Category: Data Source
Does declining fertility lower the gender pay gap?
Using a descriptive decomposition and data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we show that, in gross terms, fertility decline can explain almost one-quarter of gender pay convergence from 1980 to 2018. Even net of a host of controls for human capital and job characteristics, fertility decline explains 8 percent of the attenuation of the US gender pay gap 1980–2018—about half as much as changes in education and about a quarter as much as changes in full-time work experience and job tenure combined. Finally, we show that employees’ fertility decline was fastest in the 1980s and subsequently slowed; this, in conjunction with persistent gender differences in parenthood–wage associations, helps explain stalled progress toward gender pay parity.
That is from a newly published article by Alexandra Killewald and Nino José Cricco. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
J. Zachary Mazlish on median wages under Biden
An excellent post, one of the best things written this year in economics. Here is part of the bottom line:
Inflation did make the median voter poorer during Biden’s term.
- In no part of the income distribution did wages grow faster while Biden was President than they did 2012-2020.
- This is true in the raw data, and even more stark after compositional adjustment.
- In particular, the change in median incomes was well below its 2012-20 run-rate.
- But, the change in median wages is not what matters; it is the median change in wages that does. And this metric was even weaker under Biden: lower than any period in the last 30 years other than the Great Recession.
- People do not feel wages, they feel total income. And median growth in total income — post taxes and transfers — was not just historically low: it collapsed and was deeply negative from 2021 onwards.
- Much of this decline is due to timing of pandemic stimulus and even less the “fault of Biden” than other things.
Here is the full post, plenty of detail and distinctions throughout.
How well does bar exam performance predict subsequent success as a lawyer?
Eh:
How well does bar exam performance predict lawyering effectiveness? Is performance on some components of the bar exam more predictive? The current study, the first of its kind to measure the relationship between bar exam scores and a new lawyer’s effectiveness, evaluates these questions by combining three unique datasets—bar results from the State Bar of Nevada, a survey of recently admitted lawyers, and a survey of supervisors, peers, and judges who were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of recently-admitted lawyers. We find that performance on both the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) and essay components of the Nevada Bar have little relationship with the assessed lawyering effectiveness of new lawyers, calling into question the usefulness of these tests.
Here is the full article by Jason M. Scott, Stephen N. Goggin, and David Faigman. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
A new meta-meta analysis says things I agree with
We combine societal-level institutional measures from 51 countries between 1996 and 2017 with individual decision-making outcome data from 1,126 laboratory experiments in six meta-analyses to evaluate the effects of within-country institutional change on pro-social and Nash behavior. We find that government effectiveness and regulatory freedom positively correlate with pro-social behavior. We find that freedom from each of the following components of regulation; interest rate controls, binding minimum wages, worker dismissal protections, conscription, and administrative requirements; are correlated with prosocial behavior and are inversely correlated with Nash behavior. These results suggest the importance of considering spillover effects in pro-social behavior when designing government policy.
That is from a new NBER working paper by
Do you want a Democratic or Republican doctor?
Political polarization is increasingly affecting policymaking, but how is it influencing professional decision-making? This paper studies the differences in medical practice between Republican and Democratic physicians over 1999-2019. It links physicians in the Medicare claims data with their campaign contributions to determine their partyalignment. In 1999, there were no partisan differences in medical expenditure perpatient. By 2019, Republican physicians are now spending 13% more, or $70 annually per patient. We analyze four potential sources of this partisan difference: practice characteristics (i.e., specialization and location), patient composition, preferences for financial gain, and beliefs about appropriate care. Even among physicians in the same specialty and location treating patients for the same condition, Republican physicians spend 6% more, especially on elective procedures. Using a movers design, we also find large partisan differences for treating the same patient. We find no evidence that these partisan differences are driven by profit incentives. Instead, the evidence points to diverging beliefs. Republican physicians adhere less to clinical guidelines, consistent with their reported beliefs in prior surveys. The timing of the divergence matches the politicization of evidence-based medicine in Congress. These results suggest that political polarization may lead to partisan differences in the beliefs and behavior of practitioners.
That is from the job market paper of Woojin Kim from UC Berkeley. I found this one of the most interesting job market papers of this year.
Causal claims in economics
From a new and very interesting web site on that topic:
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Significant Increase in Causal Claims: The average proportion of causal claims in papers rose significantly from approximately 5% in 1990 to around 28% in 2020, reflecting the impact of the credibility revolution in economics.
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Growth in Causal Inference Methods and decline in Theoretical and Simulation Methods…
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Intricate Causal Narratives Enhance Publication and Citation Impact: Papers featuring intricate and interconnected causal narratives are more likely to be published in top-tier journals, particularly the top 5 journals, and receive more citations, especially within those journals.
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Key Measures of Causal Narrative Complexity: Increases in the number of unique paths and the longest path length in causal knowledge graphs are positively associated with both publication in leading economics journals and higher citation counts. This highlights the value placed on depth and complexity in causal narratives.
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Depth Over Quantity in Causal Claims: While the overall number of claims made is positively correlated with top journal publications, the number of causal edges alone does not show the same positive association with publication outcomes or citation counts. This suggests that depth over breadth in causal claims is valued...
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Novel Causal Relationships Enhance Publication but Not Citation Impact: Papers introducing novel causal relationships that have not been previously documented are more likely to be published in top 5 journals, indicating a premium on originality for publication success. However, this does not necessarily translate into higher citation counts once published.
Here is an associated tweet storm,
Obviously it can be argued either way, but I see these results as more negative for the causality revolution than positive? It seems there is too much emphasis on generating a defensible results from a hitherto unused data set. I understand the signaling value here, but the social value is not always obvious. I am struck by how often I meet economics graduate students who can reason about programming more effectively than they can reason about the real world.
Specialization trends in economics
This article conducts a comprehensive analysis of specialization trends within and across fields of economics research. We collect data on 24,273 articles published between 1970 and 2016 in general research economics outlets and employ machine learning techniques to enrich the collected data. Results indicate that theory and econometric methods papers are becoming increasingly specialized, with a narrowing scope and steady or declining citations from outside economics and from other fields of economics research. Conversely, applied papers are covering a broader range of topics, receiving more extramural citations from fields like medicine, and psychology. Trends in applied theory articles are unclear.
That is from a new paper by Sebastian Galiani, Ramiro H. Gálvez, and Ian Nachman, via Robin Hanson.
Does the internet limit immigrant assimilation?
This paper documents the effects of new communication technologies on immigrants’ socio-economic integration, spatial and job segregation, and networking behavior. Combining data on home-country Internet expansion shocks with data on immigrants’ linguistic skill, naturalization, location choice, and employment in the US, I find that home-country Internet slows down immigrants’ social and economic integration. The effect is driven by lower-skilled and younger immigrants. On the other hand, home-country Internet decreases spatial and job segregation with co-nationals, and increases immigrants’ subjective well-being. For the mechanisms, I use the American Time Use Survey data to show that home-country Internet changes networking behavior of immigrants. I also explore the role of (i) return intentions, (ii) international phone calls, and (iii) Facebook usage. The evidence is consistent with a simple Roy model, augmented with a choice between destination- and origin-country ties. Overall, this paper shows how new ICTs transform the links between immigration, diversity, and social cohesion.
That is from the job market paper of Alexander Yarkin from Brown University.
Germany fact of the day, the work culture that is German
Workers missed an average of 19.4 days because of illness in 2023, according to Techniker Krankenkasse, the country’s largest public health insurance provider.
Preliminary figures suggest the trend is on course to continue its upward trajectory, TK told the Financial Times, exacerbating challenges for an economy that many expect to contract for the second year running in 2024.
While it is notoriously difficult to compare data from country to country, Christopher Prinz, an expert on employment at the OECD, said Germany was “definitely among the higher countries” when it came to sick leave.
study published in January by the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA), an industry body, found that were it not for the country’s above-average number of sick days, the German economy would have grown 0.5 per cent last year, rather than shrinking 0.3 per cent.
Here is more from Laura Pitel at the Financial Times. Via Roland Stephen.
The evolution of nepotism in academia, 1088-1800
We have constructed a comprehensive database that traces the publications of father–son pairs in the premodern academic realm and examined the contribution of inherited human capital versus nepotism to occupational persistence. We find that human capital was strongly transmitted from parents to children and that nepotism declined when the misallocation of talent across professions incurred greater social costs. Specifically, nepotism was less common in fields experiencing rapid changes in the knowledge frontier, such as the sciences and within Protestant institutions. Most notably, nepotism sharply declined during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, when departures from meritocracy arguably became both increasingly inefficient and socially intolerable.
That is from a new paper by David de la Croix & Marc Goñi. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
The Health and Employment Effects of Employer Vaccination Mandates
Health care facilities considering mandating staff vaccination face a difficult tradeoff. While additional vaccination coverage will directly reduce disease transmission within the facility, the imposition of a mandate may also cause vaccine-hesitant staff to quit, which could harm patient care. To study this tradeoff, we leverage comprehensive administrative data covering virtually all US nursing homes, including payroll-based records on approximately 500 million daily nurse shifts and weekly data on COVID transmission and mortality at each facility. We use a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the impact of employer-imposed vaccine mandates at 581 nursing homes on disease spread, employment outcomes, and several patient care metrics. While mandates did slightly increase staff turnover, the effects were concentrated on staff working less than 20 hours per week, and resulted in a reduction of less than two minutes per patient-day. Furthermore, there is only limited evidence of lower levels of care at mandate facilities in typically-monitored conditions such as patient falls, pressure ulcers, or urinary tract infections. In contrast, implementing a vaccine mandate led to large increases in staff vaccinations at mandate facilities, which directly led to less transmission of and lower patient mortality from COVID. We estimate that vaccine mandates saved one patient life for every two facilities that enacted a mandate, a large effect given the typical facility has around 100 beds. Our results suggest that the health benefits of mandates far outweigh the costs in terms of reduced patient care from staff turnover.
Yup. For some of you, it is time to read it and weep. Here is the full paper by
Gossip phrased with concern provides advantages in female intrasexual competition
Although many women report being victimized by gossip, fewer report spreading negative gossip. Female gossipers might be unaware they are gossiping if they disclose such statements out of concern for targets. Four studies (N = 1709) investigated whether women believe their gossip is motivated by concern and whether expressing concern for targets insulates female gossipers against social costs, while simultaneously impairing targets’ reputations. Study 1 examined sex differences in gossip motivations. Compared to men, women endorsed stronger concern than harm motivations, especially when gossiping about other women, suggesting these motivations characterize female intrasexual gossip. In Study 2, female gossipers who phrased their negative gossip with concern (versus maliciously or neutrally) were evaluated as more trustworthy and desirable as social and romantic partners. Study 3 replicated the favorable evaluations of concerned female gossipers. Female participants especially disliked malicious female gossipers, suggesting professions of concern might help to avoid women’s scorn. Male participants reported lower romantic interest in female gossip targets when they learned concern (versus malicious or no) gossip, suggesting concerned gossip can harm female targets’ romantic prospects. Study 4 revealed these patterns extend to face-to-face interactions. A female gossiper was preferred as a social partner when she phrased her gossip with concern versus maliciously. Moreover, concerned gossip harmed perceptions of the female target as effectively as malicious gossip. Altogether, findings suggest that negative gossip delivered with concern effectively harms female targets’ reputations, while also protecting gossipers’ reputations, indicating a viable strategy in female intrasexual competition.
That is from a recent paper by Reynolds, Vaner, and Baumeister. Via a loyal MR reader.
What predicts success in science?
How does a person’s childhood socioeconomic status (SES) influence their chances to participate and succeed in science? To investigate this question, we use machine-learning methods to link scientists in a comprehensive biographical dictionary, the American Men of Science (1921), with their childhood home in the US Census and with publications. First, we show that children from low-SES homes were already severely underrepresented in the early 1900s. Second, we find that SES influences peer recognition, even conditional on participation: Scientists from high-SES families have 38% higher odds of becoming stars, controlling for age, publications, and disciplines. Using live-in servants as an alternative measure for SES confirms the strong link between childhood SES and becoming a star. Applying text analysis to assign scientists to disciplines, we find that mathematics is the only discipline in which SES influences stardom through the number and the quality of a scientist’s publications. Using detailed data on job titles to distinguish academic from industry scientists, we find that industry scientists have lower odds of being stars. Controlling for industry employment further strengthens the link between childhood SES and stardom. Elite undergraduate degrees explain more of the correlation between SES and stardom than any other control. At the same time, controls for birth order, family size, foreign-born parents, maternal education, patents, and connections with existing stars leave estimates unchanged, highlighting the importance of SES.
That is from a new NBER working paper by Anna Airoldi and Petra Moser.
The Declining Relative Quality of the Child Care Workforce
Although it is widely acknowledged that high-skilled teachers are integral to service quality and young children’s well-being in child care settings, little is known about the qualifications and skills of the child care workforce. This paper combines data from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of the quality of individuals employed in the child care sector. I find that today’s workforce is relatively low-skilled: child care workers have less schooling than those in other occupations, they score substantially lower on tests of cognitive ability, and they are among the lowest-paid individuals in the economy. I also show that the relative quality of the child care workforce is declining, in part because higher-skilled individuals increasingly find the child care sector less attractive than other occupations. Furthermore, I provide evidence that at least three other factors may be associated with the decline in worker quality. First, the recent proliferation of community college programs offering child care-related certificates and degrees may divert students away from attending four-year schools. Second, those majoring in child care-related fields are negatively selected for their cognitive skills, thereby decreasing the quality of the child care labor pool. Third, I show that the increased availability of outside employment options for high-skilled women had a detrimental effect on the quality of the child care workforce.
That is from a new paper by Chris M. Herbst. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
Fluoride revisionism?
I am usually skeptical of such efforts, but Journal of Health Economics is quite a serious outlet:
Community water fluoridation has been named one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century for its role in improving dental health. Fluoride has large negative effects at high doses, clear benefits at low levels, and an unclear optimal dosage level. I leverage county-level variation in the timing of fluoride adoption, combined with restricted U.S. Census data that link over 29 million individuals to their county of birth, to estimate the causal effects of childhood fluoride exposure. Children exposed to community water fluoridation from age zero to five are worse off as adults on indices of economic self-sufficiency (−1.9% of a SD) and physical ability and health (−1.2% of a SD). They are also significantly less likely to graduate high school (−1.5 percentage points) or serve in the military (−1.0 percentage points). These findings challenge existing conclusions about safe levels of fluoride exposure.
That new article is by Adam Roberts. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.