target zones and interest rate variability abstract for narrow exchange rate bands and for reasonable parameter values the interest rate differential s asymptotic unconditional variability is increasing in the width of the exchange rate band whereas for wide exchange rate bands it is slowly decreasing in the exchange rate band the interest rate differential s instantaneous conditional variability is decreasing in the width of the exchange rate band a narrow target zone differs from a completely fixed exchange rate regime in that the interest rate differential s instantaneous standard deviation is high and even increases when the zone narrows

fixing exchange rates a virtual quest for fundamentals abstract fixed exchange rates are less volatile than floating rates but the volatility of macroeconomic variables such as money and output does not change very much across exchange rate regimes this suggests that exchange rate models based only on macroeconomic fundamentals are unlikely to be very successful it also suggests that there is no clear tradeoff between reduced exchange rate volatility and macroeconomic stability

booms busts and babies health we study the relationship between the unemployment rate at the time of a baby s conception and parental characteristics parental behaviors and babies health babies conceived in times of high unemployment have a reduced incidence of low and very low birth weight fewer congenital malformations and lower post neonatal mortality these health improvements are attributable both to selection changes in the type of mothers that conceive during recessions and to improvements in health behavior during recessions black mothers tend to be higher socio economic status as measured by education and marital status in times of high unemployment whereas white mothers are less educated

detecting potential overbilling in medicare reimbursement via hours worked we propose a novel and easy to implement approach to detect potential overbilling based on the hours worked implied by the service codes which physicians submit to medicare using the medicare part b fee for service ffs physician utilization and payment data in 2012 and 2013 released by the centers for medicare and medicaid services we construct estimates for physicians hours spent on medicare beneficiaries we find that about 2 300 physicians representing about 3 percent of those with 20 or more hours of medicare part b ffs services have billed medicare over 100 hours per week we consider these implausibly long hours

the long term effects of forcible assimilation policy the case of indian boarding schools for decades in north america and australia indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools these schools had the stated goal of cultural assimilation and are perceived as educational failures i offer the first causal evidence on the long run effects of these schools i identify these effects using the interaction of changes in canadian national policy and regional variation in the power of the catholic church i find that the average boarding school had substantial effects on both cultural and economic assimilation however i find suggestive evidence this is not true for highly abusive schools

racial earnings disparities and family structure one explanation for the widening of racial earnings gaps among family heads during the 1980s is that black families were increasingly headed by females during that period this explanation is tested using data on black and white family heads in 1976 and 1985 from the institute for research on poverty s current population survey log earnings equations corrected for selection bias and for the endogeneity of labor force participation are estimated for blacks and whites in 1976 and 1985 if the impact of rising female family headship on labor force participation is ignored one finds support for the family structure explanation but support for alternative explanations is also found there are substantial impacts of within race gender discrimination and of market racial discrimination when the endogeneity of family structure is taken into account further support is found for the view that endowment differences only explain a modest portion of the rising gap in earnings between black and white family heads

employment discrimination in northern ireland and the good friday agreement abstract the paper analyses employment differences between northern ireland s catholics and protestants and examines whether the good friday agreement signed in 1998 was followed by an improvement in the relative position of catholics

the colorblind crowd founder race and performance in crowdfunding the dearth of minority entrepreneurs has received increasing media attention but few academic analyses in particular the funding process creates challenges for either audit or correspondence methods making it difficult to assess the role or type of discrimination influencing resource providers we use a novel approach that combines analyses of 7 617 crowdfunding projects with an experimental design to identify whether african american men are discriminated against and whether this reflects statistical taste based or unconscious bias on the part of prospective supporters we find that african american men are significantly less likely than similar white founders to receive funding and that prospective supporters rate identical projects as lower in quality when they believe the founder is an african american male we conclude that the reduction in perceived quality does not reflect conscious assumptions of differences in founder ability or disamenity but rather an unconscious assumption that black founders are lower quality in two additional experiments we identify three means of reducing this bias through additional evidence of quality via third party endorsements i e awards evidence of prior support through evidence that african american founders have succeeded previously and by removing indicators of the founder s race the online appendix is available at https doi org 10 1287 mnsc 2017 2774 this paper was accepted by toby stuart entrepreneurship and innovation

what went wrong the erosion of relative earnings and employment among young black men in the 1980s this paper shows a widening in black white earnings and employment gaps among young men from the mid 1970s through the 1980s earnings gaps increased most among college graduates and in the midwest while gaps in employment population rates grew most among dropouts we attribute the differential widening to shifts in demand for subgroups due to shifting industry and regional employment the falling real minimum wage and deunionization the growing supply of black to white workers that was marked among college graduates and to increased crime among dropouts the different factors affecting subgroups highlight the economic diversity of black americans

sacrifice and stigma reducing free riding in cults communes and other collectives this paper presents an economic analysis of religious behavior that accounts for the continuing success of groups with strange requirements and seemingly inefficient prohibitions the analysis does not presuppose any special motives for religious activity rather religion is modeled as a club good that displays positive returns to participatory crowding the analysis demonstrates that efficient religions with perfectly rational members may benefit from stigma self sacrifice and bizarre behavioral restrictions the model also addresses sacrifice in nonreligious social clubs fraternities communes political parties work groups and families

racial discrimination in the labor market theory and empirics we review theories of race discrimination in the labor market taste based models can generate wage and unemployment duration differentials when combined with either random or directed search even when strong prejudice is not widespread but no existing model explains the unemployment rate differential models of statistical discrimination based on differential observability of productivity across races can explain the pattern and magnitudes of wage differentials but do not address employment and unemployment at their current state of development models of statistical discrimination based on rational stereotypes have little empirical content it is plausible that models combining elements of the search models with statistical discrimination could fit the data we suggest possible avenues to be pursued and comment briefly on the implication of existing theory for public policy jel j15 j31 j64 j71

recent developments in international finance a guide to research abstract this is a critical evaluation of the state of the art in international finance several points of reference are selected the mundell fleming branson mfp paradigm the monetary model with purchasing power parity ppp as a long run anchor the representative agent approach and the natural real exchange rate natrex model their strengths and weaknesses are identified from both a theoretical and empirical point of view we conclude with a suggestion of what is a fruitful explanation of medium to longer run movements in the real exchange rate and the current account

real and monetary determinants of real exchange rate behavior theory and evidence from developing countries abstract this paper develops a dynamic model of real exchange rate rer behavior in developing countries a three goods economy exportables importables and non tradables is considered residents of this country hold domestic and foreign assets and there is a dual exchange rate regime there is a government that consumes importables and non tradables a distinction is made between equilibrium and disequilibrium movements of the rer the determinants of real exchange rate misalignment are studied with emphasis placed on the role of devaluations and balance of payments crises the implications of the model are tested using data for 12 developing countries the results obtained are generally favorable for the model the issue of rer stationarity is also analyzed

target zones and exchange rates an empirical investigation this paper develops an empirical model of exchange rates in a target zone the distribution of exchange rate changes is conditioned on a latent jump variable where the probability and size of a jump vary over time as a function of financial and macroeconomic variables when there is no jump the target zone is credible and exchange rate changes are constrained to remain within the target zone band the paper revisits the empirical evidence from the european monetary system regarding the conditional distribution of exchange rate changes the credibility of the system and the size of the foreign exchange risk premia in contrast to some previous findings we conclude that the french franc deutschmark rate exhibits considerable nonlinearities realignments are somewhat predictable and the credibility of the system did not increase substantially after 1987 moreover our model implies that the foreign exchange risk premium becomes large during speculative crises

taste based or statistical discrimination the economics of discrimination returns to its roots we briefly review the evolution of empirical work on discrimination we discuss why traditional regression based approaches neither convincingly measure market discrimination nor disentangle the relative importance of animus versus statistical discrimination in explaining such discrimination as exists we describe the development of modern correspondence studies we argue that these studies have the promise to credibly identify the presence of discrimination if not its magnitude can inform us about the underlying mechanism generating discrimination and can also point to avenues for new theoretical and empirical work on discrimination we discuss two articles with exemplary applications of these new methods at least since becker 1957 economists have been deeply interested in the presence of discrimination in markets in the 1970s and into the 1980s there was an active debate in the literature about whether discrimination was better described by becker s taste based discrimination model or by arrow and phelps statistical discrimination model that debate gave way to a theoretical literature that advanced each model separately and to an empirical literature focused on documenting the presence of disparities and the effects of policies designed to counteract discrimination only recently has the literature returned to the question of whether taste based or statistical discrimination is a more appropriate description of the phenomenon the two articles that follow are good examples of the move towards an understanding of the mechanisms underlying discrimination in this article we attempt to place the literature s recent direction into context and to show how it is a natural place for economists studying discrimination to arrive given where we began in the economics of discrimination becker explored ways in which individual tastes for discrimination might interact in a market setting to produce discriminatory outcomes for market participants becker described three models each considering a different source of discriminatory tastes employers co workers and customers the economics of discrimination included deep insights about discrimination becker clarified the distinction between individual tastes for discrimination and market discrimination he clarified the difference between segregation and market discrimination and he showed how the market might produce incentives for those with discriminatory tastes to avoid interaction with those towards whom they harbour animus 1

europe s tired poor huddled masses self selection and economic outcomes in the age of mass migration during the age of mass migration 1850 1913 one of the largest migration episodes in history the united states maintained a nearly open border allowing the study of migrant decisions unhindered by entry restrictions we estimate the return to migration while accounting for migrant selection by comparing norway to us migrants with their brothers who stayed in norway in the late nineteenth century we also compare fathers of migrants and nonmigrants by wealth and occupation we find that the return to migration was relatively low 70 percent and that migrants from urban areas were negatively selected from the sending population keep ancient lands your storied pomp cries she with silent lips give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these the homeless tempest tost to me i lift my lamp beside the golden door emma lazarus 1883

pride and prejudice using ethnic sounding names and inter ethnic marriages to identify labour market discrimination labour markets discriminate against workers with particular ethnic sounding names we use non random sorting into interethnic marriage and salient differences between sephardic and ashkenazi surnames to evaluate the causal impact of sephardic affiliation on wages using the 1995 israeli census we estimate the effect of a sephardic sounding surname on wages we first compare the wages of israeli jewish males born to sephardic fathers and ashkenazi mothers sa who are more likely to carry a sephardic surname with the wages of israeli jewish males born to ashkenazi fathers and sephardic mothers as we find that israeli labor markets discriminate based on perceived ethnicity sa workers earn significantly less than their as counterparts we then exploit the custom of women to adopt their husbands surnames to disentangle actual ethnicity from the ethnicity perceived by the market consistent with ethnic discrimination based on surnames we find that it is father in law s ethnicity rather than father s ethnicity that shapes female wage rates finally we find that labor markets discriminate based on surname only when those names provide additional information about ethnicity when ethnicity can be discerned from skin tone surnames do not provide additional explanatory power with respect to wages

sect subsidy and sacrifice an economist s view of ultra orthodox jews israeli ultra orthodox men study full time in yeshiva until age 40 on average why do fathers with families in poverty choose yeshiva over work draft deferments subsidize yeshiva attendance yet attendance typically continues long after exemption fertility rates are high tfr 7 6 and rising a social interaction approach explains these anomalies yeshiva attendance signals commitment to the community which provides mutual insurance to members prohibitions strengthen communities by effectively taxing real wages inducing high fertility historically the incursion of markets into traditional communities produces ultra orthodoxy subsidies induce dramatic reductions in labor supply and unparalleled increases in fertility illustrating extreme responses social groups may have to interventions

the economic payoff of name americanization we provide the first evidence of the magnitude and consequences of the americanization of migrants names in the early twentieth century we construct a longitudinal data set of naturalization records tracking migrants and their naming choices over time we consistently find that migrants who americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading than those who did not name americanization embodies an intention to assimilate among low skilled migrants and reveals the existence of preferences for american names within the labor market we conclude that the trade off between individual identity and labor market success was present then as it is today

an interpretation of recent research on exchange rate target zones how do exchange rate bands work compared to completely fixed rates between realignments or more precisely what are the dynamics of exchange rates interest rates and central bank interventions within exchange rate bands does the difference between bands and completely fixed exchange rates matter and if so which of the two arrangements is best or more precisely what are the tradeoffs that determine the optimal bandwidth this article will present an interpretation of some selected recent theoretical and empirical research on exchange rate target zones with emphasis on main ideas and results and without technical detail

agricultural commodity production and trade a trade economist s view on filling us food supply gaps abstract deficiencies in the balance of the american diet have been identified which could necessitate changes in agricultural production and trade international trade has played only a small role for the products in deficit fruits vegetables and dairy products but will be critical to future market adjustments the potential to fill food supply gaps via increased imports and from us producers in the future is substantial as seen in recent worldwide trends for these products transportation costs which encouraged self sufficiency in these products in the past have declined the producer bias of agricultural policy has diminished following reforms in the 1992 and 1996 farm bills as well as in the us gatt offer evidence that potential exporters of these products may expand sales to the us and that world supplies can cope with the necessary adjustments is presented whether and how markets adjust will depend more on changes in consumer preferences than on production technology or policy an example of trade in tomato juice is used to show that new trade theory and particularly how firms market their products more so than traditional determinants of comparative advantage will dictate the path of those adjustments

prejudice and wages an empirical assessment of becker s the economics of discrimination we test the predictions from becker s 1957 seminal work on employer prejudice and find that relative black wages a vary negatively with the prejudice of the marginal white in a state b vary negatively with the prejudice in the lower tail of the prejudice distribution but are unaffected by the prejudice of the most prejudiced persons in a state and c vary negatively with the fraction of a state that is black our estimates suggest that one quarter of the racial wage gap is due to prejudice with nontrivial consequences for black lifetime earnings

human capital discrimination and the gender wage gap in bangladesh summary this paper investigates changes in the gender wage gap in bangladesh over the period 1999 2009 the gap in average wages between men and women decreased by 31 over this period this paper shows that a key driver of this change was an improvement in female educational qualifications it also demonstrates that the gender wage gap across the wage distribution narrowed much more at the lower end of the wage distribution than at the upper end it attributes this mainly to a decline in discrimination against women implications for policies aimed at more equal access to education and enforcement of equal pay legislation in bangladesh are also identified

collapsing exchange rate regimes another linear example abstract in the literature on speculative attacks on a fixed exchange rate it is usually assumed that the monetary authority responsible for fixing the rate reacts passively to the monetary disruption caused by the attack this assumption is grossly at odds with actual experience where the monetary base implications of the attacks are usually sterilized such sterilization means that the attack is no longer exclusively a monetary event and requires that the standard attack model be broadened to include the effects of sterilization on other markets these issues are motivated by reference to the december 1994 collapse of the mexican peso

an economic approach to social capital a standard optimal investment model can be used to analyse an individual s decision to accumulate social capital we analyse six facts that support the predictions of this individual based approach 1 social capital first rises and then falls with age 2 social capital declines with expected mobility 3 social capital rises in occupations with greater returns to social skills 4 social capital is higher among homeowners 5 social connections fall sharply with physical distance 6 people who invest in human capital also invest in social capital we fail to find robust evidence that social capital investments fall with the value of time or that geographic religious groups generate social capital complementarities

stochastic optimal control international finance and debt abstract we use stochastic optimal control dynamic programming dp to derive the optimal debt net worth consumption net worth current account net worth and endogenous growth rate in an economy which could be a country region or sector within a country unlike the literature that uses an intertemporal budget constraint or the maximum principle the dp approach does not require perfect foresight or certainty equivalence our results are generalizations of the merton model and are explained graphically within a mean variance context two examples are provided to illustrate the usefulness of our technique in predicting debt crises

the real exchange rate abstract this essay concerns the real value of the u s relative to the g 10 i what are the dynamics of the fundamental determinants of the real exchange rate and its steady state value ii to what extent are the observed movements in the exchange rate from 1973 to 1988 due to the fundamentals iii how integrated are international capital markets iv how does the real exchange rate respond to a changes in the cyclically adjusted government budget deficit and to b changes in the marginal efficiency of investment

trucking deregulation and the black white wage gap the only previous study of the effect of product market deregulation on the black white wage gap found that this gap in the trucking industry declined after trucking deregulation in 1978 that study did not however estimate the separate effects of deregulation on union and nonunion members or on black and white drivers this study does so through an analysis of individual worker information from the march and may cps files for the years 1973 through 1988 the authors find that deregulation is associated with significantly declining black white wage gaps among both union and nonunion drivers this wage pattern is attributable to significant reductions in the real wages of white drivers the real wages of black drivers did not change with deregulation

a measure of segregation based on social interactions we develop an index of segregation based on two premises 1 a measure of segregation should disaggregate to the level of individuals and 2 an individual is more segregated the more segregated are the agents with whom she interacts we present an index that satisfies 1 and 2 and that is based on agents social interactions the extent to which blacks interact with blacks whites with whites etc we use the index to measure school and residential segregation using detailed data on friendship networks we calculate levels of within school racial segregation in a sample of u s schools we also calculate residential segregation across major u s cities using block level data from the 2000 u s census

in the name of the son and the daughter intergenerational mobility in the united states 1850 1940 this paper estimates historical intergenerational elasticities between fathers and children of both sexes in the united states using a novel empirical strategy the key insight of our approach is that the information about socioeconomic status conveyed by first names can be used to create pseudo links across generations we find that both father son and father daughter elasticities were flat during the nineteenth century increased sharply between 1900 and 1920 and declined slightly thereafter we discuss the role of regional disparities in economic development trends in inequality and returns to human capital and the marriage market in explaining these patterns jel d63 j12 j16 j24 j62 n31 n32 the degree to which economic status is passed along generations is key to under standing differences across societies and over time in the extent of inequality a low degree of intergenerational mobility can undermine the notion of equality of opportunity and may lead to persistent inequality recent research reveals that today intergenerational mobility in the united states is lower than in most other developed countries corak 2013 this finding stands in contrast with the national ethos of the united states as the land of unlimited opportunity was this view ever justified in this paper we provide a new perspective on the evolution of intergenerational mobility in the united states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries we extend the existing literature by looking at the intergenerational elasticity in economic status between fathers and children of both sexes focusing only on father son cor relations may miss part of the picture daughters should be included if we want to know how the average well being of a generation correlates with that of their parents

a natural experiment on discrimination in elections abstract we exploit a natural experiment to study discrimination in elections in illinois republican presidential primaries voters vote for delegates bound to presidential candidates but delegates names convey information about their race and gender we identify discrimination from variation in vote totals among delegates bound to the same presidential candidate and who face the same voters examining delegate vote totals from 2000 to 2016 we estimate nonwhite delegates receive 9 fewer votes we find essentially no gender discrimination negligible incentives for statistical discrimination costs to preferred presidential candidates and heterogeneity are consistent with an interpretation of this behavior as taste based

on the blurring of the color line wages and employment for black males of different skin tones abstract we evaluate the role skin color plays in earnings and employment for black males in the nlsy97 by applying a novel scaled measure of skin tone to a nationally representative sample and by estimating the evolution of labor market differentials over time we bridge a burgeoning literature on skin color with more established literatures on wage differentials and labor market discrimination we find that while intraracial wage gaps widen with experience gaps between the lightest skinned black workers and whites remain constant suggesting that a blurring of the color line elicits subtle yet meaningful variation in earnings differentials over time

differential interpretation of public signals and trade in speculative markets most models of trade in speculative markets assume that agents interpret public information identically we provide empirical evidence on the relation between the volume of trade and stock returns around public announcements and we argue that the evidence is inconsistent with this assumption we then develop a model of trade around public announcements that incorporates differential interpretations and is consistent with the observed volume return relation then we test the standard model of belief revision underlying most models of trade using stock brokerage research analysts earnings forecasts the hypthesis of identical interpretations seems inconsistent with the forecast revisions in these data

backlash the unintended effects of language prohibition in u s schools after world war i do forced assimilation policies always succeed in integrating immigrant groups this article examines how a specific assimilation policy language restrictions in elementary school affects integration and identification with the host country later in life after world war i several u s states barred the german language from their schools affected individuals were less likely to volunteer in world war ii and more likely to marry within their ethnic group and to choose decidedly german names for their offspring rather than facilitating the assimilation of immigrant children the policy instigated a backlash heightening the sense of cultural identity among the minority

racial and ethnic differences in wealth in the health and retirement study this paper examines wealth data in the health and retirement study hrs in comparison with asset data in other major surveys the quality of hrs asset data is high missing asset data does remain a problem however to which future hrs analysts must remain sensitive evidence is presented showing that it is no accident that asset data are missing and solutions for imputing missing data are developed finally racial and ethnic wealth disparities are large these minority wealth disparities are due in part to differential inheritances and desired bequests as inequities perpetuate themselves across generations the disparities are also due to lower minority incomes poorer health and an excessively narrow definition of wealth that excludes social security and employer pensions authors

separate and unequal in the labor market human capital and the jim crow wage gap competing explanations for the long standing gap between black and white earnings attribute different weight to wage discrimination and human capital differences using new data on local school quality we find that human capital played a predominant role in determining 1940 wage and occupational status gaps in the south despite entrenched racial discrimination in civic life and the lack of federal employment protections the resulting wage gap coincides with the higher end of the range of estimates from the post civil rights era we estimate that truly separate but equal schools would have reduced wage inequality by 29 48

voting retrospectively critical junctures and party identification abstract this paper provides evidence for retrospective voting in the very long term by exploiting a unique quasi natural experiment of history we trace the origins of party identification to a critical juncture in the local history of sasun a mountainous region of the ottoman empire located in eastern turkey sasun received vital support from the armenian revolutionary federation arf both during the great massacres against armenians at the end of the 19th century and during the armenian genocide 1915 1917 with the help of the arf some of the survivors from sasun were resettled in various villages in modern day armenia although the party was not active in armenia during seven decades of soviet rule we find that villages with sasun ancestry display substantially higher electoral support for the arf than other villages evidence from first names of current residents and our field work suggest that this differential support can at least in part be explained by historical gratitude and sympathy for the party we offer suggestive evidence to explain why this sympathy might have endured over generations

exchange rate theory and practice this volume grew out of a national bureau of economic research conference on exchange rates held in bellagio italy in 1982 in it the world s most respected international monetary economists discuss three significant new views on the economics of exchange rates rudiger dornbusch s overshooting model jacob frenkel s and michael mussa s asset market variants and pentti kouri s current account portfolio approach their papers test these views with evidence from empirical studies and analyze a number of exchange rate policies in use today including those of the european monetary system

an investigation into sexual orientation discrimination as an explanation for wage differences this study explores the effects of sexual orientation on earnings it is found that ceteris paribus men living with male partners tend to earn less than other men and women living with female partners tend to earn more than other women these earnings differentials tend to vary by region they also vary by education and occupation for men and with the presence of minor children for women in addition the age earnings profiles of women living with female partners tend to be higher flatter and less concave than those of other women

the informational content of surnames the evolution of intergenerational mobility and assortative mating we propose a new methodology for measuring intergenerational mobility in economic well being our method is based on the joint distribution of surnames and economic outcomes it circumvents the need for intergenerational panel data a long standing stumbling block for understanding mobility it does so by using cross sectional data alongside a calibrated structural model to recover the traditional intergenerational elasticity measures our main idea is simple if inheritance is important for economic outcomes then rare surnames should predict economic outcomes in the cross section this is because rare surnames are indicative of familial linkages if the number of rare surnames is small this approach will not work however rare surnames are abundant in the highly skewed nature of surname distributions from most western societies we develop a model that articulates this idea and shows that the more important is inheritance the more informative will be surnames this result is robust to a variety of different assumptions about fertility and mating we apply our method using the 2001 census from catalonia a large region of spain we use educational attainment as a proxy for overall economic well being a calibration exercise results in an estimate of the intergenerational correlation of educational attainment of 0 60 we also find evidence suggesting that mobility has decreased among the different generations of the 20th century a complementary analysis based on sibling correlations confirms our results and provides a robustness check on our method our model and our data allow us to examine one possible explanation for the observed decrease in mobility we find that the degree of assortative mating has increased over time overall we argue that our method has promise because it can tap the vast mines of census data that are available in a heretofore unexploited manner

the causes and consequences of distinctively black names in the 1960s blacks and whites chose relatively similar first names for their children over a short period of time in the early 1970s that pattern changed dramatically with most blacks particularly those living in racially isolated neighborhoods adopting increasingly distinctive names but a subset of blacks actually moving toward more assimilating names the patterns in the data appear most consistent with a model in which the rise of the black power movement influenced how blacks perceived their identities among blacks born in the last two decades names provide a strong signal of socioeconomic status which was not previously the case we find however no negative relationship between having a distinctively black name and later life outcomes after controlling for a child s circumstances at birth

nutrient elasticities in a complete food demand system this study explores the linkage of the determinants of food choice with consumer nutrient availability by developing a procedure to measure changes in nutrient availability as the demand for food items change it uses demand elasticities from traditional demand analysis to estimate elasticities of changes in the nutritional content of consumer diets the procedure is applied to estimate nutrient elasticities for fifteen nutrients in response to changes in thirty five food prices and per capita income

misalignment of the baht and its trade balance consequences for thailand in the 1980s and 1990s this paper examines thailand s pre crisis exchange rate policy focusing on the degree of the country s real exchange rate misalignment pre crisis and its consequent effects on thailand s trade balance with its two large trading partners the us and japan in the 1980s and 1990s defining misalignment as the difference between actual and equilibrium exchange rates we estimate three key equilibrium exchange rates of the thai baht a the real effective equilibrium exchange rate of the thai baht against its twenty two major trading partners b the bilateral real equilibrium exchange rates of the baht against the us dollar and c the bilateral real equilibrium exchange rate of the baht against the japanese yen

economics and identity this paper considers how identity a person s sense of self affects economic outcomes we incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity into an economic model of behavior in the utility function we propose identity is associated with different social categories and how people in these categories should behave we then construct a simple game theoretic model showing how identity can affect individual interactions the paper adapts these models to gender discrimination in the workplace the economics of poverty and social exclusion and the household division of labor in each case the inclusion of identity substantively changes conclusions of previous economic analysis

the effect on black white wage differences of differences in the quantity and quality of education using data from the national longitudinal survey of youth for the years 1979 88 the author examines the extent to which black white differences in educational attainment educational quality and unmeasured individual ability can explain black white wage differences an analysis that corrects for both selectivity and ability biases inherent in estimating the education wage relationship shows that the main source of the black white wage differential is the racial difference in the quality rather than quantity of schooling in fact the author concludes closing the racial gap in the basic skills learned in school could reduce the wage differential by two thirds

ban the box criminal records and racial discrimination a field experiment ban the box btb policies restrict employers from asking about applicants criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men who disproportionately have criminal records however withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging racial discrimination employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant s race to investigate btb s effects we sent approximately 15 000 online job applications on behalf of fictitious young male applicants to employers in new jersey and new york city before and after the adoption of btb policies these applications varied whether the applicant had a distinctly black or distinctly white name and the felony conviction status of the applicant we confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment employers that asked about criminal records were 63 more likely to call applicants with no record however our results support the concern that btb policies encourage racial discrimination the black white gap in callbacks grew dramatically at companies that removed the box after the policy went into effect before btb white applicants to employers with the box received 7 more callbacks than similar black applicants but btb increased this gap to 43 we believe that the best interpretation of these results is that employers are relying on exaggerated impressions of real world racial differences in felony conviction rates

business cycles and the exchange rate system some international evidence this paper investigates the differences in time series behavior of key economic aggregates under alternative exchange rate systems we use a postwar sample of 49 countries to compare the behavior of output consumption trade flows government consumption spending and real exchange rates under alternative exchange rate systems pegged floating and cooperative systems such as the ems we then examine evidence from two particular episodes involving canada and ireland of changes in the exchange rate system aside from greater variability of real exchange rates under flexible than under pegged nominal exchange rate systems we find little evidence of systematic differences in the behavior of macroeconomic aggregates or international trade flows under alternative exchange rate systems these results are of interest because a large class of theoretical models implies that the nominal exchange rate system has important effects on a number of macroeconomic quantities

estimation of semiparametric censored regression models an application to changes in black white earnings inequality during the 1960s building on the work of chay 1995 this study examines the impact of civil rights policies on black economic progress using individual level panel data many earnings records are censored and the degree of censoring changed during the period of interest consequently valid estimates of the program effects must account for this censoring maximum likelihood estimation can be used if the error terms of the model are identically normally distributed we investigate the value of using weaker assumptions on the error process to estimate the laws impact the analysis shows that there was significant black white earnings convergence in the south during the 1960s we also find that semiparametric estimation methods are informative in pinpointing which parts of the model are mis specified

economic inequality new methods for new trends two positions dominate the debate over the recent increases in economic inequality in the united states the job skill mismatch thesis attributes rising inequality to growth in the number of high skill high wage jobs that leaves less skilled workers behind the polarization thesis in contrast argues that the service shift generates growth in the number of both high wage and low wage jobs and declines in the middle standard summary measures of distributional inequality cannot discriminate between these depictions of where job growth is occurring we propose new methods for measurement that provide both summary and detailed information about the distributional shifts in earnings and aframework for statistical inference using data from the curent population survey cps on yearly earnings from 1967 to 1987 we show that the trends in distributional inequality vary considerably by race gender and time while the evidence provides more support for the polarization argument this thesis needs refinement if it is to account for the variations in changing inequality observed here

identity economics 2016 where do social distinctions and norms come from abstract identity economics provides a framework to analyze economic outcomes by establishing people s identities not just pecuniary incentives as primary motivations for choice the heart of the framework is social difference and norms this paper engages the emerging economic research into sources of divisions and norms individuals families schools governments and social movements the task at hand is to further to develop the micro foundations of identity in order to build a socially framed understandings of human motivation that will yield more robust accounts of behavior and institutions and yet better predictions of the implications of policy

the impact of the great migration on mortality of african americans evidence from the deep south the great migration the massive migration of african americans out of the rural south to largely urban locations in the north midwest and west was a landmark event in u s our paper shows that this migration increased mortality of african americans born in the early twentieth century south this inference comes from an analysis that uses proximity of birthplace to railroad lines as an instrument for migration

nominal exchange rate regimes and the real exchange rate abstract two assumptions about the real exchange rate are common in the literature on international finance 1 the real exchange rate is a random walk 2 the time series properties of the real exchange rate depend on the nominal exchange rate regime this paper presents evidence that indicates that the random walk behavior of the real exchange rate is only a characteristic of the post world war ii period moreover our findings also suggest that what is crucial to the real exchange rate behavior is the particular historical period rather than the nominal exchange rate arrangement

the strength of a weak agency enforcement of title vii of the 1964 civil rights act and the expansion of state capacity 1965 1971 this article analyzes the anomalous case of early title vii enforcement to challenge the standard political institutional pi account of state capacity title vii prohibited employment discrimination but the equal employment opportunity commission was granted scant enforcement resources yet the early eeoc aggressively enforced and developed title vii to solve the anomaly the authors integrate insights from the literatures on social movements and the sociology of law in the absence of conventional administrative resources apparently weak state agencies can expand their capacity through the legal strategy of broad statutory construction this strategy is more likely with the presence of social movement pressure from below the authors argue that state capacity is a moving target with state and societal actors building on legal as well as administrative resources to construct and transform capacity by reconceptualizing state capacity the authors contribute to nuanced explanations of state policy

understanding black white wage differentials 1960 1990 understanding black white wage differentials 1960 1990 author s james j heckman thomas m lyons petra e todd source the american economic review vol 90 no 2 papers and proceedings of the one hundred twelfth annual meeting of the american economic association may 2000 pp 344 349 published by american economic association stable url http www jstor org stable 117248 accessed 16 08 2008 00 56

ethnic discrimination in hiring labour market tightness and the business cycle evidence from field experiments several studies using observational data suggest that ethnic discrimination increases in downturns of the economy we investigate whether ethnic discrimination depends on labour market tightness us

women and power unpopular unwilling or held back we use spain s equality law to test for the existence of agency problems between party leaders and their constituents the law mandates a 40 percent female quota on electoral lists in towns with populations above 5 000 using pre and postquota data by party and municipality we implement a triple difference design we find that female quotas resulted in slightly better electoral results for the parties that were most affected by the quota our evidence shows that party leaders were not maximizing electoral results prior to the quota suggesting the existence of agency problems that hinder female representation in political institutions

renouncing personal names an empirical examination of surname change and earnings we study the effects of surname change to swedish sounding or neutral names on earnings for immigrants from asian african slavic countries to estimate this effect we exploit the variation resulting from different timing of name changes across individuals during the 1990s the results imply that there is a substantial increase in annual earnings after a name change no effects on earnings prior to a name change and no positive general effects of a new name for other groups that renounced a foreign name based on these findings we argue that these effects are due to name change as a response to discrimination

how can the us food system deliver food products consistent with the dietary guidelines abstract for consumers diets to conform to the recommendations outlined by the food guide pyramid fgp the consumption of fat and sugar would have to decline and fruits and diary products would need to increase this study analyzed the impact of changing the prices of aggregate food groups as designated in the food guide pyramid on the number of servings that would be eaten using the results of this analysis the subsequent impact on the healthy eating index hei score was determined a series of calculations involving existing price and income elasticities and linkages between these elasticities and servings of food in the food guide pyramid were employed this study found that lowering the price of fruits meats and dairy products would result in food consumption that more closely conforms to the fgp servings recommendations but the changes are small and hei scores would not improve lowering the price of meat increases consumption of all foods except added sugars since lower meat prices frees up income to spend on other food the downside of increasing meat consumption is that it also increases the consumption of discretionary fat more than it increases the consumption of fruits and vegetables or grains fat prices would have to be increased 15 to achieve a 1 decrease in fat consumption which would raise the hei score public policy to promote healthful diets involves more than changing food prices or household income information and education about diet and health links are critical

exposure to foreign media and changes in cultural traits evidence from naming patterns in france abstract free trade in audio visual services has faced opposition on the grounds that foreign media undermine domestic culture and ultimately global diversity using a long panel of french birth registries we assess the media culture link using name frequencies as a measure of tastes controlling for the number of people who currently have a name and unobserved name effects our regressions show that media influences choices via selective imitation parents are much more likely to adopt media names that they associate with youth using estimated parameters we simulate our model of name choice to reveal that absent foreign media fewer than 5 of french babies would have been named differently our simulations also suggest a positive effect of foreign media on the welfare of parents

on the mean reverting properties of target zone exchange rates one key prediction of the target zone model is that the exchange rate should be mean reverting within the band although this property is widely referred to in the target zone literature little work has been done to test it in this paper we seek to remedy this important lacuna in the literature by examining the time series properties of the seven currencies participating in the exchange rate mechanism erm of the european monetary system for the period 13 march 1979 to 9 april 1992 using standard univariate unit root tests we find little evidence of mean reversion however using variance ratio test statistics which control for heterogeneity in the distribution of exchange rate behaviour we find much more evidence of mean reversion another part of our work includes implementing a panel unit root test

poverty in eastern europe in the years of crisis 1978 to 1987 poland hungary and yugoslavia eastern europe experienced an economic crisis between 1978 and 1987 declining income led to substantial increases in poverty rates in poland and yugoslavia while poverty in hungary remained at about the same level as before the crisis in all three countries urban poverty increased as the economic condition of state sector workers deteriorated to a much greater extent than that of agricultural and mixed households the increased poverty was entirely explained by declining income because the overall income distribution did not change or in some cases improved

attention discrimination theory and field experiments with monitoring information acquisition we link two important ideas attention is scarce and lack of information about an individual drives discrimination in selection decisions our model of allocation of costly attention implies that applicants from negatively stereotyped groups face attention discrimination less attention in highly selective cherry picking markets where more attention helps applicants and more attention in lemon dropping markets where it harms them to test the prediction we integrate tools to monitor information acquisition into correspondence field experiments in both countries we study we find that unfavorable signals minority names or unemployment systematically reduce employers efforts to inspect resumes also consistent with the model in the rental housing market which is much less selective than labor markets we find landlords acquire more information about minority relative to majority applicants we discuss implications of endogenous attention for magnitude and persistence of discrimination in selection decisions returns to human capital and potentially for policy