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Working Paper
Gender differences in information technology usage: a U.S.-Japan comparison
This study examines whether there are differences in men?s and women?s use of computers and the Internet in the United States and Japan and how any such gender gaps have changed over time. The authors focus on these two countries because information technology is widely used in both, but there are substantial differences in institutions and social organizations. They use microdata from several surveys during the 1997?2001 period to examine differences and trends in computer and Internet usage in the two countries. Their results indicate that there were significant gender differences in ...
Working Paper
Hispanics in the U.S. Labor Market: A Tale of Three Generations
Immigrants? descendants typically assimilate toward mainstream social and economic outcomes across generations. Hispanics in the United States are a possible exception to this pattern. Although there is a growing literature on intergenerational progress, or lack thereof, in education and earnings among Hispanics, there is little research on employment differences across immigrant generations. Using data from 1996 to 2017, this study reveals considerable differences in Hispanics? employment rates across immigrant generations. Hispanic immigrant men tend to have higher employment rates than ...
Working Paper
Gender and the Internet
This article examines whether there are differences in men?s and women?s use of the Internet and whether any such gender gaps have changed in recent years. The authors use data from several surveys during the period 1997 to 2001 to show trends in Internet usage and to estimate regression models of Internet usage that control for individuals? socioeconomic characteristics. They find that women were significantly less likely than men to use the Internet at all in the mid-1990s, but the gender gap in usage disappeared by 2000. However, women continue to be less frequent and less intense users of ...
Working Paper
How Foreign- and U.S.-Born Latinos Fare During Recessions and Recoveries
Latinos make up the nation’s largest ethnic minority group. The majority of Latinos are U.S. born, making the progress and well-being of Latinos no longer just a question of immigrant assimilation but also of the effectiveness of U.S. educational institutions and labor markets in equipping young Latinos to move out of the working class and into the middle class. One significant headwind to progress among Latinos is recessions. Economic outcomes of Latinos are far more sensitive to the business cycle than are outcomes for non-Hispanic whites. Latinos also have higher poverty rates than ...
Monograph
Digital Enforcement: Effects of E-Verify on Unauthorized Immigrant Employment and Population
E-Verify is a federal system that since 2003 has allowed employers across the country to digitally check eligibility documents provided by the workers they hire. The system is intended to deter the hiring of unauthorized immigrants. E-Verify mandates were in effect in 21 states as of December 2016. This report studies the effects of E-Verify in the seven states where E-Verify has been mandatory for all or almost all employers: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, Utah, North Carolina and South Carolina. It assesses the impact of universal E-Verify mandates on the number of likely ...
Working Paper
Does the Beige Book move financial markets?
About two weeks prior to each FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve releases a description of economic activity in a document called the Beige Book. The authors examine whether the descriptive content of the Beige Book affects asset prices. The results indicate that more positive Beige Book reports on economic growth are associated with increases in interest rates, particularly long-term rates, even after controlling for other macroeconomic data releases. Stronger Beige Book reports are positively associated with changes in equity prices during expansions but negatively during recessions.
Journal Article
Preface: Technology, growth, and the labor market
In recent years, economic prognosticators have pondered whether the U.S. economy has entered a new era characterized by technological innovations that have raised productivity and, accordingly, removed pricing power from producers. Although the 2001 recession quelled debate about whether the United States, and perhaps the world, had entered a period of sustained high levels of economic growth, researchers continue to investigate the economic effects of technological change. ; This issue of the Economic Review contains four articles that examine the underpinnings of the "new ...
Working Paper
The impact of welfare reform on marriage and divorce
The goal of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was to end the dependency of needy parents on government benefits, in part by promoting marriage; the pre-reform welfare system was widely believed to discourage marriage because it primarily provided benefits to single mothers. However, welfare reform may have actually decreased the incentives to be married by giving women greater financial independence via the program's new emphasis on work. This paper uses Vital Statistics data on marriages and divorces during 1989-2000 to examine the role of ...
Working Paper
Does immigration affect wages? A look at occupation-level evidence
Previous research has reached mixed conclusions about whether higher levels of immigration reduce the wages of natives. This paper reexamines this question using data from the Current Population Survey and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and focuses on differential effects by skill level. Using occupation as a proxy for skill, the authors find that an increase in the fraction of workers in an occupation group who are foreign born tends to lower the wages of low-skilled natives-particularly after controlling for endogeneity-but does not have a negative effect among skilled natives.