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The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Summer Youth Employment Program Lotteries
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The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Summer Youth Employment Program Lotteries

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  • Alexander Gelber
  • Adam Isen
  • Judd B. Kessler

Abstract

Programs to encourage labor market activity among youth, including public employment programs and wage subsidies like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, can be supported by three broad rationales. They may: (1) provide contemporaneous income support to participants; (2) encourage work experience that improves future employment and/or educational outcomes of participants; and/or (3) keep participants “out of trouble.” We study randomized lotteries for access to New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), the largest summer youth employment program in the U.S., by merging SYEP administrative data on 294,580 lottery participants to IRS data on the universe of U.S. tax records and to New York State administrative incarceration data. In assessing the three rationales, we find that: (1) SYEP participation causes average earnings and the probability of employment to increase in the year of program participation, with modest contemporaneous crowdout of other earnings and employment; (2) SYEP participation causes a moderate decrease in average earnings for three years following the program and has no impact on college enrollment; and (3) SYEP participation decreases the probability of incarceration and decreases the probability of mortality, which has important and potentially pivotal implications for analyzing the net benefits of the program.

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  • Alexander Gelber & Adam Isen & Judd B. Kessler, 2014. "The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Summer Youth Employment Program Lotteries," NBER Working Papers 20810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20810
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    1. repec:hal:journl:hal-03393230 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Roberto Galbiati & Aurélie Ouss & Arnaud Philippe, 2021. "Jobs, News and Reoffending after Incarceration [Examining the generality of the unemployment–crime association]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 247-270.
    3. Modestino, Alicia Sasser & Paulsen, Richard J., 2019. "Reducing inequality summer by summer: Lessons from an evaluation of the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 40-53.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6lb0bbni2p86t8ib82gjce1ok1 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Roberto Galbiati & Aurélie Ouss & Arnaud Philippe, 2015. "Jobs, News and Re-offending after Incarceration," Sciences Po publications 41, Sciences Po.
    6. Amy Ellen Schwartz & Jacob Leos‐Urbel & Joel McMurry & Matthew Wiswall, 2021. "Making summer matter: The impact of youth employment on academic performance," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 477-504, May.
    7. Santosh Anagol & Vimal Balasubramaniam & Tarun Ramadorai, 2018. "Endowment Effects in the Field: Evidence from India’s IPO Lotteries," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 1971-2004.
    8. Eren, Ozkan & Depew, Briggs & Barnes, Stephen, 2017. "Test-based promotion policies, dropping out, and juvenile crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 9-31.
    9. Laura Jaitman, 2019. "Frontiers in the economics of crime: lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-36, December.
    10. Surajeet Chakravarty & Todd R. Kaplan & Luke Lindsay, 2020. "Increasing Employment Through the Partial Release of Information," Discussion Papers 2001, University of Exeter, Department of Economics, revised 2023.
    11. Atwell, Meghan Salas & Jeon, Jeesoo & Cho, Youngmin & Coulton, Claudia & Lewis, Eric & Sorensen, Alena, 2023. "Using integrated data to examine the effects of summer youth employment program completion on educational and criminal justice system outcomes: Evidence from Cuyahoga County, Ohio," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy

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