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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2019‒04‒22
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Alesina, Alberto (Harvard University); Carlana, Michela (Harvard Kennedy School); La Ferrara, Eliana (Bocconi University); Pinotti, Paolo (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | If individuals become aware of their stereotypes, do they change their behavior? We study this question in the context of teachers' bias in grading immigrants and native children in middle schools. Teachers give lower grades to immigrant students compared to natives who have the same performance on standardized, blindly-graded tests. We then relate differences in grading to teachers' stereotypes, elicited through an Implicit Association Test (IAT). We find that math teachers with stronger stereotypes give lower grades to immigrants compared to natives with the same performance. Literature teachers do not differentially grade immigrants based on their own stereotypes. Finally, we share teachers' own IAT score with them, randomizing the timing of disclosure around the date on which they assign term grades. All teachers informed of their stereotypes before term grading increase grades assigned to immigrants. Revealing stereotypes may be a powerful intervention to decrease discrimination, but it may also induce a reaction from individuals who were not acting in a biased way. |
| JEL: | I24 J15 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp18-040&r=all |
| By: | Marie Connolly (Department of Economics, University of Quebec in Montreal); Miles Corak (The Graduate Center, City University of New York); Catherine Haeck (Department of Economics, University of Quebec in Montreal) |
| Abstract: | Intergenerational income mobility is lower in the United States than in Canada, but varies significantly within each country. Our sub-national analysis finds that the national border only partially distinguishes the close to one thousand regions we analyze within these two countries. The Canada-US border divides Central and Eastern Canada from the Great Lakes regions and the Northeast of the United States. At the same time some Canadian regions have more in common with the low mobility southern parts of the United States than with the rest of Canada, and the fact that these areas represent a much larger fraction of the American population also explains why mobility is lower in the United States. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, equality of opportunity, geography |
| JEL: | D63 J61 J62 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grc:wpaper:19-02&r=all |
| By: | Adermon, Adrian (Institute for Evaluation of Labor Market and Education Policy (IFAU), UCLS and UCFS); Lindahl, Mikael (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Palme, Mårten (Department of Economics, Stockholm University and IZA) |
| Abstract: | We study the importance of the extended family – the dynasty – for the persistence in inequality across generations. We use data including the entire Swedish population, linking four generations. This data structure enables us to identify parents’ siblings and cousins, their spouses, and the spouses’ siblings. Using various human capital measures, we show that traditional parent-child estimates of intergenerational persistence miss almost one-third of the persistence found at the dynasty level. To assess the importance of genetic links, we use a sample of adoptees. We then find that the importance of the extended family relative to the parents increases. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; extended family; dynasty; human capital |
| JEL: | I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0758&r=all |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (University of Warwick); Fernandes, Ana (Bern University of Applied Sciences); Weichselbaumer, Doris (Johannes Kepler University Linz) |
| Abstract: | Due to conventional gender norms, women are more likely to be in charge of childcare than men. From an employer’s perspective, in their fertile age they are also at “risk” of pregnancy. Both factors potentially affect hiring practices of firms. We conduct a largescale correspondence test in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, sending out approx. 9,000 job applications, varying job candidate’s personal characteristics such as marital status and age of children. We find evidence that, for part-time jobs, married women with older kids, who likely finished their childbearing cycle and have more projectable childcare chores than women with very young kids, are at a significant advantage vis-àvis other groups of women. At the same time, married, but childless applicants, who have a higher likelihood to become pregnant, are at a disadvantage compared to single, but childless applicants to part-time jobs. Such effects are not present for full-time jobs, presumably, because by applying to these in contrast to part-time jobs, women signal that they have arranged for external childcare. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Discrimination; Experimental economics. JEL Classification: C93; J16; J71. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:412&r=all |
| By: | Dariel, Aurelie (new york university abu dhabi); Riedl, Arno (General Economics 1 (Micro)); Siegenthaler, Simon (university of texas at dallas) |
| Abstract: | Information asymmetries can prevent markets from operating efficiently. An important example is the labor market, where employers face uncertainty about the productivity of job candidates. We examine theoretically and with laboratory experiments three key questions related to hiring via referrals when employees have private information about their productivity. First, do firms use employee referrals when there are social ties between a current employee and a future employee? Second, does the existence of social ties and hiring through employee referrals indeed alleviate adverse selection relative to when social ties do not exist? Third, does the existence of social ties have spill-over effects on wages and hiring in competitive labor markets? The answers to all three questions are affirmative. However, despite the identified positive effect of employment referrals, hiring decisions fall short of the (second-best) efficient outcome. We identify risk aversion as a potential reason for this. |
| Keywords: | adverse selection, labor market, employee referrals, social networks |
| JEL: | C92 D82 D85 E20 |
| Date: | 2019–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2019009&r=all |
| By: | Aronsson, Thomas (Department of Economics, Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics, Umeå University, Sweden); Johansson-Stenman, Olof (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Wendner, Ronald (Department of Economics, University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with tax policy responses to charitable giving, defined in terms of voluntary contributions to a public good, to which the government also contributes through public revenue; the set of tax instruments contains general, nonlinear taxes on income and charitable giving. In addition to consumption, leisure and a public good, individuals obtain utility from the warm glow of giving and social status generated by their relative contributions to charity as well as their relative consumption compared with others. We analyze the conditions under which it is optimal to tax or subsidize charitable giving and derive corresponding optimal policy rules. Another aim of the paper is to compare the optimal tax policy and public good provision by a conventional welfarist government with those by two kinds of paternalist governments: The first kind does not respect the consumer preferences for status in terms of relative giving and relative consumption, while the second kind in addition does not respect preferences for warm glow of giving. The optimal policy rules for marginal taxation and public good provision are similar across governments, except for the stronger incentive to tax charitable giving at the margin under the more extensive kind of paternalism. Numerical simulations supplement the theoretical results. |
| Keywords: | Conspicuous consumption; conspicuous charitable giving; optimal taxation; warm glow |
| JEL: | D03 D62 H21 H23 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0760&r=all |