The Effect Of Marital Status On The Standard Of Living Of Young Men And Women

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data base is used to explore the effects of changes in marital status on the standard of living of a sample of young adults. OLS regression analysis indicates that changes in marital status have very different effects on young women and young men.  Women receive large increases in their income-to-needs ratios when they marry, and they incur large declines in their income-to-needs ratios after experiencing a divorce or separation.  Men, on the other hand, do not experience significant changes in their income-to-needs ratios when their marital status changes

Achieving Proficiencies In Economics Capstone Courses

This paper argues that capstone courses in economics should be integrative experiences that require students to demonstrate six core proficiencies.  The capstone economics senior seminar at Illinois Wesleyan University is used as an example of how a capstone course that requires completion of an original research paper might achieve these proficiencies.  Also, carefully designed co-curricular activities, such as student-edited undergraduate journals, and participation in undergraduate research conferences are recommended as complements to capstone research courses

A Post-Tenure Review System That Is Good Personnel Policy: Is It Possible?

The recent implementation of post-tenure review programs at many American universities is an interesting and controversial trend. Some of these systems are "developmental" and unthreatening while others are "summative" and can lead to the dismissal of under-performing faculty members.  This paper argues that because of the unique nature of academic labor markets, summative review systems may not be appropriate for most universities. By weakening the institution of tenure, summative post-tenure review systems decrease academic freedom.  They also reduce efficiency within universities by discouraging collegiality and collaboration.  We propose that universities in need of systems of post-tenure review establish "developmental" programs that do not threaten academic freedom or weaken the institution of tenure. These systems give faculty members a chance to critically evaluate past performance and motivate them to develop professionally.  A developmental post-tenure review system recently adopted at Illinois Wesleyan University is presented as an example

The Assimilation of Immigrants Who Arrived in the United States as Children

Although there has been much research on the effects of national origin, English speaking ability and educational attainment on the assimilation of immigrants, there has been little work on the effect of age of immigration on assimilation. This paper uses 1990 Census (IPUMS) data to assess the effects of age immigration on the relative earnings performance of 30-year-old immigrant men.  Earnings regressions are run for three cohorts of immigrants defined by their age of arrival and a decomposition analysis is conducted to explain earnings gaps between each of the three immigrant cohorts and a sample of nonimmigrant men. We find that immigrants that arrive in the US before their tenth birthday have higher earnings and higher rates of return to education compared to immigrants who arrive at older age. Late arrivals, on the other hand, have a substantial earnings disadvantage relative to natives and seem to be more adversely effected by low levels of ethnic capital.  We also found that a substantial income gap remained between older immigrants and natives even after estimating what their earnings would have been had they possessed the native human capital characteristics  Age of arrival clearly matters and should be a consideration in designing immigration policy. &nbsp

The Effect Of Place Of Origin On The Relative Earnings Of Immigrant Women

This paper explores the earnings differentials between female immigrants from 14 places of origin when compared to each other and a number of other groups.   The very large differences in average earnings between female immigrant groups are found to be largely due to human capital and family characteristic differences.  The study employs OLS regression to make earnings comparisons between immigrant women from each of the 14 places of origin to three reference groups.  We find that although female immigrants from most countries are doing well relative to female natives, they fall significantly behind native males and male immigrants, even after controlling for differences in human capital.  Thus, some groups of immigrant women suffer a double disadvantage in the U.S. workforce, one due to gender and the other due to their relatively low levels of human capital

Income and Poverty across SMSAs: A Two-Stage Analysis

Two popular explanations of urban poverty are the "welfare-disincentive" and "urban-deindustrialization" theories. Using cross-sectional Census data, we develop a two-stage model to predict an SMSAs median family income and poverty rate. The model allows the city's welfare level and industrial structure to affect its median family income and poverty rate directly. It also allows welfare and industrial structure to affect income and poverty indirectly, through their effects on family structure, education, and employment. The results give limited support to both the welfare-disincentive and urban-deindustrialization explanations of urban income levels and poverty rates.Welfare

The Effect of Industrial Structure on Black-White Family Income Differentials

This paper attempts to determine the effect of the intensity of durable goods manufacturing activity in metropolitan areas on the black/white median family income ratio. Using 1980 census data for fifty-two SMSAs in the Great Lakes region, the black/white family income ratio is regressed against measures of the intensity of durable goods manufacturing and a number of other variables that are hypothesized to effect the relative income performance of black families. The results indicate that the black/white median family income ratio is greater in those cities with a high proportion of total employment in manufacturing than in service-oriented cities.

Undergraduate Economics Journals: Learning By Doing

Although there are currently only a few undergraduate journals in economics, we expect their numbers to increase substantially in the future because of several developments: 1) research and writing activity is increasing in economics programs, 2) online publication is now more feasible and cost efficient than ever, and 3) students are increasingly aware of their on-line identity and desire to project a positive and professional image. Since increasing use of undergraduate journals might benefit a number of students, including potential article authors, article reviewers, and editors, there is a need to begin to assess the educational benefits of participation in journals. This paper reports results from a survey of reviewers who had reviewed articles for two undergraduate journals, The Park Place Economist and The Undergraduate Economic Review. The reviewers generally agreed that they received a range of benefits from the review process and nearly all agreed that reviewing had been a valuable use of their time. Several of the suggested benefits were positively correlated with measures of participation intensity. Nearly half the respondents thought the benefits would have been greater with more, not fewer, articles to review