NLS@50

Andrew Kohen

Emeritus Professor of Economics

Department of Economics, James Madison University

Former Research Associate and Associate Project Director of the NLS, Center for Human Resource Research, Ohio State University

NLS user since 1968

Citations

• "Changing Jobs: Moving Up or Out?" THRUST: The Journal of Employment Training Professionals (Spring 1980), v. no. 2
• "Factors Affecting Individual Persistence Rates in Undergraduate College Programs," (with G.Nestel & C. Karmas),American Educational Research Journal (Spring 1978),v.15,no.2.
• "Occupational Information and Labor Market Status: The Case of Young Men," (with H.S. Parnes), Journal of Human Resources (Winter 1975), v. 15, no. 2.
• "Reaping the Spoils of Defeat: Labor Market Experiences of Vietnam-era Veterans," (with P. Shields) in C. R. Figley (ed.) Strangers at Home: Vietnam Veterans Since the War (Praeger, 1980)
• "Job Changing Behavior of Young Men in the Civilian Labor Market," in H. W. Sinaiko (ed.) First Term Enlisted Attrition (Office of Naval Research, 1977)
• "Knowledge of the World of Work: A Test of Occupational Information of Young Men," (with S. Breinich) Journal of Vocational Behavior (Winter 1975), v. 6.

What I learned from NLS data

Nearly all that I know about the strengths and limitations of empirical research I learned from working with the NLS data in the 1960s and 1970s. A most important lesson is the necessity of understanding both what the data can and what it cannot tell one about the questions in which one is interested.

Why I chose NLS data

I began to work with the NLS almost at the inception of the data gathering and the preparation of the initial reports to the U.S. Department of Labor for the original cohorts, while a doctoral student in Economics at Ohio State University and a graduate research associate on the NLS Project there. The uniqueness of longitudinal data permitted exploration of answers to questions that theretofore had been examined only with cross-sectional data on people of different ages.