U.S. Census provides tutorial on using block level demographic data from the American Community Survey (ACS). Block level data is data at the lowest level of aggregation as opposed to a census tract, zip code, or higher. A block may be as small as a few streets in a neighborhood.
Block level data is provided only in the 5 year summary file and for certain tables. The data is quite useful for a number of business, commercial, and research purposes.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Adminstration
U.S. Department of Commerce reports manufacturing wages and employment continues to rise the U.S. The new study uses a relatively new data source, the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI), to analyze the earnings of new hires relative to incumbent workers in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing.
They find that new hires in the manufacturing sector earn more than new hires in other industries and have done particularly well since the recession began.
Highlight from the study include:
In order for a bonus to be considered discretionary, it should be at the sole discretion of the employer to award it, not an expectation by the employees. A discretionary bonus is a form of variable pay; the amount, requirements, timing and announcement of the bonus should not be disclosed in advance, as this may appear to be a motivator or incentive implying that meeting certain levels would guarantee a bonus or reward. In a discretionary bonus, the employer determines after the fact that there is a reason for awarding a bonus, such as reaching company and financial goals, or chooses to reward an individual employee after exceptional performance. A nondiscretionary bonus is the opposite of a discretionary one. The employer from the outset determines the standards that are required to receive a bonus based on meeting specific criteria. The employees expect to earn the bonus if they meet the standards. An employer’s incentive pay plan that provides additional compensation for exceeding performance or productivity goals is an example of how nondiscretionary bonuses are executed in the workplace.
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Random sampling of time records is often necessary in wage and hour cases. Some employers maintain handwritten or machine produced records that are not efficiently converted to an electronic format. It is not always possible to convert these types of records in a timely and cost effective manner.
Random sampling is a tool that is frequently called upon in these situations. For instance, it is common to randomly sample a population of employees and then randomly sample a time period from that sample of employees. This type of cluster random sampling is common in these situations.
See for example: Sharon Lohr, Sampling: Design and Analysis, 2nd Edition, Brooks/Cole, 2010.
From the U.S. BEA:
Manufacturing real value added—a measure of an industry’s contribution to GDP—rose 6.2 percent in 2012, after increasing 2.5 percent in 2011. Durable-goods manufacturing, the largest contributor to overall growth in the economy for the third consecutive year, increased 9.1 percent, after increasing 6.8 percent in 2011 and 13.3 percent in 2010.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/industry/gdpindustry/2013/gdpind12_adv.htm
Most U.S. workers who lose their jobs are able to find replacement ones quickly according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on unemployment duration. The overall percentage of workers finding new employment within in 4 weeks is over 25%. The current percentage is above Great Recession figures and us increasing. Some demographics are finding replacement employment even quicker.
Some economists and recent research support the idea of allowing inflation to increase above its current target of 2%. Proponents argue that increases prices will stimulate growth and increase business profits. Opponents argue that inflation could grow out of control and hurt fixed income investments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/business/economy/in-fed-and-out-many-now-think-inflation-helps.html?hp
Economists, Will Dobbie and Paige Mart Skiba, in their paper, use data from Payday lenders in a number states to estimate an econometric model of the payday loan model. Their paper uses borrower income, demographic information, and loan eligibility details to test for moral hazard and adverse selection in the payday loan market.
They find no evidence of moral hazard. A larger loan actually decreases the probability of a default. They find that a $50 larger payday loan leads to a 17 to 33 percent drop in the probability of default. In addition, their results show the relationship between factors such as credit score (-), home owner ship (-), income (-) and age(-) on the probability of default.
Definition: In economic theory, a moral hazard is a situation where a party will have a tendency to take risks because the costs that could incur will not be felt by the party taking the risk
Harley-Davidson Co. said it expects to ship 259,000 to 264,000 motorcycles to dealers and distributors worldwide in 2013….In the U.S., dealers sold 48,529 new motorcycles in the quarter, up 20.1 percent compared to sales of 40,402 motorcycles in the year-ago period.
Revenue from motorcycles grew 10.7 percent to $857 million, compared to revenue of $774 million in the year-ago period….
Raj Chetty, a professor at Harvard University, argues that economics is very much a solid science. He argues that while economics has not been able to answer all big picture questions like – what causes recessions and the determinants of growth with perfect certainty. He writes in the NY Times:
Nonetheless, economists have recently begun to overcome these challenges by developing tools that approximate scientific experiments to obtain compelling answers to specific policy questions. …today, the most prominent economists are often empiricists … who focus on testing old theories and formulating new ones that fit the evidence.
This kind of empirical work in economics might be compared to the “micro” advances in medicine (like research on therapies for heart disease) that have contributed enormously to increasing longevity and quality of life, even as the “macro” questions of the determinants of health remain contested.