Labor Economics Commons^™

A Labor Market Unleashed: College Football Labor Substitution In The Transfer Portal Era, Adrian M. Simion, Jeremy M. Losak, Catalina Bush

Sport Management - All Scholarship

College football's labor market has been transformed by litigation-driven regulatory change eliminating long-standing mobility restrictions. Central to this transformation is a new roster construction dilemma — whether to acquire experienced collegiate talent through the transfer portal or invest in traditional high school recruiting. Using a fixed effects panel of 127 Football Bowl Subdivision programs across six recruiting cycles (2019–2024), we examine whether schools substitute transfers for high school recruits. Three findings emerge. First, portal activity is associated with reduced three-star recruiting but no relationship with four-star or five-star prospects, with substitution driven by quantity rather than quality. Second, substitution is …

Immigration Enforcement And Origin Country Labor Markets, Thomas Pearson

Center for Policy Research

This paper studies how increased immigration enforcement in the destination country impacts labor markets in the origin country. Using variation in Mexican migrant networks and Secure Communities (SC), a policy which expanded local immigration enforcement, I show that the deportation of Mexican migrants from the U.S. increases return migration to Mexico and decreases monthly earnings for workers in Mexico. The negative earnings effects are largest for workers most similar to return migrants in terms of their demographics, occupations, and employment types, and are consistent with increased labor market competition.

Nba Player Types And Salaries: Assessing The Disparities In Pay, Nick Riccardi, Rodney J. Paul

Sport Management - All Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to identify player types that exist in the modern National Basketball Association (NBA), test whether player types are paid differently controlling for performance and other factors and construct successful rosters with cheaper payrolls.
We collected performance statistics and salary data for players and teams across five seasons (2018-19 to 2022-23). Cluster analysis is leveraged to group together player-seasons to identify the player types that exist in the NBA. Linear regression models are run to test for differences in pay by cluster membership while controlling for performance, age, and contractual details. Linear programming simulation models …

Family Ties: Nba Draft Position And Player Performance, Nick Riccardi, Rodney J. Paul

Sport Management - All Scholarship

This study aims to investigate the role, if any, that nepotism plays in the careers of players in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Career performance is compared between the 780 players drafted from 2007-2019 with familial relationships considered. Ordinary Least Squares and logistic regression models are specified to estimate the effect of having a relative on the success of an NBA player’s career. We find that siblings of NBA players earn more and reach minimum games played thresholds more often, while sons of NBA players earn more, but generally do not reach games played thresholds more often than similarly-drafted peers.

Three Essays On Partial Identification For Applied Health Economics, Giuseppe Germinario

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation consists of three chapters which explore the usefulness of partial identification methods for estimating treatment effects in applied health economics research. Each one applies the methodology to different settings in which establishing causality has traditionally been difficult, and seeks to demonstrate when a bounding approach can—and cannot—aid researchers in learning about causal relationships.The first chapter studies the Housing Choice Voucher program in the United States and estimates bounds on the effect that receiving this form of housing assistance has on self-reported health status and the likelihood of hospitalization within the eligible population of renters. The second chapter aims …

Essays On Population And Housing Market In South Korea, Dahae Choo

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies important social topics in South Korea. The first two chapters evaluate the effects of a pronatalist policy introduced by local governments in South Korea, a country with one of the lowest fertility rates worldwide. In the first chapter, possible selection into marriage is highlighted considering the low out-of-wedlock births in the country. Also, the policy effects are examined in two different dimensions: changes in the probability of having a child and the time-to-child delivery. The second chapter estimates two important key variables to address the effectiveness of this program. First is the unconditional distribution of the reservation …

Essays On Population And Housing Market In South Korea, Dahae Choo

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies important social topics in South Korea. The first two chapters evaluate the effects of a pronatalist policy introduced by local governments in South Korea, a country with one of the lowest fertility rates worldwide. In the first chapter, possible selection into marriage is highlighted considering the low out-of-wedlock births in the country. Also, the policy effects are examined in two different dimensions: changes in the probability of having a child and the time-to-child delivery. The second chapter estimates two important key variables to address the effectiveness of this program. First is the unconditional distribution of the reservation …

Having A Disability Reduces Chances Of Employment For All Racial/Ethnic Groups, Jennifer D. Brooks

Population Health Research Brief Series

Regardless of race, adults with disabilities are less likely to be employed than those without disabilities. This data slice explains how race-ethnicity affects employment rates among adults with and without disabilities.

Income Inequality And Its Effect On Work-Related Fatalities, Luke Chadwick

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

While many papers have examined the effect of income inequality on a range of health outcomes, few have examined data on workplace fatalities. This study compiles data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Gini coefficient estimates for each of the U.S. states from 2008-2015 to estimate the effect of income inequality on workplace fatality rates using multiple regression models. The resulting estimates are partially significant; however, they do not conclusively demonstrate a causal relationship between income inequality and workplace fatalities due to biases and other factors.

Network Effects On Labor Contracts Of Internal Migrants In China- A Spatial Autoregressive Model, Badi H. Baltagi, Ying Deng, Xiangjun Ma

Center for Policy Research

This paper studies the fact that 37 percent of the internal migrants in China do not sign a labor contract with their employers, as revealed in a nationwide survey. These contract-free jobs pay lower hourly wages, require longer weekly work hours, and provide less insurance or on-the-job training than regular jobs with contracts. We find that the co-villager networks play an important role in a migrant’s decision on whether to accept such insecure and irregular jobs. By employing a comprehensive nationwide survey in 2011 in the spatial autoregressive logit model, we show that the common behavior of not signing contracts …

Labor Unions And Occupational Safety: Event-Study Analysis Using Union Elections, Ling Li, Shawn Rohlin, Perry Singleton

Center for Policy Research

This study examines the dynamic relationship between union elections and occupational safety among manufacturing establishments. Data on union elections come from the National Labor Relations Board, and data on workplace inspections and accident case rates come from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The results indicate that union elections improved occupational safety. First, workplace inspections trended upwards before the election, then decreased immediately after the election, due almost entirely to employee complaints. Second, accident case rates were relatively stable before the election, then trended downwards after the election, due to accidents involving days away from work, job restrictions, and job …

Firm-Level Productivity Spillovers In China’S Chemical Industry: A Spatial Hausman-Taylor Approach, Peter H. Egger, Badi H. Baltagi, Michaela Kesina

Center for Policy Research

This paper assesses the role of intra-sectoral spillovers in total factor productivity across Chinese producers in the chemical industry. We use a rich panel data-set of 12,552 firms observed over the period 2004-2006 and model output by the firm as a function of skilled and unskilled labor, capital, materials, and total factor productivity, which is broadly defined. The latter is a composite of observable factors such as export market participation, foreign as well as public ownership, the extent of accumulated intangible assets, and unobservable total factor productivity. Despite the richness of our data-set, it suffers from the lack of time …

The Spatial Polish Wage Curve With Gender Effects: Evidence From The Polish Labor Survey, Badi H. Baltagi, Bartlomiej Rokicki

Center for Policy Research

This paper reconsiders the Polish wage curve using individual data from the Polish Labor Force Survey (LFS) at the 16 NUTS2 level allowing for spatial spillovers between regions. In addition it estimates the total and gender-specific regional unemployment rate elasticities on individual wages. The paper finds significant spatial unemployment spillovers across Polish regions. In addition, it finds that the results for the Polish wage curve are sensitive to gender-specific regional unemployment rates. This is especially true for women.

Endogenous Network Production Functions With Selectivity, William C. Horrace, Xiaodong Liu, Eleonora Patacchini

Center for Policy Research

We consider a production function model that transforms worker inputs into outputs through peer effect networks. The distinguishing features of this production model are that the network is formal and observable through worker scheduling, and selection into the network is done by a manager. We discuss identification and suggest a variety of estimation techniques. In particular, we tackle endogeneity issues arising from selection into groups and exposure to common group factors by employing a polychotomous Heckman-type selection correction. We illustrate our method using data from the Syracuse University Men’s Basketball team, where at any point in time the coach selects …

Identifying The Effect Of Unemployment On Hate Crime, Alex Curthoys

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Hate crimes are those crimes that are motivated by bias against groups different from the perpetrator. They are especially contemptible offenses in that they, like terrorism, negatively impact an entire community as well as the victim targeted. While crime has been, and will continue to be, widely studied by economists, the specific area of hate crimes is relatively understudied. To contribute to the understanding of hate crimes, this paper examines whether hate crimes are economically motivated: in particular, whether there is a relationship between the incidence of hate crimes and the unemployment. Comprehending this link can help build the knowledge …

Labor Market Assimilation: Evidence From Hurricane Katrina Evacuees, Joseph Batista Andrade Iv

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The objective of this paper is to use the mass migration toHoustonafter Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment to estimate the effect of migration on employment (i.e., the effects of being an outsider rather than a native to a certain area). The use of this natural experiment helps control for the usual endogeneity of studying effects of immigration; it is safe to assume away the possibility that the migration was mainly because of higher wages or better employment opportunities, a possibility present in most empirical studies on the subject, which makes it hard to say how the actual migration itself …

Research Brief: "How Are Iraq/Afghanistan-Era Veterans Faring In The Labor Market?", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

In this study, researchers found significant differences in employment among recently returned veterans based on age, health, and service era. The Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans, ages 18-24, were more likely to have higher earnings if employed, while older veterans, ages 37-64, had higher odds of unemployment. In practice, veterans may be experiencing an employment divide in which those who can find work command high wages, while others are not able to find work at all. In policy, policymakers may wish to revisit these issues by increasing the availability of programs and services for older veterans and those from previous eras who are …

The Effects Of Foreign Direct Investment On Sovereign Debt Sustainability In Latin America, Oriana I. Fuentes

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Sovereign debt has been a central political issue in Latin American nations for many years, especially considering the region’s long history of defaults and restructurings. Finding ways to grow sustainably at manageable levels of indebtedness has certainly been a challenge, especially with the large number of factors that play into how a nation finances itself and its growth. One of these factors, foreign direct investment (FDI), has attracted significant attention after countries became more politically stable and protective of investor interests in the early 1990s. As a result, inflows of FDI have grown at record levels reaching over $112 billion …

Social Interactions In The Labor Market, Andrew Grodner, Thomas J. Kniesner, John A. Bishop

Center for Policy Research

We examine theoretically and empirically social interactions in labor markets and how policy prescriptions can change dramatically when there are social interactions present.

Spillover effects increase labor supply and conformity effects make labor supply perfectly inelastic at a reference group average. The demand for a good may also be influenced by either a spillover effect or a conformity effect. Positive spillover increases the demand for the good with interactions, and a conformity effect makes the demand curve pivot to become less price sensitive. Similar social interactions effects appear in the associated derived demands for labor.

Individual and community factors may …

New Evidence On The Dynamic Wage Curve For Western Germany: 1980-2004, Badi H. Baltagi, Uwe Blien, Katja Wolf

Center for Policy Research

Blanchflower and Oswald (1994) reported that they have found an 'empirical law of economics'--the Wage Curve. Our paper reconsiders the western German Wage Curve using disaggregated regional data and is based on almost one million employees drawn from the Federal Employment Services of Germany over the period 1980-2004. We find that the wage equation is highly autoregressive but far from unit root. The unemployment elasticity is significant but relatively small: only between -0.02 and -0.04. We also check the sensitivity of this elasticity for different population groups (young versus old, men versus women, less educated versus highly educated, German native …

Labor Supply With Social Interactions: Econometric Estimates And Their Tax Policy Implications, Andrew Grodner, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

Our research fleshes out econometric details of examining possible social interactions in labor supply. We look for a response of a person's hours worked to hours worked in the labor market reference group, which includes those with similar age, family structure, and location. We identify endogenous spillovers by instrumenting average hours worked in the reference group with hours worked in neighboring reference groups. Estimates of the canonical labor supply model indicate positive economically important spillovers for adult men. The estimated total wage elasticity of labor supply is 0.22, where 0.08 is the exogenous wage change effect and 0.14 is the …

Pinning Down The Value Of Statistical Life, Thomas J. Kniesner, W. Kip Viscusi, Christopher Woock, James P. Ziliak

Center for Policy Research

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 statistical life …

Social Interactions In Labor Supply, Andrew Grodner, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

Our research examines the effect of interdependence on estimation and interpretation of earnings/labor supply equations. We consider the cases of (1) a positive spillover from others’ labor supplied and (2) a need for conformity with others’ labor supplied. Qualitative and quantitative comparative statics results with a Stone-Geary utility function demonstrate how spillover effects increase labor supply uniformly. Alternatively, conformity effects move labor supplied toward the mean of the reference group so that, in the limit, labor supply becomes perfectly inelastic at the reference group average. When there are un-modeled exogenous social interactions, conventional wage elasticities are still relatively well estimated …

Labor Supply With Social Interactions: Econometric Estimates And Their Tax Policy Implications, Andrew Grodner, Thomas Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

Our research fleshes out econometric details of examining possible social interactions in labor supply. We look for a response of a person's hours worked to hours worked in the labor market reference group, which includes those with similar age, family structure, and location. We identify endogenous spillovers by instrumenting average hours worked in the reference group with hours worked in neighboring reference groups. Estimates of the canonical labor supply model indicate positive economically important spillovers for adult men. The estimated total wage elasticity of labor supply is 0.22, where 0.08 is the exogenous wage change effect and 0.14 is the …

The Effect Of Income Taxation On Consumption And Labor Supply, James P. Ziliak, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

We estimate the incentive effects of income taxation in a life-cycle model of consumption and labor supply that relaxes the standard assumption of strong separability within periods. Our model permits identification of both within-period preference parameters and lifecycle preference parameters such as the inter-temporal substitution elasticity. Results indicate that consumption and hours worked are direct complements in utility, and both increase with an increase in the after-tax share and with a compensated increase in the net wage. The compensated net wage elasticity is about 0.3, nearly double the standard estimates for men in the United States that ignore within-period non-separability …

Taxes, Deadweight Loss And Intertemporal Female Labor Supply: Evidence From Panel Data, Anil Kumar

Center for Policy Research

Very few existing studies have estimated female labor supply elasticities using a U.S. panel data set, although cross-sectional studies abound. Also, most existing studies have done so in a static framework. I make an attempt to fill the gap in this literature by estimating a lifecycle-consistent specification with taxes, in a limited dependent variable framework, on a panel of married females from the PSID. Both parametric random effects and semi parametric fixed effects methods are applied. I find evidence of larger substitution effects than found in female labor supply literature with taxes, suggesting considerable distortionary effects from income taxation. The …

Data Mining Mining Data: Msha Enforcement Efforts, Underground Coal Mine Safety, And New Health Policy Implications, Thomas J. Kniesner, John D. Leeth

Center for Policy Research

Studies of industrial safety regulations, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in particular, often find little effect on worker safety. Critics of the regulatory approach argue that safety standards have little to do with industrial injuries and defenders of the regulatory approach cite infrequent inspections and low fines for violating safety standards. We use recently assembled data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) concerning underground coal mine production, safety inspections, and workplace injuries to shed new light on the regulatory approach to workplace safety. Because all underground coal mines are inspected at least once per quarter, MSHA regulations …

Agglomeration, Labor Supply, And The Urban Rat Race, Stuart S. Rosenthal, William C. Strange

Center for Policy Research

This paper establishes the existence of a previously overlooked relationship between agglomeration and hours worked. Among non-professionals, hours worked decrease with the density of workers in the same occupation. Among professionals, a positive relationship is found. This relationship is twice as strong for the young as for the middle-aged. Moreover, young professional hours worked are shown to be especially sensitive to the presence of rivals. We show that these patterns are consistent with the selection of hard workers into cities and the high productivity of agglomerated labor. The behavior of young professionals is also consistent with the presence of keen …

Entrepreneurship And Economic Growth: The Proof Is In The Productivity, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Chihwa Kao

Center for Policy Research

Popular and policy discussions have focused extensively on "entrepreneurship." While entrepreneurship is often viewed from the perspective of the individual's benefits--an increase in standard of living, flexibility in hours, and so forth--much of the policy interest derives from the presumption that entrepreneurs provide economy-wide benefits in the form of new products, lower prices, innovations, and increased productivity. How large are these effects? Using a rich panel of state-level data, we quantify the relationship between productivity growth--by state and by industry--and entrepreneurship. Specifically, we use state-of-the-art econometric techniques for panel data to determine whether variations in the birth rate and death …

On The Measurment Of Job Risk In Hedonic Wage Models, Dan Black, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

We examine the incidence, form, and research consequences of measurement error in measure of fatal injury risk in United States workplaces using both BLS and NIOSH data. We find evidence of substantial measurement errors in the fatality risk researchers attach to individual workers when estimating the implicit price of risk and the value of a statistical life. We first examine possible classical attenuation bias in the fatality risk coefficient. However, because we also find non-classical measurement error that differs across multiple risk measures and is not independent of other regressors, more complex statistical procedures than a standard instrumental variables estimator …