Research

Upjohn Institute announces 2025 Early Career Research Awards

April 8, 2025

Institute research focuses on labor markets by addressing several core areas: the causes of unemployment and the effectiveness of social safety net programs in mitigating its effects; education and training systems to improve workers’ employability and earnings; and the influence of state and local economic development policies on local labor markets. The Institute also assesses emerging trends affecting workers and labor markets in its core research areas.

Topics

Resources

Tax Credits Can Increase Child Care Usage and Enable More Mothers to Work
Gabrielle Pepin
April 4, 2025
Those with graduate degrees see fewer opportunities for better-paying jobs: New Hires Quality Index for April
April 2, 2025
Michigan’s Great Start Readiness Program yields positive economic return
Timothy J. Bartik
February 20, 2025
Job Quality & Economic Security

Our research explores not just the number of jobs, but also the quality of those jobs and how well they support stable households and communities.

Employee with a graduate degree
Those with graduate degrees see fewer opportunities for better-paying jobs: New Hires Quality Index for April
Woman works on laptop at home while children play with toys nearby
Gender pay gap widens at childbirth, research finds
Cargo ship at sea near a shore at sunrise
Hiring rates at record low as tariff era dawns: New Hires Quality Index for March
small town at dusk
Hiring inches up for nonmetro areas: New Hires Quality Index for February
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Social Insurance & Safety Net

Examinations of social safety net programs are central to the Upjohn Institute’s mission to address causes and solutions to unemployment. Our research assesses effectiveness of current social insurance programs and explores other strategies to keep people in stable jobs and minimize the effect of economic downturns.

Children learning in child care
Tax Credits Can Increase Child Care Usage and Enable More Mothers to Work
Gabrielle Pepin
Tired mother holding baby, with baby clawing at mom's face, as they do
Welfare changes could set states out of federal compliance: ASSA research focus
Gabrielle Pepin
San Francisco Coit Tower Telegraph Hill and city and Bay bridge behind
Upjohn Institute participates in 2025 ASSA conference in San Francisco
Brian Asquith, Yuci Chen, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Brad J. Hershbein, Gabrielle Pepin, Aaron Sojourner
Someone fills out a crude version of an online unemployment insurance claim on a laptop
Loosening eligibility is a cost-effective way to expand unemployment benefits, research finds
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Education & Workforce Development

Building and maintaining skills for the labor force is a lifelong process, starting with prekindergarten programs and continuing throughout a worker’s career. The Upjohn Institute’s research elucidates how each learning stage and program contributes to a strong workforce.

University quadrangle paths crossing
Upjohn Institute announces 2025 Early Career Research Awards
children listen to daycare teacher
Michigan’s Great Start Readiness Program yields positive economic return
Timothy J. Bartik
Convening participants
Five Key Lessons for Five Core Groups Shaping Place-Based Policy
UC Berkely campus from above
Universities use monopsony power to push down wages: ASSA research focus
Alfonso Flores-Lagunes
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Economic Development

Upjohn Institute research offers insight into specific industries and the labor market as a whole, from locally to nationally and internationally and from both the supply and demand sides. Focal areas include manufacturing, tax incentives and regional collaboration.

Workers mounting an engine on B-25 bomber, Inglewood, 1942. Alred Palmer, public domain, Library of Congress
WWII factories boosted local workers for decades. What are the lessons for manufacturing today?
Convening participants
Five Key Lessons for Five Core Groups Shaping Place-Based Policy
Mexico map with pin showing threads
Migrants escaping Mexican drug war stimulate U.S. economies: ASSA research focus
Yuci Chen
A girl with a cat sits at a window looking at the gray San Francisco sky and wondering what she'll do once her family is evicted
What happens to tenants when landlords quit the rent-controlled market? ASSA research focus
Brian Asquith
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Working Papers
“Essential” Migrants: Evidence from the 2020 H-2B Visa Lottery
April 2025
Author(s):Parag Mahajan
I study how access to foreign-born workers impacts firms and local economics in times of acute crisis. The 2020 H-2B visa lottery randomly gave some U.S. firms the chance to hire low-wage, migrant workers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using administrative data across three government agencies, I find that access to H-2B workers led to decreased business closures, increased revenues, increased payroll, and increased employment in 2020. I also find suggestive evidence that these effects spilled over to non-participant firms within the same county.
Bargaining and Inequality in the Labor Market
March 2025
Author(s): Sydnee Caldwell, Ingrid Haegele, and Jӧrg Heining
We use novel surveys of firms and workers, linked to administrative employer-employee data, to study the prevalence and importance of individual bargaining in wage determination. We show that simple survey questions accurately elicit firms’ bargaining strategies. Using the elicited strategies for 772 German firms, we document that the majority of firms are willing to engage in individual wage bargaining. Labor market factors predict firms’ strategies better than firm characteristics. Survey responses from nearly 10,000 full-time workers indicate that most worker-firm interactions begin with the worker rejecting the offer and remaining at the incumbent firm. There is substantial heterogeneity in workers’ bargaining behavior, which translates into within-firm wage inequality. Firms that set pay via individual bargaining have a 3 percentage point higher gender wage gap.
The Parenthood Gap: Firms and Earnings Inequality after Kids
February 2025
Author(s): Rebecca Jack, Daniel Tannenbaum, and Brenden Timpe
We document the dynamics of career paths around parenthood, capturing worker advancement within firms and across firms with differing pay rates. Using a new linkage between administrative data on U.S. workers’ fertility and labor market histories, we show that the parental earnings gap is partly explained by mothers transitioning to lower-paying firms. Firm downgrading is driven by parents who take an extended absence from the labor force. Mothers who move to lower-paying firms see improved job amenities but less generous fringe benefits. The firm’s contribution to the parental earnings gap rises over time and reaches one-third by the child’s 11th birthday.
What Is the Value of the Child and Dependent Care Credit?
December 2024
Author(s): Gabrielle Pepin
The Child and Dependent Car Credit (CDCC) subsidizes child care costs for working families. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 increased the CDCC’s generosity during 2021 only. I find that while the CDCC is of relatively little value in its current form, increases in eligibility rates and conditional benefits under the pandemic expansion increased the credit’s value dramatically. Conditional on CDCC eligibility, higher-income households experienced the largest increases in benefit levels under the expanded CDCC, but lower-income households benefited disproportionately when measuring benefits as a share of income or child care spending.
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