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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Francine Blau; Isaac Cohen; Matthew Comey; Lawrence Kahn; Nikolai Boboshko |
| Abstract: | Using 1979-2019 Current Population Survey data, we study the effect of state and federal minimum wage policies on gender, race, and ethnic inequality. We find that minimum wages substantially reduce intergroup wage inequality at least up to the 20th wage percentile, with no evidence of adverse employment effects. We conduct counterfactual simulations of between-group inequality due to minimum wage changes since 1979. Declines in the real minimum wage in the 1980s slowed progress in narrowing between-group inequality. Relatively small changes in minimum wages during 1989-1998 and 1998-2007 meant little role for the minimum wage over those time spans. Since 2007, several states have steeply raised their minimum wages, especially raising Hispanics' relative wages, because they earn low wages and reside disproportionately in those states. Finally, we find that raising the federal minimum wage to $12/hour in 2020 dollars ($14.49 in 2025Q2 dollars) would reduce existing between-group wage gaps below the 15th percentile by 25-50%. |
| Keywords: | wage inequality, minimum wage, wage differentials, gender wage gaps, race wage gaps, Hispanic-White wage gaps |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J31 J38 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26002 |
| By: | James Heckman; Haihan Tian; Zijian Zhang; Jin Zhou |
| Abstract: | Dynamic complementarity is the concept that past investments that lead to higher stocks of skill at an age, promote the growth of skills from investment at that age. We define and produce evidence on dynamic complementarity and its three components using unique Chinese data from a home visiting program for young children targeted to parents in rural China. In addition, we investigate growth in learning due to innate, parental, and environmental factors that occur in the absence of any formal intervention. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic Complementarity, Learning, Human Capital |
| JEL: | J1 D83 C1 C5 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2595 |
| By: | Rasmus Landersø; Kristian B. Karlson |
| Abstract: | This paper studies intergenerational educational mobility among immigrants and descendants in Denmark for cohorts born between 1965 and 1990. At first glance, the data suggests that immigrants experience higher mobility than native Danes, but this pattern is driven by low coverage and poor data quality of parental education information in administrative registers. Among immigrants with the most reliable data, mobility patterns closely resemble those of natives. Auxiliary analyses using representative survey data corroborate this finding. Moreover, including immigrants in population-wide mobility estimates-given their artificially high relative mobility-attenuates trends in estimated mobility, especially for cohorts born in the 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Educational mobility, Native-immigrant gaps, Data quality |
| JEL: | E43 E52 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:25115 |
| By: | Ingvild Almås (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Henrik Daae Zachrisson (University of Oslo); Nina Drange (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Costas Meghir (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Date: | 2026–04–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:26/29 |
| By: | Haifang Huang (University of Alberta); John Helliwell (University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | Using the Canadian sample of the Gallup World Poll, we document large declines in subjective well-being (SWB) among young adults (20–34), measured by the Cantril life ladder, alongside rising food and shelter insecurity, worsening perceptions of local housing affordability and job climate, and deteriorating living standards. Oaxaca-type decompositions show that these economic stressors account for nearly half of young adults’ decline in their average Cantril life evaluation from the 2005-14 baseline period to the 2023-25 cost-of-living crisis, and 38-58%, depending on specifications, of the widening in the evaluation gap between the youngest (20–34) and oldest (65+) groups. <p> Housing stands out. Dissatisfaction with local housing affordability is the biggest contributing factor among young adults, but is less important for older groups. Analysis using Teranet House Price Index (HPI) shows that rises in local house prices worsen affordability perceptions across all age groups; they also predict lower life evaluations among young adults, but not among seniors.<p> In contrast, changes in eight non-economic domain measures (covering self-reported health, social support, trust, perceived respect, and prosocial activity) contribute little to young adults’ life-evaluation decline. We interpret the evidence as indicating that the happiness crisis among young Canadians is, to a large degree, an economic crisis. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being; generation; demographics |
| JEL: | E24 H23 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:022456 |
| By: | Christopher Campos; Pablo Muñoz; Alonso Bucarey; Dante Contreras |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how college major choices shape earnings and fertility outcomes. Using administrative data that link students' preferences, random assignment to majors, and post-college outcomes, we estimate the causal pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to different fields of study. We document substantial heterogeneity in these returns across majors and show that such variation helps explain gender gaps in labor market outcomes: women place greater weight on balancing career and family in their major choices, and these preference differences account for about 30% of the gender earnings gap among college graduates. Last, we use our causal estimates to evaluate the effects of counterfactual assignment rules that target representation gaps in settings with centralized assignment systems. We find that gender quotas in high-return fields can significantly reduce representation and earnings gaps with minimal impacts on efficiency and aggregate fertility. |
| Keywords: | preferences, returns to majors, gender gaps, centralized assignment |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J01 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26024 |
| By: | Haifang Huang (University of Alberta); John Helliwell (University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | Using Gallup World Poll data (2005–2025) for six English-speaking advanced economies, we estimate how much of the decline in young adults’ subjective well-being (SWB), measured by the Cantril life ladder, can be accounted for by rising financial insecurity and economic stress. In the four non-European countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S.), five measures of economic hardship (food and shelter insecurity, housing unaffordability, worsening living standards, and negative job-climate perceptions) explain 41–67% of the young-adult SWB decline from the pre-2015 baseline to the post-pandemic period (2023–2025). Housing costs are the largest contributor in three of the four. The economic channel is stronger for young adults than for seniors. In contrast, eight non-economic measures covering health, social support, institutional trust, and prosocial behavior contribute little.<p> Ireland and the U.K. tell a different story. Economic hardship explains half of Ireland’s Great Financial Crisis decline but little of the post-GFC trajectory, where rising housing unaffordability partially offsets labour-market improvements. In the U.K., it explains little of the SWB swings from an already-low base. In both countries, young adults’ optimism about their future has eroded in recent years, an observation that may be relevant to the other four countries with more recent SWB declines. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being; life satisfaction; financial insecurity; economic stress; housing affordability; young adults |
| JEL: | I31 E24 J13 H23 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:022457 |
| By: | Christopher Hoy (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Lionel Page (University of Queensland); Catherine Eckel (Texas A&M University); Philip Grossman (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | Using nationally representative, randomized survey experiments, we investigate how beliefs about wage inequality impact preferences for redistribution. With more than 9, 000 respondents in six high-income countries and a novel distribution builder tool, we elicit detailed beliefs about wage inequality and examine the impact of accurate information on support for redistribution. We find most respondents underestimate wage inequality and that information treatments have minimal effects, except for re spondents on the far-right, who exhibit large increases in support for higher income taxes and social spending. Our findings suggest that far-right voters’ attitudes toward redistribution may be more malleable than is often assumed. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy, Public Finance, Inequality, Randomized Experiment |
| JEL: | D04 D80 D90 H20 H30 H50 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2025n08 |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier (University of Bordeaux); Lo Bue, Maria (Trieste University); Palmisano, Flaviana (Sapienza University, Rome) |
| Abstract: | We propose a simple and flexible framework to assess relative intergenerational mobility. The approach defines a dynasty as a parent-child pair, measuring achievement by each individual's rank within their own generational outcome distribution, and mobility by the change in this rank across generations. This measure accommodates both continuous outcomes, such as potential earnings, and discrete or ordinal outcomes, such as education levels. It also allows for dominance characterizations (e.g., the relative progress made by women vs. men) consistent with social references over desirable mobility patterns. We apply the framework to Indonesia using long-panel data linking parents observed in 1993 to their children in 2014. Results show that a large share of the population escaped illiteracy - an instance of absolute mobility possibly driven by major education reforms. However, relative educational mobility was regressive, as dynasties from higher socio-economic backgrounds progressed faster. This pattern limited the overall progressivity of relative earnings mobility. Mobility in both education and potential earnings was markedly more favorable to women. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, education, earnings, social welfare, gender |
| JEL: | J6 J62 O12 I2 D6 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18550 |