Search Results

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Resulting in 33 citations.
1. Altonji, Joseph G.
Dunn, Thomas Albert
Relationships Among the Family Incomes and Labor Market Outcomes of Relatives
NBER Working Paper No. w3724, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1991.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3724
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Collective Bargaining; Family Income; Fathers and Sons; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Labor Market Outcomes; Labor Productivity; Mothers and Daughters; Siblings

This paper examines the links between the labor market outcomes of individuals who are related by blood or by marriage using panel data on pairs of matched family members from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience. We examine the intergenerational and sibling correlations among a broad set of labor market variables using time average, method of moments and regression techniques designed to reduce the biases introduced by transitory and measurement errors. We also show that family data can be exploited to investigate theories of job turnover, labor supply. and the industry structure of wages. Our primary findings follow. First, there are strong correlations between the family incomes of relatives. Our method of moments estimates are .38 for brother pairs, .73 for sister pairs. and .56 for brother-sister pairs. The intergenerational family income correlations are .36 for father-son pairs, .48 for father-daughter pairs, and .56 for both mother-son and mother-daughter pairs. These estimates, except for the father-son result, are large compared to those in the literature for the U.S. Second, we find strong correlations in the wages and earnings of relatives. Wage correlations vary around .40 for all family member pairs, and earnings correlations vary around .35. Work hours of family members of the same sex are also fairly strongly related. Fourth, we find strong correlations in the earnings of "in-laws" that may support a theory of assortive mating in which parental earnings have value. We also provide evidence that job turnover rates depend on family characteristics and are negatively correlated with labor market productivity. Further, we show that young men whose fathers work in high wage industries tend themselves to work in high wage industries. Lastly, we find that a father's collective bargaining coverage has a strong positive influence on his son's collective bargaining status.
Bibliography Citation
Altonji, Joseph G. and Thomas Albert Dunn. "Relationships Among the Family Incomes and Labor Market Outcomes of Relatives." NBER Working Paper No. w3724, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1991.
2. Antwi, Yaa Akosa
Maclean, Johanna Catherine
State Health Insurance Mandates and Labor Market Outcomes: New Evidence on Old Questions
NBER Working Paper No. 23203, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2017.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23203
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Geocoded Data; Insurance, Health; Labor Market Outcomes; State-Level Data/Policy

In this study we re-visit the relationship between private health insurance mandates, access to employer-sponsored health insurance, and labor market outcomes. Specifically, we model employer-sponsored health insurance access and labor market outcomes across the lifecycle as a function of the number of high cost mandates in place at labor market entrance. Our analysis draws on a long panel of workers from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and exploits variation in five high cost state mandates between 1972 and 1989. Four principal findings emerge from our analysis. First, we find no strong evidence that high cost state health insurance mandates discourage employers from offering insurance to employees. Second, employers adjust both wages and labor demand to offset mandate costs, suggesting that employees place some value on the mandated benefits. Third, the effects are persistent, but not permanent. Fourth, the effects are heterogeneous across worker types. These findings have implications for thinking through the full labor market effects of health insurance expansions.
Bibliography Citation
Antwi, Yaa Akosa and Johanna Catherine Maclean. "State Health Insurance Mandates and Labor Market Outcomes: New Evidence on Old Questions." NBER Working Paper No. 23203, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2017.
3. Arkes, Jeremy
Shen, Yu-Chu
For Better or For Worse, But How About a Recession?
Working Paper No. 16525. National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2010.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16525
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Divorce; Economic Changes/Recession; Marital Instability; Unemployment Rate

In light of the current economic crisis, we estimate hazard models of divorce to determine how state and national unemployment rates affect the likelihood of divorce. With 89,340 observations over the 1978-2006 period for 7633 couples from the 1979 NLSY, we find mixed evidence on whether increases in the unemployment rate lead to overall increases in the likelihood of divorce, which would suggest countercyclical divorce probabilities. However, further analysis reveals that the weak evidence is due to the weak economy increasing the risk of divorce only for couples in years 6 to 10 of marriage. For couples in years 1 to 5 and couples married longer than 10 years, there is no evidence of a pattern between the strength of the economy and divorce probabilities. The estimates are generally stronger in magnitude when using national instead of state unemployment rates.
Bibliography Citation
Arkes, Jeremy and Yu-Chu Shen. "For Better or For Worse, But How About a Recession?" Working Paper No. 16525. National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2010.
4. Artz, Benjamin
Blanchflower, David G.
Bryson, Alex
Unions Increase Job Satisfaction in the United States
NBER Working Paper No. 28717, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2021.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w28717
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Economic Changes/Recession; Job Satisfaction; Underemployment; Unions

We revisit the well-known negative association between union coverage and individuals' job satisfaction in the United States, first identified over forty years ago. We find the association has flipped since the Great Recession such that union workers are now more satisfied than their non-union counterparts. This is found to be the case for younger and older workers in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth of 1979 and 1997. The change is apparent when we use the panel data to account for fixed differences in those who are and are not unionized, suggesting changes in worker sorting into union status are not the reason for the change. The absence of substantial change in the union wage gap, and the stability of results when conditioning on wages, both suggest the change is not associated with changes in unions' wage bargaining. Instead, we find some diminution in unions' ability to lower quit rates – albeit confined to older workers - which is suggestive of a decline in their effectiveness in operating as a 'voice' mechanism for unionized workers. We also present evidence suggestive of unions' ability to minimize covered workers’ exposure to underemployment, a phenomenon that has negatively impacted non-union workers.
Bibliography Citation
Artz, Benjamin, David G. Blanchflower and Alex Bryson. "Unions Increase Job Satisfaction in the United States." NBER Working Paper No. 28717, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2021.
5. Bailey, Martha J.
Hershbein, Brad
Miller, Amalia Rebecca
The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages
Working Paper No. 17922. National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2012.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17922
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Career Patterns; Contraception; Gender; Gender Differences; Human Capital; Wage Rates; Wages; Women

Decades of research on the U.S. gender gap in wages describes its correlates, but little is known about why women changed their career paths in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper explores the role of “the Pill” in altering women’s human capital investments and its ultimate implications for life-cycle wages. Using state-by-birth-cohort variation in legal access to contraception, we show that younger access to the Pill conferred an 8-percent hourly wage premium by age fifty. Our estimates imply that the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s.
Bibliography Citation
Bailey, Martha J., Brad Hershbein and Amalia Rebecca Miller. "The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages." Working Paper No. 17922. National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2012.
6. Baum, Charles L., II
Chou, Shin-Yi
The Socio-Economic Causes of Obesity
Working Paper No. 17423. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17423
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); Obesity; Socioeconomic Factors; Urbanization/Urban Living

An increasing number of Americans are obese, with a body mass index of 30 or more. In fact, the latest estimates indicate that about 30% of Americans are currently obese, which is roughly a 100% increase from 25 years ago. It is well accepted that weight gain is caused by caloric imbalance, where more calories are consumed than expended. Nevertheless, it is not clear why the prevalence of obesity has increased so dramatically over the last 30 years.

We simultaneously estimate the effects of the various socio-economic factors on weight status, considering in our analysis many of the socio-economic factors that have been identified by other researchers as important influences on caloric imbalance: employment, physical activity at work, food prices, the prevalence of restaurants, cigarette smoking, cigarette prices and taxes, food stamp receipt, and urbanization. We use 1979- and 1997-cohort National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data, which allows us to compare the prevalence of obesity between cohorts surveyed roughly 25 years apart. Using the traditional Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, we find that cigarette smoking has the largest effect: the decline in cigarette smoking explains about 2% of the increase in the weight measures. The other significant factors explain less.

Bibliography Citation
Baum, Charles L., II and Shin-Yi Chou. "The Socio-Economic Causes of Obesity." Working Paper No. 17423. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011.
7. Baum, Charles L., II
Ruhm, Christopher J.
The Changing Benefits of Early Work Experience
NBER Working Paper No. 20413, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2014.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20413
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Employment, In-School; Employment, Part-Time; Employment, Youth; High School Employment; Minimum Wage; Occupational Attainment; Wages, Youth; Work Experience

We examine whether the benefits of high school work experience have changed over the last 20 years by comparing effects for the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Our main specifications suggest that the future wage benefits of working 20 hours per week in the senior year of high school have fallen from 8.3 percent for the earlier cohort, measured in 1987-1989, to 4.4 percent for the later one, in 2008-2010. Moreover, the gains of work are largely restricted to women and have diminished over time for them. We are able to explain about five-eighths of the differential between cohorts, with most of this being attributed to the way that high school employment is related to subsequent adult work experience and occupational attainment.
Bibliography Citation
Baum, Charles L., II and Christopher J. Ruhm. "The Changing Benefits of Early Work Experience." NBER Working Paper No. 20413, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2014.
8. Belley, Philippe
Frenette, Marc
Lochner, Lance John
Post-Secondary Attendance by Parental Income in the U.S. and Canada : What Role for Financial Aid Policy?
NBER Working Paper No. 17218, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2011.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17218
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Enrollment; Family Income; Financial Assistance; Higher Education; Tuition

This paper examines the implications of tuition and need-based financial aid policies for family income -- post-secondary (PS) attendance relationships. We first conduct a parallel empirical analysis of the effects of parental income on PS attendance for recent high school cohorts in both the U.S. and Canada using data from the 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and Youth in Transition Survey. We estimate substantially smaller PS attendance gaps by parental income in Canada relative to the U.S., even after controlling for family background, adolescent cognitive achievement, and local residence fixed effects. We next document that U.S. public tuition and financial aid policies are actually more generous to low-income youth than are Canadian policies. By contrast, Canada offers more generous aid to middle-class youth than does the U.S. These findings suggest that the much stronger family income -- PS attendance relationship in the U.S. is not driven by differences in the need-based nature of financial aid policies. Based on previous estimates of the effects of tuition and aid on PS attendance, we consider how much stronger income -- attendance relationships would be in the absence of need-based aid and how much additional aid would need to be offered to lower income families to eliminate existing income -- attendance gaps entirely.
Bibliography Citation
Belley, Philippe, Marc Frenette and Lance John Lochner. "Post-Secondary Attendance by Parental Income in the U.S. and Canada : What Role for Financial Aid Policy?" NBER Working Paper No. 17218, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2011.
9. Bertrand, Marianne
Pan, Jessica
The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior
NBER Working Paper 17541 (October 2011)
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): American Time Use Survey (ATUS); Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Discipline; Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B, ECLS-K); Educational Outcomes; Family Structure; Gender Differences; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS); Noncognitive Skills; Parent-Child Interaction; Parenting Skills/Styles; Punishment, Corporal; School Suspension/Expulsion

This paper explores the importance of the home and school environments in explaining the gender gap in disruptive behavior. We document large differences in the gender gap across key features of the home environment – boys do especially poorly in broken families. In contrast, we find little impact of the early school environment on non-cognitive gaps. Differences in endowments explain a small part of boys’ non-cognitive deficit in single-mother families. More importantly, non-cognitive returns to parental inputs differ markedly by gender. Broken families are associated with worse parental inputs and boys’ non-cognitive development, unlike girls’, appears extremely responsive to such inputs.
Bibliography Citation
Bertrand, Marianne and Jessica Pan. "The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior." NBER Working Paper 17541 (October 2011).
10. Binder, Ariel J.
Bound, John
The Declining Labor Market Prospects of Less-Educated Men
NBER Working Paper No. 25577, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2019.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25577
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Labor Force Participation; Labor Market Outcomes; Male Sample; Marriage; Wage Growth

Over the last half century, U.S. wage growth stagnated, wage inequality rose, and the labor-force participation rate of prime-age men steadily declined. In this article, we examine these labor market trends, focusing on outcomes for males without a college education. Though wages and participation have fallen in tandem for this population, we argue that the canonical neo-classical framework, which postulates a labor demand curve shifting inward across a stable labor supply curve, does not reasonably explain the data. Alternatives we discuss include adjustment frictions associated with labor demand shocks and effects of the changing marriage market--that is, the fact that fewer less-educated men are forming their own stable families--on male labor supply incentives.

Our observations lead us to be skeptical of attempts to attribute the secular decline in male labor-force participation to a series of separately-acting causal factors. We argue that the correct interpretation probably involves complicated feedback between falling labor demand and other factors which have disproportionately affected men without a college education.

Bibliography Citation
Binder, Ariel J. and John Bound. "The Declining Labor Market Prospects of Less-Educated Men." NBER Working Paper No. 25577, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2019.
11. Bond, Timothy N.
Lang, Kevin
The Evolution of the Black-White Test Score Gap in Grades K-3: The Fragility of Results
NBER Working Paper No. 17960. National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2012.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17960
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B, ECLS-K); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; School Progress; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Although both economists and psychometricians typically treat them as interval scales, test scores are reported using ordinal scales. Using the Early Child-hood Longitudinal Study and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we examine how order-preserving scale transformations affect the evolution of the black-white reading test score gap from kindergarten entry through third grade. Plausible transformations reverse the growth of the gap in the CNLSY and greatly reduce it in the ECLS-K during the early school years. All growth from entry through first grade and a nontrivial proportion from first to third grade probably reflects scaling decisions.
Bibliography Citation
Bond, Timothy N. and Kevin Lang. "The Evolution of the Black-White Test Score Gap in Grades K-3: The Fragility of Results." NBER Working Paper No. 17960. National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2012.
12. Cardiff-Hicks, Brianna
Lafontaine, Francine
Shaw, Kathryn L.
Do Large Modern Retailers Pay Premium Wages?
NBER Working Paper No. 20313, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2014.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20313.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Firm Size; Job Promotion; Wages

With malls, franchise strips and big-box retailers increasingly dotting the landscape, there is concern that middle-class jobs in manufacturing in the U.S. are being replaced by minimum wage jobs in retail. Retail jobs have spread, while manufacturing jobs have shrunk in number. In this paper, we characterize the wages that have accompanied the growth in retail. We show that wage rates in the retail sector rise markedly with firm size and with establishment size. These increases are halved when we control for worker fixed effects, suggesting that there is sorting of better workers into larger firms. Also, higher ability workers get promoted to the position of manager, which is associated with higher pay. We conclude that the growth in modern retail, characterized by larger chains of larger establishments with more levels of hierarchy, is raising wage rates relative to traditional mom-and-pop retail stores.
Bibliography Citation
Cardiff-Hicks, Brianna, Francine Lafontaine and Kathryn L. Shaw. "Do Large Modern Retailers Pay Premium Wages?" NBER Working Paper No. 20313, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2014.
13. Caucutt, Elizabeth M.
Lochner, Lance John
Early and Late Human Capital Investments, Borrowing Constraints and the Family
Working Paper No. 18493. National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2012.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18493; also presented at the 2012 Society of Economic Dynamics Annual Meetings and at the 2012 AEA Meetings.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Graduates; Debt/Borrowing; Family Income; Family Structure; Financial Investments; Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Education

This paper investigates the importance of family borrowing constraints in determining human capital investments in children at early and late ages. We begin by providing new evidence from the Children of the NLSY (CNLSY) which suggests that borrowing constraints bind for at least some families with young children. Next, we develop an intergenerational model of lifecycle human capital accumulation to study the role of early versus late investments in children when credit markets are imperfect. We analytically establish the importance of dynamic complementarity in investment for the qualitative nature of investment responses to income and policy changes. We extend the framework to incorporate dynasties and use data from the CNLSY to calibrate the model. Our benchmark steady state suggests that roughly half of young parents and 12% of old parents are borrowing constrained, while older children are unconstrained. We also identify strong complementarity between early and late investments, suggesting that policies targeted to one stage of development tend to have similar effects on investment in both stages. We use this calibrated model to study the effects of education subsidies, loans and transfers offered at different ages on early and late human capital investments and subsequent earnings in the short-run and long-run. A key lesson is that the interaction between dynamic complementarity and early borrowing constraints means that early interventions tend to be more successful than later interventions at improving human capital outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Caucutt, Elizabeth M. and Lance John Lochner. "Early and Late Human Capital Investments, Borrowing Constraints and the Family." Working Paper No. 18493. National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2012.
14. Caucutt, Elizabeth M.
Lochner, Lance John
Park, Youngmin
Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?
NBER Working Paper No. 21023, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2015.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21023
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Children, Academic Development; Children, Poverty; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Risk Perception

The economic and social mobility of a generation may be largely determined by the time it enters school given early developing and persistent gaps in child achievement by family income and the importance of adolescent skill levels for educational attainment and lifetime earnings. After providing new evidence of important differences in early child investments by family income, we study four leading mechanisms thought to explain these gaps: an intergenerational correlation in ability, a consumption value of investment, information frictions, and credit constraints. In order to better determine which of these mechanisms influence family investments in children, we evaluate the extent to which these mechanisms also explain other important stylized facts related to the marginal returns on investments and the effects of parental income on child investments and skills.
Bibliography Citation
Caucutt, Elizabeth M., Lance John Lochner and Youngmin Park. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?" NBER Working Paper No. 21023, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2015.
15. Colman, Gregory J.
Dave, Dhaval
Unemployment and Health Behaviors over the Business Cycle: A Longitudinal View
NBER Working Paper No. 20748, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2014.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20748.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Exercise; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Nutritional Status/Nutrition/Consumption Behaviors; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Physical Activity (see also Exercise); Smoking (see Cigarette Use); Unemployment

We examine the first-order internal effects of unemployment on a range of health behaviors during the most recent recession using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Consistent with prior studies based on cross-sectional data, we find that becoming unemployed is associated with a small increase in leisure-time exercise and in body weight, a moderate decrease in smoking, and a substantial decline in total physical activity. We also find that unemployment is associated with a decline in purchases of fast food. Together, these results imply that both energy consumption and expenditure decline in the U.S. during recessions, the net result being a slight increase in body weight. There is generally considerable heterogeneity in these effects across specific health behaviors, across the intensive and extensive margins, across the outcome distribution, and across gender.
Bibliography Citation
Colman, Gregory J. and Dhaval Dave. "Unemployment and Health Behaviors over the Business Cycle: A Longitudinal View." NBER Working Paper No. 20748, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2014.
16. Cunha, Flavio
Heckman, James J.
Schennach, Susanne
Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
NBER Working Paper No. 15664, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2010.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15664
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Motor and Social Development (MSD); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Temperament

This paper formulates and estimates multistage production functions for children's cognitive and noncognitive skills. Skills are determined by parental environments and investments at different stages of childhood. We estimate the elasticity of substitution between investments in one period and stocks of skills in that period to assess the benefits of early investment in children compared to later remediation. We establish nonparametric identification of a general class of production technologies based on nonlinear factor models with endogenous inputs. A by-product of our approach is a framework for evaluating childhood and schooling interventions that does not rely on arbitrarily scaled test scores as outputs and recognizes the differential effects of the same bundle of skills in different tasks. Using the estimated technology, we determine optimal targeting of interventions to children with different parental and personal birth endowments. Substitutability decreases in later stages of the life cycle in the production of cognitive skills. It is roughly constant across stages of the life cycle in the production of noncognitive skills. This finding has important implications for the design of policies that target the disadvantaged. For most configurations of disadvantage, our estimates imply that it is optimal to invest relatively more in the early stages of childhood than in later stages.
Bibliography Citation
Cunha, Flavio, James J. Heckman and Susanne Schennach. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation." NBER Working Paper No. 15664, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2010.
17. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital
NBER Working Paper No. 13217, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2007
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Children, Mental Health; Cross-national Analysis; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Depression (see also CESD); Deviance; Disability; Family Income; Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Human Capital; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Performance

Although mental disorders are common among children, we know little about their long term effects on child outcomes. This paper examines U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, conduct disorders, and other behavioral problems. Our work offers a number of innovations. First we use large nationally representative samples of children from both countries. Second, we focus on "screeners" that were administered to all children in our sample, rather than on diagnosed cases. Third, we address omitted variables bias by estimating sibling-fixed effects models. Fourth, we examine a range of outcomes. Fifth, we ask how the effects of mental health conditions are mediated by family income and maternal education. We find that mental health conditions, and especially ADHD, have large negative effects on future test scores and schooling attainment, regardless of family income and maternal education.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital." NBER Working Paper No. 13217, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2007.
18. Deming, David
The Growing Importance of Decision-Making on the Job
NBER Working Paper No. 28733, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2021.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w28733
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79, NLSY97, Older Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; Occupations; Wage Growth

Machines increasingly replace people in routine job tasks. The remaining tasks require workers to make open-ended decisions and to have "soft" skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking and adaptability. This paper documents growing demand for decision-making and explores the consequences for life-cycle earnings. Career earnings growth in the U.S. more than doubled between 1960 and 2017, and the age of peak earnings increased from the late 30s to the mid-50s. I show that a substantial share of this shift is explained by increased employment in decision-intensive occupations, which have longer and more gradual periods of earnings growth. To understand these patterns, I develop a model that nests decision-making in a standard human capital framework. Workers predict the output of uncertain, context-dependent actions. Experience reduces prediction error, improving a worker's ability to adapt using data from similar decisions they have made in the past. Experience takes longer to accumulate in high variance, non-routine jobs. I test the predictions of the model using data from the three waves of the NLS. Life-cycle wage growth in decision-intensive occupations has increased over time, and it has increased relatively more for highly-skilled workers.
Bibliography Citation
Deming, David. "The Growing Importance of Decision-Making on the Job." NBER Working Paper No. 28733, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2021.
19. Ellwood, David T.
Teenage Unemploymnet: Permanent Scars or Temporary Blemishes
Working Paper No. 399. National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1983.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0399
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Labor Force Participation; Unemployment; Wages

This paper examines the persistence and long-term impacts of early labor force experiences. The paper reports a rise in employment rates for a cohort of young men as they age, but points out that those persons with poor employment records early have comparatively poor records later. In order to asses the extent to which differences in later employment and wages are causally related to these earlier employment experiences, the methodologies of Heckman, Chamberlain, and others are extended to account for Markov type persistence and a straight forward estimation technique results. In addition, a Sims type causality test is used to measure the true impact of work experience on wages. The paper concludes that the effects of a period without work do not end with that spell. A teenager who spends time out of work in one year will probably spend less time working in the next than he would have had he worked the entire year. Furthermore, the lost work experience will be reflected in considerably lower wages. At the same time, the data provide no evidence that early unemployment sets off a vicious cycle of recurrent unemployment. The reduced employment effects die off very quickly. What appears to persist are effects of lost work experience on wages.
Bibliography Citation
Ellwood, David T. "Teenage Unemploymnet: Permanent Scars or Temporary Blemishes." Working Paper No. 399. National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1983.
20. Farber, Henry S.
The Analysis of Inter-Firm Worker Mobility
NBER Working Paper No. 4262, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/w4262
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Economics, Demographic; Job Tenure; Labor Economics; Mobility, Interfirm

I use a sample of over fourteen thousand full-time jobs held by workers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to examine mobility patterns and to evaluate theories of inter-firm worker mobility. The roles of both heterogeneity and state dependence in determining mobility rates for young workers are investigated, and both are found to be very important. There are three main findings. First, mobility is strongly positively related to the frequency of job change prior to the start of the job. Second, job change in the most recent year prior to the start of the job is more strongly related than earlier job change to mobility on the current job. Third, the monthly hazard of job ending is not monotonically decreasing in tenure as most earlier work using annual data has found, but it increases to a maximum at three months and declines thereafter. The first two findings suggest that there is important heterogeneity in mobility but that this heterogeneity is not fixed over time (workers might mature). The third finding is consistent with models of heterogeneous match quality that cannot be observed ex ante. I also find that females hold fewer jobs per year in the labor force than males and that this result is driven by a lower exit rate for females from the first job after entry.
Bibliography Citation
Farber, Henry S. "The Analysis of Inter-Firm Worker Mobility." NBER Working Paper No. 4262, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1993.
21. Gan, Li
Gong, Guan
Estimating Interdependence Between Health and Education in a Dynamic Model
Working Paper No. 12830. National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2007.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12830
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Health Care; Health Factors; Health Reform; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Modeling

This paper investigates to what extent and through which channels that health and educational attainment are interdependent. A dynamic model of schooling, work, health expenditure, and savings is developed. The structural framework explicitly models two existing hypotheses on the correlation between health and education. The estimation results strongly support the interdependence between health and education. In particular, the estimated model indicates that an individual's education, health expenditure, and previous health status all affect his health status. Moreover, the individual's health status affects his mortality rate, wage, home production, and academic success. On average, having been sick before age 21 decreases the individual's education by 1.4 years. Policy experiments indicate that a health expenditure subsidy would have a larger impact on educational attainment than a tuition subsidy.
Bibliography Citation
Gan, Li and Guan Gong. "Estimating Interdependence Between Health and Education in a Dynamic Model." Working Paper No. 12830. National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2007.
22. Goldin, Claudia
Kerr, Sari Pekkala
Olivetti, Claudia
When the Kids Grow Up: Women's Employment and Earnings across the Family Cycle
NBER Working Paper No. 30323, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2022.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w30323
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Fathers; Gender Differences; Maternal Employment; Mothers; Wage Gap; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

Women earn less than men, and that is especially true of mothers relative to fathers. Much of the widening occurs after family formation when mothers reduce their hours of work. But what happens when the kids grow up? To answer that question, we estimate three earning gaps: the "motherhood penalty," the "price of being female," and the "fatherhood premium." When added together these three produce the "parental gender gap," defined as the difference in income between mothers and fathers. We estimate earnings gaps for two education groups (college graduates and high school graduates who did not complete college) using longitudinal data from the NLSY79 that tracks respondents from their twenties to their fifties. As the children grow up and as women work more hours, the motherhood penalty is greatly reduced, especially for the less-educated group. But fathers manage to expand their relative gains, particularly among college graduates. The parental gender gap in earnings remains substantial for both education groups.
Bibliography Citation
Goldin, Claudia, Sari Pekkala Kerr and Claudia Olivetti. "When the Kids Grow Up: Women's Employment and Earnings across the Family Cycle." NBER Working Paper No. 30323, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2022.
23. Graham, Bryan S.
Hahn, Jinyong
Poirier, Alexandre
Powell, James L.
Quantile Regression with Panel Data
NBER Working Paper No. 21034, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2013.
Also: http://nber.org/papers/w21034
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Collective Bargaining; Data Quality/Consistency; Earnings; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Statistical Analysis; Unions

We apply our methods to study the effects of collective bargaining coverage on earnings using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Consistent with prior work (e.g., Chamberlain, 1982; Vella and Verbeek, 1998), we find that using panel data to control for unobserved worker heterogeneity results in sharply lower estimates of union wage premia. We estimate a median union wage premium of about 9 percent, but with, in a more novel finding, substantial heterogeneity across workers. The 0.1 quantile of union effects is insignificantly different from zero, whereas the 0.9 quantile effect is of over 30 percent. Our empirical analysis further suggests that, on net, unions have an equalizing effect on the distribution of wages.
Bibliography Citation
Graham, Bryan S., Jinyong Hahn, Alexandre Poirier and James L. Powell. "Quantile Regression with Panel Data." NBER Working Paper No. 21034, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2013.
24. Heckman, James J.
Schmierer, Daniel A.
Urzua, Sergio
Testing the Correlated Random Coefficient Model
Working Paper No. 15463. National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15463
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Heterogeneity; High School Completion/Graduates; Modeling; Schooling, Post-secondary; Variables, Instrumental; Wages

The recent literature on instrumental variables (IV) features models in which agents sort into treatment status on the basis of gains from treatment as well as on baseline-pretreatment levels. Components of the gains known to the agents and acted on by them may not be known by the observing economist. Such models are called correlated random coefficient models. Sorting on unobserved components of gains complicates the interpretation of what IV estimates. This paper examines testable implications of the hypothesis that agents do not sort into treatment based on gains. In it, we develop new tests to gauge the empirical relevance of the correlated random coefficient model to examine whether the additional complications associated with it are required. We examine the power of the proposed tests. We derive a new representation of the variance of the instrumental variable estimator for the correlated random coefficient model. We apply the methods in this paper to the prototypical empirical problem of estimating the return to schooling and ˝find evidence of sorting into schooling based on unobserved components of gains.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J., Daniel A. Schmierer and Sergio Urzua. "Testing the Correlated Random Coefficient Model." Working Paper No. 15463. National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2009.
25. Hu, Qing
Levine, Ross
Lin, Chen
Tai, Mingzhu
Mentally Spent: Credit Conditions and Mental Health
NBER Working Paper No. 25584, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2019.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25584
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Credit/Credit Constraint; Debt/Borrowing; Depression (see also CESD); Geocoded Data; Health, Mental/Psychological; State-Level Data/Policy

In light of the human suffering and economic costs associated with mental illness, we provide the first assessment of whether local credit conditions shape the incidence of mental depression. Using several empirical strategies, we discover that bank regulatory reforms that improved local credit conditions reduced mental depression among low-income households and the impact was largest in counties dominated by bank-dependent firms. On the mechanisms, we find that the regulatory reforms boosted employment, income, and mental health among low-income individuals in bank-dependent counties, but the regulatory reforms did not increase borrowing by these individuals.
Bibliography Citation
Hu, Qing, Ross Levine, Chen Lin and Mingzhu Tai. "Mentally Spent: Credit Conditions and Mental Health." NBER Working Paper No. 25584, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2019.
26. Kennan, John
Spatial Variation in Higher Education Financing and the Supply of College Graduates
NBER Working Paper No. 21065, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2015.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21065.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Census of Population; College Education; College Enrollment; Financial Assistance; Geocoded Data; Geographical Variation; Migration; State-Level Data/Policy

In the U.S. there are large differences across States in the extent to which college education is subsidized, and there are also large differences across States in the proportion of college graduates in the labor force. State subsidies are apparently motivated in part by the perceived benefits of having a more educated workforce. The paper extends the migration model of Kennan and Walker (2011) to analyze how geographical variation in college education subsidies affects the migration decisions of college graduates. The model is estimated using NLSY data, and used to quantify the sensitivity of migration and college enrollment decisions to differences in expected net lifetime income, focusing on how cross-State differences in public college financing affect the educational composition of the labor force. The main finding is that these differences have substantial effects on college enrollment, with no evidence that these effects are dissipated through migration. [Also presented at Atlanta GA, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2019]
Bibliography Citation
Kennan, John. "Spatial Variation in Higher Education Financing and the Supply of College Graduates." NBER Working Paper No. 21065, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2015.
27. Kreisman, Daniel M.
Stange, Kevin
Vocational and Career Tech Education in American High Schools: The Value of Depth Over Breadth
NBER Working Paper No. 23851, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2017.
Also: http://nber.org/papers/w23851
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Earnings; High School Curriculum; Vocational Education

Vocational education is a large part of the high school curriculum, yet we have little understanding of what drives vocational enrollment or whether these courses help or harm early careers. To address this we develop a framework for curriculum choice, taking into account ability and preferences for academic and vocational work. We test model predictions using detailed transcript and earnings information from the NLSY97. Our results are two-fold. First, students positively sort into vocational courses, suggesting the belief that low ability students are funneled into vocational coursework is unlikely true. Second, we find higher earnings among students taking more upper-level vocational courses -- a nearly 2% wage premium for each additional year, yet we find no gain from introductory vocational courses. These results suggest (a) policies limiting students' ability to take vocational courses may not be welfare enhancing, and (b) the benefits of vocational coursework accrue to those who focus on depth over breadth.
Bibliography Citation
Kreisman, Daniel M. and Kevin Stange. "Vocational and Career Tech Education in American High Schools: The Value of Depth Over Breadth." NBER Working Paper No. 23851, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2017.
28. Lin, Dajun
Lutter, Randall
Ruhm, Christopher J.
Cognitive Performance and Labor Market Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 22470, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2016.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22470
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; Earnings; Ethnic Differences; Gender Differences; Labor Market Outcomes; Racial Differences

We use information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and supplementary data sources to examine how cognitive performance, measured at approximately the end of secondary schooling, is related to the labor market outcomes of 20 through 50 year olds. Our estimates control for a wide array of individual and family background characteristics, a limited set of non-cognitive attributes, survey year dummy variables and, sometimes, geographic place effects. The analysis reveals five main findings. First, cognitive performance is positively associated with future labor market outcomes at all ages. The relationship is attenuated but not eliminated by the addition of controls for non-cognitive characteristics, while the inclusion of place effects does not change the estimated associations. Second, the returns to cognitive skill increase with age. Third, the effect on total incomes reflects a combination of positive impacts of cognitive performance for both hourly wages and annual work hours. Fourth, the returns to cognitive skill are greater for women than men and for blacks and Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, with differential effects on work hours being more important than corresponding changes in hourly wages. Fifth, the average gains in lifetime incomes predicted to result from greater levels of cognitive performance are only slightly above those reported in prior studies but the effects are heterogeneous, with larger relative and absolute increases, in most models, for nonwhites or Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, and higher relative but not absolute returns for women than men.
Bibliography Citation
Lin, Dajun, Randall Lutter and Christopher J. Ruhm. "Cognitive Performance and Labor Market Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 22470, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2016.
29. Lochner, Lance John
Monge-Naranjo, Alexander
Credit Constraints in Education
Working Paper No. 17435, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2011.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17435
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Education; Credit/Credit Constraint; Education; Family Income; Human Capital

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints are increasingly important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, since their response largely determines the impact of credit constraints on the overall lifetime acquisition of human capital. We also review the intergenerational literature and examine the macroeconomic impacts of credit constraints on social mobility and the income distribution.

A common limitation across all areas of the human capital literature is the imposition of ad hoc constraints on credit. We propose a more careful treatment of the structure of government student loan programs as well as the incentive problems underlying private credit. We show that endogenizing constraints on credit for human capital helps explain observed borrowing, schooling, and default patterns and offers new insights about the design of government policy.

Bibliography Citation
Lochner, Lance John and Alexander Monge-Naranjo. "Credit Constraints in Education." Working Paper No. 17435, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2011.
30. Norberg, Karen
Effects of Daycare Reconsidered
Presented: Cambridge, MA, Meeting of the Well-Being of Children Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1998
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birthweight; Child Care; Child Development; Child Health; Disability; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Health; Motor and Social Development (MSD); Pre/post Natal Health Care; Re-employment; Temperament; Work History

Examines the effects of infant health, temperament, and development on mothers' employment; focuses on work history, timing of job (re)entry, allocation of household resources, and four indicators of newborns' health; 1980-94, chiefly; US: birthweight; prematurity; weight for gestational age; birth defect or extended hospitalization at birth. Based on data for 6,603 infants followed from birth, from the 1994 wave of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
Bibliography Citation
Norberg, Karen. "Effects of Daycare Reconsidered." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Meeting of the Well-Being of Children Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1998.
31. Norberg, Karen
Partnership Status and the Human Sex Ratio at Birth
NBER Working Paper 10920, National Bureau Of Economic Research, November 2004.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10920.pdf
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Family Formation; Family Structure; Fertility; Gender; National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP); National Survey of American Families (NSAF); Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Sex Ratios

If two-parent care has different consequences for the reproductive success of sons and daughters, then natural selection may favor adjustment of the sex ratio at birth according to circumstances that forecast later family structure. In humans, this partnership status hypothesis predicts fewer sons among extra-pair conceptions, but the rival "attractiveness" hypothesis predicts more sons among extra-pair conceptions, and the "fixed phenotype" hypothesis predicts a constant probability of having a son, regardless of partnership status. In a sample of 86,436 human births pooled from five US population-based surveys, I find 51.5% male births reported by respondents who were living with a spouse or partner before the child's conception or birth, and 49.9% male births reported by respondents who were not (X2=16.77, d.f. = 1, p<.0001). The effect was not explained by paternal bias against daughters, by parental age, education, income, ethnicity, or by year of observation, and was larger when comparisons were made between siblings. To my knowledge, this is the first direct evidence for conditional adjustment of the sex ratio at birth in humans, and could explain the recent decline in the sex ratio at birth in some developed countries.
Bibliography Citation
Norberg, Karen. "Partnership Status and the Human Sex Ratio at Birth." NBER Working Paper 10920, National Bureau Of Economic Research, November 2004.
32. Prada, Maria F.
Urzua, Sergio
One Size does not Fit All: Multiple Dimensions of Ability, College Attendance and Wages
NBER Working Paper No. 20752, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2014.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20752
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Cognitive Ability; College Education; Labor Market Outcomes; Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (see Self-Esteem); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); Wages

We investigate the role of mechanical ability as another dimension that, jointly with cognitive and socio-emotional, affects schooling decisions and labor market outcomes. Using a Roy model with a factor structure and data from the NLSY79, we show that the labor market positively rewards mechanical ability. However, in contrast to the other dimensions, mechanical ability reduces the likelihood of attending four-year college. We find that, on average, for individuals with high levels of mechanical and low levels of cognitive and socio-emotional ability, not attending four-year college is the alternative associated with the highest hourly wage (ages 25-30).
Bibliography Citation
Prada, Maria F. and Sergio Urzua. "One Size does not Fit All: Multiple Dimensions of Ability, College Attendance and Wages." NBER Working Paper No. 20752, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2014.
33. Wilde, Elizabeth T. Y.
Batchelder, Lily
Ellwood, David T.
The Mommy Track Divides: The Impact of Childbearing on Wages of Women of Differing Skill Levels
NBER Working Paper 16582, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2010.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16582
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Fertility; Maternal Employment; Motherhood; Wage Differentials

This paper explores how the wage and career consequences of motherhood differ by skill and timing. Past work has often found smaller or even negligible effects from childbearing for high-skill women, but we find the opposite. Wage trajectories diverge sharply for high scoring women after, but not before, they have children, while there is little change for low-skill women. It appears that the lifetime costs of childbearing, especially early childbearing, are particularly high for skilled women. These differential costs of childbearing may account for the far greater tendency of high-skill women to delay or avoid
Bibliography Citation
Wilde, Elizabeth T. Y., Lily Batchelder and David T. Ellwood. "The Mommy Track Divides: The Impact of Childbearing on Wages of Women of Differing Skill Levels." NBER Working Paper 16582, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2010.