The curse of cash, by Kenneth S. Rogoff (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2016)

The world is drowning in cash—and it’s making us poorer and less safe. In The Curse of Cash, Kenneth Rogoff, one of the world’s leading economists, makes a persuasive and fascinating case for an idea that until recently would have seemed outlandish: getting rid of most paper money. Even as people in advanced economies are using less paper money, there is more cash in circulation—a record $1.4 trillion in U.S. dollars alone, or$4,200 for every American, mostly in $100 bills. And the United States is hardly exceptional. So what is all that cash being used for? The answer is simple: a large part is feeding tax evasion, corruption, terrorism, the drug trade, human trafficking, and the rest of a massive global underground economy. As Rogoff shows, paper money can also cripple monetary policy. In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, central banks have been unable to stimulate growth and inflation by cutting interest rates significantly below zero for fear that it would drive investors to abandon treasury bills and stockpile cash. This constraint has paralyzed monetary policy in virtually every advanced economy, and is likely to be a recurring problem in the future. The Curse of Cash offers a plan for phasing out most paper money—while leaving small-denomination bills and coins in circulation indefinitely—and addresses the issues the transition will pose, ranging from fears about privacy and price stability to the need to provide subsidized debit cards for the poor. While phasing out the bulk of paper money will hardly solve the world’s problems, it would be a significant step toward addressing a surprising number of very big ones. Provocative, engaging, and backed by compelling original arguments and evidence, The Curse of Cash is certain to spark widespread debate.Accepted manuscrip

John Maynard Keynes, man or myth? The incident of the Spanish pesetas

John Maynard Keynes was and still is one of the world’s most famous economists. One of the most fascinating stories about Keynes appeared in his obituary in the 1946 Proceedings of the British Academy. The story stated that during World War I with minimal financial resources Keynes broke the Spanish-British foreign exchange market, a manipulation that is illegal today. This research investigates if the story is myth or truth. Archival materials suggest Keynes did manipulate this foreign exchange market in April of 1918 and he potentially earned £8 million on his trades.First author draf

E-mail, computer usage and college students: a case study

The explosive growth of the Internet and electronic mail (E-mail) is causing many educators to try integrating electronic materials and communication into their classrooms. Many of these educators are implicitly assuming that all students will use these new electronic resources once they are available. This paper tests this assumption and finds that even when students are given large incentives to use E-mail, over a quarter of the students in this case study did not.Accepted manuscrip

Divergent trends in U.S. maternity and paternity leave, 1994–2015

OBJECTIVES: The objective is to determine the number and type of U.S. workers taking maternity or paternity leave. METHODS: This research analyzes secondary data from 1994 to 2015 from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS surveys about 60,000 randomly selected households monthly and provides a publicly available ecological long-term series for measuring parental leave. RESULTS: The average month from 1994 to 2015 saw 273,000 women and 13,000 men on maternity or paternity leave. Maternity leave figures show no trend over 22 years. Paternity figures increase by a factor of three, but start from a small base. No national impact on maternity or paternity leave was observed after implementation of state laws which provided paid leave. About half (51.1%) of employees on maternity or paternity leave during 2015 received paid time off. The typical woman on maternity leave was older, more likely married, more likely white non-Hispanic and more educated than the typical woman who gave birth. CONCLUSION: While the US economy expanded dramatically since 1994, this improvement does not appear to have translated into more women taking maternity leave.  Accepted manuscrip

Are blondes really dumb?

Discrimination based on appearance has serious economic consequences. Women with blonde hair are often considered beautiful, but dumb, which is a potentially harmful stereotype since many employers seek intelligent workers. Using the NLSY79, a large nationally representative survey tracking young baby boomers, this research analyzes the IQ of white women and men according to hair color. Blonde women have a higher mean IQ than women with brown, red and black hair. Blondes are more likely classified as geniuses and less likely to have extremely low IQ than women with other hair colors, suggesting the dumb blonde stereotype is a myth.Published versio

Ethical behaviors and wealth: generation Y’s experience

This research investigates if ethical behaviors and personal finances are related using a large scale U.S. random survey called the NLSY97. Fifteen indicators covering both ethical and unethical behaviors are compared to net worth for people in their 20s and 30s, who are called Generation Y. Breaking rules, stealing and being arrested are associated with less wealth in this generation. Results suggest that among people in their early 20s there is little or no relationship between ethical behaviors and wealth. However, as this cohort ages, a positive relationship between acting more ethically and wealth emerges.Accepted manuscrip

“Do I look fat?” Self-perceived body weight and labor market outcomes

Research reporting that greater body weight is associated with lower wages and employment, particularly among women, focuses on how employers perceive workers. In contrast, we examine whether workers’ own perceptions of body weight influence labor market outcomes. Numerous studies find that misperception of body weight influences health behaviors and health, both mental and physical. For example, anorexia nervosa involves the over-perception of weight and raises the risk of cardiovascular disease. Do the health consequences of inaccurate self-perceived weight carry through to the labor market? We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to investigate patterns in weight misperception and three labor market outcomes. We find little evidence that either over-perception or under-perception of weight is associated with wages, weeks worked, or the number of jobs held for women and men.Accepted manuscrip

The association between socioeconomic status and adult fast-food consumption in the U.S.

Health follows a socioeconomic status (SES) gradient in developed countries, with disease prevalence falling as SES rises. This pattern is partially attributed to differences in nutritional intake, with the poor eating the least healthy diets. This paper examines whether there is an SES gradient in one specific aspect of nutrition: fast-food consumption. Fast food is generally high in calories and low in nutrients. We use data from the 2008, 2010, and 2012 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) to test whether adult fast-food consumption in the United States falls as monetary resources rise (n = 8136). This research uses more recent data than previous fast-food studies and includes a comprehensive measure of wealth in addition to income to measure SES. We find little evidence of a gradient in adult fast-food consumption with respect to wealth. While adults in the highest quintile are 54.5% less likely to report fast-food consumption than those in the lowest quintile, adults in the second and third quintiles are no less likely to report fast food–food intake than the poorest. Contrary to popular belief, fast-food consumption rises as income rises from the lowest to middle quintiles. The variation in adult fast-food consumption across income and wealth groups is, however, small. Those in the wealthiest quintile ate about one less fast-food meal on average than those in the lowest quintile. Other factors play a bigger role in explaining fast-food consumption: reading ingredient labels is negatively associated while soda consumption and hours of work are positively associated with fast-food consumption.Accepted manuscrip

Does asthma impair wealth accumulation or does wealth protect against asthma?

OBJECTIVE: We investigate the association between adult asthma and wealth, testing whether the disease impairs wealth accumulation (social selection model) or if wealth protects against asthma (social causation model). METHODS: We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (n = 7,644) and linear and logistic regressions to estimate the association between wealth and asthma. Changes in relative wealth following an asthma diagnosis and asthma status by increases in wealth through inheritance provide evidence on the causal direction. RESULTS: Asthma, particularly severe asthma, is associated with lower wealth. Wealth ranking does not change after a diagnosis of asthma, but inheriting a substantial sum is associated with a lower risk of severe asthma. CONCLUSION: Wealth appears to protect against severe asthma, supporting the social causation model of disease.Accepted manuscrip

Implementation of an Automatic, \u3cem\u3ea Posteriori\u3c/em\u3e, Hierarchical Classification System

This paper describes a total system which provides the capability to semi-automatically index and classify any given file of information. The semi-automatic indexing method assigns key terms to each document in the file . These key terms may be modified, (i.e., added, deleted, or changed) by the user. The indexed documents are then assigned to categories by an automatic classification algorithm. The classification assignments are a posteriori. Classification dictionaries are also produced which can be used as an aid in browsing through the data base and in retrievals from the data base. Samples are given of the results obtained while indexing and classifying an experimental data base containing the texts of 1669 radio messages