THE IMPACT OF AN INCREASED LEVEL OF VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION ON EMPLOYMENT AND POPULATION GROWTH IN THE INDIANA ECONOMY (REGIONAL ECONOMICS, MIGRATION, SYSTEM DYNAMICS, SIMULATION)

Policymakers in Indiana have long been involved with instituting measures designed to improve the state's employment situation. Of particular concern to them is the recent loss of employment in the state's manufacturing sector--long the locomotive of its economy. This loss is seen as the primary factor causing the continued net outmigration of Hoosiers.;The effects of a policy change that causes more Hoosiers to go on to vocational and technical education after high school are tested with the model. Although locational decisions for new manufacturing branch plants are based, to a considerable degree, on the availability and costs of skilled labor, the exact effects of such a policy change are unclear a priori. This is because, within a given age group, people with higher levels of education have higher rates of migration. Thus, one result of such a policy change might be that Hoosiers accept the vocational and technical training and then move to other states to work.;Results of the simulations of the model show that the policy change, instituted in 1985, does indeed affect population and employment in a favorable way. The effects of the business cycle on both manufacturing and total employment and on the rate of unemployment are substantially mitigated. In addition, population and local serving employment are increased. Unfortunately for Indiana policymakers however, these positive effects do not begin to appear in any real strength until after the turn of the century.;For this dissertation, a regional system dynamics policy model of the Indiana economy is constructed. It consists of a demographic (i.e. labor supply) sector and an employment (i.e. labor demand) sector explicitly linked via unemployment and migration. The model is simulated for the years 1970 to 2020 and the historical fit of a number of its variables to actual data is measured and analyzed via the root mean square percent error and the Theil inequality statistics.