Check back in early Spring for information about our 2017 meeting.
2016 Program
Friday, September 23
University of Washington
410 Savery Hall
Coffee and Bagels
8:45am-9:15am
Morning Session
9:15 am to 12:30pm (40 minute talks)
The Productivity of Rural Non-Farm Self-Employment in India
Joshua D. Merfeld, University of Washington
Time Allocation Between Children, the Home and Work: Theory and Evidence on the ‘Parental Time – Education Gradient’ Puzzle
Tímea Laura Molnár, University of British Columbia
Only if You Pay Me More: Field Experiments Support Compensating Wage Differentials Theory
Claus Portner, with Nail Hassairi, and Michael Toomim, Seattle University and University of Washington
The Impact of Labor Market Conditions on Job Creation: Evidence from Firm Level Data
Ekaterina Roshchina, University of Washington
Buffet Lunch in SAV 410
12:30pm-1:30pm
Afternoon Session
1:30pm-5pm (40 minute talks)
The Language of the Unheard: Legal Services and the 1960s Race Riots
Jamein P. Cunningham, Portland State University
Mexico’s Seguro Popular Health Reform: Income Transfer Program or Something More?
Melissa Knox, University of Washington
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Fee Increase, Prior Medicaid Generosity, and Disparities in Access to Primary Care
Rajiv Sharma, Sarah Tinkler, Arnab Mitra, Sudeshna Pal, Raven Susu-Mago, Miron Stano, Portland State University and Oakland University
Effect of Fiscal Stress Labels on Municipal Government Finances, Housing Prices, and the Quality of Public Services: Evidence from Ohio
Paul Thompson, Oregon State University
Dinner on “The Ave” (not hosted)
5:30pm-7pm
List of Speakers and Abstracts
Contact knoxm@uw.edu for copies of papers
The Language of the Unheard: Legal Services and the 1960s Race Riots
Jamein P. Cunningham, Portland State University
Abstract
This paper uses newly collected data on communities receiving legal services grants between 1965 and 1975 to evaluate the effectiveness of the federal anti-rioting program. Simple correlations show that legal services programs are associated with lower likelihood of riots. To address concerns about endogeneity and reverse causality, I propose an instrument variable based on the establishment of law schools, which were key to program implementation. Two-stage least squares results indicate a 3.4% reduction in the number of riots and a 55% reduction in the severity of riots due to legal services programs. Further, results also show that legal services programs are associated with higher property values in 1980. These results are consistent with the historical narrative that legal service lawyers’ involvement in community empowerment and advocacy mitigated the damage of riots that occurred in the 1960s.
Mexico’s Seguro Popular Health Reform: Income Transfer Program or Something More?
Melissa Knox, University of Washington
Abstract
Seguro Popular, or “Popular/People’s Insurance”, is a major health system reform introduced in 2002 and achieving near universal coverage by 2013. The program provides free or subsidized health insurance to Mexican families not covered by formal social security programs, which is nearly 50 percent of the population. Most previous studies of this program have found little to no effect of program participation on utilization and health, but have found a decrease in catastrophic health spending. This analysis uses panel data spanning the years 2002 through 2009, and contains results for urban individuals enrolled in the program for up to five years. Using a step wedge study design, I reduce bias from adverse selection, and find both a significant and large increase in the likelihood of using a public clinic and of having any type of visit, but only five years after program introduction. These results hold for the entire sample and for children under 10. Short-term health improvements were found for children under 10 and women and girls over 10, while five year impacts were found only for women and girls over 10. I also address questions of moral hazard and find an increase in preventive care (in the form of screening for hypertension) for adult women only and only five years after introduction. This is in contrast to previous short term findings.
The Productivity of Rural Non-Farm Self-Employment in India
Joshua D. Merfeld, University of Washington
Abstract
Non-farm earnings play an important role in the livelihood of rural households in developing countries. In spite of this fact, very little is known about the the productivity of rural non-farm self-employment in the developing world. In this paper, I provide new evidence in an attempt to quantify the productivity of rural non-farm
self-employment. I study the effects of a large Indian workfare program that exogenously increased the reservation wage of rural households. The program introduced
a state-wide subsistence wage that provides a good benchmark of productivity, as any enterprise with returns below this wage can reasonably be classified as “low productivity.” I find strong evidence that a substantial portion of rural self-employment returns are below this wage, especially in the long term. Several years after implementation of the program, households in districts affected by the program are muchless likely to operate non-farm enterprises at the household level and those that do apply less labor to those enterprises. The point estimates suggest as many as 20-30 percent of enterprises are classified as “low productivity.”
Time Allocation Between Children, the Home and Work: Theory and Evidence on the ‘Parental Time – Education Gradient’ Puzzle
Tímea Laura Molnár, University of British Columbia
Abstract
This paper derives and implements a model of intra-household time and resource allocation that explains the ‘parental time – education gradient’ puzzle and differential responses by parents’ education to a daycare price change, a change in the opportunity cost of time. Using data from numerous sources on infant children, the model’s predictions are tested and confirmed exploiting exogenous daycare price variation in two policy environments: in Quebec (1997) and in Thuringia (2006). The paper shows substantial labor supply responses to a change in the price of daycare; when mothers increase their work-time, mothers and fathers tend to increase time spent with and reading to their child, at the expense of home production and/or leisure time. They also increase household expenditures on eating-out and domestic help, together with child expenditures on games and toys. These findings uncover the pivotal role for substitutability/complementarity between time and market goods: parents substitute their time away from activities where time is more substitutable with market goods (home production, leisure) to activities where time is rather complementary to market goods (child human capital production). The child and home production time responses are stronger for high-educated parents, suggesting their productivity of time advantage. The model’s estimated structural parameters substantiate the reduced form responses. These findings point to parental investment as one mechanism behind perpetuating skill gaps between high- and low-status children in early childhood.
Only if You Pay Me More: Field Experiments Support Compensating Wage Differentials Theory
Claus Portner, with Nail Hassairi, and Michael Toomim, Seattle University and University of Washington
Abstract
An integral part of Adam Smith’s compensating wage differentials theory is that workers trade off between job characteristics and wage. Other than risk of death, however, no job characteristics have consistently been found to affect wages, likely because of problems with self-selection and unobservable job characteristics. We run experiments in an online labor market, randomizing offered pay and job characteristics, thereby overcoming both problems. We find, as predicted by our model, that increasing job disamenities significantly reduces both likelihood of working and amount of work supplied. Correspondingly, the wage increases necessary to compensate workers for worse job disamenities are substantial.
The Impact of Labor Market Conditions on Job Creation: Evidence from Firm Level Data
Ekaterina Roshchina, University of Washington
Abstract
Labor market conditions, i.e. labor market tightness and prevailing wages, determine the cost of hiring new workers and thus can have a profound impact on employment growth. Understanding if this impact is large and how it varies across firms is essential for conducting policy which can affect labor market conditions, such as raising minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance or introducing hiring subsidies. In this paper, I estimate firm level elasticity of labor demand with respect to changes in labor market conditions, allowing for heterogeneous response both across firms and across regions. To my knowledge, I am the first paper to consider two margins: changes in labor market tightness and changes in wages, and quantify the contribution of each margin to employment growth.
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Fee Increase, Prior Medicaid Generosity, and Disparities in Access to Primary Care
Rajiv Sharma, Sarah Tinkler, Arnab Mitra, Sudeshna Pal, Raven Susu-Mago, Miron Stano, Portland State University and Oakland University
Abstract
The Affordable Care Act temporarily imposed parity between Medicaid and Medicare fees for selected primary care services for 2013-2014. In a secondary analysis of a late 2013 simulated patient study, we examine racial/ethnic and sex-based disparities in offers of primary care appoinhnents in relation to historic Medicaid generosity. A higher 2012 Medicaid to Medicare fee ratio was associated with increased appointment offers to both male and female white Medicaid patients and lower appoinhnent offers to both male and female Black and Hispanic self-pay (uninsured) patients. The changes for male and female Black and Hispanic Medicaid patients, and male and female white self-pay patients were not statistically significant. Privately insured and Medicare patients are unaffected by Medicaid generosity, suggesting that physicians regard Medicaid patients and the uninsured as substitutes when the supply of appointments is constrained.
Effect of Fiscal Stress Labels on Municipal Government Finances, Housing Prices, and the Quality of Public Services: Evidence from Ohio
Paul Thompson, Oregon State University
Abstract
This paper analyzes the Ohio fiscal stress labeling system that labels local governments that are in financial trouble and requires them to implement financial recovery plans. These recovery plans are undertaken by the local government or by the state depending on the type of label. I examine the effect of these fiscal stress labels on local government financial behavior, crime, and housing prices from 1999-2012. Using difference-in-differences, I find that municipal governments receiving fiscal stress labels operate primarily on the expenditure side, reducing total expenditures per capita by over twenty percent. Although municipalities make reductions to both per-capita capital and operating expenditures, the largest percentage reductions occur in per-capita capital expenditures. There are heterogeneous responses by the type of municipality and type of governance structure in place, most notably in regards to reductions in operating expenditures. Cities and municipalities with council-manager governance structures much more heavily focus on reductions in spending for specific public services (e.g., safety services, roads, etc.), while villages and municipalities with mayor-council governance structures primarily cut general operating expenditures. I find some evidence that the reductions in safety service expenditures had an effect on crime rates and police employment. While I find no statistically significant effect of label receipt on housing prices, I do find that residential home sale prices fall following fiscal stress label removal. Thus, the reductions in public service expenditures may have long-lasting ramifications on the quality of public services offered by these municipalities.