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Working Paper
Estimation of Dynastic Life-Cycle Discrete Choice Models
This paper explores the estimation of a class of life-cycle discrete choice intergenerational models. It proposes a new semiparametric estimator. It shows that it is root-N-consistent and asymptotically normally distributed. We compare our estimator with a modified version of the full solution maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in a Monte Carlo study. Our estimator performs comparably to the MLE in a finite sample but greatly reduces the computational cost. The paper documents that the quantity-quality trade-offs depend on the household composition and specialization in the household. Using ...
Working Paper
What Accounts for the Racial Gap in Time Allocation and Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital?
This paper analyzes the sources of the racial difference in the intergenerational transmission of human capital by developing and estimating a dynastic model of parental time and monetary inputs in early childhood with endogenous fertility, home hours, labor supply, marriage, and divorce. It finds that the racial differences in the marriage matching patterns lead to racial differences in labor supply and home hours of couples. Although both the black-white labor market earnings and marriage market gaps are important sources of the black-white achievement gap, the assortative mating and ...
Journal Article
The Unequal Responses to Pandemic-Induced Schooling Shocks
This article investigates the existence of socio-demographic gradients in the schooling shocks experienced by school-aged children and their ability to adjust to the disruptions induced by the containment measures imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on documenting racial, educational, and income disparities in these two essential components of children's human capital accumulation that could have significant implications in the medium and long run. The article finds that children in households from disadvantaged socio-demographic groups (i) were significantly more likely ...
Journal Article
How Well Does Agency Theory Explain Executive Compensation?
As the share of all income going to the top 1 percent has risen over the past four decades, so has the share of top incomes coming from labor income relative to capital income. The rise in labor income is mainly due to the explosion in executive compensation over the same period?mostly because of the increase in executives being paid with stocks, options, and bonuses. The principal-agent model explains the reason for such compensation instead of a flat salary. Yet hundreds of papers in economics, finance, accounting, and management have reached no consensus on whether executive compensation ...
Journal Article
Work, Leisure, and Family: From the Silent Generation to Millennials
This article analyzes the changes in family structure, fertility behavior, and the division of labor within the household from the Silent generation (cohort born in 1940-49) to the Millennial generation (cohort born in 1980-89). Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article documents the main trends and life-cycle profiles for each generation. The main findings are that (i) the wage-age profile has been shifting down over generations, especially for Millennial men; (ii) the returns to a four-year college degree or higher for men have increased for all generations; (iii) ...
Journal Article
Intergenerational Mobility and the Effects of Parental Education, Time Investment, and Income on Children’s Educational Attainment
This article analyzes the mechanisms through which parents? and children?s education are linked. It estimates the causal effect of parental education, parental time with children, and parental income during early childhood on the educational outcomes of children. Estimating the causal effects of time with children, income, and parental education is challenging because parental time with children is usually unavailable in many datasets and because of the problem of endogeneity of parental income, time with children, and education. The authors, therefore, use an instrumental variables approach ...
Journal Article
Disparities in COVID-19’s Impact on Employment and Household Consumption
This article investigates the socio-demographic differences in household responses to the COVID-19 pandemic regarding employment and consumption. We find that the significant racial disparities in employment observed during the pandemic can be explained, in part, by differences in household income, composition, education, and occupational sorting. Nonetheless, we document pervasive racial, income, and educational gradients when focusing on household food insecurity and individuals' reliance on social insurance programs and other government assistance during the pandemic. Overall, our results ...
Working Paper
What is the source of the intergenerational correlation in earnings?
This paper uses a dynastic model of household behavior to estimate and decomposed the correlations in earnings across generations. The estimate model can explain 75% to 80% of the observed correlation in lifetime earnings between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and families across generations. The main results are that the family and division of labor within the household are the main source of the correlation across generation and not just assorting mating. The interaction of human capital accumulation in labor market, the nonlinear return to part-time versus full-time work, and the ...
Working Paper
Optimal Taxation, Marriage, Home Production, and Family Labor Supply
An empirical approach to optimal income taxation design is developed within an equilibrium collective marriage market model with imperfectly transferable utility. Taxes distort labour supply and time allocation decisions, as well as marriage market outcomes, and the within household decision process. Using data from the American Community Survey and American Time Use Survey, we structurally estimate our model and explore empirical design problems. We consider the optimal design problem when the planner is able to condition taxes on marital status, as in the U.S. tax code, but we allow the ...
Journal Article
Which Persists More from Generation to Generation—Income or Wealth?
Are you likely to be in the same income situation as your parents? How about being in the same wealth category? Analyzing such intergenerational mobility can shed light on economic inequality and lead to better policy to deal with this issue.