The labor market consequences of impatience

Standard economic theory suggests that individuals know best how to make themselves happy. Thus, policies designed to encourage “better” behaviors will only reduce people’s happiness. Recently, however, economists have explored the role of impatience, especially difficulties with delaying gratification, in several important economic choices. There is strong evidence that some people have trouble following through on investments that best serve their long-term interests. These findings open the door to policies encouraging or requiring better behaviors, which would allow people to commit to the choices they truly want to make

If You Don’t Build It... Mexican Mobility Following the U.S. Housing Bust

This paper demonstrates the importance of earnings-sensitive migration in response to local variation in labor demand. We use geographic variation in the depth of the housing bust to examine its effects on the migration of natives and Mexican-born individuals in the U.S. We find a strong effect of the housing bust on the location choices of Mexicans, with movement of Mexican population away from U.S. states facing the largest declines in construction and movement toward U.S. states facing smaller declines. This effect operated primarily through interstate migration of Mexicans previously residing in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, through slower immigration rates from Mexico in states with larger housing declines. There is no evidence that return migration to Mexico played an important role in immigrants\u27 migration response. We also find no impact of the housing bust on natives\u27 location choices. We interpret these results as the causal impact of the housing bust on migration after confirming that they are robust to controls for immigrant diffusion and a pre-housing-bust false experiment

CONFIGURACIÓN ESPACIAL Y MODELADO DEL PROCESO DE TERCIARIZACIÓN EN LA ZONA METROPOLITANA DEL VALLE DE MÉXICO

La reconfiguración territorial como producto de la dinámica económica requiere examinarse considerablemente. En este sentido, analizar la distribución espacial resultante del proceso de tericiarización mediante técnicas de análisis espacial, podría aportar los elementos necesarios para subsanar los efectos adversos de la lógica de reproducción del capital. Por consiguiente el objetivo central de la investigación es identificar la configuración espacial resultante de dicho proceso, a la par de generar un modelado o modelo espacial que simplifique la realidad observada. Previo a corroborar de forma concreta la existencia de tal proceso y así contextualizar adecuadamente los resultados obtenidos. Lo anterior, mediante el desarrollo metodológico del análisis diacrónico empleado en la selección y manejo de las fuentes de información, así como una correlación minuciosa entre dichas fuentes. Para así, fundamentar científicamente los resultados y robustecer la presente investigación, exhortando a no dejarse llevar por una inercia superficial que impida dilucidar lo planteado. Finalmente la investigación busca coadyuvar en la generación del conocimiento sobre las dinámicas económicas que reconfiguran el territorio, por lo que a pesar de lograr orientar de manera implícita decisiones gubernamentales en materia de desarrollo urbano, se contiene a tan solo considerar factible profundizar sobre ello diversificando la aplicación práctica del análisis empleado. Por lo anterior, se vislumbra la posibilidad de continuar investigando en este campo al considerar relevante la relación existente entre las aglomeraciones urbanas y la distribución poblacional, o bien, otros factores relacionados con la accesibilidad. Que en conjunto podrían contribuir significativamente para esclarecer un poco más sobre los efectos adversos o ventajas del proceso de terciarización en la reconfiguración del territorio

Investment over the Business Cycle: Insights from College Major Choice

This paper examines the relationship between individuals' personal exposure to economic conditions and their investment choices in the context of human capital. Focusing on bachelor's degree recipients, we find that birth cohorts exposed to higher unemployment rates during typical schooling years select majors that earn higher wages, that have better employment prospects, and that more often lead to work in a related field. Much of this switching behavior can be considered a rational response to differences in particular majors' labor market prospects during a recession. However, higher unemployment leads to other meaningful changes in the distribution of majors. Conditional on changes in lifetime expected earnings, recessions encourage women to enter male-dominated fields, and students of both genders pursue more difficult majors, such as STEM fields. These findings imply that the economic environment changes how students select majors, possibly by encouraging them to consider a broader range of possible degree fields. Finally, in the absence of this compensating behavior, we estimate that the average estimated costs of graduating in a recession would be roughly ten percent larger

How Immigrants and Students Respond to Public Policies: Evidence from Welfare Reform, the Minimum Wage and Stafford Loans.

The first two essays of this dissertation use policy experiments to show that low-skilled newly arriving immigrants help keep the economy in geographic equilibrium by differentially selecting destinations that provide better labor market prospects. The first essay finds that immigrants choose labor markets with smaller welfare-reform created native supply shocks. Theory predicts that an increase in native supply will lower the earnings a new immigrant can expect, and immigrants thus should choose labor markets experiencing smaller supply shocks. Using a linearized version of a discrete choice model, I find that the distribution of immigrants' destinations shifts markedly away from cities with high welfare participation prior to reform toward cities with lower participation. This shift "undoes" nearly all of the difference in labor supply that would have resulted had immigrants not altered their destination choices. The second essay shows that immigrants also respond optimally to the minimum wage. These policy changes have a theoretically ambiguous effect on a job seeker's expected earnings; so I first use native teenagers to determine that a minimum wage increase will lower expected earnings for a new entrant. I then show that immigrants differentially select destination states with smaller increases or a fixed minimum, consistent with the theory. The results are strong and statistically significant even after accounting for several potentially confounding alternatives. As a falsification test, I show that the minimum wage does not affect the destinations chosen by higher-skilled immigrants. The final essay, written with Ben Keys, proposes an explanation for a surprising borrowing phenomenon: nearly one fifth of undergraduate students who are offered interest-free loans turn them down, foregoing a significant government subsidy worth up to $1,500. We discuss how advances behavioral economics can explain students' failure to accept this "free money." We then demonstrate a differential rejection rate based on how students receive their loan funds. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that students who would receive their loan as easy to spend cash are seven percentage points more likely to reject the loan than are similar students living off-campus. We interpret this finding as evidence for the behavioral explanation.Ph.D.EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61787/1/cadena_1.pd

The labor market consequences of impatience

Standard economic theory suggests that individuals know best how to make themselves happy. Thus, policies designed to encourage more forward-looking behaviors will only reduce people's happiness. Recently, however, economists have explored the role of impatience, especially difficulties with delaying gratification, in several important economic choices. There is strong evidence that some people have trouble following through on investments that best serve their long-term interests. These findings open the door to policies encouraging or requiring more patient behaviors, which would allow people to enjoy the eventual payoff from higher initial investment. &nbsp;</p

Satisfaction with Sex Life Scale: new psychometric evidence in a portuguese population

Accepted: 19 Oct. 2021 Introduction: In recent years, greater attention has been paid to research on sexual satisfaction because of its association with general well-being and increased interest in sexual and public health issues. Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Satisfaction with Sex Life Scale (SWSLS). Methods: 2,154 Portuguese individuals (M = 34.67 years, SD = 17.18) participated. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT) were used. Specifically, the internal structure, reliability and factor invariance of the SWSLS were evaluated by sex and age, as well as the characteristics and performance of the items based on the IRT analysis. Results: The SWSLS Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed that a one-dimensional model fit the data well, both for the total sample and for each sex and age group. Furthermore, the SWSLS has adequate reliability for internal consistency. Factor invariance across sex and age was supported by confirmatory multigroup factor analysis. The graduated response model showed a good fit for the one-dimensional model, while the item and test information curves indicated that the SWSLS is more informative to identify high levels of sexual satisfaction. Conclusion: The SWSLS has adequate psychometric properties to measure general sexual satisfaction in the Portuguese population regardless of age and sex

Satisfaction with sex life scale: new psychometric evidence in a Portuguese population

Accepted: 19 Oct. 2021 Introduction: In recent years, greater attention has been paid to research on sexual satisfaction because of its association with general well-being and increased interest in sexual and public health issues. Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Satisfaction with Sex Life Scale (SWSLS). Methods: 2,154 Portuguese individuals (M = 34.67 years, SD = 17.18) participated. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT) were used. Specifically, the internal structure, reliability and factor invariance of the SWSLS were evaluated by sex and age, as well as the characteristics and performance of the items based on the IRT analysis. Results: The SWSLS Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed that a one-dimensional model fit the data well, both for the total sample and for each sex and age group. Furthermore, the SWSLS has adequate reliability for internal consistency. Factor invariance across sex and age was supported by confirmatory multigroup factor analysis. The graduated response model showed a good fit for the one-dimensional model, while the item and test information curves indicated that the SWSLS is more informative to identify high levels of sexual satisfaction. Conclusion: The SWSLS has adequate psychometric properties to measure general sexual satisfaction in the Portuguese population regardless of age and sex

Phylogenomics reveals the history of host use in mosquitoes

Mosquitoes have profoundly affected human history and continue to threaten human health through the transmission of a diverse array of pathogens. The phylogeny of mosquitoes has remained poorly characterized due to difficulty in taxonomic sampling and limited availability of genomic data beyond the most important vector species. Here, we used phylogenomic analysis of 709 single copy ortholog groups from 256 mosquito species to produce a strongly supported phylogeny that resolves the position of the major disease vector species and the major mosquito lineages. Our analyses support an origin of mosquitoes in the early Triassic (217 MYA [highest posterior density region: 188–250 MYA]), considerably older than previous estimates. Moreover, we utilize an extensive database of host associations for mosquitoes to show that mosquitoes have shifted to feeding upon the blood of mammals numerous times, and that mosquito diversification and host-use patterns within major lineages appear to coincide in earth history both with major continental drift events and with the diversification of vertebrate classes. © 2023, Springer Nature Limited