Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Hispanic Ancestry And Racial Self-Identity: Empirical Effects Of Social Norms, Patrick Leon Mason

Patrick L. Mason

This paper empirically examines the effects on own-group racial identity norms on individual Hispanic racial identification. The percentage of all regional Hispanics self-identifying as white is this study’s measure of the racial identity norm. The rise in the fraction of Hispanic population self-identifying as white discourages individual respondents from self-identifying as non-white. We also find that increases in a region’s white Hispanic identity norm decrease the probability of individual Hispanic self-identification as Latino and reduces the probability of self-identifying as black.

Immigration And African American Wages And Employment: Critically Appraising The Empirical Evidence, Patrick Leon Mason

Patrick L. Mason

This paper critically assesses the empirical evidence on the relationship between immigration and African American employment. Studies using various methodologies and data are reviewed: natural experiments, time series, and cross-sectional studies of local labor markets and intertemporal changes in the national labor market. We find that for African Americans as a whole, immigration may have little effect on mean wages and probability of employment. However, there is some evidence that immigration may have had an adverse impact on the labor market outcomes of African Americans belonging to low education-experience groups. However, even this modest conclusion must be qualified: the literature …

Snopa And The Ppa: Do You Know What It Means For You? If Snopa (Social Networking Online Protection Act) Or Ppa (Password Protection Act) Do Not Pass, The Snooping Could Cause You Trouble, Angela Goodrum

Angela Goodrum

No abstract provided.

The Legal Response To Discrimination: Does Law Matter?, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

The topic of the legal response to discrimination is broad and growing. It includes everything from hate crime legislation and governmental prohibition of discrimination in the purchase of housing, cars, and loans, to restrictions on discrimination in the provision of government services and benefits as well as in employment.1 In the latter category alone, the body of law banning discrimination in the workplace has both deepened as the original prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin" (Section 703(a)(1) of Tide VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) have been interpreted to prohibit …

Labour Market Racial Discrimination In South Africa Revisited, Joanna Tyrowicz, Maciej Szelewicki

Joanna Tyrowicz

Discrimination is a significant issue in labour market economics across developed as well as developing countries. In this paper we inquire the actual size of wage discrimination in the Republic of Soutn Africa, accounting for large differences in endowments. We apply the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition as well as propensity score matching to adequately determine the size of the pay gap. Although the size of the absolute racial pay gap is enormous, amounting for more than 500%, the actual estimated effect non-attributable to other factors ranges between 45%-55%. This estimator however assumes homogenous discrimination across the wage distribution, while data suggest that …

Return To Work Credits, Joshua S. Gans

Joshua S Gans

This report examines policy options for parental leave and evaluates them from an economics perspective. It finds that:

The goal of parental leave policy is to facilitate a frictionless transition between work/career activities and home/parental activities.

There are several potential market failures that could be generated that mean that private decisions with regard to parental leave do not reflect their social counter-parts. The sources of these market failures are liquidity constraints and indivisibilities in work and home tasks. The consequences may be an under-provision of parental leave from a child development perspective as well as a sub-optimal allocation of workers …

Endogenous Categorization In Insurance, Mattias K. Polborn

Mattias K Polborn

This paper analyzes the welfare properties of equilibrium when insurers use observable actions to classify consumers into different risk categories, and consumers' choice is influenced by the insurance market consequences of their actions. Specifically, we analyze this problem at the example of a car insurance market, in which individual preferences over car types are correlated with risk type and used by insurance firms for ratemaking. Equilibrium premiums for each car are determined by the losses that it generates. Consumers take insurance premiums into account when deciding which car to buy. This creates an incentive to buy the car that is …