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Author: Rubinstein, Yona
Resulting in 9 citations.
1. Hurst, Erik
Rubinstein, Yona
Shimizu, Kazuatsu
Task Based Discrimination
Working Paper No. 2021-40, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago, June 28, 2021.
Also: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3875550
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Job; Discrimination, Racial/Ethnic; Job Skills; Racial Differences; Skills; Wage Gap

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Why did the Black-White wage gap converge from 1960 to 1980 and why has it stagnated since? To answer this question, we introduce a unified model that integrates notions of both taste-based and statistical discrimination into a task-based model of occupational sorting. At the heart of our framework is the idea that discrimination varies by the task requirement of each job. We use this framework to identify and quantify the role of trends in race-specific factors and changing task prices in explaining the evolution of the Black-White wage gap since 1960. In doing so, we highlight a new task measure--Contact tasks--which measures the extent to which individuals interact with others as part of their job. We provide evidence that changes in the racial gap in Contact tasks serves as a good proxy for changes in taste-based discrimination over time. We find that taste-based discrimination has fallen and racial skill gaps have narrowed over the last sixty years in the United States. However, since the 1980s, the effect of declining racial skill gaps and discrimination on the Black-White wage gap were offset by the increasing returns to Abstract tasks which, on average, favored White workers relative to Black workers.
Bibliography Citation
Hurst, Erik, Yona Rubinstein and Kazuatsu Shimizu. "Task Based Discrimination." Working Paper No. 2021-40, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago, June 28, 2021.
2. Juhn, Chinhui
Rubinstein, Yona
Zuppann, Charles Andrew
The Quantity-Quality Trade-off and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills
NBER Working Paper No. 21824, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2015
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birth Order; Educational Attainment; Family Size; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Parental Investments; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

We estimate the impact of increases in family size on childhood and adult outcomes using matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Using twins as an instrumental variable and panel data to control for omitted factors we find that families face a substantial quantity-quality trade-off: increases in family size decrease parental investment, decrease childhood cognitive abilities, and increase behavioral problems. The negative effects on cognitive abilities are much larger for girls while the detrimental effects on behavior are larger for boys. We also find evidence of heterogeneous effects by mother's AFQT score, with the negative effects on cognitive scores being much larger for children of mothers with low AFQT scores.
Bibliography Citation
Juhn, Chinhui, Yona Rubinstein and Charles Andrew Zuppann. "The Quantity-Quality Trade-off and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills." NBER Working Paper No. 21824, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2015.
3. Juhn, Chinhui
Rubinstein, Yona
Zuppann, Charles Andrew
The Quantity-Quality Tradeoff and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills
Working Paper, University of Houston, October 2012 [Updated November 2014]
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: University of Houston
Keyword(s): Age at First Birth; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birth Order; Educational Attainment; Family Size; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Labor Force Participation; Noncognitive Skills; Parental Investments; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Pearlin Mastery Scale; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Siblings

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We estimate the impact of increases in family size on childhood and adult outcomes using matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We use two approaches: using twin births as exogenous shocks to family size and utilizing the precise timing of family expansion to separate out family size increases from total family size effects. We find evidence that families face a substantial quantity-quality tradeoff: increases in family size decrease childhood cognitive abilities, decrease parental investment, decrease educational attainment, and decrease measures of adulthood non-cognitive abilities.
Bibliography Citation
Juhn, Chinhui, Yona Rubinstein and Charles Andrew Zuppann. "The Quantity-Quality Tradeoff and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills." Working Paper, University of Houston, October 2012 [Updated November 2014].
4. Levine, Ross
Rubinstein, Yona
Does Entrepreneurship Pay? The Michael Bloombergs, the Hot Dog Vendors, and the Returns to Self-Employment
Working Paper, Haas School of Business, University of California--Berkeley, September 2012
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of California - Berkeley
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Attainment; Entrepreneurship; Illegal Activities; Occupational Aspirations; Occupational Choice; Risk-Taking; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Self-Employed Workers; Self-Esteem; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We use the classification of the self-employed into incorporated and unincorporated to separate between “entrepreneurs” and other business owners. Using data from the CPS and the NLSY79, we find, in contrast to a large body of research, that entrepreneurs earn much more per hour and work many more hours than their salaried and unincorporated counterparts. Moreover, the incorporated self-employed have distinct cognitive and noncognitive traits: they are more educated, and even as teenagers, they score higher on learning aptitude tests, exhibit greater self-esteem, and engage in more aggressive, illicit, risk-taking activities. And, these traits are much more important for entrepreneurial success than they are for success in other employment activities.
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Ross and Yona Rubinstein. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? The Michael Bloombergs, the Hot Dog Vendors, and the Returns to Self-Employment." Working Paper, Haas School of Business, University of California--Berkeley, September 2012.
5. Levine, Ross
Rubinstein, Yona
Selection into Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment
NBER Working Paper No. 25350, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2018.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25350
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Entrepreneurship; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Self-Employed Workers; Wealth

We study the effects of ability and liquidity constraints on entrepreneurship. We develop a three sector Roy model that differentiates between entrepreneurs and other self-employed to address puzzling gaps that have emerged between theory and evidence on entry into entrepreneurship. The model predicts--and the data confirm--that entrepreneurs are positively selected on highly-remunerated human capital, but other self-employed are negatively selected on those same abilities; entrepreneurs are positively selected on collateral, but other self-employed are not; and entrepreneurship is procyclical, but self-employment is countercyclical.
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Ross and Yona Rubinstein. "Selection into Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment." NBER Working Paper No. 25350, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2018.
6. Levine, Ross
Rubinstein, Yona
Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Do They Earn More?
Quarterly Journal of Economics 132,2 (May 2017): 963-1018.
Also: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/qje/qjw044
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Earnings; Entrepreneurship; Illegal Activities; Occupational Aspirations; Occupational Choice; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Self-Employed Workers

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We disaggregate the self-employed into incorporated and unincorporated to distinguish between "entrepreneurs" and other business owners. We show that the incorporated self-employed and their businesses engage in activities that demand comparatively strong nonroutine cognitive abilities, while the unincorporated and their firms perform tasks demanding relatively strong manual skills. People who become incorporated business owners tend to be more educated and--as teenagers--score higher on learning aptitude tests, exhibit greater self-esteem, and engage in more illicit activities than others. The combination of "smart" and "illicit" tendencies as youths accounts for both entry into entrepreneurship and the comparative earnings of entrepreneurs. Individuals tend to experience a material increase in earnings when becoming entrepreneurs, and this increase occurs at each decile of the distribution.
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Ross and Yona Rubinstein. "Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Do They Earn More?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 132,2 (May 2017): 963-1018.
7. Levine, Ross
Rubinstein, Yona
Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Does It Pay?
NBER Working Paper No. 19276, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2013.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19276
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Attainment; Entrepreneurship; Illegal Activities; Occupational Aspirations; Occupational Choice; Risk-Taking; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Self-Employed Workers; Self-Esteem; Wages

We disaggregate the self-employed into incorporated and unincorporated to distinguish between “entrepreneurs” and other business owners. The incorporated self-employed have a distinct combination of cognitive, noncognitive, and family traits. Besides coming from higher-income families with better-educated mothers, the incorporated—as teenagers—scored higher on learning aptitude tests, had greater self-esteem, and engaged in more aggressive, illicit, risk-taking activities. The combination of “smarts” and “aggressive/illicit/risk-taking” tendencies as a youth accounts for both entry into entrepreneurship and the comparative earnings of entrepreneurs. In contrast to a large literature, we also find that entrepreneurs earn much more per hour than their salaried counterparts.
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Ross and Yona Rubinstein. "Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Does It Pay?" NBER Working Paper No. 19276, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2013.
8. Mulligan, Casey B.
Rubinstein, Yona
Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages over Time
Quarterly Journal of Economics 123,3 (August 2008): 1061-1110.
Also: http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/123/3/1061.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: MIT Press
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Gender Differences; I.Q.; Skills; Wage Differentials; Wage Gap; Wage Growth; Wages, Women

In theory, growing wage inequality within gender should cause women to invest more in their market productivity and should differentially pull able women into the workforce. Our paper uses Heckman's two-step estimator and identification at infinity on repeated Current Population Survey cross sections to calculate relative wage series for women since 1970 that hold constant the composition of skills. We find that selection into the female full-time full-year workforce shifted from negative in the 1970s to positive in the 1990s, and that the majority of the apparent narrowing of the gender wage gap reflects changes in female workforce composition. We find the same types of composition changes by measuring husbands' wages and National Longitudinal Survey IQ data as proxies for unobserved skills. Our findings help to explain why growing wage equality between genders coincided with growing inequality within gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Mulligan, Casey B. and Yona Rubinstein. "Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages over Time." Quarterly Journal of Economics 123,3 (August 2008): 1061-1110.
9. Mulligan, Casey B.
Rubinstein, Yona
Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Since 1975
NBER Working Paper No. W11159, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2005
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Gender Differences; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Wage Differentials; Wage Gap; Wage Growth; Wages, Women

In theory, growing wage inequality within gender should cause women to invest more in their market productivity and should differentially pull able women into the workforce, thereby closing the measured gender gap even though women's wages might have grown less than men's had their behavior been held constant. Using the CPS repeated cross-sections between 1975 and 2001, we use control function (Heckit) methods to correct married women's conditional mean wages for selectivity and investment biases. Our estimates suggest that selection of women into the labor market has changed sign, from negative to positive, or at least that positive selectivity bias has come to overwhelm investment bias. The estimates also explain why measured women's relative wage growth coincided with growth of wage inequality within-gender, and attribute the measured gender wage gap closure to changing selectivity and investment biases, rather than relative increases in women's earning potential. Using PSID waves 1975-93 to control for the changing female workforce with person-fixed effects, we also find little growth in women's mean log wages. Finally, we make a first attempt to gauge the relative importance of selection versus investment biases, by examining the family and cognitive backgrounds of members of the female workforce. PSID, NLS, and NLSY data sets show how the cross-section correlation between female employment and family/cognitive background has changed from "negative" to "positive" over the last thirty years, in amounts that might be large enough to attribute most of women's relative wage growth to changing selectivity bias.
Bibliography Citation
Mulligan, Casey B. and Yona Rubinstein. "Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Since 1975." NBER Working Paper No. W11159, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2005.