The black-white gap in non marital fertility education and mates in segmented marriage markets

This study is the first to find that mate availability explains much of the race gap in non marital fertility in the United States. Both a general and an education-based metric have strong effects. The novel statistical power arises from difference-indifferences for blacks and whites, multiple cohorts, periods, and coefficient restrictions consistent with both the data and models in which differences in mate availability can induce blacks and whites to respond in opposite directions to changes in mate availability. Results are robust to several alternative specifications and tests and appear relevant where marriages are segmented along racial, religious, or other lines.fertility marriage education

Brains, drains, and roads, growth hills: complementarity between public education and infrastructure in a half-century panel of states

Applying a Barro-style model of endogenous growth to a fifty-year panel of states from 1957 to 2007, We examine the extent to which expenditures on public education and infrastructure— together with the taxes necessary to support them— enhance or impede the steady-state growth of state and local economies, as measured by per capita personal income. Our findings suggest that the independent effect of tax expenditures on either public infrastructure or education alone is significantly negative, but the complementary effect of each on the other is positive enough to make their combined effect significantly positive— except at large scales, where we find diseconomies, consistent with the ‘growth hill’ predicted by theory. Policy effects are identified empirically using a recursive structure with very long lags, GMM/instrumental variables, and controls for both fixed and time-varying heterogeneity. Results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications.growth human capital public infrastructure

A disaggregate approach to economic models of voting in U.S. presidential elections: forecasts of the 2008 election

By examining disaggregate state-level data, we address two weaknesses of prior estimates of economic voting models in U.S. Presidential elections. First, our disaggregate approach substantially improves statistical power, thus reducing the danger of “over- fitting.†Second, our analysis demonstrates systematic differences in voting behavior across states, which have been ignored: voters in higher-income states respond significantly to inflation, changes in the Dow-Jones stock market average, the number of terms the incumbent party has held office, and measures of national security concerns, yet voters in lower-income states respond significantly only to economic growth. Our forecasts for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election predict a statistical dead-heat overall, but a systematic preference for Senator John McCain in lower-income states and for Senator Barack Obama in higher-income states.

'Guns and butter'' in U.S. presidential elections

Previous models of the popular vote in U.S. Presidential elections emphasize economic growth and price stability, the role of parties and incumbency, and pre-election expectations for the future. Despite the closeness of the pre-election polls in 2004, formal models instead predict a landslide victory for President Bush. An obvious question is whether this anomaly arises, at least in part, from national security concerns – in particular, the conflict in Iraq. We explore this pre-election anomaly by introducing two opposing electoral forces capturing national security concerns, which for the 2004 election reduces President Bush's predicted vote share. In general, the impact of national security concerns on the vote share of the incumbent (or the incumbent''s party) can be substantial, whether positive, as in the 1944 election during World War II, or negative, as in the 1952 election during the Korean war and the 1968 election during the Vietnam war.

Ranking State Fiscal Structures using Theory and Evidence

taxes growth infrastructure state rankings

Ricardian equivalence for sub-national states

The authors test Ricardian equivalence within an endogenous growth model for U.S. states, which have high rates of migration relative to most countries. Results are consistent with both Ricardian equivalence and endogenous growth, despite the relative ease of migration. Increases in productive government expenditures increase long-run real growth by the same amount, for example, whether financed by taxes or bonds. State rules limiting the use of bond financing may play a role in supporting Ricardian equivalence. The study provides the first explicit test of Ricardian equivalence for sub-national states in the context of an endogenous growth model.endogenous growth

Unionization and cost of production: compensation, productivity, and factor-use effects

A demonstration that unionization can affect cost of production through increases in compensation, through shifts in technologies, and through deviations from the least-cost combination of inputs (the factor-use effect).Labor productivity ; Wages ; Labor unions

Metropolitan wage differentials: can Cleveland still compete?

A look at the Cleveland metropolitan labor market as a point of comparison to highlight how labor costs in a major industrial city fare with respect to other U.S. cities. ; A look at the Cleveland metropolitan labor market as a point of comparison to highlight how labor costs in a major industrial city fare with respect to other U.S. cities.Wages ; Cleveland (Ohio) ; Urban economics

An Economist’s Guide to Heaven

This paper is the first to offer an economic model of God and humanity as optimizing agents in the context of concrete belief archetypes (religious ‘contracts’) in Judeo-Christian theology. Data support the model’s unique predictions, despite their otherwise counterintuitive, unlikely nature. For example, the model requires that in one belief archetype, ‘good works’ not increase with strength of faith, as one might otherwise expect, and that what appears may be God’s dominant contract precisely balances divine penalties for reneging on promises with incentives to seek divine ‘gifts’—an equivalence supported in the data.economics;religion

The rising share of nonmarital births: A response to Ermisch, Martin, and Wu

We are flattered that our recent paper in Demography, GSS (2006), has attracted such close attention from Ermisch Martin and Wu (EMW). In this response we appreciate the opportunity to expand on several key aspects of our paper, but see no reason to substantially revise any of our major conclusions based on EMW comments. Reading EMW, one might think we had proposed the demographic equivalent of Newton’s second law of thermodynamics – the existence of a universal phenomenon, manifest in identical form in all places, for all groups, during all times periods, regardless of circumstances. It will be helpful, then, to review briefly the central points in GSS before turning to the major EMW comments, along with our responses.fertility, illegitimacy ratio, marriage, nonmarital fertility ratio, nonmarital births