Bryan Engelhardt

Employment Effects of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah

Summary Local, state, and federal governments, along with the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee, spent roughly

Labor Market Effects of the World Cup: A Sectoral Analysis

1.9 billion in planning and hosting the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Event promoters suggested that the Games would increase employment in the state by 35,000 job-years. We investigate whether the 2002 Winter Olympics actually increased employment finding that the Games’ impact was a fraction of that claimed by the boosters.While the Salt Lake City Olympics did increase employment overall by between 4,000 and 7,000 jobs, these gains were concentrated in the leisure industry, and the Games had little to no effect on employment after 12 months.

Crime and the Decline of Unions

This paper provides an empirical examination of impact the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States on local employment. In contrast to ex ante economic impact reports that suggest large increases in employment due to the tournament, an ex post examination of employment in 9 host metropolitan areas finds no significant impact on employment from hosting World Cup games. Furthermore, an analysis of employment in specific sectors of the economy finds no impact from hosting games on employment in the leisure and hospitality and professional and business services sectors but a statistically significant negative impact on employment in the retail trade sector.

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS WITH SEMI‐ANONYMOUS MATCHING

In this paper we investigate the relationship between union membership and crime. Using state level data between 1993 and 2006, we find the elasticity of crime with respect to union membership is roughly -0.5. From our results, we predict the decline in union membership has increased crime by 15% since 1993. Furthermore, we find the elasticity between union jobs and crime is larger in absolute value when using an instrumental variable approach to control for the impact unions have on labor market efficiency.

Criminal Associations with Bargaining and Build Frictions

We analyze the spread of sexually transmitted infections in an environment where individuals search for a sexual partner and, when found, cannot verify whether his partner is infected. Decisions are based on a variety of factors including the proportion infected, the likelihood of safe sex, the rate of detection and treatment, the cost of infection, and the length of search. The model demonstrates how directed search induces a separating equilibrium and, as a result, supports empirical evidence demonstrating the importance of sero-sorting. Furthermore, the model reinforces arguments that decreasing the costs of infection increases the infection rate. The model is calibrated, and the policy implications are analyzed within the context of men who have sex with men.

Estimating the relationship between labour market tightness, unemployment insurance benefits and union election activity

This paper analyzes how the timing, targets and types of anti-crime policies affect criminal associations when retailers search sequentially for wholesalers and crime opportunities. Given the illicit nature of crime, a non-competitive market is considered where players bargain over the surplus. In such a market, some anti-crime policies distort revenue sharing, reduce matching frictions, and increase market activity or crime.

Efficient political contributions with conditional Coasian contracts

ABSTRACT Using detailed data from the US National Labor Relations Board, we find labour market tightness, defined as the ratio of job vacancies to the number of unemployed, has a positive relationship with the likelihood of voting in favour of union representation. Specifically, a 1 SD increase in labour market tightness increases Vote Share in favour and the likelihood of union certification by roughly 1.5% and 3%, respectively. We also find that length of unemployment insurance benefits has a positive relationship with Vote Share in favour. Taken together, these results suggest that workers are more comfortable engaging in pro-union election behaviours when exogenous conditions, like labour market tightness and unemployment insurance benefit duration, shift in a way that more favourably insulates them from unemployment and income risk.

Crime and labour market turnover

The externalities associated with political contributions imply agents choose a socially inefficient level. A typical market solution to these externalities would involve Coase bargaining where agents form contracts with payments conditional on the actions of others. These contracts, however, are hard to enforce because political contributions can be unobservable or unmeasurable. In this study, we modify these Coasian contracts, making the payments conditional on the outcome of the political election. We show the agents that form these contracts contribute the socially efficient amount.

Chapter 4 The Labor Market and Female Crime

ABSTRACT We go beyond unemployment to investigate how its determinants, specifically hires, lay-offs and quits, affect crime. As expected, we find less crime in localities with higher hiring and quit rates and lower lay-off rates. The size of relationships is on the order of studies analysing the link between unemployment and crime.

Crime and the labor market: A search model with optimal contracts

The same forces that lead to changes in participation in the labor market can also affect the extent of criminal activity. To analyze such interaction we construct a search-theoretic model where labor market participation, labor market outcomes and crime are determined jointly. The model is calibrated to US data focusing on females. The main finding is that changes affecting the labor market, such as changes in productivity or in preferences toward market activities, can have significant effects on criminal behavior.