Upjohn Research
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Trade and Structural Change: Focusing on the Specifics
Get PDFUsing a newly digitized database encompassing the universe of tariff lines across five US trade policy regimes between 1900 and 1940, we show that price dynamics combine with industry reliance on specific tariffs to generate large swings in average tariff levels. Intra-policy variation in tariffs is strongly predictive of import growth throughout our sample. Using linked Census data, we quantify the effects of imports on structural change in this era. We find that import growth decreases labor force participation and inhibits the transition into the expanding manufacturing and service sectors, especially among the young
How Does the Elimination of State Aid to For-Profit Colleges Affect Enrollment?: Evidence from California’s Reforms
Get PDFHow Would a Permanently Refundable Child and Dependent Care Credit Affect Eligibility, Benefits, and Incentives?
Get PDFThe federal Child and Dependent Care Credit (CDCC) subsidizes child care costs for working families. Before 2021, the CDCC was nonrefundable, so only families with positive tax liability after other deductions benefited. I estimate how CDCC eligibility, benefits, and marginal tax rates would change if the credit were made permanently refundable, relative to 2020 CDCC parameters set to be restored in 2022. Under refundability, some 5 percent of single parents gain eligibility and receive on average over $1,000 annually. Eligibility increases are largest among Black and Hispanic households. Increases in marginal tax rates among moderate-income taxpayers are small
Michigan is Offering Free College for Essential Workers. The Rest of the Country Should Follow Suit
No full textTrade and Informality in the Presence of Labor Market Frictions and Regulations
Get PDFWe build an equilibrium model of a small open economy with labor market frictions and imperfectly enforced regulations. Heterogeneous firms sort into the formal or informal sector. We estimate the model using data from Brazil, and use counterfactual simulations to understand how trade affects economic outcomes in the presence of informality. We show the following: 1) Trade openness unambiguously decreases informality in the tradable sector but has ambiguous effects on aggregate informality. 2) The productivity gains from trade are understated when the informal sector is omitted. 3) Trade openness results in large welfare gains even when informality is repressed. 4) Repressing informality increases productivity but at the expense of employment and welfare. 5) The effects of trade on wage inequality are reversed when the informal sector is incorporated in the analysis. 6) The informal sector works as an “unemployment buffer” but not a “welfare buffer” in the event of negative economic shocks
How College Enrollment Changed for Kalamazoo Promise Students Between Fall 2019 and Fall 2020
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic greatly reduced the college enrollment rate for students during the Fall 2020 semester. National data show that although enrollment of new students declined overall, it varied substantially by institution type and student characteristics. What national data do not reveal is how certain communities with already high college-going rates responded to the pandemic. We use data from Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS) and the tuition-free program the Kalamazoo Promise to compare the immediate college enrollment of graduating high school students from the class of 2019 to that of the class of 2020. Overall, immediate college enrollment of KPS graduates declined from 74 percent to 60 percent. These declines were concentrated at two-year institutions among students who were socioeconomically disadvantaged, as well as among Black and Hispanic students. Contrary to national trends, immediate enrollment for KPS graduates at four-year institutions increased, with gains driven primarily (but not entirely) by White students. We present suggestive evidence that the Kalamazoo Promise, and policy decisions at four-year colleges, allowed some students to “trade up” from a two-year to a four-year institution
Discrimination and Uncertainty in the Labor Market
No full textThis project evaluates the importance of uncertainty about a group in employer evaluations of productive capabilities of job applicants from that group, where a group could be defined by observable characteristics such as race, gender, or educational institution. Specifically, I isolate the role of statistical discrimination in the labor market based on both the mean and variance of the group’s performance distribution. To separate these two sources of statistical discrimination, I use a two-sided audit study (Cowgill and Perkowski, 2020) and propose a design that adds increasingly precise signals about particular candidates from different groups
Informed Choices: Gender Gaps in Career Advice
Get PDFThis paper estimates gender differences in access to informal information regarding the labor market. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek information from 10,000 working professionals about various career paths, and we randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. We focus the experimental design and analysis on two career attributes that prior research has shown to differentially affect the labor market choices of women: the extent to which a career accommodates work/life balance and has a competitive culture. When students ask broadly for information about a career, we find that female students receive substantially more information on work/life balance relative to male students. This gender difference persists when students disclose that they are concerned about work/life balance. In contrast, professionals mention workplace culture to male and female students at similar rates. After the study, female students are more dissuaded from their preferred career path than male students, and this difference is in part explained by professionals’ greater emphasis on work/life balance when responding to female students. Finally, we elicit students’ preferences for professionals and find that gender differences in information provision would remain if students contacted their most preferred professionals