Eileen Appelbaum
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About Eileen
Appelbaum is an economist who has published widely on a variety of topics involving labor and employment. A major focus of her research is on implications of company practices for organizational effectiveness and employee outcomes. She has studied the adoption of workplace practices that increased worker participation in shop floor decisions as well as employers’ efforts to limit opportunity in the workplace and expand low wage jobs. She is currently engaged (with Ruth Milkman) in studying the effects of paid family leave in California on firms and workers. A second strand of current research (with Rosemary Batt) examines the effects of private equity ownership on managerial decision making, firm competitiveness and employment relations. She has engaged in policy debates on these topics, testified before the New Jersey state legislature and the U.S. Congress, and has been interviewed in major media outlets. Some of her areas of expertise include private equity, financialization, workers and communities, healthcare restructuring and its implications for workers, and economic security.
Contributions
Low-Wage Workers and Paid Family Leave: The California Experience
In the News
Publications
Examines a widely-cited body of research to illuminate some of the major controversies surrounding private equity including whether private equity creates or destroys jobs, whether it provides better returns than the broad stock market to investors, and whether the debt burden assumed by firms acquired by private equity substantially increases the risk of bankruptcy.
Reports on surveys of employers and workers in California about their experiences with the state’s paid family leave program, which began in 2004. Finds that the feared negative impact on employers did not materialize and that workers who used the program benefit from it.