Search Results
Working Paper
Causes and Consequences of Student-College Mismatch
Our objective is to understand the observed patterns of student-college sorting and earnings premia associated with college quality in the United States. Higher quality colleges have higher graduation rates and their graduates earn more. Yet, a large fraction of high scoring students enroll in two-year schools and low quality four-year schools – this “undermatch” phenomenon is more pronounced for low income students. To understand these patterns, we develop a model with heterogeneous students and colleges that differ in human capital production technology and financial costs. We ...
Analyzing How Students Pick Which College to Attend
Research Officer Oksana Leukhina discusses her economic research on the college selection process.
Working Paper
Insurance and Inequality with Persistent Private Information
This paper studies the implications of optimal insurance provision for long-run welfare and inequality in economies with persistent private information. We consider a model in which a principal insures an agent whose privately observed endowment follows an ergodic, finite Markov chain. The optimal contract always induces immiseration: the agent’s consumption and utility decrease without bound. Under positive serial correlation, the optimal contract also features backloaded high-powered incentives: the sensitivity of the agent’s utility with respect to his report increases without bound. ...
Working Paper
Causes and Consequences of Student-College Mismatch
What are the tradeoffs of meritocratic college admissions? On one hand, stronger sorting between students and colleges may produce more human capital on aggregate if higher ability students benefit more from attending higher quality colleges. On the other hand, stronger sorting generates a higher degree of earnings inequality and reduces upward mobility. In this paper, we examine student-college sorting and study aggregate implications of redistributive college admissions policies such as affirmative action. To this end, we develop a model with heterogeneous students and college types that ...
How Lending Standards Change across the Business Cycle
Standards and terms for business loans ease during economic expansions and tighten during recessions. An analysis looks at why, and how these fluctuations are linked to productivity.
Making Progress on Diversity in the Economics Profession
Three prominent economists discuss their efforts as American Economic Association leaders to help diversify their profession.
Working Paper
Gender Gap
We employ the Ben-Porath (1967) human capital model to study the evolution of the gender wage gap over the long run. We consider the effect of changing lifecycle profiles of female market hours. We find that the implied response in unobserved investment in human capital accumulation accounts for most of the long run gender wage gap dynamics. This finding is consistent with the labor economists’ view that changing selection on unobservables played a critical role in the gender wage gap dynamics. Our contribution is to make explicit and quantify the link between market hours and (unobserved) ...
The Household Shift from Paid Work to Home Production
When U.S. workers lose their jobs or have reduced work hours, how does this affect time spent on activities like cooking and child care?
Working Paper
Imperfect Information Transmission from Banks to Investors: Macroeconomic Implications
We study the interaction of information production in loan-backed asset markets and credit allocation in a general equilibrium framework. Originating banks can screen their borrowers, but can inform investors of their asset type only through an error-prone rating technology. The premium paid on highly rated assets emerges as the main determinant of screening effort. Because the rating technology is imperfect, this premium is insufficient to induce the efficient level of screening. However, the fact that banks know their asset quality and produce ratings accordingly helps keep the premium ...
How Nonmonetary Job Amenities Improve with Higher Education
Nonmonetary job amenities tend to improve in occupations that require higher levels of education, providing an additional reason for college enrollment.