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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | John List |
| Abstract: | In 2019 I put together a summary of data from my field experiments website that pertained to framed field experiments (see List 2024; 2025). Several people have asked me if I have an update. In this document I update all figures and numbers to show the details for 2024. I also include the description from the 2019 paper below. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:framed:00808 |
| By: | Magne Mogstad; Kjell G. Salvanes; Gaute Torsvik |
| Abstract: | Policymakers, public commentators, and researchers often cite the Nordic countries as examples of a social and economic model that successfully combines low income inequality with prosperity and growth. This article aims to critically assess this claim by integrating theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence to illustrate how the Nordic model functions and why these countries experience low inequality. Our analysis suggests that income equality in the Nordics is primarily driven by a significant compression of hourly wages, reducing the returns to labor market skills and education. This appears to be achieved through a wage bargaining system characterized by strong coordination both within and across industries. This finding contrasts with other commonly cited explanations for Nordic income equality, such as redistribution through the tax-transfer system, public spending on goods that complement employment, and public policies aimed at equalizing skills and human capital distribution. We consider the potential lessons for other economies that seek to reduce income equality. We conclude by discussing several underexplored or unresolved questions and issues. |
| JEL: | J3 J5 O0 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33444 |
| By: | Peltzman, Sam |
| Abstract: | Since 1972, the General Social Survey has periodically asked whether people are happy with Yes, Maybe or No type answers. Here I use a net "happiness" measure, which is percentage Yes less percentage No with Maybe treated as zero. Average happiness is around +20 on this scale for all respondents from 1972 to the last pre-pandemic survey (2018). However, there is a wide gap of around 30 points between married and unmarried respondents. This "marital premium" is this paper's subject. I describe how this premium varies across and within population groups. These include standard socio demographics (age, sex, race education, income) and more. I find little variety and thereby surface a notable regularity in US socio demography: there is a substantial marital premium for every group and sub-group I analyze, and this premium is usually close to the overall 30-point average. This holds not just for standard characteristics but also for those directly related to marriage like children and sex (and sex preference). I also find a "cohabitation premium", but it is much smaller (10 points) than the marital premium. The analysis is mainly visual, and there is inevitably some interesting variety across seventeen figures, such as a 5-point increase in recent years. |
| Keywords: | happiness, marriage, demographics, family, education, income, sex, sex preference |
| JEL: | D10 D60 I31 J10 J12 J18 K36 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:311858 |
| By: | Advani, Arun (Warwick and IFS); Ash, Elliott (ETH Zurich); Boltachka, Anton (ETH Zurich); Cai, David (LSE); Rasul, Imran (UCL and IFS) |
| Abstract: | An established literature has studied potential biases in the economics publication process based on traits of authors. We complement such work by studying whether the subject matter of study relates to publication outcomes. We do so in the context of race-related research: work that studies economic well-being across racial/ethnic groups. We investigate the implicit career incentives economists have to work on such topics by examining paths to publication for a corpus of 22, 056 NBER working papers (WPs) posted from 1974 to 2015. We use an algorithm to classify whether a given WP studies race-related issues. We then construct paths to publication from WPs to data on published articles, and compare paths for race-related WPs to various counterfactual sets of WPs. We document that unconditionally, race-related NBER WPs are less likely to be published in any journal, in an economics journal, and more likely to publish in lower tier economics journals. Once we condition on observable characteristics including field and author affiliations, differences in paths to publication largely disappear, and such work is actually slightly more likely to publish in top-tier economics journals. Consistent with unconditional differences in paths to publication being salient to researchers, we find evidence of ex ante selection into WPs studying race-related issues in that they are of higher readability than other WPs. To understand the interplay with selection of researchers, we compare results to paths to publications for 10, 306 CEPR WPs posted from 1984 to 2015. We conclude by discussing implications for economists’ incentives to contribute to debates on race and ethnicity in the economy. |
| Keywords: | JEL Classification: A11, B41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:748 |
| By: | Da Costa, Carlos; Maestri, Lucas; Santos, Cezar |
| Abstract: | When searching for employment, workers consider non-wage job characteristics, such as effort requirements or amenities. We study an environment where unemployed workers search for jobs of different quality in a labor market characterized by directed search. In equilibrium, firms are more likely to post vacancies for low-quality jobs, as these are more profitable. Hence, high-quality jobs are hard to come across. The non-observability of these employment contracts influences the optimal unemployment insurance (UI) program, leading to distortionary taxation. Calibrating the model to the U.S. economy, we find that non-observability of employment contracts results in faster declining UI benefits, steeper taxes upon re-employment, distortionary taxation, and a 10.5% costlier program than an observable contract scenario providing equal welfare. |
| JEL: | H21 J64 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13974 |