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Full-Text Articles in Economics
Homeownership Gaps Among Low-Income And Minority Households, Donald R. Haurin, Christopher E. Herbert, Stuart S. Rosenthal
Homeownership Gaps Among Low-Income And Minority Households, Donald R. Haurin, Christopher E. Herbert, Stuart S. Rosenthal
Economics - All Scholarship
Although homeownership rates currently stand at historically high levels for all segments of the U.S. population, large gaps in homeownership rates remain when comparing various groups of the population. As of the third quarter of 2006, the non-Hispanic White (hereafter, White) homeownership rate was 76 percent while African-American and Hispanic homeownership rates were below 50 percent and the Asian homeownership rate was 60 percent. The homeownership gap between African-American and White households was larger in 2006 than it was in 1990, while the homeownership gap between Hispanics and Whites was only slightly smaller in 2006 than it was in 1990. …
Measurement Error In Earnings Data In The Health And Retirement Study, Jessie Bricker, Gary V. Engelhardt
Measurement Error In Earnings Data In The Health And Retirement Study, Jessie Bricker, Gary V. Engelhardt
Economics - All Scholarship
We provide new evidence on the extent of measurement error in respondent-reported earnings data by exploiting detailed W-2 records matched to older workers in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Our empirical findings are qualitatively consistent with the findings of previous studies. Mean measurement error in the 1991 HRS earnings data for men is somewhat larger than what has been found in other validation studies, but is still modest, averaging about 0.059 log points, approximately 5.9 percent, or $1,500. For women in 1991, it is 0.067 log points, approximately 6.7 percent, or $916. We find a negative correlation between the …
Bandwidth Selection And The Estimation Of Treatment Effects With Unbalanced Data, Jose Galdo, Jeffrey A. Smith, Dan Black
Bandwidth Selection And The Estimation Of Treatment Effects With Unbalanced Data, Jose Galdo, Jeffrey A. Smith, Dan Black
Economics - All Scholarship
This paper addresses the selection of smoothing parameters for estimating the average treatment effect on the treated using matching methods. Because precise estimation of the expected counterfactual is particularly important in regions containing the mass of the treated units, we define and implement weighted cross-validation approaches that improve over conventional methods by considering the location of the treated units in the selection of the smoothing parameters. We also implement a locally varying bandwidth method that uses larger bandwidths in areas where the mass of the treated units is located. A Monte Carlo study compares our proposed methods to the conventional …
Pinning Down The Value Of Statistical Life, Thomas J. Kniesner, W. Kip Viscusi, Christopher Woock, James P. Ziliak
Pinning Down The Value Of Statistical Life, Thomas J. Kniesner, W. Kip Viscusi, Christopher Woock, James P. Ziliak
Economics - All Scholarship
Our research addresses fundamental long - standing concerns in the compensating wage differentials literature and its public policy implications: the econometric properties of estimates of the value of statistical life (VSL) and the wide range of such estimates from about $0.5 million to about $21 million. We address most of the prominent econometric issues by applying panel data, a new and more accurate fatality risk measure, and systematic selection of panel estimator in our research. Controlling for measurement error, endogeneity, individual heterogeneity, and state dependence yields both a reasonable average level and narrow range for the estimated value of a …
A Monte Carlo Study Of Efficiency Estimates From Frontier Models, William C. Horrace, Seth Richards
A Monte Carlo Study Of Efficiency Estimates From Frontier Models, William C. Horrace, Seth Richards
Economics - All Scholarship
Parametric stochastic frontier models yield firm-level conditional distributions of inefficiency that are truncated normal. Given these distributions, how should one assess and rank firm-level efficiency? This study compares the techniques of estimating a) the conditional mean of inefficiency and b) probabilities that firms are most or least efficient. Monte Carlo experiments suggest that the efficiency probabilities are more reliable in terms of mean absolute percent error when inefficiency has large variation across firms. Along the way we tackle some interesting problems associated with simulating and assessing estimator performance in the stochastic frontier environment.
Informality And Productivity In The Labor Market: Peru 1986 - 2001, Alberto Chong, Jose Galdo, Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi
Informality And Productivity In The Labor Market: Peru 1986 - 2001, Alberto Chong, Jose Galdo, Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi
Economics - All Scholarship
Peru has one of the highest informality rates in Latin America, with almost 60 percent of the urban labor force working at the margins of labor market legislation or in microenterprises that lack basic labor market standards (Marcouiller, Ruiz de Castilla, and Woodruff, 1997). This paper identifies two factors that can explain the variation in informality rates in the 1990s. First, Peru experienced a steady increase in employment allocation in traditionally “informal” sectors—in particular, retail trade and transport. Second, there was a sharp increase in nonwage labor costs, despite a reduction in the average productivity of the economy. In addition, …
Understanding Declining Mobility And Interhousehold Transfers Among East African Pasoralists, Marieke Huysentruyt, Christopher B. Barrett, John G. Mcpeak
Understanding Declining Mobility And Interhousehold Transfers Among East African Pasoralists, Marieke Huysentruyt, Christopher B. Barrett, John G. Mcpeak
Economics - All Scholarship
We model interhousehold transfers between nomadic livestock herders as the state-dependent consequence of individuals' strategic interdependence resulting from the existence of multiple, opposing externalities. A public good security externality among individuals sharing a social (e.g., ethnic) identity in a potentially hostile environment creates incentives to band together. Self-interested interhousehold wealth transfers from wealthier herders to poorer ones may emerge endogenously within a limited wealth space as a means to motivate accompanying migration by the recipient. The distributional reach and size of the transfer are limited, however, by a resource appropriation externality related to the use of common property grazing lands. …
Offshoring And Unemployment, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan
Offshoring And Unemployment, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan
Economics - All Scholarship
In this paper, in order to study the impact of offshoring on sectoral and economywide rates of unemployment, we construct a two sector general equilibrium model in which labor is mobile across the two sectors, and unemployment is caused by search frictions. We find that, contrary to general perception, wage increases and sectoral unemployment decreases due to offshoring. This result can be understood to arise from the productivity enhancing (cost reducing) effect of offshoring. If the search cost is identical in the two sectors, or even if the search cost is higher in the sector which experiences offshoring, the economywide …
Temporary Shocks And Offshoring: The Role Of External Economies And Firm Heterogeneity, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan
Temporary Shocks And Offshoring: The Role Of External Economies And Firm Heterogeneity, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan
Economics - All Scholarship
We construct a model of offshoring with externalities and firm heterogeneity. Due to the presence of externalities, temporary shocks like the Y2K problem can have permanent effects, i.e., they can permanently raise the extent of offshoring in an industry. Also, the initial advantage of a country as a potential host for outsourcing activities can create a lock in effect, whereby late movers have a comparative disadvantage. Furthermore, the existence of firm heterogeneity along with externalities can help explain the dynamic process of offshoring, where the most productive firms offshore first and the others follow later. Finally, we work out some …
Indian Manufacturing: A Slow Sector In A Rapidly Growing Economy, Devashish Mitra, Beyza P. Ural
Indian Manufacturing: A Slow Sector In A Rapidly Growing Economy, Devashish Mitra, Beyza P. Ural
Economics - All Scholarship
This paper investigates the determinants of productivity in Indian manufacturing industries during the period 1988-2000. Using two-digit industry level data for the Indian states, we find evidence of imperfect interindustry and interstate labor mobility as well as misallocation of resources across industries and states. Trade liberalization increases productivity in all industries across all states, and productivity is higher in the less protected industries. These effects of protection and trade liberalization are more pronounced in states that have relatively more flexible labor markets. Similar effects are also found in the case of employment, capital stock and investment. Furthermore, labor market flexibility, …
Secondary Markets, Risk, And Access To Credit Evidence From The Mortgage Market, Stuart S. Rosenthal, Stuart A. Gabriel
Secondary Markets, Risk, And Access To Credit Evidence From The Mortgage Market, Stuart S. Rosenthal, Stuart A. Gabriel
Economics - All Scholarship
Secondary markets for credit are widely believed to improve efficiency and increase access to credit. In part, this is because of their greater ability to manage risk. However, the degree to which secondary markets expand access to credit is virtually unknown. Using the mortgage market as an example, we begin to fill that gap. Our conceptual model suggests that secondary credit markets have potentially ambiguous effects on interest rates, but unambiguous positive effects on the number of loans issued. We focus our empirical analysis on the latter using 1992-2004 HMDA files for conventional, conforming, home purchase loans in conjunction with …
Inequality And The Instability Of Polity And Policy, Pushan Dutt, Devashish Mitra
Inequality And The Instability Of Polity And Policy, Pushan Dutt, Devashish Mitra
Economics - All Scholarship
In this paper, we create alternative measures of political instability, which capture movements only from dictatorship to democracy and vice versa (consistent with the recent theoretical work by Acemoglu and Robinson) but, unlike older, well known measures do not capture government changes that preserve the democratic or dictatorial structure of the country. Our empirical work clearly shows that inequality is positively correlated with our measures of political instability as well as with a well-known measure (used by Alesina and Perotti), but the impact of inequality on the latter is only through components of political instability as captured in our measures. …
Survive Then Thrive: Talent, Research Motivation, And Completing The Economics Ph.D., Wayne A. Grove, Donald H. Dutkowsky, Andrew Grodner
Survive Then Thrive: Talent, Research Motivation, And Completing The Economics Ph.D., Wayne A. Grove, Donald H. Dutkowsky, Andrew Grodner
Economics - All Scholarship
This study investigates the completion of the Ph.D. in Economics. We use ex ante information, based solely upon reviewing a set of individual applications from former doctoral students. Estimation for determining success is done by logit, multinomial logit, and generalized ordered logit. We find that students need different skills and attributes to succeed at each distinct and sequential stage of the doctoral program. Significant determinants for passing the comprehensive exams include high GRE verbal and quantitative scores, a Masters degree, and a prior focus on economics. Research motivation and math preparation play significant roles in completing the dissertation, but having …