worked, and wages relative to workers who did not take the program, and the effects were greatest for women. labor market outcomes improved more for those who received technical skills training, though this difference diminished after less than a year. and, lastly, we found that the effects of the program were indeed magnified by the stipend program. the " wraparound " support enhanced the value of the training program and likely helped mitigate the other labor market challenges faced by participants. this paper again shows how insights gained from personal experience, combined with the deductive methods and tools of economics, can be the basis for good research. as i suspected from my experience with my university of houston students, providing education is more effective, and the returns are higher, when students have some " wraparound " support that makes their lives a bit easier. we took this inductive approach and demonstrated it using standard tools of economics - randomization in a carefully designed experiment. and this approach continued in my past work as a policymaker. at the u. s. department of labor and at the world bank, i confronted questions that resonated for me with experiences i had had and earlier applied in my work as a researcher. at the labor department, i worked on workforce development issues, and we were able to include access to more comprehensive " wraparound " services to promote strong take - up and retention in these programs. when i was advocating for this approach, i thought about my students in houston and those workers in colombia, all of them trying to overcome big challenges and build a better life. and i was grateful then, and i'm grateful now, for 4 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches my personal experiences, which didn't come from a textbook or a lecture but helped open my eyes to the answers to some of the important questions that economics strives to answer. the research and policy work i have just described predate my time as a member of the federal reserve board, and the policies i studied then are outside the purview of my current role. but i continue to apply the general approach of bringing my own experience, and the experiences i hear from others, together with the rigorous tools of economics. i listen to people from a range of communities and backgrounds to better understand the economic data and the statistical analysis we perform while working to make monetary policy decisions within the framework assigned to us by congress that benefit all americans. so i will close my remarks by urging all of you to

adriana d kugler : enriching data and analysis in economics with real life experiences speech by ms adriana d kugler, member of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, at the women in economics symposium, federal reserve bank of st. louis, st. louis, missouri, 4 april 2024. * * * thank you, president musalem, and many congratulations on the start of your new position here at the st. louis fed. we are all so happy to have you as part of the federal reserve system, and i am grateful for the opportunity to speak here today. 1 i will start with the issue that has brought us here - why it is so important for women to be a full and equitably represented part of the economics profession. there are, of course, moral reasons for economics to reflect the values of our democratic society - it is the right thing to do. but there are eminently practical reasons as well. economics favors the productive utilization of resources, and bringing more women into the profession obviously makes better use of the talents and efforts of more than half of the population. greater diversity in a workforce yields better ideas and greater productivity, and the field of economics has certainly been enriched by these contributions. but today, i would like to focus on the benefits of greater representation of women that accrue to economic research and policymaking - the way that you can make economic analysis more constructive and relevant. in a broad sense, different experiences and perspectives among those engaged in any social science should provide better insights about how people think and act. but i would like to take this point a step further and connect this issue of representation to the ways in which we approach economic research. in particular, i will describe how my own personal experience has been an important tool for me to use, in combination with the more familiar and rigorous tools of the economist, in ways that i believe have strengthened my research. in doing so, i also hope to show that personal experience can be used by you and others in our profession to provide deeper insights about the questions we grapple with. if this is true, it would constitute another way in which greater representation of women - and others with underrepresented backgrounds - will increase and enhance the valuable contributions that economics makes to society. in my discussion, i will refer to some of my own past research to illustrate my general approach to economics. importantly, though, my comments today are only illustrative of a general approach