Evaluating the Differential Effects of Alternative Welfare-to-Work Training Components: A Re-Analysis of the California GAIN Program
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2006-07
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We show how data from an evaluation in which subjects are randomly assigned to some treatment versus a control group can be combined with nonexperimental methods to estimate the differential effects of alternative treatments. We propose tests for the validity of these methods. We use these methods and tests to analyze the differential effects of labor force attachment (LFA) versus human capital development (HCD) training components with data from California’s Greater Avenues to Independence (GAIN) program. While LFA is more effective than HCD training in the short term, we find that HCD is relatively more effective in the longer term.
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Scholars@Duke
V. Joseph Hotz
Professor Hotz specializes in the subjects of applied econometrics, labor economics, economic demography, and economics of the family. His studies have investigated the impacts of social programs, such as welfare-to-work training; the relationship between childbearing patterns and labor force participation of U.S. women; the effects of teenage pregnancy; the child care market; the Earned Income Tax Credit; and other such subjects. He began conducting his studies in 1977, and has since published his work extensively in books and leading academic journals. Many of his projects have been funded by grants awarded by the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation. He is currently completing a project with Duncan Thomas on, “Preference and Economic Decision-Making” under a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. His recent works also include, “Tax Policy and Low-Wage Labor Markets: New Work on Employment, Effectiveness and Administration” with John Karl Scholz and Charles Mullin; and “Designing New Models to Explain Family Change and Variation” with S. Philip Morgan. Along with his duties as an independent researcher, Professor Hotz has also held positions as a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the National Poverty Center, the Institute for the Study of Labor, and the Institute for Research on Poverty. He is presently a member of the Committee on National Statistics for the National Academy of Sciences’ Research Council.
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