In 2012, nearly 16 million U.S. children, or over one in five, lived in households that were food-insecure, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines as "a household-level economic and social condition of limited access to food." Even when we control for the effects of other factors correlated with poverty, these children are more…

Despite the growing volume of research on multiculturalism, disagreements abound regarding whether multiculturalism is truly effective for the integration of immigrant youth. However, little effort has been made to make sense of these disagreements. In the present study, we raise the possibility that multiculturalism is more likely to achieve its…

This paper forwards the notion that languages are an important resource for sustainable development for modern societies. Informed by theories from both sociolinguistics and language economics on the value of language skills, it is suggested that language(s) have different kinds of value in multilingual societies. Sociolinguists often emphasize…

This paper analyzes how multi-level marketing companies (MLMs), via direct selling through electronic commerce (e-commerce) and social media, enact and evade federal language policy to maximize profits. Here we describe the federal language policies that govern this type of e-commerce, and in particular, the language policies of the Federal Trade…

This paper concerns the declining role of the welfare state in supporting young adults. The literature on new social risks concentrates on the incapacity of institutions to respond to a new social situation, and has so far largely neglected the capacity of alternative systems or institutions to fill the vacuum created. The focus in the paper is on…

There is a well-known connection between the barriers to entry created by an overburdensome regulatory climate and lower levels of productivity that create less economic growth. Many economics students are under the impression that regulations are designed to protect the workers and consumers as well as improve product quality, so they are often…

Urban refugees' educational access and achievement is shaped by structural and social factors at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. We draw on data from structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, and brief interviews in Nairobi, Kenya with refugee learners, caregivers, schoolteachers and administrators, and nongovernmental organisation…

Policymakers, philanthropists, and related stakeholders assert that education is "the civil rights issue of our generation" (The White House, n.d). In turn, a career-based business model where "career and technical education encourages employability" (Wilder, 2013) has been implemented, providing readily accessible…

Ageing populations and rising skill demands have heightened expectations that higher education systems will widen their offer of continuing education and training (CET) for adults aiming to renew or augment their skills at an advanced level. CET is becoming increasingly important for maintaining a highly skilled workforce also in Germany, and…

The authors describe an undergraduate economics elective focused on the Great Recession and the recession resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. They have taught the course with great success at both liberal arts colleges and research universities and at all levels of the curriculum ranging from a first-year seminar to an upper-level elective. They…

Scholars and policy makers alike are increasingly interested in understanding how social capital shapes people's economic lives. But the idea of social capital is an amorphous one. In this article, economists Judy Hellerstein and David Neumark define social capital as networks of relationships among people who are connected by where they live or…

When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

All countries in the EU Neighbourhood and Central Asia have been hit by the COVID-19 outbreak to a greater or lesser extent, with overall lower infection numbers compared to some of the EU Member States, although issues of under-reporting may impact on the reliability of data. All countries, apart from Belarus and Turkmenistan, made similar…

School dropout is a structural problem which permanently penalizes students and society in areas such as low qualification jobs, higher poverty levels and lower life expectancy, lower pensions, and higher economic burden for governments. Given these high consequences and the surge of the problem due to COVID-19 pandemic, in this paper we propose a…

As state political leaders look toward a postpandemic era, they are being presented with complex economic and workforce development challenges that will require intensive, intentional collaboration between business, higher education, and state government. Workforce participation rates remain far below prepandemic levels, businesses continue to…