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Journal Article
Racial Differences in Returns on Business Ownership
In this Commentary, we document entrepreneurial income and investments for households of different racial backgrounds and provide estimates of investment yields. We find that an average Black household engaged in entrepreneurial activity has a higher rate of return on its business followed by Hispanic households and white households, a circumstance which makes low entrepreneurship rates among Black and Hispanic communities appear all the more puzzling.
Working Paper
A Comment on 'Wealth Inequality and Endogenous Growth' by Byoungchan Lee
How does wealth inequality affect economic growth? Byoungchan Lee answers this question by developing a heterogeneous-agent model and augmenting it with endogenous firm innovation. The novel channel is that rising wealth concentration reduces aggregate demand, which gives firms a disincentive to spend on R&D and therefore leads to slower productivity growth. In this discussion, we first explain the difference in calibration strategy between Lee’s approach and the common approach in the literature, and then discuss its quantitative implications for the effect of rising inequality on ...
Speech
Why I Want You to Study Economics: Increasing Diversity, Inclusion, and Opportunity in Economics; 04-04-18; Central State University College of Business, Wilberforce, OH
Part of the Leaders, Executives, Entrepreneurs, and Directors (LEED) Program. At the Federal Reserve, we are proud of the fact that while the first two attempts at central banks in the U.S. lasted only 20 years each, the Fed is in its 105th year. But Central State is even older. Founded in 1887, the university recently celebrated its 131st birthday. Central State?s designation as a historically black college and its focus on providing a high-quality academic experience to all students are things to be proud of. They make this university a very good place for me to speak about the benefits of ...
Journal Article
The Racial Wealth Gap and Access to Opportunity Neighborhoods
Some Black households live in neighborhoods with lower incomes, as well as higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment, than their own incomes might suggest, and this may impede their economic mobility. We investigate reasons for the neighborhood sorting patterns we observe and find that differences in financial factors such as income, wealth, or housing costs between Black and white households do not explain racial distributions across neighborhoods. Our findings suggest other factors are at work, including discrimination in the housing market, ongoing racial hostility, or ...
Journal Article
The Consequences of Exposure to Violence during Early Childhood
We investigate the impact that exposure to violence in childhood has on an individual?s propensity to engage in risky behaviors later in life and their probability of dying young. We document that black young males in the United States are exposed to much more violence in early childhood than their white counterparts. We also show that exposure to violence has a strong relationship with a host of undesirable later outcomes, and that relationship tends to be the same regardless of race, household income, mother?s educational attainment, or family structure.
Working Paper
Job Ladders and Earnings of Displaced Workers
Workers who suffer job displacement experience surprisingly large and persistent earnings losses. This paper proposes an explanation for this robust empirical puzzle in a model of search over match-quality with a significant job ladder. In addition to capturing the depth and persistence of displaced-worker-earnings losses, the model is able to match a) separation rates by tenure; b) the empirical decomposition of earnings losses into reduced wages and employment; c) observed wage dispersion; d) the pattern of employer-to-employer transitions after layoff, and e) the degree of serial ...
Working Paper
Neighborhood Dynamics and the Distribution of Opportunity
Wilson (1987) argued that policies ending racial discrimination would not equalize opportunity without addressing residential sorting and neighborhood externalities. This paper studies related counterfactual policies using an overlapping-generations dynamic general equilibrium model of residential sorting and intergenerational human capital accumulation. In the model, households choose where to live and how much to invest toward the production of their child?s human capital. The return on parents? investment is determined in part by the child?s ability and in part by an externality determined ...
Journal Article
Universal CSAs in Illinois: Addressing the Racial Wealth Gap
In Angela Glover Blackwell?s essay in What It?s Worth, she talks about her childhood and how she was fortunate to have access to community assets that provide ?ladders for success.? While these assets created a pathway to financial security that included college for many in her community, she acknowledges that similar ?communities of opportunity? are not the reality for many families of color. In Illinois, there are significant disparities in opportunity between majority white communities and communities of color. According to the 2016 Illinois Poverty Report, poverty rates are two to three ...
Working Paper
Community Leaders and the Preservation of Cultural Traits
We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group?s earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or less assimilated and poorer. With a leader, cultural integration remains incomplete. The leader chooses more distinctive cultural traits in high-productivity environments and if the community is more connected. Lump-sum transfers to immigrants can hinder cultural integration. These findings are in line ...
Journal Article
Why Worry about Financial Exclusion?
Should policymakers aim to expand access to bank accounts? When financial exclusion is due to frictions that prevent banking from operating efficiently, intervention may be justified. Applying simple economic principles, we highlight possible frictions that may give rise to inefficient exclusion in the United States, and we assess their importance using insights from data and the academic and policy literature.