How Experiments with Children Inform Economics
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Download File Are Today's Inequalities Limiting Tomorrow's Opportunities?
Equitable GrowthWashington Center forEquitable Growth ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN CLEMENS Are today’s inequalities limiting tomorrow’s opportunities? A review of the social sciences literature on economic inequality and intergenerational mobility October 2018 By Elisabeth Jacobs and Liz Hipple www.equitablegrowth.org Equitable Growth Are today’s inequalities limiting tomorrow’s opportunities? A review of the social sciences literature on economic inequality and intergenerational mobility October 2018 By Elisabeth Jacobs and Liz Hipple Contents 6 Fast facts 8 Overview 13 Definitions and metrics 14 Absolute or relative? 15 What does “high“ mobility look like? 24 Which resources should we measure? 26 Does high inequality today mean low mobility tomorrow? 32 How does economic inequality limit the development of human potential? 34 Health inequalities 38 Parental investment 44 Education 52 Conclusion to “how does economic inequality limit the development of human potential“ 54 How does economic inequality limit the deployment of human potential? 55 Changing structure of the labor market 62 Persistent discrimination 65 Household balance sheets and intergenerational mobility 68 Conclusion to “how does economic inequality limit the deployment of human potential“ 70 Conclusion 72 About the authors 73 Acknowledgements 74 Bibliography 87 Endnotes Fast facts Intergenerational mobility is the technical concept at the heart of the American Dream. An individual’s place on the economic distribution is supposed to reflect individual effort and talent, not parental resources and privilege. Yet this perspec- tive ignores the mounting evidence of the myriad ways that poverty and economic inequality foreclose equality of opportunity for far too many Americans now and in the future. -
The Short(Run and Long(Run Effects of Behavioral
The Short-Run and Long-Run E¤ects of Behavioral Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Energy Conservation Hunt Allcott and Todd Rogers October 7, 2012 Abstract Interventions to a¤ect repeated behaviors, such as smoking, exercise, or workplace e¤ort, can often have large short-run impacts but uncertain or disappointing long-term e¤ects. We study one part of a massive set of randomized control trials in which home energy reports containing personalized feedback, social comparisons, and energy conservation information are being repeatedly mailed to more than …ve million households across the United States. We show that treatment group households reduce energy use within days of receiving each of their …rst few reports, but these initial responses decay rapidly in the months between reports. This cyclical pattern of stimulus and response attenuates as reports are repeatedly delivered and households form a new "capital stock" of physical capital or consumption habits. When a randomly-selected group of households has reports discontinued after two years, the treatment e¤ects decay much more slowly than they had between the initial reports. We show how assumptions about long- run persistence can signi…cantly impact program adoption decisions, and we illustrate how program design that accounts for this capital stock formation process can signi…cantly improve cost e¤ectiveness. JEL Codes: D03, D11, L97, Q41. Keywords: Energy e¢ ciency, persistence, social comparisons. ———————————————————————————— We thank David Cesarini, Xavier Gabaix, and Sendhil Mullainathan for helpful conversa- tions. Thanks to Tyler Curtis, Lisa Danz, Rachel Gold, Arkadi Gerney, Marc Laitin, Laura Lewellyn, and many others at OPOWER for sharing data and insight with us. -
A Reduced-Form Approach to Behavioral Public Finance
A Reduced-Form Approach to Behavioral Public Finance Sendhil Mullainathan,1 Joshua Schwartzstein,2 and William J. Congdon3 1Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Washington, DC 20552; email: [email protected] 2Department of Economics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755; email: [email protected] 3Brookings Institution, Washington, DC 20036; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Econ. 2012. 4:511–40 Keywords The Annual Review of Economics is online at behavioral economics, taxation, social insurance, externalities economics.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: Abstract 10.1146/annurev-economics-111809-125033 Research in behavioral public finance has blossomed in recent © Access provided by Harvard University on 06/15/21. For personal use only. Copyright 2012 by Annual Reviews. Annu. Rev. Econ. 2012.4:511-540. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org years, producing diverse empirical and theoretical insights. This All rights reserved article develops a single framework with which to understand JEL codes: B40, D01, D03, D04, D60, D61, H00, these advances. Rather than drawing out the consequences of H20, I10, I30, J65, Q50 specific psychological assumptions, the framework takes a reduced- 1941-1383/12/0904-0511$20.00 form approach to behavioral modeling. It emphasizes the differ- ence between decision and experienced utility that underlies most behavioral models. We use this framework to examine the behav- ioral implications for canonical public finance problems involving the provision of social insurance, commodity taxation, and correct- ing externalities. We show how deeper principles undergird much work in this area and that many insights are not specific to a single psychological assumption. -
Allied Social Science Associations Atlanta, GA January 3–5, 2010
Allied Social Science Associations Atlanta, GA January 3–5, 2010 Contract negotiations, management and meeting arrangements for ASSA meetings are conducted by the American Economic Association. i ASSA_Program.indb 1 11/17/09 7:45 AM Thanks to the 2010 American Economic Association Program Committee Members Robert Hall, Chair Pol Antras Ravi Bansal Christian Broda Charles Calomiris David Card Raj Chetty Jonathan Eaton Jonathan Gruber Eric Hanushek Samuel Kortum Marc Melitz Dale Mortensen Aviv Nevo Valerie Ramey Dani Rodrik David Scharfstein Suzanne Scotchmer Fiona Scott-Morton Christopher Udry Kenneth West Cover Art is by Tracey Ashenfelter, daughter of Orley Ashenfelter, Princeton University, former editor of the American Economic Review and President-elect of the AEA for 2010. ii ASSA_Program.indb 2 11/17/09 7:45 AM Contents General Information . .iv Hotels and Meeting Rooms ......................... ix Listing of Advertisers and Exhibitors ................xxiv Allied Social Science Associations ................. xxvi Summary of Sessions by Organization .............. xxix Daily Program of Events ............................ 1 Program of Sessions Saturday, January 2 ......................... 25 Sunday, January 3 .......................... 26 Monday, January 4 . 122 Tuesday, January 5 . 227 Subject Area Index . 293 Index of Participants . 296 iii ASSA_Program.indb 3 11/17/09 7:45 AM General Information PROGRAM SCHEDULES A listing of sessions where papers will be presented and another covering activities such as business meetings and receptions are provided in this program. Admittance is limited to those wearing badges. Each listing is arranged chronologically by date and time of the activity; the hotel and room location for each session and function are indicated. CONVENTION FACILITIES Eighteen hotels are being used for all housing. -
Prosperity Economics Building an Economy for All
ProsPerity economics Building an economy for All Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil ProsPerity economics Building an economy for All Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil Creative Commons (cc) 2012 by Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil Notice of rights: This book has been published under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCom- mercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported; to view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-sa/3.0/). This work may be copied, redistributed, or displayed by anyone, provided that proper at- tribution is given. ii / prosperity economics About the authors Jacob S. Hacker, Ph.D., is the Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science, and Senior Research Fellow in International and Area Studies at the MacMil- lan Center at Yale University. An expert on the politics of U.S. health and social policy, he is author of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Wash- ington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, with Paul Pierson (September 2010, paperback March 2011); The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream (2006, paperback 2008); The Divided Welfare State: The Battle Over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States (2002); and The Road to No- where: The Genesis of President Clinton’s Plan for Health Security (1997), co-winner of the Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public Administration. He is also co-author, with Paul Pierson, of Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy (2005), and has edited volumes, most recently, hared Responsibility, Shared Risk: Government, Markets and Social Policy in the Twenty-First Century, with Ann O'Leary (2012). -
Economic Report of the President.” ______
REFERENCES Chapter 1 American Civil Liberties Union. 2013. “The War on Marijuana in Black and White.” Accessed January 31, 2016. Aizer, Anna, Shari Eli, Joseph P. Ferrie, and Adriana Lleras-Muney. 2014. “The Long Term Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families.” NBER Working Paper 20103. Autor, David. 2010. “The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market.” Center for American Progress, the Hamilton Project. Bakija, Jon, Adam Cole and Bradley T. Heim. 2010. “Jobs and Income Growth of Top Earners and the Causes of Changing Income Inequality: Evidence from U.S. Tax Return Data.” Department of Economics Working Paper 2010–24. Williams College. Boskin, Michael J. 1972. “Unions and Relative Real Wages.” The American Economic Review 62(3): 466-472. Bricker, Jesse, Lisa J. Dettling, Alice Henriques, Joanne W. Hsu, Kevin B. Moore, John Sabelhaus, Jeffrey Thompson, and Richard A. Windle. 2014. “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2010 to 2013: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances.” Federal Reserve Bulletin, Vol. 100, No. 4. Brown, David W., Amanda E. Kowalski, and Ithai Z. Lurie. 2015. “Medicaid as an Investment in Children: What is the Long-term Impact on Tax Receipts?” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 20835. Card, David, Thomas Lemieux, and W. Craig Riddell. 2004. “Unions and Wage Inequality.” Journal of Labor Research, 25(4): 519-559. 331 Carson, Ann. 2015. “Prisoners in 2014.” Bureau of Justice Statistics, Depart- ment of Justice. Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, Emmanuel Saez, and Nich- olas Turner. 2014. “Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility.” NBER Working Paper 19844. -
1 Development Economics CEMFI Monica Martinez-Bravo Spring 2020
Development Economics CEMFI Monica Martinez-Bravo Spring 2020 Class meetings: Tuesday 11:30h – 13h Friday 9:30h – 13h 1 Office hours: Wednesday 15:30h – 17h Email: [email protected] Course Description: This course focuses on the understanding of the process of economic development. The central questions of the course are: 1) Why are some countries so much poorer than others? 2) What are the main barriers to the process of economic development? 3) What are the main barriers that prevent the poor to escape from poverty? 4) Why do these barriers exist and persist? The first part of the course (weeks 1 to 6) studies the decision making by individuals and market failures as potential barriers to the process of economic development. The second part (weeks 7 to 10) of the course examines the role of institutions and politics as determinants of underdevelopment. The purpose of the course is to give you a sense of the frontier research topics and a good command of the methodologies used in the field of Economic Development. The main emphasis will be in empirical and microeconomic studies, although some applied theory papers and macro analysis will also be discussed. Previous knowledge: Students are assumed to be familiar with the basic concepts of econometrics, microeconomics, and macroeconomics. Some of the problem sets will require the use of Stata. A Stata tutorial is available on Intranet. This tutorial covers a few basic commands frequently used in Stata. If you still find difficulty working with Stata you should talk to the Professor or Teaching Assistant. Teaching assistant: The teaching assistant for this course is Javier García-Brazales ([email protected]). -
Globalization and Developing Country Welfare
The Advantages of Backwardness? Globalization and Developing Country Welfare Regime Transformation A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Rahmi Çemen May 2013 © 2013 Rahmi Çemen. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled The Advantages of Backwardness? Globalization and Developing Country Welfare Regime Transformation by RAHMI ÇEMEN has been approved for the Department of Political Science and the College of Arts and Sciences by James Mosher Associate Professor of Political Science Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 Abstract ÇEMEN, RAHMI, M.A., May 2013, Political Science The Advantages of Backwardness? Globalization and Developing Country Welfare Regime Transformation Director of Thesis: James Mosher Those arguing for a “race to the bottom” in the globalization era assume that international factors have negatively impacted the welfare regimes of developing countries. In contrast, little attention has been given to how globalization can produce more opportunities than constraints for developing countries to reform inefficient and inegalitarian welfare regimes and create new ones that support long-run economically sustainable development. In order to investigate whether globalization has positive effects on welfare, three case studies are analyzed: South Korea, Turkey, and Mexico. My first hypothesis is that the relatively minimal institutional base of entrenched welfare entitlements in developing countries allows for the reform of expensive, inefficient, and inegalitarian welfare regimes in order to adapt to globalizations demands, while at the same time providing the innovative policy space to improve the area’s most beneficial to the well-being of the majority of the population, such as health care, education, and social assistance. -
How Experiments with Children Inform Economics
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES HOW EXPERIMENTS WITH CHILDREN INFORM ECONOMICS John A. List Ragan Petrie Anya Samek Working Paper 28825 http://www.nber.org/papers/w28825 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 May 2021 Corresponding author: John List, University of Chicago, [email protected]. For helpful comments, we thank Steven Durlauf, Isabelle Brocas, Juan Carrillo, Asadul Islam, Justin Holz, Uditi Karna, Ariel Listo, and participants at a variety of seminars/conference presentations and three anonymous referees at the Journal of Economic Literature. For research assistance, we thank Kevin Sokal, Tarush Gupta, Andre Gray, Jessica Lopez, Andrew Yu, Haruka Uchida, Michael Cuna, Shreemayi Samujjwala, Meredith Birdsong, Adam Dessouky and students at the Behavioral and Experimental Economics (BEE) research group. This research was funded by the Kenneth and Anne Griffin Foundation and by NIH grant 1R01DK114238. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2021 by John A. List, Ragan Petrie, and Anya Samek. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. How Experiments with Children Inform Economics John A. List, Ragan Petrie, and Anya Samek NBER Working Paper No. 28825 May 2021 JEL No. C9,D1,J1 ABSTRACT In the past several decades the experimental method has lent deep insights into economics. -
E Pluribus Unum? Varieties and Commonalities of Capitalism
MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/ 12 E Pluribus Unum? Varieties and Commonalities of Capitalism Wolfgang Streeck Wolfgang Streeck E Pluribus Unum? Varieties and Commonalities of Capitalism MPIfG Discussion Paper 10 /12 Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung, Köln Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne October 2010 MPIfG Discussion Paper ISSN 0944-2073 (Print) ISSN 1864-4325 (Internet) © 2010 by the author(s) Wolfgang Streeck is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne. [email protected] MPIfG Discussion Papers are refereed scholarly papers of the kind that are publishable in a peer-reviewed disciplinary journal. Their objective is to contribute to the cumulative improvement of theoretical knowl- edge. The papers can be ordered from the institute for a small fee (hard copies) or downloaded free of charge (PDF). Downloads www.mpifg.de Go to Publications / Discussion Papers Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Paulstr. 3 | 50676 Cologne | Germany Tel. +49 221 2767-0 Fax +49 221 2767-555 www.mpifg.de [email protected] Abstract The paper reviews the origins of the comparative study of capitalism and of the di- verse approaches applied to it in contemporary political economy. It distinguishes four models accounting for differences in the institutional make-up of national capitalist economies, which it refers to as the social embeddedness, power resource, historical- institutionalist, and rationalist-functionalist model, respectively. Special attention is given to the rationalist-functionalist account of capitalist variety and its reception in the research literature. The paper concludes with remarks on the likely effect of the global financial crisis after 2007 on theories of political economy in general and of “varieties of capitalism” in particular. -
Behavioral Economics of Education: IZA DP No
IZA DP No. 8853 Behavioral Economics of Education: Progress and Possibilities Adam M. Lavecchia Heidi Liu Philip Oreopoulos February 2015 DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor Behavioral Economics of Education: Progress and Possibilities Adam M. Lavecchia University of Toronto Heidi Liu Harvard University Philip Oreopoulos University of Toronto, NBER, CIFAR and IZA Discussion Paper No. 8853 February 2015 IZA P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 E-mail: [email protected] Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. -
The Short(Run and Long(Run Effects of Behavioral Interventions
The Short-Run and Long-Run E¤ects of Behavioral Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Energy Conservation Hunt Allcott and Todd Rogers October 16, 2012 Abstract Interventions to a¤ect repeated behaviors, such as smoking, exercise, or workplace e¤ort, can often have large short-run impacts but uncertain or disappointing long-run e¤ects. We study one part of a large program designed to induce energy conservation, in which home energy reports containing personalized feedback, social comparisons, and energy conservation information are being repeatedly mailed to more than …ve million households across the United States. We show that treatment group households reduce electricity use within days of receiving each of their initial few reports, but these immediate responses decay rapidly in the months between reports. As more reports are delivered, the average treatment e¤ect grows but the high-frequency pattern of action and backsliding attenuates. When a randomly-selected group of households has reports discontinued after two years, the e¤ects are much more persistent than they had been between the initial reports, implying that households have formed a new "capital stock" of physical capital or consumption habits. We show how assumptions about long-run persistence can be important enough to change program adoption decisions, and we illustrate how program design that accounts for the capital stock formation process can signi…cantly improve cost e¤ectiveness. JEL Codes: D03, D11, L97, Q41. Keywords: Energy e¢ ciency, habit formation, persistence, social comparisons. ———————————————————————————— We thank Ken Agnew, David Cesarini, Gary Charness, Xavier Gabaix, Francesca Gino, Uri Gneezy, Sendhil Mullainathan, and the senior evaluation analyst at the utility for feedback and helpful conversations.