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Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Gender And The Political Economy Of Knowledge, Ann Mari May Aug 2008

Gender And The Political Economy Of Knowledge, Ann Mari May

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

The importance of increased levels of education in improving the status of women throughout the world is well established. Higher levels of education are associated with lower birth rates, higher incomes, and greater autonomy for women. In fact, it has been argued that education is a fundamental prerequisite for empowering women in all spheres of society (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi 2005: 5).

In the last third of the twentieth century, women have made particularly significant strides in many countries. For example, UNESCO reports that women’s share of enrollment in higher education in Switzerland rose from 3 per cent in 1985 to …


Measuring Immigration’S Effects On Labor Demand: A Reexamination Of The Mariel Boatlift, Örn B. Bodvarsson, Hendrik F. Van Den Berg, Joshua J. Lewer Aug 2008

Measuring Immigration’S Effects On Labor Demand: A Reexamination Of The Mariel Boatlift, Örn B. Bodvarsson, Hendrik F. Van Den Berg, Joshua J. Lewer

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

Why do immigration shocks tend to have benign effects on native wages? One reason is that immigrants as consumers contribute to the demand for their services. We model an economy where workers spend their wages on a locally produced good, then test it via a reexamination of the 1980 “Mariel Boatlift” using Wacziarg’s Channel Transmission methodology. Current Population Survey data on workers in 9 different retail labor markets and Survey of Buying Power data on retail spending by consumers in Miami and four comparison cities are used. We find strong evidence that the Mariel Boatlift augmented labor demand.


Smoke-Free Laws And Employee Turnover, Eric C. Thompson, Ellen J. Hahn, Glenn Blomquist, John Garen, Don Mullineaux, Nola Ogunro, Mary K. Rayens Jul 2008

Smoke-Free Laws And Employee Turnover, Eric C. Thompson, Ellen J. Hahn, Glenn Blomquist, John Garen, Don Mullineaux, Nola Ogunro, Mary K. Rayens

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This study examines how smoke-free laws influence turnover among restaurant workers. The study uses a unique data set of payroll records of a franchisee of a national full-service restaurant chain operating 23 restaurants in the state of Arizona, a state where several communities have adopted smoke-free laws. Municipal smoke-free laws did not, on average, have a statistically significant effect on the probability of employee separation in the years after implementation. These results suggest that training costs associated with employee turnover would not rise for full-service restaurants in municipalities that adopt smoke-free laws.


Determinants Of Income Growth In Metropolitan And Nonmetropolitan Labor Markets, George W. Hammond, Eric C. Thompson Jun 2008

Determinants Of Income Growth In Metropolitan And Nonmetropolitan Labor Markets, George W. Hammond, Eric C. Thompson

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This article analyzes determinants of growth across labor markets in the United States, using a production function approach based on four inputs: labor, manufacturing investment, human capital investment, and public capital investment. We find little role for public capital investment in growth, but that manufacturing investment spurred growth in nonmetropolitan areas, in contrast to metropolitan areas. We also find that human capital investment mattered more for metropolitan areas than for nonmetropolitan areas. Further, the presence of more colleges and universities, more household amenities, and lower tax rates are all found to have encouraged human capital accumulation in U.S. labor markets.


A Sensitivity Analysis Of The Elasticity Of Taxable Income, Seth H. Giertz Jan 2008

A Sensitivity Analysis Of The Elasticity Of Taxable Income, Seth H. Giertz

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper applies the methods of Gruber and Saez (2002) to a panel of tax returns spanning years 1979 through 2001 in order to examine the sensitivity of the elasticities of taxable and broad income to an array of factors. The paper finds that Gruber and Saez’s approach yields an estimated elasticity of taxable income (ETI) for the 1990s that is about half the size of my corresponding estimate for the 1980s. The paper finds that weighting regression results by income not only has a substantial impact on the estimates, but also results in overall estimates that are influenced by …


Taxable Income Responses To 1990s Tax Acts: Further Explorations, Seth H. Giertz Jan 2008

Taxable Income Responses To 1990s Tax Acts: Further Explorations, Seth H. Giertz

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper presents applications of variants of a differencing methodology to Internal Revenue Service tax records in order to estimate taxable income elasticities for the 1990s. Estimates are systematically examined by applying a number of sensitivity tests. Estimates are produced after altering the: (1) time interval over which observational-level behavior is measured; (2) income restrictions on the sample; (3) choice of control variables; and (4) weighting scheme used in the regressions. In general, estimates are quite sensitive to a number of different factors. In contrast to some of the literature, estimates are larger when behavior is measured over 3-year intervals …


Panel Data Techniques And The Elasticity Of Taxable Income, Seth H. Giertz Jan 2008

Panel Data Techniques And The Elasticity Of Taxable Income, Seth H. Giertz

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper examines the elasticity of taxable income with a focus on income controls designed to control for divergence in the income distribution and mean reversion. Additional emphasis is placed on the difference between short-run and longer-run responses to tax rate changes. Several panel techniques are applied to tax return data for years 1991 to 1997, followed by a cross-section analysis covering the same period. For each panel regression, an innovative inverted panel regression framework is employed to test the efficacy of the controls for mean reversion apart from controls for divergence in the income distribution. Finally, cross-section (and repeated …


Tax Reform And Charitable Giving, Seth H. Giertz Jan 2008

Tax Reform And Charitable Giving, Seth H. Giertz

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

Of the $240.7 billion donated to U.S. charities in 2003, 75 percent was from individuals. Of that total, $145.7 billion was taken as itemized deductions on federal income tax returns. In addition, non-itemizers and non-filers contributed $33.0 billion – contributions that received no special tax treatment. Under current law, only taxpayers who itemize may deduct from Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) their charitable donations in determining taxable income. In recent years, a number of different proposals have been put forth that would alter the tax treatment of giving by individuals. Some plans would extend a variant of the charitable deduction to …