Today in NBER Working Papers: What Looks Good
Elizabeth Ananat, Anna Gassman-Pines, Christina M. Gibson-Davis - “Community-Wide Job Losses and Teenage Fertility” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w19003)
Costas Meghir, Mårten Palme, Emilia Simeonova - “Education, Cognition, and Health: Evidence from a Social Experiment” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w19002)
James Andreoni, A. Abigail Payne, Sarah Smith - “Do Grants to Charities Crowd Out Other Income? Evidence from the UK” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18998)
Betsey Stevenson, Justin Wolfers - “Subjective Well-Being and Income: Is There Any Evidence of Satiation?” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18992)
Chad Kendall, Tommaso Nannicini, Francesco Trebbi - “How Do Voters Respond to Information? Evidence from a Randomized Campaign” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18986)
A Few Days Ago in NBER Working Papers: What Looks Good
Fatih Guvenen, Michelle Rendall - “Women’s Emancipation Through Education: A Macroeconomic Analysis” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18979)
Edward L. Glaeser, Cass R. Sunstein - “Why Does Balanced News Produce Unbalanced Views?” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18975)
Annamaria Lusardi, Carlo de Bassa Scheresberg - “Financial Literacy and High-Cost Borrowing in the United States” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18969)
Abstract of the Day
Sandra E. Black, Paul J. Devereux, Kjell G. Salvanes - “The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children’s Education” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2005)
There is an extensive theoretical literature that postulates a trade-off between child quantity and quality within a family. However, there is little causal evidence that speaks to this theory. Using a rich data set on the entire population of Norway over an extended period of time, we examine the effects of family size and birth order on the educational attainment of children. We find a negative correlation between family size and children’s education, but when we include indicators for birth order or use twin births as an instrument, family size effects become negligible. In addition, higher birth order has a significant and large negative effect on children’s education. We also study adult earnings, employment, and teenage childbearing and find strong evidence for birth order effects with these outcomes, particularly among women. These findings suggest the need to revisit economic models of fertility and child “production,” focusing not only on differences across families but differences within families as well.
(Source: econ.ucla.edu)
Abstract of the Day
Betsey Stevenson, Justin Wolfers - “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2009)
The lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years by many objective measures, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. This decline in relative well- being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well- being, demographic groups, and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging—one with higher subjective well-being for men.
(Source: isites.harvard.edu)
Yesterday in NBER Working Papers: What Looks Good
David Neumark, Diego Grijalva - “The Employment Effects of State Hiring Credits During and After the Great Recession” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18928)
Daniel J. Benjamin, Ori Heffetz, Miles S. Kimball, Alex Rees-Jones - “Can Marginal Rates of Substitution Be Inferred from Happiness Data? Evidence from Residency Choices” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18927)
Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson - “Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18921)
Today in NBER Working Papers: What Looks Good
Betsey Stevenson, Justin Wolfers - “Subjective and Objective Indicators of Racial Progress” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18916)
Gopi Shah Goda, Damon Jones, Colleen Flaherty Manchester - “Retirement Plan Type and Employee Mobility: The Role of Selection and Incentive Effects” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18902”
Sanders Korenman, Dahlia Remler - “Rethinking Elderly Poverty: Time for a Health Inclusive Poverty Measure?” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18900)
Today in NBER Working Papers: What Looks Good
Lisa Barrow, Amy Claessens, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach - “The Impact of Chicago’s Small High School Initiative” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18889)
Hope Corman, Dhaval M. Dave, Nancy E. Reichman - “Effects of Welfare Reform on Women’s Crime” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18887)
Henrik Jacobsen Kleven, Camille Landais, Emmanuel Saez, Esben Anton Schultz - “Migration and Wage Effects of Taxing Top Earners: Evidence from the Foreigners’ Tax Scheme in Denmark” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18885)
Abstract of the Day
Peter Capelli, Keith Chauvin - “An Interplant Test of the Efficiency Wage Hypothesis” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1991)
The analysis that follows tests the shirking model of efficiency wages by examining the relationship between rates of employee discipline and relative wage premiums across plants within the same firm. The structure of this data set controls for many of the problems that confound other tests of efficiency wage arguments, and the results suggest that greater wage premiums are associated with lower levels of shirking as measured by disciplinary dismissals. Shirking and discipline are also lower where conditions in the labor market raise the costs associated with shirking by making it more difficult to find alternative employment. It is less clear, however, whether the wage in this case is necessarily efficient in the sense of generating reductions in discipline sufficient to offset the costs of the wage premium.
(Source: uh.edu)
Abstract of the Day
David Albouy - “Are Big Cities Bad Places to Live? Estimating Quality of Life across Metropolitan Areas” (NBER Working Paper No. 14472)
The standard revealed-preference estimate of a city’s quality of life is proportional to that city’s cost-of-living relative to its wage-level. Adjusting estimates to account for federal taxes, non-housing costs, and non-labor income produces more plausible quality-of-life estimates than in the previous literature. Unlike previous estimates, adjusted quality-of-life measures successfully predict how housing costs rise with wage levels, are positively correlated with popular “livability” rankings and stated preferences, and do not decrease with city size. Mild seasons, sunshine, hills, and coastal proximity account for most inter-metropolitan quality-of-life differences. Amendments to quality-of-life measures for labor-market disequilibrium and household heterogeneity provide additional insights.
(Source: nber.org)
