United States Department of Labor

About: United States Department of Labor is a government organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Occupational safety and health & Population. The organization has 290 authors who have published 306 publications receiving 6497 citations. The organization is also known as: US Department of Labor & U.S. Department of Labor.

Some Interim Results from a Controlled Trial of Cost Sharing in Health Insurance

Abstract: A total of 7706 persons are participating in a controlled trial of alternative health-insurance policies. Interim results indicate that persons fully covered for medical services spend about 50 per cent more than do similar persons with income-related catastrophe insurance. Full coverage leads to more people using services and to more services per user. Both ambulatory services and hospital admissions increase. Once patients are admitted to the hospital, however, expenditures per admission do not differ significantly among the experimental insurance plans. In addition, hospital admissions for children do not vary by plan. The income-related cost sharing in the experimental plans affects expenditure by different income groups similarly, but adults' total expenditure varies more than children's. Sufficient data are not available on whether higher use by persons with free care reflects overuse, or whether lower use by those with income-related catastrophe coverage reflects underuse. Both may well be true.

Understanding work using the occupational information network (o*net): implications for practice and research

Abstract: The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) has recently been developed as a replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. As a comprehensive system designed to describe occupations, the O*NET incorporates the last 60 years of knowledge about the nature of jobs and work. This article summarizes its development and validation by first discussing how the O*NET used multiple descriptors to provide “multiple windows” on the world of work, utilized cross-job descriptors to provide a common language to describe different jobs, and used a hierarchical taxonomic approach to occupational descriptors. Second, we provide an overview of the O*NET's Content Model of descriptor domains (i.e., worker characteristics, worker requirements, occupational requirements, experience requirements, occupation characteristics, and occupation-specific requirements) and their potential uses. Third, we discuss some of the technical issues surrounding the O*NET Finally, we discuss some of the implications for research and theory, as well as some limitations of the O*NET system.

Measurement Error and the Relationship between Investment and Q

Abstract: Many recent empirical investment studies have found that the investment of financially constrained firms responds strongly to cash flow. Paralleling these findings is the disappointing performance of the q theory of investment: even though marginal q should summarize the effects of all factors relevant to the investment decision, cash flow still matters. We examine whether this failure is due to error in measuring marginal q. Using measurement error-consistent generalized method of moments estimators, we find that most of the stylized facts produced by investment-q cash flow regressions are artifacts of measurement error. Cash flow does not matter, even for financially constrained firms, and despite its simple structure, q theory has good explanatory power once purged of measurement error.

Advances in Telephone Survey Methodology

Abstract: Contributors. PART I PERSPECTIVES ON TELEPHONE SURVEY METHODOLOGY. 1 Telephone Survey Methods: Adapting to Change ( Clyde Tucker and James M. Lepkowski ). PART II SAMPLING AND ESTIMATION. 2 Sampling and Weighting in Household Telephone Surveys ( William D. Kalsbeek and Robert P. Agans ). 3 Recent Trends in Household Telephone Coverage in the United States ( Stephen J. Blumberg, Julian V. Luke, Marcie L. Cynamon, and Martin R. Frankel ). 4 The Infl uence of Mobile Telephones on Telephone Surveys ( Vesa Kuusela, Mario Callegaro, and Vasja Vehovar ). 5 Methods for Sampling Rare Populations in Telephone Surveys ( Ismael Flores Cervantes and Graham Kalton ). 6 Multiplicity-Based Sampling for the Mobile Telephone Population: Coverage, Nonresponse, and Measurement Issues ( Robert Tortora, Robert M. Groves, and Emilia Peytcheva ). 7 Multiple Mode and Frame Telephone Surveys ( J. Michael Brick and James M. Lepkowski ). 8 Weighting Telephone Samples Using Propensity Scores ( Sunghee Lee and Richard Valliant ). PART III DATA COLLECTION. 9 Interviewer Error and Interviewer Burden ( Lilli Japec ). 10 Cues of Communication Difficulty in Telephone Interviews ( Frederick G. Conrad, Michael F. Schober, and Wil Dijkstra ). 11 Oral Translation in Telephone Surveys ( Janet Harkness, Nicole Schoebi, Dominique Joye, Peter Mohler, Timo Faass, and Dorothee Behr ). 12 The Effects of Mode and Format on Answers to Scalar Questions in Telephone and Web Surveys ( Leah Melani Christian, Don A. Dillman, and Jolene D. Smyth ). 13 Visual Elements of Questionnaire Design: Experiments with a CATI Establishment Survey ( Brad Edwards, Sid Schneider, and Pat Dean Brick ). 14 Mode Effects in the Canadian Community Health Survey: A Comparison of CATI and CAPI ( Yves Beland and Martin St-Pierre ). PART IV OPERATIONS. 15 Establishing a New Survey Research Call Center ( Jenny Kelly, Michael W. Link, Judi Petty, Kate Hobson, and Patrick Cagney ). 16 CATI Sample Management Systems ( Sue Ellen Hansen ). 17 Measuring and Improving Telephone Interviewer Performance and Productivity ( John Tarnai and Danna L. Moore ). 18 Telephone Interviewer Voice Characteristics and the Survey Participation Decision ( Robert M. Groves, Barbara C. O'Hare, Dottye Gould-Smith, Jose Benki, and Patty Maher ). 19 Monitoring Telephone Interviewer Performance ( Kenneth W. Steve, Anh Thu Burks, Paul J. Lavrakas, Kimberly D. Brown, and J. Brooke Hoover ). 20 Accommodating New Technologies: Mobile and VoIP Communication ( Charlotte Steeh and Linda Piekarski ). PART V NONRESPONSE. 21 Privacy, Confidentiality, and Respondent Burden as Factors in Telephone Survey Nonresponse ( Eleanor Singer and Stanley Presser ). 22 The Use of Monetary Incentives to Reduce Nonresponse in Random Digit Dial Telephone Surveys ( David Cantor, Barbara C. O'Hare, and Kathleen S. O'Connor ). 23 The Causes and Consequences of Response Rates in Surveys by the News Media and Government Contractor Survey Research Firms ( Allyson L. Holbrook, Jon A. Krosnick, and Alison Pfent ). 24 Response Rates: How have they Changed and Where are they Headed? ( Michael P. Battaglia, Meena Khare, Martin R. Frankel, Mary Cay Murray, Paul Buckley, and Saralyn Peritz ). 25 Aspects of Nonresponse Bias in RDD Telephone Surveys ( Jill M. Montaquila, J. Michael Brick, Mary C. Hagedorn, Courtney Kennedy, and Scott Keeter ). 26 Evaluating and Modeling Early Cooperator Effects in RDD Surveys ( Paul P. Biemer and Michael W. Link ). References. INDEX.

Treating Measurement Error in Tobin’s Q

Abstract: We compare the ability of three measurement error remedies to deliver unbiased estimates of coefficients in investment regressions. We examine high-order moment estimators, dynamic panel estimators, and simple instrumental variables estimators that use lagged mismeasured regressors as instruments. We show that recent investigations of this question are largely uninformative. We find that all estimators can perform well under correct specification, all can be biased under misspecification, and misspecification is easiest to detect in the case of high-order moment estimators. We develop and demonstrate a minimum distance technique that extends the high-order moment estimators to be used on unbalanced panel data.