Recent ucscecon_rw items

Taking the Leap: The Determinants of Entrepreneurs Hiring their First Employee

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Job creation is one of the most important aspects of entrepreneurship, but we know relatively little about the hiring patterns and decisions of startups. Longitudinal data from the Integrated Longitudinal Business Database (iLBD), Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS), and the Growing America through Entrepreneurship (GATE) experiment are used to provide some of the first evidence in the literature on the determinants of taking the leap from a non-employer to employer firm among startups. Several interesting patterns emerge regarding the dynamics of non-employer startups hiring their first employee. Hiring rates among the universe of non-employer startups are very low, but increase when the population of non-employers is focused on more growth-oriented businesses such as incorporated and EIN businesses. If non-employer startups hire, the bulk of hiring occurs in the first few years of existence. After this point in time relatively few non-employer startups hire an employee. Focusing on more...

Racial Differences in Labor Market Transitions and the Great Recession

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Labor force transitions are empirically examined using CPS data matched across months from 1996-2012 for Hispanics, African-Americans and whites. Transition probabilities are contrasted prior to the Great Recession and afterwards. Estimates indicate that minorities are more likely to be fired as business cycle conditions worsen. Estimates also show that minorities are usually more likely to be hired when business cycle conditions are weak. During the Great Recession, the odds of losing a job increased for minorities although cyclical sensitivity of the transition declined. Odds of becoming re-employed declined dramatically for blacks, by 2-4 percent, while the probability was unchanged for Hispanics.

Heterogeneous Patterns of Financial Development:Implications for Asian Financial Integration

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This paper analyzes detailed differences in patterns of financial development across the major Asian economies, including three of the region’s largest economies (China, Japan and South Korea), to understand how these differences might affect possibilities for greater regional financial integration. In particular, the paper argues that heterogeneous patterns of financial development, and not just differences in levels of financial development, may present an economic challenge to regional financial integration efforts, aside from possible political challenges. The paper provides background on the case for financial openness, Asian experiences with financial integration, and regional economic responses to external shocks. It also discusses policy options, including regulatory reform and coordination, and possible risk management policies and institutions, in the context of heterogeneous patterns of financial development.

Immigration and Entrepreneurship

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A growing body of research on immigrant entrepreneurship has developed over the past several years. In this chapter we provide an overview of the economics literature with respect to some of the most fundamental immigrant entrepreneurship issues as well as the empirical methods and data used. We review this literature through the lens of estimating the net contribution made by immigrant entrepreneurs to the host economy. Immigration is a very hotly debated topic because of the contrasting concerns over lowering wages for existing workers, increasingly public assistance rolls, security and changing the demographic makeup of host countries, and the need for less- and high-skilled workers, supporting an aging population, insourcing instead of outsourcing labor, and family reunification. Central to the debate is whether immigrants provide a net positive or net negative contribution to host economy. Partly fueled by this debate, an extremely large literature in economics examines the...

The Kauffman Index: Startup Activity | National Trends

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The Kauffman Index: Startup Activity is a novel early indicator of new business creation in the United States, integrating several high-quality sources of timely entrepreneurship information into one composite indicator of startup activity. The Index captures business activity in all industries, and is based on both a nationally representative sample size of more than a half million observations each year and on the universe of all employer businesses in the United States. This allows us to look at both entrepreneurs and the startups they create. Broad-based entrepreneurship in America appears to be slowly crawling its way out of the depths it has been stuck in since 2010. Startup activity rose in 2015, reversing a five-year downward trend in the United States, giving rise to hope for a revival of entrepreneurship. However, the return remains tepid and well below historical trends. A principle driver of this year’s uptick is the growth of male opportunity entrepreneurship, accompanied...

Do Boys and Girls Use Computers Differently, and Does It Contribute to Why Boys doWorse in School than Girls?

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Boys are doing worse in school than are girls, which has been dubbed "the Boy Crisis." An analysis of the latest data on educational outcomes among boys and girls reveals extensive disparities in grades, reading and writing test scores, and other measurable educational outcomes, and these disparities exist across family resources and race. Focusing on disadvantaged schoolchildren, I then examine whether time investments made by boys and girls related to computer use contribute to the gender gap in academic achievement. Data from several sources indicate that boys are less likely to use computers for schoolwork and are more likely to use computers for playing games, but are less likely to use computers for social networking and email than are girls. Using data from a large field experiment randomly providing free personal computers to schoolchildren for home use, I also test whether these differential patterns of computer use displace homework time and ultimately translate into...

Punjab’s Agricultural Innovation Challenge

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Fifty years ago, Punjab embarked on its famous Green Revolution, leading the rest of India in that innovation, and becoming the country's breadbasket. Now its economy and society are struggling by relative, and sometimes even absolute, measures. Using the original Green Revolution as a benchmark, this paper discusses five areas of challenge and promise for a new round of agricultural innovation in Punjab. These are: complexity of the agricultural economy, complementary inputs such as infrastructure, switching costs (including risks), balancing frontier innovation and adaptation, and the relative roles of the public and private sectors.

Technology and Education: Computers, Software, and the Internet

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A substantial amount of money is spent on technology by schools, families and policymakers with the hope of improving educational outcomes. This chapter explores the theoretical and empirical literature on the impacts of technology on educational outcomes. The literature focuses on two primary contexts in which technology may be used for educational purposes: i) classroom use in schools, and ii) home use by students. Theoretically, ICT investment and CAI use by schools and the use of computers at home have ambiguous implications for educational achievement: expenditures devoted to technology necessarily offset inputs that may be more or less efficient, and time allocated to using technology may displace traditional classroom instruction and educational activities at home. However, much of the evidence in the schooling literature is based on interventions that provide supplemental funding for technology or additional class time, and thus favor finding positive effects. Nonetheless,...

Breaking the Mold: Thoughts on Punjab’s Future Economic Development

Thu, 5 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The economy of Punjab state in India offers an interesting case study. Punjab has been for decades – and remains – one of India’s better-off states, and so it tends not be included in the primary focus of national programs meant to reduce poverty or spur economic development. But, Punjab’s relative economic position within India has declined rapidly in recent years. This decline has been accompanied by environmental problems and symptoms of deep social malaise. As will be argued in this paper, Punjab is facing a multidimensional crisis that requires urgent attention. This paper provides an overview of Punjab’s crisis, through an analysis of the dynamics of Punjab’s economic development as shaped by its political economy, its social dynamics and exogenous events since independence. It argues that one can understand both Punjab’s success in certain areas of agriculture and its subsequent relative decline in terms of the interaction of these factors. It uses this historical analysis...

Does Schooling Give Us Rational Expectations?

Thu, 14 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Does Schooling Give Us Rational Expectations?

Aggregate Dynamics in a Large Virtual Economy: Prices and Real Activity in Team Fortress 2*

Thu, 9 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Aggregate Dynamics in a Large Virtual Economy: Prices and Real Activity in Team Fortress 2*

Market Failures and Misallocation

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I develop a method to measure and separate the production misallocation caused by failures in factor markets versus financial markets. When I apply the method to rice farming villages in Thailand I find surprisingly little misallocation. Optimal reallocation would increase output in most villages by less than 15 percent. By 2006 most misallocation comes from factor market failures. I derive a decomposition of aggregate growth that accounts for misallocation. Declining misallocation contributes little to growth compared to factor accumulation and rising farm productivity. I use a government credit intervention to test my measures. I confirm that credit causes a statistically significant decrease in only financial market misallocation.

Risky Income or Lumpy Investments? Evidence on Two Theories of Under-Specialization

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Why do the poor have so many economic activities? According to one theory the poor do not specialize because relying on one income source is risky. I test the theory by measuring the response of Thai rice farmers to conditional volatility in the international rice price. Households expecting a harvest take on 1 extra activity when the volatility rises by 21 percent. I confirm the decrease in specialization costs households foregone revenue. I find no evidence to back a second theory in which households under-specialize because they cannot afford lumpy business investments.

Is There "White Flight" into Private Schools? Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Using a recently released confidential dataset from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we find some evidence of "white flight" from public schools into private schools partly in response to minority schoolchildren. We also examine whether "white flight" is from all minorities or only from certain minority groups, delineated by race or income. We find that white families are fleeing public schools with large concentrations of poor minority schoolchildren. In addition, the clearest flight appears to occur from poor black schoolchildren. The results for "white flight" from Asians and Hispanics are less clear.

Does Immigration Induce "Native Flight" from Public Schools into Private Schools?

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The paper tests whether native-born American families respond to inflows of immigrants by sending their children to private school. The analysis uses 1980 and 1990 Census data from 132 metropolitan areas. For primary school students, no significant relation between immigration and private school enrollment is found. For secondary schools, a significant link emerges. For every four immigrants who arrive in public high schools, it is estimated that one native student switches to a private school. White students account for most of this flight. Natives appear to respond mainly to immigrant children who speak a language other than English at home.

Private Schools and "Latino Flight" from Black Schoolchildren

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Several recent studies provide evidence that the choice between private and public school among white students is influenced by the racial composition of the local student population. None of these studies, however, examines whether Latinos are also fleeing to private schools in response to black schoolchildren. I explore the "Latino flight" hypothesis using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) and a recently released confidential dataset from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). In probit regressions for the probability of attending private school among Latinos, I find a large, positive and statistically significant coefficient on the black share of the school-age population. The coefficient estimates imply that a 10 percentage point increase in the black share increases the probability of private school attendance by 25.7 to 33.2 percent among Latino 8th graders and 35.2 to 52.2 percent among Latino 10th graders. ...

Explaining Ethnic, Racial, and Immigrant Differences in Private School Attendance

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Using 1990 Census microdata, we explore ethnic, racial and immigrant differences in private school attendance. We find high rates of private school attendance among white natives, white immigrants, and Asian natives. In contrast, we find low private school rates among black and Hispanic natives and immigrants, Asian immigrants, and other natives. Variations in income per capita and especially parental education account for over 70% of the gap in private school attendance rates between white natives and all other groups. We discuss ramifications for racial, language, and socioeconomic segregation in America's schools, and possible effects of school vouchers on segregation.

Is There "White Flight" into Private Schools? Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Entrepreneurship Training, Risk Aversion and Other Personality Traits: Evidence from a Random Experiment

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A growing literature examines the relationship between personality traits and entrepreneurship, but no previous studies explore whether personality or psychological traits predispose individuals to benefit more from entrepreneurship training. To address selection issues, we use novel data from the largest-ever randomized control experiment providing entrepreneurship training in the United States. We find evidence indicating that individuals who are more risk tolerant benefit more from entrepreneurship training than less risk tolerant individuals. We find some limited evidence that individuals who have a preference for autonomy benefit more from entrepreneurship training in the short run, but we find no evidence of longer-term effects and no evidence of differential effects of entrepreneurship training for individuals who are more innovative.

The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity: 1996-2013

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity is a leading indicator of new business creation in the United States. Capturing new business owners in their first month of significant business activity, this measure provides the earliest documentation of new business development across the country. The percentage of the adult, non-business owner population that starts a business each month is measured using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS).The Index captures all types of business activity and is based on nationally-representative sample sizes of more than an half million observations each year. In addition to this overall rate of entrepreneurial activity, separate estimates for specific demographic groups, states, and select metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) are presented. The Index provides the only national measure of the rate of business creation by specific population groups.

An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Technique to Logit and Probit Models

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique is widely used to identify and quantify the separate contributions of group differences in measurable characteristics, such as education, experience, marital status, and geographical differences to racial and gender gaps in outcomes especially wage, earnings and other labor market outcomes. The technique cannot be used directly, however, if the outcome is binary and the coefficients are from a logit or probit model. I describe a relatively simple method of performing a decomposition that uses estimates from a logit or probit model. Expanding on the original application of the technique in Fairlie (1999), I provide a more thorough discussion of how to apply the technique, an analysis of the sensitivity of the decomposition estimates to different parameters, and the calculation of standard errors. I also compare the estimates to Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition estimates and discuss an example of when the Blinder-Oaxaca technique may be...

The Personal Computer and Entrepreneurship

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In contrast to the large and rapidly growing literature on IT investments and firm productivity, we know very little about the role of personal computers in business creation. Using matched data from the 1997-2001 Computer and Internet Usage Supplements to subsequent Outgoing Rotation Group files from the Current Population Survey, I explore the relationship between computer ownership and entrepreneurship. Trends over the past two decades provide some evidence of a positive relationship between home computers and entrepreneurship rates, but the evidence is not clear. In contrast, an analysis of the relationship between computer ownership and entrepreneurship at the individual level provides evidence that individuals who had access to a home computer are substantially more likely to become an entrepreneur over the following 12-15 months. Probit and bivariate probit regressions also provide evidence of a strong positive relationship between computer ownership...

The Effects of Home Computers on School Enrollment

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Approximately 9 out of 10 high school students who have access to a home computer use that computer to complete school assignments. Do these home computers, however, improve educational outcomes? Using the Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the 2001 Current Population Survey, I explore whether access to home computers increases the likelihood of school enrollment among teenagers who have not graduated from high school. A comparison of school enrollment rates reveals that 95.2 percent of children who have home computers are enrolled in school, whereas only 85.4 percent of children who do not have home computers are enrolled in school. Controlling for family income, parental education, parental occupation and other observable characteristics in probit regressions for the probability of school enrollment, I find a difference of 1.4 percentage points. Although the evidence is mixed on whether the errors are correlated, I also estimate bivariate probit models for the joint probability...

Race and the Digital Divide

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In recent years, a plethora of public and private programs in the United States have been created to close the "Digital Divide." Interestingly, however, we know very little about the underlying causes of racial differences in rates of computer and Internet access. In this paper, I use data from the Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the August 2000 Current Population Survey (CPS) to explore this question. Estimates from the CPS indicate that Mexican-Americans are roughly one-half as likely to own a computer and one-third as likely to have Internet access at home than are whites. The black home computer rate is 59 percent of the white rate and the black home Internet access rate is 51 percent of the white rate. Using Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions, I find that racial differences in education, income and occupation contribute substantially to the black/white and Mexican-American/white gaps in home computer and Internet access rates. The digital...

The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Community College Students

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

There is no clear theoretical prediction regarding whether home computers are an important input in the educational production function. To investigate the hypothesis that access to a home computer affects educational outcomes, we conduct the first-ever field experiment involving the provision of free computers to students for home use. Financial aid students attending a large community college in Northern California were randomly selected to receive free computers and were followed for two years. Although estimates for a few measures are imprecise and cannot rule out zero effects, we find some evidence that the treatment group achieved better educational outcomes than the control group. The estimated effects, however, are not large. We also provide some evidence that students initially living farther from campus benefit more from the free computers than students living closer to campus. Home computers appear to improve students’ computer skills and may increase the use of computers...

Job Lock: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Employer-provided health insurance may restrict job mobility, resulting in “job lock.” Previous research on job lock finds mixed results using several methodologies. We take a new approach to examine job-lock by exploiting the discontinuity created at age 65 through the qualification for Medicare. Using a novel procedure for identifying age in months from matched monthly CPS data and a relatively unexplored administration measure of job mobility, we compare job mobility among male workers in the months just prior to turning age 65 to job mobility in the months just after turning age 65. We find no evidence that job mobility increases at the age 65 threshold when Medicare eligibility starts. We also do not find evidence that other factors such as retirement, reduction in hours worked, social security eligibility, pension eligibility, and sample changes confound the results on job mobility in the month individuals turn 65.

Why Are Black-Owned Businesses Less Successful than White-Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital

Wed, 6 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Using confidential microdata from the Characteristics of Business Owners, we examine why African-American owned businesses lag substantially behind white-owned businesses in sales, profits, employment, and survival. Black business owners are much less likely than white owners to have had a self-employed family member owner prior to starting their business and are less likely to have worked in that family member's business. Using a nonlinear decomposition technique, we find that the lack of prior work experience in a family business among black business owners, perhaps by limiting their acquisition of general and specific business human capital, negatively affects black business outcomes.

Behind the GATE Experiment: Evidence on Effects of and Rationales for Subsidized Entrepreneurship Training

Wed, 6 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Theories of market failures and targeting motivate the promotion of entrepreneurship training programs and generate testable predictions regarding heterogeneous treatment effects from such programs. Using a large randomized evaluation in the United States, we find no strong or lasting effects on those most likely to face credit or human capital constraints, or labor market discrimination. We do find a short-run effect on business ownership for those unemployed at baseline, but this dissipates at longer horizons. Treatment effects on the full sample are also short-term and limited in scope: we do not find effects on business sales, earnings, or employees.

A community college instructor like me: Race and ethnicity interactions in the classroom

Wed, 6 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Administrative data from a large and diverse community college are used to examine if underrepresented minority students benefit from taking courses with underrepresented minority instructors. To identify racial interactions we estimate models that include both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on students with limited choice in courses. We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout rates and grade performance between white and underrepresented minority students falls by 20 to 50 percent when taught by an underrepresented minority instructor. We also find these interactions affect longer term outcomes such as subsequent course selection, retention, and degree completion.

Risky Curves: On the Empirical Failure of Expected Utility

Thu, 5 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Risky Curves: On the Empirical Failure of Expected Utility

The Transmission of Federal Reserve Tapering News to Emerging Financial Markets

Thu, 5 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The Transmission of Federal Reserve Tapering News to Emerging Financial Markets

Assessing systematic risk in the S&P500 index between 2000 and 2011: A Bayesian nonparametric approach

Thu, 5 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Assessing systematic risk in the S&P500 index between 2000 and 2011: A Bayesian nonparametric approach

Trends in Self-Employment Among White and Black Men: 1910-1990

Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

We examine trends in entrepreneurship among white and black men from 1910 to 1990 using Census and CPS microdata. Self-employment rates fell over most of the century and then started to rise after 1970. For white men, we find that the decline was due to declining rates within industries, but was counterbalanced somewhat by a shift in employment towards high self-employment industries. Recently, the increase in business ownership was caused by an end to the within industry decline and the continuing shift in employment towards high self-employment industries. We also find that social security benefits, and immigration patterns do not explain the recent upturn in self-employment. For black men, we find that the self-employment rate remained at a level of roughly one-third the white rate from 1910 to 1990. The large and constant gap between the black and the white rates is not due to blacks being concentrated in low self-employment rate industries. ...

The Effect of Immigration on Native Self-Employment

Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A rapidly growing literature examines the impact of immigrants on the labor market outcomes of native-born Americans. However, the impact of immigration on natives in entrepreneurship has not been examined, despite the over-representation of immigrants in that sector and theoretical reasons why the impact might be greater for the self-employed. We first present a new general equilibrium model of self-employment and wage/salary work. For a range of plausible parameter values, the model predicts small negative effects of immigration on native self-employment rates and earnings. Using 1980 and 1990 Census microdata, we then examine the relationship between changes in immigration and native self-employment rates and earnings across 132 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. We find evidence supporting the hypothesis that self-employed immigrants displace self-employed natives. The effects are much larger than those predicted...

Drug Dealing and Legitimate Self-Employment

Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Theoretical models of entrepreneurship posit that attitudes toward risk, entrepreneurial ability, and preferences for autonomy are central to the individual's decision between self-employment and wage/salary work. None of the studies in the rapidly growing empirical literature on entrepreneurship, however, have been able to test whether these factors are important determinants of self-employment. I provide indirect evidence on this hypothesis by examining the relationship between drug dealing and legitimate self-employment. A review of ethnographic studies in the criminology literature indicates that drug dealing may represent a useful proxy for low risk aversion, entrepreneurial ability, and a preference for autonomy.

The 1980 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) contained a special section on participation in illegal activities, including questions on selling marijuana...

Ethnic and Racial Self-Employment Differences and Possible Explanations

Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

We show that entrepreneurship rates differ substantially across 60 ethnic and racial groups in the United States. These differences exist within broad combinations of groups such as Asians and Hispanics, and are almost as great after regression controls, including age, education, immigrant status, and time in the country. We then provide evidence on a number of theories of entrepreneurship. An ethnic/racial group's self-employment rate is positively associated with the difference between average self-employment and wage/salary earnings for that group. Ethnic/racial groups which immigrate from countries with high business ownership rates do not have high business ownership rates in the U.S. Finally, we find that the more advantaged ethnic/racial groups, measured by wage/salary earnings, self-employment earnings, and unearned income, and not the more disadvantaged groups, have the highest self-employment rates.

Recent Trends in Ethnic and Racial Business Ownership

Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Using Current Population Survey (CPS) microdata, I examine trends and the causes of the trends from1979 to 1998 in entrepreneurship among several ethnic/racial groups in the United States. I find rapid growth rates for the number of self-employed blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans relative to whites over the past decade or two. I find that the rapid growth rates were primarily due to expansions in the labor force for these groups. With the exception of female rates in the 1980s, trends in business ownership rates were fairly flat over the past two decades. There were, however, important differences across groups in changes in self-employment rates over the past decade or two. I use a dynamic decomposition technique to explore the causes of these differential trends and find some interesting patterns. For example, I find that increasing levels of education and relative declines in the age distribution of the workforce for some minority...

The Absence of the African-American Owned Business: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Self-Employment

Mon, 3 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Estimates from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) indicate that African-American men are one-third as likely to be self-employed as white men. The large discrepancy is due to a black transition rate into self-employment that is approximately one half the white rate and a black transition rate out of self-employment that is twice the white rate. Using a new variation of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, I find that racial differences in asset levels and probabilities of having self-employed fathers explain a large part of the black/white gap in the entry rate, but almost none of the gap in the exit rate.

Regional Inequality in India in the 1990s: A Further Look

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines changes in regional inequality in India in the 1990s, using data for 59 of India’s 78 agro-climatic regions from the National Sample Survey. It extends the work of Singh et al. (2003) in two ways. First, it allows for differences in baseline growth performance across individual states. It confirms the relatively poor performance of eastern states in the 1990s. Second, it also analyzes economic performance using NSS consumption expenditure data. In this case, it finds that there was conditional convergence for urban households, but not for rural households in that period.

Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Home Computers on Academic Achievement among Schoolchildren

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Computers are an important part of modern education, yet many schoolchildren lack access to a computer at home. We test whether this impedes educational achievement by conducting the largest-ever field experiment that randomly provides free home computers to students. Although computer ownership and use increased substantially, we find no effects on any educational outcomes, including grades, test scores, credits earned, attendance and disciplinary actions. Our estimates are precise enough to rule out even modestly-sized positive or negative impacts. The estimated null effect is consistent with survey evidence showing no change in homework time or other "intermediate" inputs in education.

The Impact of City Contracting Set-Asides on Black Self-Employment and Employment

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In the 1980s, many U.S. cities initiated programs reserving a proportion of government contracts for minority-owned businesses. The staggered introduction of these set-aside programs is used to estimatetheir impacts on the self-employment and employment rates of African-American men. Black business ownership rates increased significantly after program initiation, with the black-white gap falling three percentage points. The evidence that the racial gap in employment also fell is less clear as it is depends on assumptions about the continuation of pre-existing trends. The black gains were concentrated in industries heavily affected by set-asides and mostly benefited the better educated.

Access to Technology and the Transfer Function of Community Colleges: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Access to information may represent an important barrier to finding information and ultimately transferring to 4-year colleges for low-income community college students. This paper explores the role that access to information technology, in particular, plays in enhancing, or possibly detracting from, the transfer function of the community college. Using data from the first-everfield experiment randomly providing free computers to students, we examine the relationships between access to home computers and enrollment in transferable courses and actual transfers to 4-year colleges. The results from the field experiment indicate that the treatment group of students receiving free computers has a 4.5 percentage point higher probability of taking transferable courses than the control group of students not receiving free computers. The evidence is less clear for the effects on actual transfers to 4-year colleges, but we do find some suggestive evidence of small positive...

Access to Techonology and the Transfer Function of Community Colleges: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Access to information may represent an important barrier to learning about and ultimately transferring to 4-year colleges for low-income community college students. This paper explores the role that access to information technology, in particular, plays in enhancing, or possibly detracting from, the transfer function of the community college. Using data from the first-ever field experiment randomly providing free computers to students, we examine the relationships between access to home computers and enrollment in transferable courses and actual transfers to 4-year colleges. The results from the field experiment indicate that the treatment group of students receiving free computers has a 4.5 percentage point higher probability of taking transferable courses than the control group of students not receiving free computers. The evidence is less clear for the effects on actual transfers to 4-year colleges and the probability of using a computer to search...

The US 19th and 20th Century Experiences: Lessons for the Eurozone Crisis

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The evolution of institutions in the US and other unions provides clear lessons. There are large gains from buffering currency unions with a union-wide deposit insurance, and partial debt mutualisation. The credibility of a union deposit insurance scheme requires transparent funding and supervision, with a reliable backstopping mechanism. Establishing the credibility of such a scheme benefits from partial debt mutualisation and the formation of a dedicated union-level tax collection needed to serve these liabilities. Limited debt mutualisation does not preclude the existence of a vibrant independent debt market for the union’s states, restricted by each state’stax revenue.

Strategic Behavior and Organizational Structure in Religions

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Religions are organized in a variety of ways. They may resemble an elected autocracy, aparliamentary democracy, or something akin to a monarchy, where heredity plays aprimary role. This variation allows for a comparative study of their organization.These differing power arrangements call for different types of strategic behavior in thefight for control over church doctrine and finance. And they also induce different institutional responses. I show where screening is highly institutionalized and when the age of a person may be an important strategic factor in choosing a leader. I am thus able to explain what otherwise would be very puzzling differences in the age of appointment across religions and within a particular religion, overtime.

In a nutshell, this paper is about politics and strategic behavior in the large (democracyversus autocracy) within the context of the small (religious institutions).

The Net Fiscal Expenditure Stimulus in the U.S., 2008-9: Less than What You Might Think, and Less than the Fiscal Stimuli of Most OECD Countries