics class. He was vigorously making a point when his misstep off the small classroom stage produced a ...

3 - The Human Resource Economics of Vernon Briggs

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pp. 25-48

According to a Cornell University Web site, Vernon M. Briggs Jr. came to that university’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1978 “as a professor who specializes in human resource economics and public policy” (Cornell University 2009). In fact, Briggs’s research and teaching helped establish that specialty, which I will simply refer to as human resource economics ...

4 - Immigration and the U.S. Labor Market

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pp. 49-77

On a typical day, about 100,000 foreigners arrive in the United States. Most are temporary migrants or visitors, including tourists, business people, students, and workers, who are welcomed at airports and border crossings. About 2,600 are legal immigrants or refugees who have been invited to become permanent residents of the United ...

5 - Assessing the Briggs Approach to Political Refugee Policy

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pp. 79-99

Vernon Briggs’s legacy in the landscape of U.S. immigration policy is secure. His research and writings are extensive, stretching from 1965 to today, and he is recognized as a leading national and international expert in his field. The accolades for his work, the stature of his coauthors, and the never-ending list of scholars who cite his publications, all ...

6 - Training and Immigration in the Real World

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pp. 101-110

Although it has been more than 40 years since I sat in Vernon Briggs’s classroom at the University of Texas, his insights into the value of training in the labor market and the role of the public sector are echoed in my work every day. Briggs’s economics has always been about moving beyond theory and into the realm of action and practical ...

7 - Immigration Policy and Economic Development

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pp. 111-127

For more than three decades, Vernon M. Briggs Jr. argued that U.S. immigration policy should be determined largely on the basis of the nation’s rapidly changing labor-market trends. In Briggs’s view, U.S. immigration policy and the needs of the labor market have been mismatched. He has been particularly concerned about a new (fourth) wave ...

8 - Employment and Wage Prospects of Black, White, and Hispanic Women

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pp. 129-160

It was fall 1972 in Austin, Texas. Vernon Briggs was assigned to teach principles of economics—the introductory course for freshmen— and the lead author of this chapter was a first-year graduate student in transition from humanities to social science. However, without a single economics course under her belt, auditing the introductory course seemed prudent. ...

9 - The Misdirected Debate over the Economics of Disabilities Accommodation

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pp. 161-186

Vernon Briggs is an unabashed advocate for government regulation of labor markets. Of course, his advocacy has focused primarily on immigration policy (Briggs 1996, 2003; Briggs and Moore 1994). Even if labor markets operate efficiently, he has said, efficiency is not the paramount value in American society. Fairness, equal employment opportunity, and the self-sufficiency of working families are important ...

10 - Learning Systems for a Globalized Economy

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pp. 187-214

This chapter reflects on two of Vernon Briggs’s long-time interests: human resource development and policy-oriented research. Briggs’s early research with me on minority participation in apprenticeship programs was designed to increase our understanding of discrimination in these programs and to develop policies and programs to improve minority participation ...

11 - Sectoral Approaches to Workforce Development

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pp. 215-252

Labor-market policies refer to government interventions to support and improve labor-market operations for workers and employers. All major industrialized nations have some form of labor-market policy, but such policies differ widely in design, size and scope, and implementation. ...

Appendix A - Vernon M. Briggs Jr. Bibliography

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pp. 253-280

The Authors

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pp. 281-283

Index

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pp. 285-304

About the Institute

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pp. 305-